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gnawingonwood · 4 months

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the steph brown conundrum aka the problem with steph being a character with hugely divergent doylist and watsonian readings

okay, so like. there is always a part of me that feels that to this day, didio kind of won when it came to the destruction of steph's character. like she wasn't a toxic character like he thought before he got his hands on her, but since he did & there was fallout from it, it has completely destroyed dc's desire to do anything potentially interesting with her, even as they've brought her back. like. she will always just kind of be a shell of her former self, doomed to stay uncontroversial and in the background. because when it comes to steph, and the problem with utilizing steph as a character now, you have to acknowledge two things

steph from an editorial and out of universe perspective was treated horrifically. the nonsensical and terrible things they made her do to move along the plot of post-crisis are awful and excessively reckless to the point of intentional character assassination & it was all done to justify her fridging for bruce's (and tim's) manpain which is awful

but the things that steph did as a result of the above are extremely load-bearing and important on plot and character dynamics and motivations from war games all the way to reborn era & to try and remove or minimize things that happened as a result of those actions just because they were arguably out of character from her has the unfortunate result of completely and intentionally warping the characterization of everyone who interacts with her to the point where it negatively affects almost every single other character instead.

so in order to show this we need to start at war games, talk about what happened, & go into how this affects things & why her character assassination is not as easy to fix as cass's or leslie's

so war games. ah war games. you know, having recently reread it, war games is frustrating because it's arguably a semi good event for most everyone except steph and leslie (especially leslie--now that was character assassination.). so let's get into the bare bones of what exactly happens in war games (war games being the three main events of this time: war drums (the prequal), war games proper, & war crimes (the follow up & worst part of the event)) (and i'm not saying i necessarily agree with this, just. this is what we have to consider.)

war drums:

this event has two main stories - the bruce & leslie story and the steph becomes robin story

in the bruce & leslie story (which is definitely racist), we have a young teenage pregnant girl who shows up at leslie's clinic having been shot. leslie attempts to save the girl and baby, but is left in a precarious situation where only one can be saved. she reluctantly calls bruce for help finding the girl's family, who finds out that the girl in question is popstar l'shea's sister--the popstar and her entourage in question kidnap leslie & the girl & bruce finds them, where it's revealed the girl is actually l'shea's daughter (like i said. racist.). l'shea makes the decision to save the baby, which kills the girl. leslie tries to get bruce to see that he can't save everyone, and ultimately gets upset about the cycle of violence she feels he perpetuates when he goes to take mr. freeze back in. she later comes to talk to bruce & it ends on a positive note fairly consistent with the bruce & leslie relationship--one in which leslie wishes he could devote himself to saving lives nonviolently & hoping he could see her as an example. my only quibble is that bruce responds as "ha-ha" leslie when if you compare to the batman chronicles #18, bruce absolutely counts on her to challenge his worldview & be a shining example of what he cannot be.

we do start to see the seeds of character assassination for leslie here imo, though this part is the best understanding of her by far--she's always been a foil to bruce as far as her pacifism and her determination to try and show him that there are other ways than his crusade, but traditionally she's always been defined as well by her immense love for him & he for her. she fundamentally disagrees with his crusade, but she's going to be there for him because she knows there's good in him that's worth saving--because to leslie, every life, including bruce's, is worth saving. anyways, read the batman chronicles #18, where she's determined to use O- blood on zsasz because of her firm commitment to the belief that every life is precious & she and bruce talk about their differences in opinion but how she's determined to keep showing him there's another way & he wants her to do so. this leslie who has, up until this event, been troubled by his crusade--but has decided it's tireless, but worth it to show him the good in people, suddenly seems a lot more, hm. overtly hateful of how batman operates & the fact that he puts criminals back in prison just for them to break out and the cycle to continue & has a sudden desire to not work with him if at all possible because of her total disagreement with his methods. which is. hm. somewhat but not entirely consistent with leslie's motivation. leslie would have no problem asking bruce for help if it meant saving an innocent & the fact that he believes in the redemption of criminals is something she inherently believes in. anyways i digress-

