Knightfall is NOT Stephie.
I have just now become aware that a few people are floating this theory. I know the smart move is to just act all mysterious and tell people to keep reading.
But no, she is not Stephie. They are two blonde girls with bad things in their background, other than that, they are almost completely opposite—Charise comes from extreme wealth and privilege, for one thing.
But the BIG thing is, Charise is a killer, a torturer. She would maim a teenager as a warning to others.
I would NEVER, EVER write Steph like that. I would quit first. So, I am not going to be mysterious, that is not Steph. 100% no.I don’t believe most of the people who are upset really think that Knightfall is Stephanie. What I am seeing said is that between the design and color choices is that Knightfall looks a great deal like Stephanie. What I see being said is that combining that look and her placement in the Batgirl title as a villain who —as you say— is very much an anti-thesis to Stephanie comes across to Stephanie Brown fans as a very poor and very insensitive choice in light of recent issues and concerns regarding the character. In light of repeatedly being told that she is not permitted to even exist in so much as an alternate universe of the DCU. All it really would have taken to avoid rubbing salt in the wounds of that section of fans was a different color scheme.
Respectfully, I am not at all sure that that’s true…people are seeing Steph in anything purple and/or blonde. Their outfits are completely different, their facial structures are not similar, and Steph smiles, Charise never does (a big difference in comics).
More than that, Charise is surrounded in wealth all the time. And she doesn’t have a light, cheerful bone in her body.
Like I said, respectfully, I suspect a lot of the people floating this theory have simply not read the book but are going by an image somewhere on an angry post. I may be wrong, but the two characters are almost polar opposites.
Respectfully, I think you’re missing a great deal of the points being made then if you think people are just lashing out at any blondes in purple for all of DCU.
“Facial structures” is a completely absurd argument to make for character differentiation in comics media where how a character is drawn varies wildly between artists. I’m not seeing a significant feature to differentiate them that will carry across artists. Blue-eyed blonde with full lips and hair in a ponytail.
Again, I’m not saying their personalities or back stories are at all similar. I do not know why you’re making that point to me.
It’s a combination of several factors here that have people upset, and I wish you were a little less unwilling to even consider their point. Does not the fact that so many people can see a similarity indicate that there might be something to the point being made?
The combination of the blue-eyed blonde girl, with similarly drawn full lips, a ponytail under the cowl, wearing a distinctive shade of purple cape with a deep hood, in the Batgirl book — the decision to place her in a book that once starred a character with the same physical markers who is now effectively been banned from appearing in the DCU — it is all of those factors combined that has fans upset. A blonde in a purple hood in any other book would raise eyebrows given the current climate surrounding the Stephanie Brown character. To put a character that can be easily said to have all the same physical markers as Stephanie in the very book she once headlined but to place inside that physical similarity a character that is everything that Stephanie was not in personality and background — to create an “evil” doppelganger of the prior Batgirl incarnation to be beaten up by the current Batgirl who is already taking Stephanie’s place in both Batgirl and the Smallville comics…
It is not a single factor but the combination of all of those factors that has created an outcry. Are you really that unaware of how it looks from the fans’ end? How insensitive and insulting it is when that cape could have been any other color? (And therefore Charise be just another blonde, blue-eyed white girl in the DCU?) Your Batgirl does not exist in a vacuum, least of all one that separates it from the other Batgirl books. It is the very place such a character description for a villain would be the least well-received.
I know in the grand scheme of things this is very minor, but look at the comic again. Charise has green eyes not blue.
For me when I read the comic, I didn’t even make the connection to Stephanie Brown, until the name Arthur Brown popped up. Because reading her, despite how she looks, there is nothing Stephanie like about her. But I can see how a lot of others are making that connection. I think it would have helped if her surname was anything but Brown.
The other thing I noticed was Batgirl’s cape colour which is now yellow again which for awhile was purple. I felt the purple was a throwback to Steph so it does make me wonder if the colour change was on purpose. I’m not sure, I don’t know what they’re thinking or why they made that choice. Her cape is also yellow in Batman #13 as opposed to purple. Was it like that in Batgirl #12? I don’t remember.
And I have to say, I’m not a Steph fan. I’ve always wanted to see Babs back as Batgirl.
Wait. Her eyes are green?
I’m looking at the issue, and you may have a point…but they look kind of aqua to me in this light. I can definitely see people still thinking they are blue, however.
And her name ISN’T Brown, apparently someone photoshopped the name “Arthur Brown” on a website over the real name of her father, as in the book, “Kenneth Carnes,” and a bunch of people apparently believed it.
Which obviously isn’t helping matters. ;)
As for the cape, I talked about it earlier down…the original purple in the cape was to refer to the Yvonne Craig Batgirl in a subtle way. But the editors decided over time that it sort of muddied her profile and removed it. Had nothing to do with Steph at any stage.
Hope that helps!
