If there's one thing that happens in super-hero comics on a regular enough basis to not really be that exciting, it's the resurrection. Whether it's Robin popping awake in a coffin due to crazy dudes punching through time, or the never-really-dead Jean Grey and the diminishing returns of her storytelling interest factor, super-heroes never take extensive dirtnaps. The exceptions are only found when you take a dive outside of the marquee names, when you chase down
whatever happened to Aztek the Ultimate Man, or
that Starman who had the Prince Valiant haircut. When those guys take off for the great beyond, it's usually for keeps—after all, the reason they're being sent there is because, most of the time, they didn't have an audience that was willing to fight for them.
Starting in 2004, and against all of DC's probable expectations, death in comics came smashing right up against nascent political movements, and it may have finally run its course this week. The Spoiler, the cause de jour of a widespread, predominately female, group of bloggers, writers and armchair comic critics, showed up alive in
Robin #174.
The Spoiler, otherwise known as Stephanie Brown, was one of the many creations of longtime Bat-family writer Chuck Dixon. First showing up in 1992, she was mostly tied in with the appearances of her estranged father, a character named the Cluemaster, who was as uninteresting and derivative as his horrible name implies. (Although he was involved in one of the greatest spandex comics of all time, that being the story of the Justice League Antarctica.) It's a grotesque exaggeration to claim that Stephanie's popularity caught on like wildfire—while she certainly had her fans, it's not as if DC was ever able to use the character to any great financial gain. She was side dressing for bigger stories, stories that, as the evidence shows, revolve around male super-heroes. Mostly used throughout the 90's in Robin's solo title, she had some moments of glory, even as she went through the odd motions that Dixon liked to put characters through—at one point, she carried a baby to full-term. Oddly enough for super-hero comics, it was a human baby and no super-villains tried to kidnap her throughout the entire nine months. After a brief flirtation with her taking over the mantle as Robin in 2004, the character was tortured and (seemingly) executed along with another unpopular hero named Orpheus in a Batman cross-over called "War Games."
Fans have gotten together and complained about the changes in the comic book status quo of their favorite character for as long as this reader can care to remember. It's always been a zero sum game, as far as I can tell—after all, the language of publishing responds to the financial, not the emotional. Decrying the fictional death of characters on moral grounds, regardless of the merit of the argument, isn't a tactic that I would've embraced.
Instead of bringing out the tired, and basically infantile, complaints of "legacy" that get trotted out by people who still want Barry Allen and Gwen Stacy to return, the fans of Spoiler pointed out that murdering the character was yet another in the nefarious usage of female characters as emotional props to the men who take the lead. And this time, her fans wanted that to be acknowledged. They wanted the Spoiler to get the same treatment as any of Batman's dead sidekicks—a memorial in the Batcave.
But DC wouldn't give it to them.
Whether you think it matters or not that a fictional drawing of a fictional memorial in a fictional super-hero's hideout happens or not, whether you think it's a feminist movement, or whether you think it's just a variation on comic book fans complaining, it's sort of absurd that DC wouldn't bend on this. Considering that a title like
Robin sells to fewer than 50 thousand people on a regular basis, and considering that a group of that meager consumer base have actually gone so far as to actively pursue an issue related to that book, and considering that, at the end of the day, all they're asking for is a drawing of a trophy case—well, it doesn't really make a whole lot of
sense that DC wouldn't give it to them. But they didn't—and gave Spoiler fans an even bigger motivation to continue asking. By ignoring them in what could only be interpreted as the most contemptuous fashion, DC validated their complaints. Treating their concerns like they didn't matter at all had the reverse effect—it made them seem to matter even more, and it got other people to start thinking that what they might have initially dismissed as pointless navel-gazing might be something that really did matter to the greater scheme of things.
This week, the Spoiler showed back up, alive and well, having faked her own death. Batman turned to Robin and said he'd suspected as much all along, arguably redeeming the character for being the fictional equivalent of DC's opinion on the issue. And like that, DC probably hopes to be finished with the whole ordeal—and maybe they are. Maybe all the people under the feminist banner of Spoiler concerns weren't really feminists at all, and now that they've gotten their character back, they'll sink into the immersive swamp of comic fandom and get back to talking about whether or not Storm's powers over electricity could translate to some form of time travel, and who would win in a fight between igneous rock and the Mole Man.
But if they are the real thing—if that ragtag group of comics readers really do have a problem with the way super-hero comics regularly present female characters as little more than objects of fetishistic eroticism or utilitarian mechanics to minimize the importance of female heroes and exaggerate the emotional component of their male counterpart, then DC's done something even more offensive. They've ignored every feminist criticism of the Spoiler situation and treated a bunch of people with valid complaints as if they're the same kind of rabid loudmouth who threatened to incinerate their parent's basement back when Ben Reilly replaced Peter Parker for all of twenty seconds. They've negated what was so offensive about the whole thing initially—that a female was tortured to death and then ignored like so much cannon fodder. Of course, if DC's right to assume that those who were raising feminist-based criticism were just whiny fans, then resurrecting a third-rate character in a low-selling Batman spin-off was the right move. After all, they brought her back, right?
But if they are mistaken? If there was something more going on with all those essays, those blog-posts, and websites over the last four years? If all of those readers were intelligent people making a big deal, because to them, this was an opportunity for DC Comics to acknowledge that some of their adult readers wanted the characters they care about to be treated with the same respect given to the ones they make movies out of?
Well, then they probably should have just drawn the damn memorial and moved on.
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That Time That Guy Wrote That Thing That Didn't Make SenseTucker Stone's writing may be found in print in Comic Foundry and online at The Factual Opinion, where he frequently reviews new releases.
This Ship Is Totally Sinking is © Tucker Stone, 2008
But if they are mistaken? If there was something more going on with all those essays, those blog-posts, and websites over the last four years? If all of those readers were intelligent people making a big deal, because to them, this was an opportunity for DC Comics to acknowledge that some of their adult readers wanted the characters they care about to be treated with the same respect given to the ones they make movies out of?