the other main story is, as we all know, the steph becomes robin story. and while you do not have to agree with how it is written wrt stephanie, the barebones of what exactly transpires is thus: tim has quit robin for his dad. he is attempting to live a normal life--go to school, hang out with friends, & not do the vigilante thing even when he sees people in need. he meets up with steph, who tells him of her determination to return to spoiler now that her broken leg has healed & he tells her that it's very hard for him to leave the house on account of jack always being suspicious that he's going out to be robin & be involved in anything vigilante again (it is implied that this is the first time he had been able to get out in a while because of his dad, as he didn't know she got her cast off). one day, when tim is at school, darla aquista, who has a crush on him, kisses him out of the blue. this happens to be seen by steph, who is now officially active again & chooses to be active during the day as a result of wanting to avoid batman as she doesn't have his approval, has gone over to tim's school to check on him because she's suspicious he's hiding something from her other than he's basically under house arrest from his dad atm since it had been so long since she had seen him. it, of course, looks terrible to her and she flounces off--deciding that she's going to become robin. bruce agrees, which everyone--alfred, barbara, eventually tim, etc completely understands to be a scheme to lure tim back. steph proceeds to completely ghost tim for the next two months--he calls and leaves messages, and she never calls back or comes to see him at all--she is completely radio silent & avoiding him and he doesn't know why but he is worried. bruce tells stephanie that she will not be privy to any secrets & the minute she disobeys an order she's out (a double standard, yes, but completely consistent in that he, again, is using her basically only to lure tim back). meanwhile, scarab is hunting tim, killing boys in his age range with dark hair and their families in an attempt to kill robin as there is a contract out for his life. tim then finds out through the newspaper that the reason steph has been avoiding him is because she became robin & calls the batcave to finally talk to steph & ask her to meet so they can finally talk in perso. about what exactly happened and how on earth steph became robin. cassandra comes instead--steph doesn't show up because batman and robin are busy hunting scarab who is trying to kill tim/previous robin & tim needs to be put under protection. steph gets a tracking device on scarab. day 49, bruce and steph go to get scarab, bruce goes in while steph is let behind for support in the batplane, bruce gets blinded, steph disobeys bruce and comes in to help, steph gets caught by scarab, scarab gets away in the batplane because steph forgot to arm the security system. steph officially gets fired 3 weeks later for disobeying an order on day 71.

yea, it's something. but it is what it is.

war games:

so we get to war games proper. overnight, a gang war has erupted & set the city ablaze and into chaos after a letter was sent out calling all the crime bosses to the harbor where a firefight breaks out on account of the main player who was supposed to be there if those letters were sent out, matches malone, not showing up. since tensions are high, it's easy for then to start shooting and killing each other & in doing so creates an immediate and widespread vacuum of power in the criminal underworld of gotham that people leap to try to fill & wipe out their competition in the meantime. innocent people are caught in the crosshairs.

nightwing (who is already having a terrible time) shows up to help (with tarantula) & is personally dealing with the emotional fallout of letting tarantula kill blockbuster amongst other things.

barbara is doing her best to help out and triage people to help, but there's really only batman, batgirl, nightwing, tarantula, & orpheus against a whole city. and at this point, tarantula has taken over a gang under batman's command to try and control things and can't overtly help & orpheus was already in control of a gang under batman's command in an attempt to protect women & children and exert some control over the criminal underbelly of gotham and also cannot overtly help out.

stuff with hush is happening in gotham knights but i don't care aj lieberman, by god, i do not care.

tim is doing his best to go about his day and keep his promise to his dad and not go out to help despite the fact that the city is falling apart. this becomes harder when a rival gang comes to kill his friend darla aquista at their high school, on account of her father being a mob boss. the kids are panicked and run into the school for sanctuary and safety, but are followed in and darla is shot.

what happens next is that tim's school is taken over by gangsters--the ones who came to kill darla, and the ones who see the opportunity to kill the ones who are trying to kill darla--and the kids are trapped in there with them, doing their best to hide, but some are taken hostage & are at the mercy of their captives (kids are killed). tim shelters in the nurses's office & does his best to go out and help who he can bring to safety, alone with getting a lay of the school (which gang is where).

meanwhile, bruce, cass, & dick have been informed that tim's school is taken over and kids are dying. along with all their other current trauma, they have to go find tim in an active shooter zone where he could very well be dead. dick gets to be the one who finds him (such a traumatic time for dick btw), and he's thankfully okay. they get control back of the school and free the kids. batman comes out on live television holding darla's body--she's not dead yet, but she's close.

we find out where steph is. selina finds her and we finally find out why this happened: upset at getting fired and frustrated that she's never been able to truly land their approval, steph lashed out & stole a plan designed to unite the crime families in gotham under batman's control hoping that if she was able to set off a plan for batman & it worked he would take her back and she'd finally have his approval. however, the main man didn't show up and it fell to pieces--doomed to fail. and the reason that this all happened is because steph was never told that batman is matches malone. there's actually a ton of 'bruce what have you done' here. catwoman shelters steph & tells her to stay put. steph does not do so, she leaves so she can try to find orpheus & help get the situation under control because she knows he's key to the plan.

tim, unable to stand by any longer despite his promise to his dad after the thing at the school, returns to the manor where he is greeted by alfred & returns to being robin.

