Case Closed

Looks like Stepahnie Brown finally got her case in the Batcave. [Link]

Project Girl Wonder has led to a number of shout-outs in comics in the year and a half since it began. We’ve had Rip Hunter wonder “No Trophy = Stephanie?” on his board of time-travel conundrums. We’ve had Tim remark in his inner monologue that she never had a memorial in the cave. We’ve even seen a future Bat Cave in Action Comics with a Stephanie memorial in it.

Batman #673 means so, so much more than any of these. Because, in two panels, we were told everything that mattered: that inside Batman’s heart, Stephanie was Robin, the same as Dick and Jason and Tim — her gender made no difference at all to that. That her loss is felt as keenly as those other losses Batman has been shaped by.

In those two panels, in that one gesture of Batman contemplating the Robins he’s lost in front of the symbol of those losses, that line of suits in cases, the glass ceiling keeping girls out of the red and green and gold costume at Batman’s side finally cracked and fell.

About time.