Maybe You Can't Keep A Good Batgirl Down

For some reason or another, someone at DC doesn't care for Stephanie Brown, to the extent she can't show hardly show up anywhere, even in books that aren't part of the nu52. I don't understand it, but I usually don't understand DC's decisions. However, reading the most recent issue of Batman Beyond Unlimited, I wonder if Adam Beechen, Norm Breyfogle, and company didn't manage to slip her in under the radar.

The evidence is pretty thin, admittedly. So thin this might not even qualify as a hunch, just a hope. There's the fact Steph had a long relationship with Tim in the DCU (if not the nu52 or more critically, the Timmverse). So there's a chance. We get to see Tim's wife in Batman Beyond Unlimited #9, and she's blonde with what may be violet eyes.

More critically, he says that Tim's wife knows Tim's entire history, and that Bruce trusts her. The exact quote is 'Your wife knows your entire history. . . Bruce trusts her, and I can trust her. . .'

That's key, if we figure it is Steph, and Beechen is trying to reference her subtly. I wouldn't doubt that Tim would tell his wife, whoever she was, everything about himself. Tim can be ruthlessly pragmatic at times (he may be the most like Bruce in that regard amongst the boys), but keeping secrets in relationships has always been hard for him. So she'd know most everything, regardless, but just because she knew, wouldn't mean Bruce would trust her. Unless he had some past history with her that lead him to believe he could trust her.

It could refer to Stephanie's long struggle to get Batman to stop trying to make her give up costumed adventuring. It took a while, took nearly dying among other things, but he did eventually give her a thumbs up. And having earned it, he doesn't rescind it easily. I mean, even though Dick Grayson hates Bruce's guts, the old man still clearly trusts Dick. If it is Steph, and she did go through some of the same hoops we watched her jump through in the old DCU, then it would make sense he would still trust her.

Like I said, it's thin. Really thin. But thin is my middle name.

Martin Riggs: With your wife's cooking, I'm not surprised.

I'm not even married! Get out of here '80s Mel Gibson! Like I was saying, thin. She's not wearing anything purple or eggplant colored, for one. I have a hard time seeing Stephanie Brown calling Tim 'honey', but eh, people change with age, and it's not an uncommon term of endearment. It would be kind of cool if they did plan this, and maybe we'll get some more hints down the line. She and Tim might get accosted by Jokerz on the way to Wayne Manor, and they could put a couples' beatdown on them.