batman finally also realizes that what happened is his war game contigency plan/hypothetical/thought experiment just as a citywide blackout hits--a plan he never intended to implement, it was one of his hypotheticals. & they also start looking for orpheus, as he's the key because they need to keep him alive as the plan was for the criminal underworld to reform united under his, and therefore batman's, rule.. steph finds him first, just in time to see his throat slit--by black mask.

steph gets into a one v one altercation with black mask and is overpowered and at his mercy. he tortures her. it's gross, we all know.

tim tells his dad he's returned to being robin. we get what is probably some of the best jack drake charactetization. tim meets jack and dana so they can go help out at leslie's clinic to help the injured.

steph, eventually, after being tortured, finally tells black mask that the plan required orpheus and is now obsolete because orpheus is dead.

cass is looking for steph because she's probably the only one aware that steph is out as spoiler & she knows that the last time she saw steph steph was lying to her about something

leslie is currently acting extremely out of character. and she's kind of a jerk to cass when cass comes looking for steph & is downright hateful about his mission. (which. is ooc for leslie--while she's never agreed with bruce's mission she's always, always, loved and respected them all--consider her in NML vs here. she wants to end his crusade and him to do something better, but she's always looking to be a beacon of hope that there is another way. every disagreement should be steeped in her love for them).

hush is still here for some reason and will tell black mask where the batcave is

catwoman is concerned about steph--who has passed out from the torture--calling her "the kid you messed up so badly she started this whole mess"

batman takes over oracle's & the police's system by force. we're really in it now. steph wakes up, determined to get to batman to tell him about orpheus's death.

black mask, however, has taken over orpheus's identity and is contacting batman, ostensibly to continue the "plan". and darla officially dies, meaning her father is out for revenge and wants everyone killed.

batman meets up with black mask as orpheus & figures out spoiler was there, but he assumes she fought zeiss. he leaves, black mask is planning...something as orpheus.

batman has barbara take over the police waves once more. barbara is getting really sick if this shit.

gotham city is starting to rail against vigilantes as a result of the widespread chaos of war games, calling for them to turn themselves in.

batman has orpheus call a grand meeting. ostensibly to end things and ensure peace in gotham with everything unified under orpheus's commands. orpheus is, however, dead. black mask uses the meeting to set everything ablaze again & barbaba has to call off the vigilantes from helping to protect the gcpd to go help batman--this is the straw that breaks the camel's back of this causes an official break in the uneasy alliance between vigilante & gcpd and comissioner akins gives the order to shoot to kill vigilantes on sight (as also, as a result of the plan failing due to orpheus's murder it seems as if batman et al are on the side of the villains causing mayhem)

at this point the game it out of control & they have to focus on stopping it. cass finally has a chance to talk to batman and tell him her suspicions that steph was the one who set the entire thing into motion, which he has now figured out (on account of him finding traces of spoilers's at orpheus's)

dick gets shot in the leg by the police while fighting firefly

tim meanwhile is happy to return to robin, and actually has bunch of nice things to say about steph's time as robin--that she kept things light for bruce, that he's not too proud to learn from her--even if he did admittedly resent her a little bit for how it all went down. he's also currently in the middle of a breakdown over darla's death and is pretending everything's okay by just go go going.

steph has freed herself from her bonds and gets into it with black mask, finally overpowering him when she realizes "this isn't a game". she gets a gun to his head & wants to pull the trigger and end him for good, but can't--as that would mean betraying everything she's been taught. the hesitation costs her and black mask gets the gun and shoots her in the shoulder & kicks her down the stairs & leaves

she manages to get herself up despite her extensive injuries and escapes by rooftop, where she's finally found by batman, who brings her to leslie and begs her to save steph. he then tells her she did good & that she did everything she could & that the city owes her after everything she went through.

and black mask is still causing trouble--hush supposedly told him the location of the batcave & he plans to solidify his reign as the undisputed crime lord of gotham by sending everyone there--it's not the batcave, however--it's the clocktower. all the criminals are now converging on and headed for directly for barbara. they get in and make it past all her defenses and invade her safe space, black mask making it to her control room & taking her hostage. the gcpd also descend upon the clocktower.

batman goes ham and almost kills black mask, saying it'd be worth it to end everything that's transpired. tim creates a diversion by lying saying they'll turn themselves into the police. barbara blows up her clocktower so that bruce has to make the decision between saving her & killing black mask. bruce chooses to save her & it's over. bruce gets called to leslie's clinic, where it turns out steph had too much internal damage to save her. steph tells him that she started it all, and bruce says he knows but that they took care of it. he tells her that tim isn't mad at her and that the baby she had won't want for anything ever. he lies and says that taking her on as robin wasn't just to bring tim back, that she was really robin & that he'll be watching over her. she dies. black mask takes over as the new criminal overlord of gotham city.

