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15 Years Later Batman: War Games

I’ve considered myself a comics fan from the time as a little girl I received hand-me-down superhero comics from one of my older brothers. I spent a good deal of my childhood wrapped up in various tales published by DC comics mainly but, also other American creations as well as those from Asia and Europe. Lately I’ve been diving back into some of those DC comics. One character from Batman, Poison Ivy has remained one of my all-time favourites. But I’m not going to be writing about Pam today despite her being a recent topic of conversation. The reason being, during my trip down memory lane I was reminded of another contentious event in DC comics history. The October 2004 issue of Detective Comics #797 included the first part of “Low” a three-part story about Poison Ivy and the Riddler. However, that issue also started the first Act of War Games, an event which with prelude War Drums added in engulfed Batman comics for 10 months beginning earlier in March that year.

War Games, where a hypothetical stratagem Batman devised against Gotham’s underworld is put into action with disastrous consequences, can be memorable for several reasons. I remember it because of another beloved Batman character to me who played a major role Stephanie Brown, aka the Spoiler and for a short time also the fourth Robin among other designations. (She was however not the first young lady Robin if one includes The Dark Knight Returns which is outside main continuity.) The treatment of Stephanie, in War Games is the reason that I took a break from reading DC comics for a long time. 2019 marks 15 years since those events. So, with DC once again facing criticisms about how it wrangles philosophy and portrays violence, trauma and death I think it is time to revisit some of Stephanie’s history too.

Stephanie Brown was created in 1992 by Chuck Dixon and Tom Lyle debuting in Detective Comics #647. A teenager from some difficult circumstances with a criminal dad and mother with a prescription addiction.

She becomes a vigilante named Spoiler to thwart her father, eventually gaining allies and older mentors, also dating Tim Drake the third Robin.

Stephanie like those around her is not a perfect character having her share of mistakes and tribulations but, she also strives to improve and works towards making some difference in the world that isn’t as it should be. The Robin comic was particularly noteworthy for chapters featuring her teen pregnancy by an ex-boyfriend and the decision to put the child up for adoption. (Robin #65, 1999)

As well as in another powerful issue her confiding about an attempted rape at age 11 by her father’s friend who was left to watch her during an effort at rehab for her mother. (Robin #111, 2003)

Through it all she had a perseverance and resilience that became inspiring and her efforts and convictions led to her becoming a part of the Bat-family. So, it was quite a development when unable to stop the sudden murder of a key ally Orpheus (whose bloody body would be featured across pages to come as well) she was extensively tortured by the villain Black Mask, leading to a likewise incredibly difficult death scene with Batman by her bedside at the end of the third act of War Games in December 2004. Orpheus became a martyr figure (currently his last appearance which feels like a waste, along with the causticity of killing off a character that talked about representation) and characters mourned Stephanie too, with a whole host of emotions as fans tried to come to terms also.

Not to be outdone though some months later when questions arose in War Crimes, the situation around Stephanie’s fate would get even worse with another principal character Dr. Leslie Thompkins given some of the worst (and out of character) motivations for not properly treating Stephanie, betraying her profession and the people close to her.

After Thompkins’ clinic becomes ground zero for the casualties in the massive gang war it’s an absurd decision to send a message to Bruce and young protégés about their actions. Not the first time the heartbreak would be used in such a manner either. It’s not all happy endings. It would be almost four years before DC returned to Stephanie’s fate retconning, revealing the truth of her death as a deliberate falsehood. (Robin #174, July 2008)

However, pouring more salt on the wound those years were a period during which she was also disrespected in death, an executive editor saying Stephanie was never a true Robin despite that going against Batman’s own words written in the comic on more than one occasion. Unsurprisingly behind the scenes editorial decisions about torturing and killing a 16-year-old teenage character apparently did not sit well with all the writers either. Stephanie taking on the Robin role was some small bright point of achievement to be wrestled before the horrible events to come, but also working as a ploy readers would fall into. When Tim’s father has it out with Bruce to put it mildly after discovering their vigilante personas, the developments of a new Robin (a position Stephanie held story-wise only 71 days before Batman fired her) did reportedly boost sales.

But she further had to die as Spoiler because another dead Robin is too much, for Batman. Young as I was in 1988, I too remember the spectacle death of Jason Todd the second Robin whose memory looms from the start in the prologue War Drums.

DC wasn’t done with him either. Reading stories of Jason, some that felt like the material I’d been craving for a long time, nevertheless always make me wonder where we’d be if the vote on his survival all those years ago had been different. A Death in the Family would seem to be a culmination after other titles usually on one’s lips around the experimentation of the late 80s less of interrogation and maturity perceiving a world growing darker inside and out but, the one question of what is too far to come back from.

And 16 years after it, well a dead Spoiler tortured and gone was too much for me. After nearly just as much time again today in 2019 marking the 15th anniversary of War Games I’m surprised in fact at how much the story even now hits me right in the chest. It’s been a long time with many, many people creating countless more titles at DC Comics. Including stories featuring Stephanie Brown who has gone on to take the mantle of Batgirl at one point (that same executive editor finally acknowledging how she connected to a portion of the fanbase and Bat-family in 2009) and likewise been reimagined through the reboots of the comics. (Stephanie in Rebirth’s Victim Syndicate in 2016 was particularly striking to me.)

Yet, I remember most clearly the earlier Stephanie perhaps by virtue being a teenager back then too. Or maybe in a similar fashion as impressionable of a moment as the comics I first received from one of my older brothers, as a young adult War Games seared into me a visual of a brand which gives its characters direction from bad places, hope, lets them rise and then to paraphrase it as a writer once did crush them like a bug. As a young child I could say wow Robins can die. Older, I could ask so what does it mean.

There are all kinds of stories, and what they offer to people as diverse as humanity itself. The ugly, tragedies and heartbreaks are important too for many reasons. I could write instead about such examples I’m fond of or, respect. Pieces of fiction that dance that line of examining and representing truth, little windows maybe the glass becoming a mirror that’s more painful because it is so familiar or, cuts when it breaks. Superheroes don’t live in the real world. But there is a very real world we live in where there are people that have and are growing up with no trust in authorities, screwed up parents, losing parents, becoming parents, facing sexual assault, abuse, gang violence and schools becoming yet another killing ground among other challenges. These sort of wars that are fought can leave a host of scars and casualties. Whether those 18 years or so are good or bad we’re lucky if they are only a small part of a larger life. Too often that’s not the case. But still, I have to ask when I pick up a comic and seem to find the same over and over, as time marches on what about this common story of harm and death has changed and what is its legacy?

#superhero comics #batman war games #stephanie brown #the spoiler #robin #15 years later

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