Superboy's Underrated Bat-Family Friendship Proves How Much He's Grown

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Spoiler warning for DC Pride: Tim Drake Special #1

The spotlight may be on Tim Drake lately—with both his new Pride Special and announced ongoing solo series—but Tim's best friend, Superboy, has found a new friend in Batgirl. Stephanie Brown—Tim's ex-girlfriend and another of his best friends—has been talking to Superboy out of concern for the shared Robin. This new connection between Batgirl and Superboy is far more civil than one of their first encounters, showing fans that Superboy has outgrown his brash origins.

Though Stephanie Brown and Conner Kent's Superboy both debuted in the 90s, and despite being mutual friends of Tim Drake's Robin, the two have rarely met on the page. Superboy, the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, was usually adventuring with a rotating cast of friends and allies, while Stephanie—then know as Spoiler, the daughter of a C-list Batman villain—was usually relegated to Gotham. After years being either dead or erased from DC history, Stephanie and Superboy have since been reintroduced to canon, where Stephanie currently appears as one of the titular Batgirls, and where Conner will soon begin a new adventure in his recently announced Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow mini-series.

Related: Superboy & Robin Reclaim Their '90s Glory In Awesome New Fan Art

In one of their rare prior meetings, during a short period when Tim had retired from Robin and Stephanie had taken up the mantle, Superboy and Stephanie Brown nearly came to blows. In Teen Titans #13 by Geoff Johns, Tom Grummett, Lary Stucker, and Jeromy Cox, Superboy flies to Gotham to search for Tim Drake and finds Stephanie in her Robin uniform. When she insists she is, in fact, the new Robin, Conner replies: "No. You're a girl in Robin's costume."

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