Profile: Vesper Fairchild

Vesper Fairchild
First appeared in: Batman #540, March 1997

Current status: deceased

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: In Batman: The 10-Cent Adventure “special” from 2002, radio talk show host Vesper was murdered by David Cain as part of a contract by Lex Luthor to strike at Bruce Wayne, who’s as much a rival to him as Superman is.

What’s wrong with how this was done? In that particular book, she turned up dead for otherwise just one purpose: to die. Rather than write a story in which she could have some development as a character, she’s turned into little more than a plot device, in the Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive crossover, just one in a sea of tired X-overs from DC Comics. To make matters worse, another woman in the story, Sasha Bordeaux, was also discriminated against.

Worst thing about this was that Vesper may have guessed that Bruce Wayne was also the Masked Manhunter, implying that anyone who finds out that Bruce and Batman are one and same is destined to end up dead (a notable example during the Bronze Age could be the parents of Jason Todd, who were murdered by Killer Croc in the original Todd premise).

How uncreative.