as a result of all of the above, we get the following: gotham is no longer safe for vigilantes to operate. tim has been set in motion on the path of loss from darla to steph to his dad in another event that will eventually lead him to the mental space he needs to be in to become red robin and leaves for bludhaven. cass follows in her grief of all that transpired. dick is out of commission due to his gunshot wound & dealing with the fallout of working with bruce while feeling like he doesn't deserve to, but is also the only one left to work with bruce. barbara, whose safe haven was trampled upon and destroyed, feels gotham to go be with the birds of prey in another city. bruce is operating all but alone, save for a couple of other distant vigilantes.

we find out that bruce didn't--couldn't--tell tim steph had died until hours after the fact, and that's when tim was finally able to hear the whole story as to how steph became robin all the way to how the gang war got started. this is also when dick finds out the whole story as well.

and thus, war games ends

war crimes:

so we make our way to the epilogue of this storyline. the very aptly named war crimes

the public is still railing against vigilantes. it comes out publicly that stephanie brown was spoiler, then robin, and that her injuries were not thus that should have killed her. batman finds out and goes to leslie's to find out who leaked stephanie's information, only to find out leslie has resigned and her chief resident left with her. batman finds the resident, murdered in a clear attempt to set batman up. (it's black mask setting him up). a man named aaron black is railing against black mask, batman, & the gcpd for the gang war

we find out that treatment was deliberately withheld from stephanie and she was purposely left to die. we find out aaron black is the not so dead arthur brown. & we find out that crystal knows something and is prepared to spill it all. black mask comes dressed as batman to attack crystal brown on live tv. we find out the joker is after black mask for killing robin. the joker gets arrested, black mask gets arrested (and escapes), a tv reporter gets indicted, the leader of the odessa mob gets indicted, commissioner akins and athur brown don't get indicted, and batman has finally figured out who killed stephanie and goes to africa where she fled to.

in, quite possibly, the greatest moment of character assassination in this entire gd event we find out it was leslie who let stephanie die because she was tired of batman's crusade, destroying everything she once stood for just to prove a point to bruce about the senselessness of it all and to try and put an end to it. congrats to dc for this horrific epilogue.

so there it is--the entire event. it certainly is a thing that happened. and that's the problem--it happened. and it was very, very much intended as a personal fuck you and goodbye to the characters of stephanie brown and leslie thompkins. and that's terrible on so many levels. but unfortunatel the fact of the matter is, despite that and regardless of any personal feelings about it, war games became a load-bearing event to batman canon.

because war games had so much influence on fundamentally upheaving and changing the status quo of the characters involved and storylines following this could not happen without war ganes existing. without war games, tim does not become the tim that will eventually become red robin. without war games, dick is not injured and out of commission and does not flee to new york and the mob, leaving bludhaven for tim and cass and on his passively suicidal mission that will eventually lead to infinite crisis and the one year boat ride. without war games, barbara does not leave gotham because she needs to leave it behind, only to return during the reborn era & all the tension that entails. without war games, bruce doesn't end up alone & isolated as needed for the red hood storyline. without war games, stephanie is not killed and thus can't be evolved into batgirl as an apology for the way she was treated. the dynamics caused by war games are essential to the stories that come after it. and then you're left with two very, very uncomfortable truths:

one, war games was a horrific fuck you and. fridging to a female character solely because of the evil sexism present at dc editorial at the time and of course you want to delete anything that had such awful intentions behind it

two, war games happening is essential to the trajectory of every single bat characters' story that comes after it including hers. and so it had to happen. and the thing with war games is that steph, while not completely to blame for it transpiring, was humongous part of it transpiring no matter what. because we end up with what it seems to me, the grand circle of blame. it goes as follows: war games never would have happened if bruce hadn't made his contingency plan to begin with -> yes, but. even if it is one of bruce's toxic traits to do that, he never intended for the contingency to go into effect and it was more of a hypothetical than anything and the only reason it ever saw the light of day was because steph stole it and put it into action -> yes, but. if bruce had been less of an asshole and told steph the basic information of matches malone is batman she wouldn't have made the mistake -> yes, but. to completely blame bruce is to remove any and all agency from steph, because nobody put a gun to her head and forced her to implement the plan, that was entirely her decision. and as much as we would have liked her to have decided she no longer needed batman's approval, the fact of the matter is she did want it and she did make the decision to send those letters -> yes but, if bruce hadn't had a contigency to begin with she wouldn't have had such an awful plan to steal -> yes, but having contigencies for plans that will never come to fruition is honestly a normal thing for them and bruce planning out a hypothetical is just another tuesday, and it was steph who set it into notion -> yes, but... and so on and so forth endlessly until the end of time. like, whether things were out of character or whatnot is a valid discussion (though all comics characters are doomed for stories where they're out of character), but putting that aside: the fact is, for every character's trajectory into the reborn era, war games had to happen. and for war games to have ever seen the light of day and happened, steph had to make the decision to send those letters.

