"Spoiler was gonna die"
Reading the Batgirl/Oracle Bleeding Cool linked in another thread, I noticed this "Spoiler was gonna die" article.
Interesting (and distressing) stuff. LOT to talk about from it (we've talked AROUND this stuff a hundred times, but its new to know the attitudes of Dylan Horrocks and Devin Grayson--AND that they were behind the scenes vocal about this).
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/07/...-die%E2%80%9D/
Here's one bit:
The whole way through it was planned purely as a trick to play on the readers, that we would fool them into thinking that the big event was that Stephanie Brown would become Robin but we knew all along it was a temporary thing, and she was then going to die at the end of this crossover story.
It was really seedy, and I think about two days into it, I basically said look, I don’t want… because they planned this big long torture scene, I said I don’t want to really have anything to do with that. And there was another scene which was… I was Pilate, I was Pontius Pilate, I don’t want any of that in Batgirl, in effect what I did is I wrote my comic out of the key events in the story, cos I said I didn’t want to have anything to do with the big shoot out at the high school scene, so it was a really strange experience, for me that was the most depressing…
So when there was that big online debate about Stephanie Brown’s death I felt kind of really pleased and vindicated
removed.
Last edited by Lester C.; 07-18-2011 at 06:32 AM.
Yeah, but that same fact could also mean they are more willing to break a wall of protective silence.
Who was EiC during that time?
I withdraw the comment. I shouldn't speculate on people's motives without something to back it up.Originally Posted by Spiffy
This is complicated but there is an answer. Dan Didio was the editor but he was recently promoted and couldn't stop events mid-stride. I don't remember the exact quote but he stated he was a huge fan of Spoiler and would have stopped it if he could and he wasn't new.
I wonder if he's once more a "huge fan" of hers.
In answer to your question I'm willing that Step shows up again but as a version of Spoiler while Cassandra is going to get the Linda Lee treatment of never being mentioned again. As a fan of Cass I'm not happy about it but that would be my best guess.I wonder if he's once more a "huge fan" of hers.
I've spoken with Dylan a few times by email and he seemed like a really decent and talented guy.
I was ostensibly in the Bat-offices at the time, with Birds of Prey, but for some reason they never included us in the bat-meetings or the bat-events. I don't think it was about me, so much, I THINK they didn't like my editor at the time, or something like that? I can't remember, but I think there was some friction.
I can't verify what Dylan said here, but I remember he was disillusioned at the time. I definitely remember Devin trying to get them to consider what they were doing. Another reason Devin is my hero.
I had my own War Games story. PLEASE keep in mind this was a completely different set of teams and editors back then. But yeah, female representation must have been pretty much the last thing on their minds.
It's not as big a deal as Dylan's story, but I got a message that was essentially, "Oh, by the way, they're blowing up the Clock Tower in WAR GAMES." Now, I thought, and still think, that this was a terrible idea. The tower was Gotham's second best hideout, AND the only other bit of Gotham architecture that was that easily identifiable, even to people who didn't read comics. I was sad. It worked out okay, we got the Aerie One and Lady Blackhawk, but it was definitely a mistake and remains a mistake, I think.
A little later, a couple weeks or so, I was talking with someone who had been IN the meeting where they decided to blow up the tower. And he expressed surprise that I was okay with it.
"What? I'm NOT okay with it, I think it's awful!" says me.
It turns out that the writer who came up with the idea realized I'd be unhappy with it, so he told everyone in that meeting that not only that I was okay with the loss of the tower, but that IT WAS MY IDEA.
So they all thought, well, if she's okay with it, let's do it.
I didn't even know about it until it was too late, weeks later.
I'm not going to mention any names, but I lost a ton of respect for that person that day.
I know it's not as bad as the Steph stuff, but War Games was really rough for a lot of reasons. I actually really LIKE crossovers, but that one really was odd.
I do want to again say, it's a different team. Different editors, many of whom are female...in fact I think the bat-offices are more female than male currently, editorially. And guys like David Finch, Tony Daniels, and especially Scott Snyder are all genuinely nice people and this kind of thing would very likely NEVER happen with them.
Anyway, sad this thing happened with Dylan, nice, nice guy.
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