DC’s Earth-Prime comic miniseries kicked off this week, showcasing new stories set within The CW’s Arrowverse of television shows. As fans have already seen, that involves some unexpected crossovers, a surprising central villain, and some unique character moments. Earth-Prime: Batwoman #1 was filled with all of those elements in spades, with a story that bridged the gap between two episodes of Season 3. In the issue’s second story, audiences were treated to a surprising — and significant — character return. Spoilers for Earth-Prime: Batwoman #1, from Natalie Abrams, Kelly Larson, Camrus Johnson, Clayton Henry, Michael Calero, Marcelo Maiolo, Matt Herms, and Tom Napolitano below! Only look if you want to know!
The backup story for the issue centered around Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson), who was trying to balance his personal life amid the events of Season 3’s “A Lesson From Professor Pyg.” Luke manages to leave the Batcave in time for a prior engagement — a date with Stephanie Brown (Morgan Kohan). Stephanie reminds Luke that he’d stood her up twice before, but tries to make the best of their date, only for Luke to get pulled into the Bat Team’s operations again. By the time Luke gets those things done, he returns back to the restaurant of his and Stephanie’s date, only to find that she’s left.
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This serves as the second canonical appearance of Stephanie in the Arrowverse, after she appeared in live-action in Season 2’s “I’ll Give You a Clue.” The episode saw Stephanie teaming up with the Bat Team to help take down her father, the maniacal villain Cluemaster (Rick Miller). By the end of the episode, she also appeared to develop a romantic kinship with Luke, making this date — no matter how ill-fated — a long time coming.
“This comic book, the one thing I will tease is – we don’t see Luke in the real world really ever,” Johnson previously told ComicBook.com. “He’s sort of just always in the Bat Cave and working with the Bat Team. We don’t know much about his personal life. So I just wanted to see what would happen if – during an episode that we saw on TV already, but we are not seeing Luke a whole lot – what is he doing? Where is he? The idea for this issue is that during [the events of the] “A Lesson From Professor Pyg” episode, we’re with Javicia and Meagan and Nick and Robin, all at Robin’s place. Where is Luke? What is Luke doing? In between those scenes, where is he? I kind of wanted to dive into his dating life, and see what his personal life is when he is not behind the console.”
Stephanie’s comic return also comes as an alternate version of the character is lined up to be portrayed by Anna Lore on The CW’s Gotham Knights pilot.
What do you think of Stephanie Brown making her return in the Earth-Prime comic? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
Earth-Prime: Batwoman #1 is now available wherever comics are sold.
