Last Laugh #2 and SPELLBINDER?????

[DerekPowers]

in last laugh #2 theres a female villian called spellbinder (or lady spellbinder as shes refered to once or twice) who basically does exactely what spellbinder from bb does. now, i never heard of her before this issue, so was she created for last laugh like alot of those other slab villians, or has she been around, and if so, whats her backstory and whose rogues gallery does she belong to?

and, if she has been around, did timm/dini/ the bb crew intentionally borrow alot from her for the bb spellbinder (like they did w/ the royal flush gang and kobra)? thanks for the info. peace.

[Trent Lane]

I wondered what that was all about, too. I'd never heard of her before...

[James Harvey]

She was the girlfriend of the original Spellbinder. When given the chance to gain his powers, she killed him and took over as the new Spellbinder. Now by simply opening her eyes or taking off her sun glasses, she can emit that Spellbinding effect. This happened in Detective Comics #690.

[The Mad Hatter]

According to the creators, the Batman Beyond Spellbinder was created as a completely original, unrelated character.... and then they discovered there really was a Spellbinder in DC comics from waaaaaaaaay back.

Though it wouldn't surprise me if the "new" Spellbinder is in because of renewed interest from BB... the comics have borrowed a LOT from the animated continuities.

[Samhaine]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
Though it wouldn't surprise me if the "new" Spellbinder is in because of renewed interest from BB... the comics have borrowed a LOT from the animated continuities.

I think that Lady Spellbinder was used here becasue it was a Dixon creation, and Last Laugh is basically Dixon's big event. I mean, with Nightwing and Birds of Prey and Robin tying directly into the books events, is there any reason not to say that this is a Dixonverse event??

But yeah, when I first read that old 'Tec from 1996 (wow, '96 being considered old. Now I feel old...) I thought that it was just a ripoff from BB. But, alas, it wasn't, since it came out beforehand.

And, no offence to Dini or Timm, but it's kinda doubtful that BB-Spellbinder was "completely original", and that they found out there was a character with similar powers and name much later on. I mean, similar powers I can believe. But the same name???

[The Mad Hatter]

Really, that's what they said. They named him Spellbinder, then found out after the fact that there was a completely different Spellbinder back in the 60s that no one knew about. The old one was a magician, if I remember right.

I don't see why we shouldn't believe them... after all, they own up to the comic origins of all the other obscure villains they've used! Besides, "spellbound" isn't exactly an arcane phrase...

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
Besides, "spellbound" isn't exactly an arcane phrase...

Take for instance its use as the title of a not-very-convincing Hitchcock film. If for no other reason than that, I'd have preferred them to come up with a different title for the ep.