and so we're left with this. steph made those decisions because of horrificly sexist behind the scenes decisions. if steph didn't make those decisions, then no other character trajectory makes sense. and that's how we end up with a steph conundrum that is so much harder to fix than any other character assasination of the time. because cass's was easy to retcon as brainwashing, it makes sense for slade being involved. leslie was easy to retcon as faking steph's death, that removes her intent to kill a child and restores her original characterization of every life is sacrosanct. but war games? war games does not and can not happen unless stephanie decides to send those letters. things with tim and barbara and cass and even through steph becoming batgirl don't happen unless steph sends those letters. and when she sends those letters, hundreds of innocent people die and even though bruce is largely to blame (and is blamed, by the narrative), there is a culpability of steph's active decision in the entire mess that exists.

and if that culpability exists, if she sent those letters and war games happened, and innocent people died and barbara had to blow up her home and tim had to do cpr with darla's blood pouring over his hands and dick got shot in the knee and had to find tim in an active massacre, and cass lost herself to grief, then from an in-universe perspective while it's easy to for them to blame bruce for the majority of it, it also is true that every single one of those people has the right to question whether she is capable of making good judgements because of the extremely bad one she made that had so many in-universe consequences & they were all victims of it. from an out of universe perspective, it is so, so, so hard to put that kind of culpability on her, though, because of the sexism involved in deciding to make her make those decisions.

(as an aside. you also get this same issue that occurs as a part of the last arc of the robin series--wherein in order to justify steph no longer being spoiler and graduate her to batgirl, they need her to make a mistake so bad it would justify the idea that spoiler is a tainted mantle & she can't go back to it--so they decide that she needs to hire assassins to try and kill tim under batman's orders. now this is stupid & nonsensical, and she makes a mistake like that due to writer sexism thinking that that was the way to go. but her making that mistake and hiring those assassins is essential to the overall self isolation of tim & him being unable to trust her amongst everyone else that he needs to be in the headspace to kick of red robin & steph needs to have made a mistake that taints the spoiler mantle & makes people not want her to be it otherwise why would she become batgirl... it's messy. very messy.)

but because of all the horrific sexism out of universe behind the decision to write her to do these things, you're left with. hm. it is hard to want to make her have any culpability because that would just be entrenching the sexist writing she's had & she was the biggest victim, but to just completely throw it out is to make every other character appear completely irrational and unreasonable when it comes to dealing with steph. and that's truly hard for dc--who, once they make her a headlining character in her own right as batgirl, now has to be a lot more careful when dealing with steph. because if any other character does have reasonable concerns about steph continuing to exist as a vigilante after the decisions she made that sparked off war games, or hire assassins for tim, or etc etc etc then you risk people being like "no, maybe these people have a point. maybe these people shouldn't have to work with her if they feel at all uncomfortable by decisions she made that resulted in truly terrible times for them."

so you end up. dc finally has to do something grand, something triumphant for stephanie's character to make up for the completely atrocious way she was treated before. and you get batgirl 2009, which is a triumph for her character, it's the approval she's always deserved but never given, she finally gets to show all her naysayers that she's worth it--that they were all wrong about her and she deserves to be there just as much as them. and she does deserve a big doylist apology--she was treated terribly & cruelly & it wasn't right for dc editorial to do so. but you run into. hm. this problem of in order to make this big doylist apology work, you need everything that came before it to have happened. because it's a big doylist apology you can't actually have it that those things to have happened because if steph has to prove herself to the naysayers, the naysayers have to be completely wrong about her.

