Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown are both Batgirl again.
Did that feel good to read? Because, I’m not going to lie, it felt really good to write! This development has been a long time coming, but it was solidified last week in Batman: Urban Legends #5. Hopefully, you’re reading Urban Legends because this under-the-radar Bat-book has been consistently excellent since it debuted last spring. Issue #5 features the latest chapters in an ongoing Jason Todd story that really gets to the heart of his relationship with Batman, a Tim Drake story where the Boy Wonder finds himself at a personal crossroads and a Grifter tale that sets up…well, we don’t want to spoil it. All of those comics have been great, but the cherry on top this month was “Wildcard,” a fun adventure starring Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Barbara Gordon and a surprise guest. (We’ll get to her later.)
“Wildcard” is written by Marguerite Bennett, illustrated by Sweeney Boo, and features some great banter between Steph and Cass. Stephanie teases Cassandra about her aloof nature, while Cassandra makes fun of Stephanie’s habit of “spoiling” things. I love seeing the Bat-Family kick butt, but sometimes it’s fun to just watch them ribbing each other the way typical families do. I would read an entire graphic novel with nothing but Batman and his allies passing time during a road trip.
Cass and Steph’s fun is interrupted when Barbara contacts them about a case. When she does, Babs addresses the heroes as “Batgirls,” which is huge. To recap, ever since Rebirth in 2016, Stephanie Brown has been operating as Spoiler, while Cassandra Cain has been calling herself Orphan, but I fondly remembered each of their days as Batgirl. Apparently, I’m not the only one. Not only have fans been campaigning for it, but the characters themselves were also championing the cause!
Not the point. The confusion lies in which one is the real Batgirl. Like why does there need to be 2 batgirls in a city where there are already far too many heroes anyways? The lanterns are scattered throughout space where only 1 is usually the focus as the protector of earth at a time, and there’s the Corp which all explains how there’s more than 1 and why it works for them. Batgirl doesn’t have that dynamic at all.
It hadn’t reached the “Too many” point back when Cass and Steph first joined the cast. But in the past 15 years every new writer wanted to add their OC.
Honestly this seems like an attempt to try and please everyone and I’m not really sold on it, but I thought I’d offer a defense of the concept, at least.
If you’re keeping their lousy origins from post-New52, then they aren’t “Batgirls again.”
They’re imitations of the good versions of characters, now being called “Batgirls” as part of a cheap cop-out. Were fans campaigning for them to simply be referred to by a familiar title, or were they asking for their lives and good origins to be restored, I wonder?
Too little, too late, and lackluster effort.
Keeping the reductive reinventions does these characters exactly zero favors.
Whole heartedly agree. I’ve also been having the same issue (among many others) with Nightwing right now as well. It’s very tiresome and played out at this point.
That just sounds like DC couldn’t make a decision so they decided not to at all. Just pick 1, not like they can’t do something else with the other but oops I forgot that would require original ideas. Batgirl is not a team, army, etc. and forcing the GL dynamic on it only begs the question who is the real one, which one is really getting the love/shine in the role cuz there’s always the 1 even if there’s more than 1. And if 1 of them is gonna be the main then why does there need to be 2 at all? I’m seeing a lot of why not but the same can be asked in reverse.
Perhaps DC thinks that this the “everyone wins” solution, for readers that liked Steph as Batgirl, but also wanted Cassandra to be Batgirl again.
However, in Stephanie’s case, it was part of her growth as a character, after years of struggle and ostracization and orders to hang up her cape. For Cass, it was her way of atoning for having killed someone, as well as in general help people in need. But those don’t apply here.
As these versions of the characters do not have the experience of their pre-reboot counterparts, it feels meaningless to just call them both B-girl. In a weird way, this kind of admits how pointless their new origins are, but doesn’t want to do away with them (as I’d prefer, in case I was being TOO SUBTLE about it).
