On Friday, the 13th, DC Comics announced that Nightwing’s introduction in the Smallville universe was going to be changed slightly. Prior to their announcement, Bryan Q Miller writer of the current Smallville series as well as the pre-52 Batgirl series, announced that Stephanie Brown would be the girl behind the mask this August. Stephanie fans alike were overjoyed as the former Batgirl has all but vanished from the pages of DC since the DC relaunch back in 2011. It wasn’t long after, however, that rumors began to spread that it wouldn’t be Stephanie, but Barbara who would be introduced as Nightwing. When asked if Stephanie would be Nightwing DC Vice-President of Marketing, Brian Cunningham said: “The first rumor wasn’t known by us, and I have not heard of the second in the halls of DC, so I can’t comment.” Of course, the line came off as complete bull as not only was there official art released, but Miller himself commented on previous announcement, stating “I felt like I couldn’t get any deeper into this without having Stephanie somewhere. This is the Stephanie that people who read Batgirl came to know and love. Not much of her has changed. She’s just wearing a different costume. Choosing Nightwing as opposed to Robin just seemed like the nice kind of take we’d have done on the show so it’s not exactly the same thing as the comics because there are a bunch of other comics where you can get that. We’re doing our own take, which isn’t too far from, in quotation marks, ‘how it’s supposed to be,’ but it’s our little corner of the world.”
Red Hood and the Outlaws writer, Scott Lobdell cued in his two cents when the fan pointed out the art and said (smugly), “Are you going to believe art, or are you going to believe us??” *cough*dick*cough*
The next day Dan Didio ended all speculation, officially announcing that Barbara Gordon would be chosen because,”If we’re going to introduce a character into the ‘Smallville’ world, I want them to be 
the most iconic versions like Barbara Gordon or Dick Grayson, and maybe down the road we can do more.” Because Smallville is of course famous for choosing the iconic versions of their sidekicks, right? Well, except the first Impulse/Kid Flash they chose was Bart Allen. Oh, and Speedy was Mia Dearden, not Roy Harper Jr. Sounds fishy, right? Well it turns out, according to Gail Simone, that the excuse given by Dan isn’t quite so accurate.Gail recently stated on her twitter: “Today, Bryan told me it was his idea to use Babs, when asked to replace Steph.”
What does this all mean? It means that DC simply didn’t want Stephanie Brown to be in any of their comics. That’s it. There was no actual thought that Barbara Gordon would draw in more people, in fact there was no thought of anything other than ‘We don’t like Stephanie.’ Why DC? Why do you feel characters like Steph, or even Cass, don’t belong on the pages of comics now? Well, according to Corrina Lawson at Wired.com, “The one conclusion that is certain is that whatever was said publicly, it is clear DC Editorial in New York simply does not want Stephanie Brown to appear anywhere. Checking around with several sources, I was informed both Steph and former Batgirl Cassandra Cain (now known as Black Bat) were considered “toxic.”
As much as I hate putting my personal feelings down on paper, this article really leaves me no choice. Fuck you DC editorial. We know there are fans of Steph and Cass out there. Head over to Scans_Daily if you doubt me. It’s also known that DC writers like Gail Simone, Scott Snyder, and of course Bryan Q Miller want to bring Steph and Cass back into comics. So what is DC’s issue with these two characters? To be honest, it would just seem like somebody in DC comics with power simply dislikes them. It’s petty, and it’s stupid. However, it would look like that is all that is needed to have a character removed from continuity. Dan Didio has gone on record about his dislike for certain characters. One such character was Ted Kord, the former Blue Beetle. Is it any shock that Ted Kord, beloved comedy relief, was shot through the head? Is it any shock that he has been virtually written out of DC continuity since the relaunch? Didio attempted to do the same to Dick Grayson believe it or not. Luckily, for us, several writers pointed out that he would never get away with it. So who do we have to blame for the utter disappearance of Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain? Well I don’t want to point fingers, but maybe it’s the person who once said, “(Stephanie) was never really a Robin…”
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It’s a big problem. Go onto tumblr and type in Stephanie Brown. She’s a HUGE character. She, a sidekick to a sidekick, a C-lister held 24k readers a month. The new Barbara Gordon Batgirl after having 100k new readers the first issue or so has now dropped into the 40k range and is still in the top 30ish. Even down from 80k that’s still almost half lost in not even a year. Personally that low a number to be in the top 50 means the industry is still in need of a serious revamp or new approach as for me 40k isnt a lot when you can get millions of views of a video on Youtube.
Stephanie again held decent sales, her first issue as Batgirl bests recent issues of Barbara Batgirl pre Court of Owls tie-in which that month brought in 15k readers back and now has settled back into the upper 40k almost 50k range.
Overall It’s just a terrible move and either they TRULY have a problem with her or they are being cruel or a major tease so that when we finally get the “Black Bat/Spoiler” book/mini or even Dustin Nguyen’s concept “Gotham Boys And Girls Club” which was a team roster of Steph, Cass, Damian Robin, Colin Wilkes aWilkes aka Abuse, Klarion the Witchboy, and then Supergirl, a team that MANY feel could be a hit book: people will clamor for it. Though maybe reintroduce Misfit instead of Supergirl. What I sense though is that Didio is not very fit to be in charge of the company anymore, he’s out of touch and his ego is getting in the way of good business decisions. He got the company and their properties in this mess over the past 10 years of lost profits and declining numbers and the reboot isn’t exactly as strong as I’d think they’d hope it was. There have been lots of duds and sales are starting to flatline.
I really wish for younger, more progressive management who puts more empahasis on youth, tween, and female teen markets. Focus on maybe free entertainment online, animated shorts/interactive webcomics and animated comics online, manga volume style books (Ben Caldwell’s Wonder Woman concept could be a TV show too), and overall STOP pandering to the 18-65 year old male old school style nerd. That demographic is changing and dying out. I am 22 and a male, invested in comic books but I’m a writer and I’m super not impressed with their line. Wonder Woman, the Dark Line and some of the more Vertigo style books are the best and they’re the best because they are the farthest involved from “superhero superheroing” and Dan Didio’s attention. They are showing that editorial is meddling way too much in the creativity and work their writers and artists are doing and THAT is going against their creed with the New 52 to support the best writing possible. Editorial meddling seems way too involved in many titles, particularlly Gail’s Batgirl. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Yep, you nailed it on the head. Also, for editorial to remove a character, that has essentially become a cornerstone of the female community, over something so trivial…what does that say about how they think of their female readers?