and that's hard given we're in reborn era and bruce is "dead". because in that case, steph's naysayers have to be barbara, tim, & dick. and while steph shouldn't have to prostrate herself for forgiveness & they shouldn't blame her for everything ever (they've all had their own issues where they've made mistakes, some with tragic consequences, and therefore can't call the kettle black), the problem with having to make them her naysayers is that you have to make them unreasonable about her & that's hard to do when they were all victims of something that occurred in part due to a decision she made. you have barbara, who should be able to have reasonable concerns about whether steph is fit for the job because she had to blow up her own sace space because steph sent those letters. but you can't acknowledge that because that would be entrenching the sexism behind that decision. so you make it so barbara is the one in the wrong about her. you have dick, who should not be able to look at stephanie without remembering his little brother calling him, wanting to commit suicide over everything that's happened, without remembering the tim at the edge of the pit, without remembering getting the call-code 619-and realizing that tim's at the site of a massacre occurring at his school and could be dead, and he gets to realize he was completely wrong about her with no consideration to what complicated personal feelings he may have about her on account of his own most precious relationships. you have tim, who does have things to apologize to her about, to be sure, but has to be cast as completely in the wrong despite the things she did having to have happened such as hire assassins & everything he had to endure as a result of her sending those letters. and that's not to say that any of this means that she shouldn't be a vigilante of course, you can't have a double standard where male characters are allowed to make mistakes and continue on regardless of mistakes made and not afford that same grace to female characters. but at the same time, it's uncomfortable to cast barbaba, dick, and tim in the role of naysayers to be overcome because that erases their victimization by the events that had to have happened in order to make it to this point. and again, they don't have to blame her to feel like it's her fault to have reasonable discomfort because discomfort =/= blame, necessarily.

and you get into this entire mess solely because of the decisions didio made because he hated her character and was determined to destroy it. and it's gross! we hate didio! but like. way back to my original thought, in a way, he did succeed a little. because of the horrific things that happened to her due to cruel and gross out of universe editorial decisions, you do have to be extra delicate with the character. you've lost the ability to show steph making any sort of mistake that has significant ramifications because to do so is to go back to war games & all the baggage that that entails. you need to play it incredibly safe with her. she can't be shown to be in the wrong because of the horrific way she was treated. at the same time, you need things to have happened, but you need things to not have happened. it's just a lot of baggage for a character, and there's probably a reason why they still play it safe by sticking her with tim (until they broke up) and now cass. it's uncontroversial after everything she's been put through. idk. i think current continuity is the best chance to finally really do something interesting with her again given that the mistakes of the past are so softened and don't need to be forefront to the character anymore because we are in an era ripe for things happened but they didn't happen, but will they? i don't know.

#honestly yeah #like i didnt read the last arc or so of robin 93 where steph hires the assassins #(bc that had a big disclaimer in the tim drake reading list i was following and i knew itd be a slog to get through)#so when it was time to read bg 09 tim just looked like a dick #and with context from other ppl who did read all of it i realized tim wasnt actually being unreasonable #but also it still feels a bit unfair bc it’s founded on sexist writing #but ALSO that’s not a justifiable excuse in universe bc that is not an excuse that exists for a non 4th wall breaking comic book character #but also i love her :(#ur explanation of the new infinite frontiers (?) status quo does give me at least a little hope tho

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gnawingonwood · 4 months

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a view at perceptions of dick's economic situation at the circus through the years

alright, we start at detective comics #38, the OG introduction. and, nothing is really said either way about what dick's economic station would have been, because really, the only thing it's there to tell us is that dick is an acrobat--which gives him the skills needed to fight crime by batman's side.

of absolute note to me, though, is the fact that his family was famous for their triple spin & what that potentially means for his upbringing. because, if you've been following this journey with me, means a lot. because we have a real life example of that to compare to get an idea of what may have been his childhood. i am of course, talking about the flying concellos && i did find another one and that would be the flying codonas (alfredo codona being the first man to land a triple somersault).

now, let's be clear--dick being the son of famed circus trapeze artists, especially ones who could land a triple, in 1940, means that he grew up the son of stars. they would have been center ring performers, and likely had amenities and pay that reflected that. now i won't deny that as circus performers they were likely 'othered'--there was likely a prejudice against what they perceived circus folk to be, but that does not likely completely reflect the actuality of what they may have had access to as a result of being entertainment stars. because they were othered--but at the same time, if they were famous enough for their skills, they were definitely adjacent to the rich and famous, not just poor, exploited workers. there was a lot of overlap between famous acts, longstanding families, and ownership. after doing...a lot...of reading on the most famous circus stars of the era of the 1920s & 1930s (especially alfredo cordona + his eventual wife lillian leitzel and the flying concellos), i think i've determined a couple of things:

one, these circus stars feel very akin to movie stars wrt their fame. and they were messy as hell. lillian leitzel in particular was a prima donna--she was the first circus star who was able to catapult her worth into luxuries. she was the first star to ever get her own private train car and personal dressing tent and was known to be the prima donna of the circus. she was also known for her temper--her personal maid would sometimes get fired and rehired several times a day. when she married alfredo cordona between acts in chicago, it was considered the royal wedding of the circus world. may wirth, a trick rider, was frequently in the gossip column of newspapers & had many, many admirers. lillian leitzel was voted the most beautiful woman in the world by american soldiers in wwi. like, these people were stars in every sense of the word.

