Chuck Dixon would rather Stephanie Brown not be in the DCnU
2 Comments Published by Avi Green on Thursday, November 01, 2012 at 6:38 AM.
Dixon ran a special Q&A session on Reddit (via The Outhousers), and in reply to a question about Spoiler, he said:
Even so, I had a sad feeling that fans of Stephanie Brown would find themselves in a losing battle, thanks to a domineer like Dan DiDio who's largely shut them out, just like Spider-fans so far have wound up in a losing battle with Joe Quesada and Axel Alonso over the status of Mary Jane Watson. Even before all this, what DiDio and company did to Steph - something for which even Bill Willingham has to shoulder some blame - was jaw-droppingly contemptuous, putting her into Robin's boots momentarily only to be thrown out of the role soon after by a badly written Batman, and writing Black Mask drilling her during War Games.
Making her into another Batgirl later on didn't help much either, not just because it was done at Cassie Cain's expense, but also because it just showed their inability to market her as her own role. Then again, now that I think of it, they didn't even try that much either, whatever marketing they did give was very weak.
Dixon's comment hints that he hopes the New 52 will end and they'll return to the older continuity established in 1986, a sentiment I'm behind 100 percent, but alas, it's something that'll doubtlessly take a very long time, and might only be possible with different owners in charge.
I'd keep Steph out of the New 52. It's like letting your kid play in traffic! Then, when it's all over, bring her back.In a way, this makes sense: they've already treated her horrifically enough, and if she did turn up in the New 52, there's every chance they'd put her in some very awful situations. This is why it's actually a good thing if fellow third-tier protagonists like Elongated Man and Sue Dibny, the Silver Age Atom and Jean Loring, Julia and Vanessa Kapatelis, even Ted Kord don't turn up either, because there's a very likely chance they too will go through pure horror.
Even so, I had a sad feeling that fans of Stephanie Brown would find themselves in a losing battle, thanks to a domineer like Dan DiDio who's largely shut them out, just like Spider-fans so far have wound up in a losing battle with Joe Quesada and Axel Alonso over the status of Mary Jane Watson. Even before all this, what DiDio and company did to Steph - something for which even Bill Willingham has to shoulder some blame - was jaw-droppingly contemptuous, putting her into Robin's boots momentarily only to be thrown out of the role soon after by a badly written Batman, and writing Black Mask drilling her during War Games.
Making her into another Batgirl later on didn't help much either, not just because it was done at Cassie Cain's expense, but also because it just showed their inability to market her as her own role. Then again, now that I think of it, they didn't even try that much either, whatever marketing they did give was very weak.
Dixon's comment hints that he hopes the New 52 will end and they'll return to the older continuity established in 1986, a sentiment I'm behind 100 percent, but alas, it's something that'll doubtlessly take a very long time, and might only be possible with different owners in charge.
Labels: bad editors, Batman, crossoverloading, dc comics, good writers, misogyny and racism, violence, women of dc
You mentioned Nessie! Yay!
Sorry, I was graduating high school when the Perez reboot WW came out (88-89) and I really adored Nessie. She reminded me of Kitty Pryde when SHE was first introduced -- a non-sexualized female teen who just thought all this hero stuff was great!
The issue where they deal with Nessie's classmate's suicide, or Myndi Mayer's death? Great stuff.
Thank you for the mention of Vanessa (pre Silver Swan).
Thanks for posting!
I actually did like Stephanie Brown as Batgirl.. it was one of the few series published by DC from 2009-2011 that was worth reading.