In a very weird turn of events, it seems like the readers of ‘Smallville Season 11’ will get to see Stephanie Brown alongside Batman in an upcoming four part story arc in the series titled ‘Detective’. However, the girl we know as the fourth Robin, the third Batgirl, and Spoiler will not be appearing as one of her previous aliases. Instead, according to Comic Book Movie, Brown will don the mantle of Nightwing, a name that usually belongs to Dick Grayson. Fans of Brown have been waiting for her return to comic books, but not like this.
Writer Brian Q. Miller, who wrote a 2009 Batgirl series featuring Stephanie Brown, is involved with this arc in ‘Smallville’ and had this to say about the new identity for this costumed heroine:
“Bruce can be somewhat of an angry man. Stephanie’s personality is so can-do and unsinkable and bright, so it’s very much on purpose on Bruce’s part that he has a good cop going out on patrol with him every night.”
According to Miller, it will eventually be revealed why Stephanie is Nightwing and not Batgirl, but I can already picture fans loading up their utility belts in order to take a lot of offense to this decision. Of course, for all we know there could be a very interesting twist attached to this interpretation of the character that Miller isn’t revealing. After all, no one would have ever thought that Heath Ledger would make a good Joker, remember? We’ll just have to wait til August to see how it turns out.
How do you feel about Stephanie Brown being Nightwing? Let’s hear your opinions below in the comment section.