Spoiler never gets a break. Or good writing.
Seriously, DC. WTF? You bring back Spoiler after treating her horribly. Chuck Dixon essentially uses the plot that fandom had long since settled on as how to bring her back. Tim's having trouble dealing, which makes perfect sense. There's something weird going on with Spoiler and Batman where Batman's giving her secret missions, which makes a lot less sense but whatever. So... Dixon's abruptly gone, what should we do with Spoiler?
I know, let's have her fuck something up while trying to carry out insanely difficult orders with no support, and have her get told never to be Spoiler again. Because we've *never* explored that sort of situation for her. And meanwhile, let's have our dashing male hero make a horrible mistake that involves two children getting killed, and just sweep it under the rug as he gets to move up to a more important position anyway.
No seriously, that's what happened. The two younger Armstrong kids were in the car. It blows up. Because "Robin" isn't supposed to be that gritty of a book, it's left a little unclear exactly what went on, but they were clearly in a car that blows up. Yeah, Robin didn't know they were there. He didn't think that they would be brought along when he gave the order to bring the parents. But as Commissioner Gordon implies, he should have thought of that and made it clear.
Spoiler? Had something to do with this. To be perfectly honest, I'm going to have to go back and read the whole arc to figure out exactly what her involvement was. But it's a tired variation on "Spoiler gets in over her head". But this time on Batman's orders, but of course Bats is dead (or something) so he can't back her up. And is Steph really going to just disappear now? She never gave up being Spoiler when Batman or the Birds ordered her too, so I really hope she tells Tim to stuff it. But there's no sign of that here.
So Robin, whose involvement in the death of two children was fairly direct, becomes the new protector of Gotham, with a big "R" signal replacing the Batsignal even while Gordon isn't sure he's happy with anything that's going on. And Spoiler, whose involvement in the mess was much more complicated gets told off and doesn't even talk back.
That's just great. Why did you bother to bring her back, DC? Did it perhaps occur to you that the fans wanted her back so that we could read *good* stories about her? Stories where she is perhaps flawed but not a total fuck-up? Stories where her character progresses instead of is used as a punching bag for advancing the storylines of the lead characters? I guess not.
I know, let's have her fuck something up while trying to carry out insanely difficult orders with no support, and have her get told never to be Spoiler again. Because we've *never* explored that sort of situation for her. And meanwhile, let's have our dashing male hero make a horrible mistake that involves two children getting killed, and just sweep it under the rug as he gets to move up to a more important position anyway.
No seriously, that's what happened. The two younger Armstrong kids were in the car. It blows up. Because "Robin" isn't supposed to be that gritty of a book, it's left a little unclear exactly what went on, but they were clearly in a car that blows up. Yeah, Robin didn't know they were there. He didn't think that they would be brought along when he gave the order to bring the parents. But as Commissioner Gordon implies, he should have thought of that and made it clear.
Spoiler? Had something to do with this. To be perfectly honest, I'm going to have to go back and read the whole arc to figure out exactly what her involvement was. But it's a tired variation on "Spoiler gets in over her head". But this time on Batman's orders, but of course Bats is dead (or something) so he can't back her up. And is Steph really going to just disappear now? She never gave up being Spoiler when Batman or the Birds ordered her too, so I really hope she tells Tim to stuff it. But there's no sign of that here.
So Robin, whose involvement in the death of two children was fairly direct, becomes the new protector of Gotham, with a big "R" signal replacing the Batsignal even while Gordon isn't sure he's happy with anything that's going on. And Spoiler, whose involvement in the mess was much more complicated gets told off and doesn't even talk back.
That's just great. Why did you bother to bring her back, DC? Did it perhaps occur to you that the fans wanted her back so that we could read *good* stories about her? Stories where she is perhaps flawed but not a total fuck-up? Stories where her character progresses instead of is used as a punching bag for advancing the storylines of the lead characters? I guess not.