I tried people, I really did.
I’ve never liked Steph much and I’ve made no secret of it, and I dislike her in the Batgirl uniform for a variety of reasons (up to and including the fact that her actual costume is ugly as sin with its thigh pouch and hideous purple) but I have bought every single damn issue of that series and I have tried my best to have an open mind and I have supported it with my dollars and even talked positively about it on this blog – about how even though I don’t like Steph much, that I think Bryan Q. Miller has done a great job with her voice on the series and that overall it’s a really positive book for young women and girls – the kind of book we need more of. That it’s an important book because of the niche it fills and the audience it respectfully reaches out to. I was even excited because Dustin Nguyen was coming on board.
And this bullshit is the thanks I get?! It may be adorable, but it’s horseshit. Check it out…a “tiny adorable history which Cass has been COMPLETELY EDITED OUT OF!” And worst of all, the bit seems to imply that this is STEPHANIE’S VERSION OF EVENTS…which makes her seem like a bitch that edits out her best friend when convenient. Oh screw it, I’ll just post it – from The Source.
Honestly DC…just because you know how fucked up your handling of Cass has been for um…YEARS…does not mean you can have Nguyen draw an adorable little revision and we’ll just swallow it up. And I really don’t know what your goal is here, because you’re DEFINITELY going to piss off the Cass fans (like me) but most of the Steph fans are ALSO fans of Cass because the two characters were best friends…so just who are you thinking is going to love this…? Why do it? Do you really think the book is such a crazy irreplaceable success that people will just read this and be all “oh, yeah, that’s totally how it was. Cass who?” Unlikely. And I notice Steph has conveniently left out her time as Robin as well…which she would never do…so this all just smacks of you guys trying to gloss over everything you’re not so proud of regarding your female characters in four cute cartoon-y pages. Epic fail.
Regardless, you just lost a reader and a reviewer. I HAD been working on a post for CBR’s Comics Should Be Good about how despite my Steph dislike, the book had become quite good, and more importantly, IMPORTANT. Guess where that article is now? That’s right – the fucking round file – where it belongs.
Congrats DC. You pretty successfully rehabbed a character, so that even people like me that dislike Steph were buying your book…but now, with that little “Cass apparently never existed stunt” you lost a reader. And we’re at it, the realization of Batgirl/Oracle is pretty tasteless as well.
So, Batgirl can come off my pull list…what other DC books on my list are TOTALLY UNNECESSARY.
Time to do some culling.
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this sucks all the way around.
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Yeah. I’m still really upset about it. Also, I was finally starting to maybe almost sorta enjoy Batgirl, and with Nguyen on board I was almost looking forward to it. But alas, I’m NEVER allowed to just have nice things. Bah.
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Sorry about this retarted BS. I don’t think you should EVER buy a title out of any reason except for entertainment or whatever reason you enjoy reading comics. If Batgirl wasn’t your favorite character, and they switched to mediocre creators (writers, artists), then don’t buy it at all. I stopped buying the Hulk once the art took a nosedive. Shallow, I know.
I’m beginning to depart from the big two publishers (though i left DC when my favorite creators Byrne, Simonson left a long time ago). Moving towards creator owned titles like Shanhower’s Age of Bronze and Kirkman’s Invincible and Brubaker’s Incognito, & exciting titles like Godland, Kick-Ass, etc.
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sucks about Cass (i feel weird calling her that since i’m mostly unfamiliar with the character, like i don’t “know” her enough to call her by her nickname, heh). on the other hand, YEAH!!! that’s the spirit!! >: D
who’s the other lady with the red stripe?
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@oroboros: Well, in fairness to the creative team on Batgirl, I think Bryan Q. Miller has actually done a hell of a job with Steph, certainly better and more consistent than any other writer I’ve seen. He’s taken some of the stuff I really didn’t like about Steph and minimized it (without denying it) and really maximized the stuff that’s great about her. I’ve never been wild about Gabrett’s art, but it was fine…I read books with far worse art.
Also, while it’s not a “perfect book for me”, I really did want to support it as I feel like it’s absolutely one of the only good superhero books that might appeal to girls (and boys) looking for a strong non-sexualized female superhero. And that’s REALLY important to me.
But this is the end for me with that book, definitely.
I read a lot of indie work and less mainstream work, and it’s true the majors bum me out the most (and the fastest)…it may be time for another break. SIGH.
@ross: The lady with the red stripe is Wendy. She’s Steph’s new “Oracle”…Proxy. She’s all right. I’m not a huge fan, and now I guess I won’t be since I’M OUT.
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Call me optimistic, but I suspect the reason the Cass & Steph-Robin stuff was left out was because it was more pages and panels that they couldn’t afford to put in the book, so they just cut straight to the point when it got to “modern times”. Plus, Steph was running out of whiteboard. 😉
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@Link: I’m sure that’s a likely possibility. But it doesn’t make it acceptable (to me).
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I haven’t read the issue yet, so I don’t know in what context that white board is supposed to be taken.
But just looking at what you’ve put here, I notice that everyone who is on it is a significant active player in the Bat-universe at the moment (with the possible exception of Jason Todd — they definitely could have left him out).
Huntress isn’t up there. Jean Paul Valley (Azrael) isn’t up there (and he was Batman before Dick was Batman). And Cass isn’t up there because she isn’t active in the Bat-universe at the moment. Certainly they could have left out the Jason Todd panel (and perhaps replaced it with something relating to Steph’s evolution of character), but otherwise I can kind of see the mind-set.
I’m not supporting what DC has done to Cass (and I never read Batgirl when it was her book so I don’t know too much about the character — but I do know a lot of people are not happy that she isn’t still Batgirl and the fact that DC has kind of tossed her aside, for the moment at least), but in this particular instance it does seem like the board was really intended to focus on the current major active players and it does skip a lot of stuff that maybe isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of whatever the white board is supposed to accomplish (such as Steph’s being Robin at one time — it isn’t necessary to cover that to get them to the ‘here we are now’ point).
Certainly it would be nice if they could have chronicled a lot more about the history of Batgirl and included Cass. Maybe Bryan even included something in the script and the editor cut it for reasons of space (and perhaps because they wanted to keep it less confusing —- but going by that theory, they definitely should have cut the Jason Todd panel).
Also — perhaps an argument could be made that it was intended to be simplified for Wendy. Including Cass would have made it more complex (she was already thrown by the Damian mention).
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