Batman is a complicated character, and no one understands him but his butler. The truth is that lately Batman’s continuity has had a lot to make up for in terms of story. After Bruce Wayne’s death, or non-death, or whatever you wish to call it, we’ve been put into an awkward situation: Batman stories with no Bruce Wayne. DC needs to hope that the fans of the Bat are going to be cool with simply reading about other characters until his return. If you haven’t been keeping up with the new comics, be warned, as I reveal a few identities in the rest of the article.
Over the past couple months DC has been doing what it can to recuperate from the loss of Bruce Wayne. Unfortunately much of what they’ve been doing comes in the form of primary members of the Bat-family being given basic status upgrades. Original Robin Dick Grayson is the new Batman, Bruce Wayne’s son Damian Wayne is the new Robin, and even the third Robin, Tim Drake, has been “promoted” to the status of Red Robin. With the recent release of the new Batgirl ongoing, we’ve been given yet another so-called “reveal” upon learning that Stephanie Brown, the former heroine Spoiler, is behind the mask. The only real problem is that none of these surprise reveals are all that surprising.
Sure, it would have been anticlimactic had this Batgirl been revealed to still be the second Batgirl, Cassandra Cain. But the problem is that aside from Cassandra, Stephanie was really the only other possibility out there. The odds of the character being Misfit from Birds of Prey were slim purely because she has powers and is still pretty new, and Barbara Gordon returning to her original position would prove difficult as she’s still confined to the wheelchair. Therefore, the former Spoiler/Robin makes the only appropriate choice. However DC still attempted to illustrate the new Bat-titles as being mysterious, with people in the roles we may not have seen coming. Was there really anyone out there that thought the second Robin, Jason Todd, was going to be Batman? I doubt it.
Fortunately, DC managed to reveal the identities rather quickly, and while the character selections were obvious, we found out who they were before the idea became stale and bothersome. Marvel has been going on with the question of who the Red Hulk is for quite a while now, and most people have moved on with their lives because it simply doesn’t matter to them any more. Of course, the new Batman books have yet to cross over into the realm of ridiculous Watcher-punching action Jeph Loeb’s Hulk series has, so there is that positive. Batman and Robin, for me, has redeemed a lot of what I didn’t like about Grant Morrison’s Batman R.I.P. arc. Meanwhile, titles like Red Robin, Batgirl, and Gotham City Sirens seem to have a bit they’ll need to prove in the coming months.
