5 DC Resurrections Done Right (And 5 That Sucked)

2. Stephanie Brown - Robin/Spoiler Special

Stephanie Brown Return
DC Comics

Despite the death and return of Stephanie Brown occurred a literal lifetime ago (in a different DC continuity), it still manages to invoke the ire of longtime Bat-fans.

Stephanie was introduced as the vigilante Spoiler during the long-running War Games arc, where she conspired to take down her father's criminal dealings. She came into conflict with Batman and his allies over the course of the arc, but gradually struck up a romance with Tim Drake. When Tim had a lapse in confidence, Stephanie came in and assumed the Robin identity... just before she was brutally tortured by Black Mask and died of her injuries.

Before she died, Stephanie managed to find Dr. Leslie Thompkins for treatment. Thompkins was a longtime ally to the Dark Knight, but she decided to let Brown die on the operating table in order to convince Batman to stop enlisting children in his war on crime. It completely ruined her character, and when Stephanie wasn't given a memorial in the Bat-Cave, fans were justifiably peeved.

Come 2008 however, and it was revealed that Stephanie never died at all. Batman had chosen to keep her fate a secret, giving DC an out in regards to the lack of a memorial and for Thompkins' depiction. Fortunately Steph did end up making good on her comeback in Bryan Q. Miller's brilliant Batgirl run, but the intervening years weren't made any less frustrating.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.