Bluebird (Harper Row)

Among the many DC Comics series that have been axed in the last days on The CW, there is one that has received green light instead: Gotham Knights, set in a parallel reality (not the Arrowverse, apparently) where Batman has been killed and some kids, among which the children of the Dark Knight‘s greatest enemies, team up together to fight criminality. Among them, visible in the first (unimpressive) poster, there is Harper Row, portrayed by Fallon Smythe. Rather than the daughter of a supervillain, Harper has become in the last years a member of the Bat-Family under the alias Bluebird: let’s take a look.

Harper Row was born in Gotham City and lived in the Narrows, one of the worst neighborhoods in a famously rough city. Her mother, Miranda, left when she was still a kid, leaving her and her younger brother Cullen with their drunkard good-for-nothing of a father, Marcus. Violent and abusive, the man would often go into tantrums whenever he was drunk, breaking things, beating his kids, then rushing out to drink some more. In these occasions, Harper started repairing everything he had broken, developing quite a talent as a fixer; she also took care of her terrified brother, becoming extremely protective of him. As things became increasingly worse, Harper finally applied for emancipation, and when she achieved it, she moved away with Cullen. Using the talent she had developed fixing broken things and building toys for her brother, she became a city electrical engineer, working on Gotham’s electrical grid. Her job as a big sister never stopped, though, as her brother, who had become an openly gay teenager, was constantly bullied by the street kids of the Narrows: he never fought for himself, and it was up to Harper to protect him. She also did some jobs for her landlady, but when she rewired her apartment, instead of being paid the $300 she was owed she was given a ticket for the Wayne Gala instead. Cullen convinced her to go, and there, after hearing Bruce Wayne‘s presentation of his revitalization project, she started stealing desserts to bring home to Cullen… only to be spotted by the butler, Alfred. Much to her surprise, Alfred invited her to take the brownies as well, and then chatted with her a bit. When she came back home, though, someone had broken into her house and assaulted Cullen, shaving a slur into his hair. To console him, she had a matching haircut, but she knew the situation had to change… only, she didn’t know how radically it would have.

When the gang returned, Harper was with Cullen, and tried to fight them back, but she was soon overpowered by their sheer number. It was Batman the one who saved them, and even threatened the bullies: both the Row siblings officially joined the Bat-fanclub, and sought ways to repay their savior. Accessing the city grid, Harper found out that Batman had been enhancing it to use his security cameras, and Harper used them to track him… all the while making some improvements. She even helped him capturing Tiger Shark, but when Batman found it out, he told her not to follow him nor to meddle into his business again, and even broke her nose for her effort. Harper didn’t listen to him, and brought to Bruce Wayne in Wayne Tower a plan to improve the city grid to help Batman: much to her surprise, the billionaire agreed to fund her project, and after that, even Batman showed up again, apologizing for his behavior, telling her he had a great pain to deal with and didn’t want to endanger a child. He made her promise not to stick her neck out for him, but she disobeyed… luckily: when the Dark Knight was defeated by the Court of Owls and fell into the frozen Gotham River, it was Harper who tracked him and fished him to safety, even reviving him with a home-made defibrillator (actually, only jumper cables and a car battery). Despite this, Batman still refused to take her in his team. Luckily, there were other vigilantes to win the trust of to help Batman. When a mysterious plague started affecting kids in the Narrows, including Cullen, Harper investigated, finding out it was actually caused by nanobots. She stowed away on Red Robin‘s plane, offering her help to him. With Red Hood and Batgirl already trapped by the Mad Hatter, the one behind the nanobots, Red Robin was open to all the help he could get, and Harper made her debut as Taser-Girl… as she was a girl holding a taser. Later, as she finally developed her first suit of armor impervious to the Hatter’s nanobots, she assumed the identity of Bluebird: this time, she could repay Batman the best way she could, by joining his crusade.

Harper Row is an extremely intelligent kid who lives following a single command, the last word her mother whispered to her: “Resolve“. Determined and brave, she lives by that word every day of her life, dedicating her life to those nobody takes care of. As Bluebird, she’s a savant with immediate comprehension of electrical and mechanical engineer, a skill she puts at good use in creating weapons and gadgets for herself and the entire Bat-Family; Red Robin also trained her in acrobatics and kick-boxing, but she excels the most in marksmanship. An iron-willed young woman who’s never been a child to act as family to her brother, Bluebird firmly wants to prevent other kids to live what she had to, and to repay Batman, her savior, by aiding him in his crusade to make Gotham City a better place for everyone to live in.