two, these performers were not just meek, exploited poor people. with the right skills, they had power, they had ambition & they had money. they were center stage performers. arthur concello was huge in investing in and modernizing the circus--likely because of the money he made through the years of performing his act.

so frankly detective comics #28, and later batman #32, doesn't really delve into what dick's life experiences may have been on the circus--because that's not the point. the only thing those are their to do is establish dick as an orphan & and acrobat, and thereby skilled and motivated enough to work at batman's side.

but based on the era in which he was created and in comparison to similar acts of the time, it's easy to take a gander. because john & mary being able to perform a triple would have been huge. they'd be center stage acts, high in hierarchy. with mary being a young, attractive woman who could perform a triple, she may have had plenty of admirers & been in the gossip columns of the newspaper. her wedding to john may have been a whole thing to circus fans. i read a lot about those types of acts being invited to perform and star in european shows over the winters at old, respected circuses && they had enough international star power that they drew crowds there based on name alone. i know the impulse is to think that dick would have had no experience with the wealth of bruce's world, but conversely in that day and age and his parent's skillset it's highly likely he would have been exposed to the glitz & glamour of the famous high life. they may have been invited to do private performances for other rich & famous people & rubbed shoulders with them. alfredo cordona was in a few hollywood movies for his skills & arthur concello had connections to hollywood due to brokering the movie 'the greatest show'--is it out of the realm of possibility to believe that john would have had the same opportunities?

anyways, moving on. i find myself extremely intrigued by detective comics #484, which brings dick back to haly's circus. now there's some hilarity here in that dick has no clue if it's possibly the same haly's circus he and his parents worked for, and he meets linda--of the flying graysons! (get her ass for copyright infringement, dick). jk. linda is a very nice girl & it's just a stage name. dick confirms they were circle ring stars & says that haly's was the greatest show on earth (the ringling bros & barnum and bailey about to come for haly...)

now this issue is interesting because while it doesn't necessarily give us an idea of what dick's economic status would have been, it does establish that the flying graysons were famous enough that the evil stepfather conviced haly that by yoinking the name for his family they'd be able to draw in more customers based on name recognition alone & that the name would put him in the headlines/give him headliner credibility for his act and the circus to get sold to a bigger show & that he would be able to "ride the crest of the wave" and become very successful (and presumably rich). which definitely implies that the grayson name is worth something. now haly's circus is shown to be getting by with generous checks from bruce wayne, and i feel like here we start to get what i feel is a fairly consistent incongruency where haly's circus is often shown to be barely getting by (despite their full audiences), yet the flying graysons were famous.

so then on to secret origins #13, which has dick tell joey about his journey to robin, and...briefly goes into his childhood (he started performing with his family at 5), but again the focus is, as always on the acrobatic portion. there's an interesting opaqueness there about what his childhood was like. just acrobatics and loving parents. nothing is ever really suggested with regards to their fame, they're just vaguely famous & circus stars. nobody seems interested in interrogating that.

and then we get to year three & batman #436 and this is the first time we get any sort of nugget as to dick's potential economic status, and it's not bad? his dad references getting world series tickets and dick wants to go to a movie with harry so he can skip out on homework. the average price of movie tickets in the 70s (when this is implied to take place) adjusted for inflation would be equal to about ~11 dollars today and dick clearly doesn't seem to think this is a huge expenditure. i mean, i wouldn't say that they're rich here by any means (unlike the potential implications of his 1940 introduction), but they're clearly comfortable enough to afford small luxuries without worry. which, again, as a named, headlining act doesn't seem too out of the ordinary. as the headliners, they're probably making the most of all the acts, as they're the ones bringing in the crowd. mary is said to be a third generation circus performer, which. to me. implies some success, that the circus family continued on. a lot of the people i mentioned before were ostensibly part of circus families that continued the tradition as that's what they were raised in. alfredo was first brought on stage at 7 months. & i think the fact that dick was a part of a longstanding circus family that would have had deep ties not just to the community but also would have likely been very entwined and friendly with management due to the nature of a long work relationship together. there is a stability there that wouldn't necessarily be seen with. someone new, i guess?

anyways, honestly i feel like year three & later a lonely place of dying are really the stories that try not to stereotype circus life the most. there's no "wow circus people are so othered & weird", they're just normal people who work at a circus & are treated as such. even jack and janet stopping for a photo is treated like "let's show our son that these performers are just people like us under their costumes". which, honestly reads more like that time i was brought to a local haunted walk when i was like 7 and i was in tears because i was so scared and one of the performers took off their mask to show me he was just a normal guy underneath the costume.

