#Barbara is watching the fireworks with the HUGEST bucket of popcorn

[mzminola]

I do want Steph to go back to being Spoiler, the unique hero identity she created herself, rather than get shuffled into legacy roles that usually are someone’s first mantle. Stop trying to cram her into pre-established roles when Spoiler is already awesome.

But if they’re not gonna have her return to being Spoiler? You know what arc I want? Looking at how she got the Robin & Batgirl roles?

Making her own Robin costume and volunteering after Tim (who, at the time, she was angry with for something that wasn’t his fault) lost the Robin job because his dad was a controlling jerk? Taking the Batgirl suit without anyone’s permission when Cass was out of town trying to find herself again after being brainwashed?

I want an arc where someone else takes up the Spoiler mantle without permission. I want some random kid in Gotham or the suburbs who used to see Spoiler fighting, or saw her sneaking around to plant clues, notice that hey, no one’s seen Spoiler in a while! Did something happen to her? Oh no, there’s a crime being planned, someone has to stop it! And make themselves a purple caped get-up and go inexpertly kick butt or awkwardly leave clues for other capes to find.

Stephanie is a very confident, go-getter person, but one of her majorly destructive faults is jealousy. When she thinks someone is taking away something that she sees as “hers” she gets furious, and lashes out.

This would be a way to keep the Spoiler mantle active in comics and give Stephanie a character growth arc. Force her to confront her past actions that, intentionally or unintentionally, hurt other people. Make her take a hard look at her sense of entitlement, and at her motivations for fighting crime.

Let her be the more experienced hero seeing a kid who doesn’t know what they’re doing get into trouble yet refuse to stop when she tries to drill into their head how dangerous this is (with Barbara & Bruce laughing their asses off in the background).

Have Stephanie admit she doesn’t know how to handle this, and go to her friends for help. Cass & Tim are both pretty forgiving people, but they’re also not down for hypocrisy and can be blunt as hell. They can ask hard questions. They have enough history with her that she can’t blow them off as not knowing what they’re talking about.

Are you really worried about this kid’s safety? Do you disagree with their motives? Are they younger than when you started? Why would that bother you when Tim & Damian starting younger never bothered you? When other capes said you weren’t trained enough, you sought out training, so why are you just discouraging this kid instead of offering to teach them?

Why do you think there’s something wrong with another person taking up the Spoiler mantle, Batgirl?

I think it’d be an emotionally crunchy arc.

#Stephanie Brown #Spoiler #DC #Batfam #Barbara is watching the fireworks with the HUGEST bucket of popcorn #once again my knowledge of characterization is based on the Preboot era! #if contemporary Steph doesn't have jealousy as a character trait #this could still be an interesting way of bringing back the Spoiler mantle #and exploring Steph's history #but it's not as crunchy #I am not up to date on current comics