OK, so there’s been a bit of a kerfuffle about Stephanie Brown aka Spoiler not having a glass case in the Bat-Cave, as she had played the role of Robin and had gotten herself murdered in an editorially-mandated crossover. It’s been going on for a while and led to the formation of Girl-Wonder.org and a dedicated campaign to give the murdered Stephanie a glass case in the Batcave. In fact, this is a bit of a fixation for a lot of the people there; I regularly see them posting their letters to DC in LiveJournal communities and the like. Out of curiosity, I hit the Grand Comics Database and looked for the issues she appeared in.
Stephanie Brown played the role of Robin for three publishing months, in comics that were cover dated July, August, and September 2004. As far as I can tell, this compresses down to a shorter time in the comics - probably a month to six weeks. The Girl Wonder folks make a very compelling argument about why there should be a memorial to the girl who wore the costume for such a brief amount of time, but I have a question.
Why is this so important? Wouldn’t the desired legacy of this short-lived Robin be better served by either supporting superhero comics with strong female roles or creating comics with female characters that can serve as an example?
A glass case being drawn into a single location won’t change anything substantial in the medium, will it? It’s not a solution; only a reminder that there was a problem.