devin grayson, of course, retcons this long-standing family history of his mother being part of a circus family in nightwing annual #1 and changes it to his father instead & is very, hm, married to the idea that circus workers are poor in her conceptualization of how she writes dick as evidenced by her interview in "dick grayson, boy wonder" where she says the following:

god. the racism. it's something. and now. i'll say i have no issue with the idea of clarifying dick as not necessarily white. i do have slight issue with the idea that because he was a circus performer, he was poor. because this is the first time someone i think has actually tried to take into account the childhood dick may have experienced, and she definitely inserted her own stereotypical biases into it. and is a bit at odds with how skilled, famous american circus workers who have his parents' skillset were treated back in the time of dick's conception. they traveled in the winter because they were stars and were invited to perform in prestigious european circuses due to their fame. i just. and i will point out that a lot of these famous circus performers were hot blooded and it had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the fact that they were stage divas. idk. obviously, conceptions of circus workers were likely not the greatest in the 90s. they were nowhere near what their fame was in their heyday. clowns were definitely starting to be seen as more creepy and by this point, circuses were far more criticized for their treatment of animals. but i feel like there's a bit of a leap here wrt devin grayson's assumptions of circus life because of the fact that they travel & doesn't do near enough justice to the worth of the skill of dick & dick's parents. because being able to perform a triple & a quadruple would have still been extremely rare and highly valued. so rare it wasn't performed until 1982 & can still hardly be achieved.

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/13/arts/a-quadruple-for-the-flying-miguel-vazquez.html

this article is a fascinating review of exactly how rare and dangerous it is. & hey, alfredo mention.

batman legends of the dark knight #100 seems to go along with this idea that a circus is a dirty and poor place.

and, like. okay so the graysons are still shown as an act important enough to have their own dressing/prep room, per usual, as expected for their skillset. haly's circus in modern day is usually shown in more modern comics to be a small traveling circus that's not doing...super well--at least in comparison to previously established show selling out lore, but the only thing i really take umbrage with here is that alfred describes it as decrepit. which. i feel like even if haly's is small and maybe not super profitable it should at least be shown as a well kept, nice place & the only reason for that is because if it was practically falling apart, there's no fucking way jack would have won the battle of 'let's bring our son tim to the circus' if it was falling apart. janet would have been out here on beyondthebump all 'help my DH wants to take our son to a circus and it's falling apart, located in a terrible part of town, and looks like it employs murderers, how do i tell him no?' and she would have been met with a chorus of 'stand ur ground girl, do NOT let him endager your baby like that!!'.

anyways, the new 52 also gives us almost nothing to go on either. dick's parents' trailer looks nice enough, indicating they do make enough money with their act to afford a semi nice trailer. john is an asshole, dick is out of character. lovely, thanks new 52. the secret origin is as least much better but does go into how the circus has no money--which, hm. doesn't really tell us anything re: the grayson's economic situation. the circus might be struggling and have to close down soon, but it doesn't mean a lot for what contracted rates they pay their acts. in fact, paying for an act as skilled as the graysons and not getting enough profit in return could be part of their money troubles.

and then finally we end with nightwing 82-83 by tom taylor, with the meili lin thing (and, while meili is nice enough, i must say i still don't like this whole thing because the point of zucco should not have been he had a longstanding grudge against the graysons, gdi-). which, again, all it confirms is that the grayson's were the star attractions and does nothing to interrogate what that might've been. it does focus a lot on the idea of they were free and happy, which. um. sometimes the focus on how happy people are is usually "despite the fact that they don't have x". then again i do feel like i will give tom taylor the fact that he also seemed to have just written the graysons as normal people, but he also doesn't seem interested in interrogating what dick being the son of the star act might have actually meant for him.

honestly, a lot of what i'm finding is that much like tim, dick's childhood is left frustatingly opaque--there's a lot of room for interpretation, honestly. it's not ever really said on paper if they struggled with money growing up. you have writers who have all but confirmed they wrote dick with the understanding that he grew up poor because he worked in a circus, but at the same time does ignore the fact that the grayson's had such a unique and special skillset that it's hard to say that makes sense. & is rooted in stereotypical biases. the only aspect of it that's ever considered is "dick's the son of the skilled, star performers and also has those skills ergo he has the skills to be a vigilante". they're cast in this light of famous & skilled!! but the circus they work for is poor and barely getting by, and you can only assume that because they worked for a poor circus dick was probably also living on the poverty line, wholly dependent on the success of the place they worked for because at times their wages were struggled to be paid (despite the fact that as a contract act, to underpay them would absolutely be a breach of contract). there's no confirmation or in-depth look at his childhood, only vague implications, throwaway lines & stereotypes. they want the grayson's to be probably the most skilled circus act in the world. they don't want to look at what that would realistically mean. because only the acrobatics is the important.

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