00:00So, 2025 will be the 85th anniversary of Robin, and he does not look a day over 70.
00:04Now, there's been several Robins, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, Damian Wayne, Duke Thomas, if you count
00:10me a Robin, and Carrie Kelly.
00:12But did you know that there's a Robin that not many people know about outside of Earl's?
00:16Let's talk about Mary Wills, aka Roberta, the Girl Wander.
00:19Now, before we get into the Girl Wander, I should direct you to this article by Brian Cronin, which does
00:23go into detail about this character, link here.
00:26Now, Roberta first showed up in a Robin story in the anthology book Star Spangled Comics, written by Jim Mooney
00:32in 1950.
00:33Roberta is Mary Wills, a student who has a crush on Robin, who decides to become a costumed adventurer herself
00:38to date Robin,
00:39unaware that her fellow student and subject of disdain, Dick Grayson, is one of the same.
00:43She does put in the effort in trying to become a superhero, show on doing the workout regime and research
00:47into crimeifying,
00:48and manages to make her own gadgets and costumes.
00:50But, instead of having a utility belt, she has a crime compact because this is 1950.
00:54She literally teams up with Robin, managing to sneak into the Batcave and helping him take down criminals,
00:59but Robin, managing to find out her secret identity, fears for her safety and thinks of a way to get
01:03her out of the crime fighting game,
01:05by doing an aptly named dick move, by outing her secret identity to the public.
01:09Now, Roberta hasn't had any other appearances in the comics afterwards, which is surprising,
01:13given that there's been a lot of writers who love to bring back old and obscure characters.
01:16But, what I find interesting is that Roberta does pre-date a lot of distant counterpart characters.
01:20The Cathy Kane Batwoman first appeared in 1956, and also had a utilistic handbag,
01:25and Supergirl was in 1959, and it's also interesting that Jim Mooney had a stint drawing the Supergirl stories as
01:29well.
01:30He also created Catman.
01:31Now, does this mean that Roberta is Patient Zero,
01:34and that a lot of other distant counterpart characters of male heroes have showed up since,
01:39all kind of over-existent to her?
01:41Probably not.
01:41In fact, the first distant counterpart character was Mary Marvel,
01:44but I found Roberta an interesting character in Batman myth,
01:47also I thought I would make a good video about.
01:49Well, hey, do you like movies?
01:51Do you like movie reviews?
01:52Then this channel is stuff like that.
01:53There's Watch This Space, my film review show, where I view recent films,
01:56and I also make short films, like correspondence, which is very unique.
02:00If you'd like to see stuff like this, then please subscribe to stay updated on my work.
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