One thing that always bothered me as a kid, and still bothers me, is it honestly makes so little sense Steph didn't rank super high on the scale of Martial Artists after receiving the Robin training, if it's so amazing. Considering what she could do while untrained, the experience she had, it's baffling that no one ever considered her a prodigy, or that she wasn't at least notably more skilled than say, Tim was, when she started out as Robin.
Like, Steph was in the field and knocking out grown men twice her size with zero training. It was not even mentioned that she took martial arts classes or anything to explain how she can do this, just gymnastics and softball. And both were high school gymnastics, high school softball, not fancy expensive classes??? Even Babs, in Batgirl Y1 had the advantage of having taken martial arts classes and presumably a lot more since her goal was to be in the FBI.
Meanwhile Steph like. She's jumping off rooftops and surfing trains and taking down bad guys with nothing. Tim's gone through extensive Batman training and trained with Lady Shiva and all this stuff, and obviously she's not as good as him and needs him to watch her back at times, but she can keep up with him, and even saves him or get the jump on him quite a few times, and that's incredible when you think about it. Tim gave her gadgets and instructions in the field, but it's never shown that he taught her any moves.
There's even a panel where Batman notes Stephanie almost snuck up on him and "not many people can do that" when again, no training, no martial arts classes, this is way before he agreed to give her any help at all-- and then for some reason, after noting this girl with no training is more talented than most people he knows, just keeps telling her she's not good enough and should go home.
That's a ridiculous level of raw talent, and it's honestly so bizarre nobody in the Batfamily ever noted that and kept telling her to go home. When she does get training, it's very sporadic, it is not clear how much Batman or Black Canary trained her the first time, he disappeared on her and then fired her as soon as he came back, and we never saw her get trained on screen by Dinah (the only person who ever acknowledged she had talent). She sparred with Cass, but Cass never taught her anything. Despite all this, she was noticeably getting way better during the era.
But when she received the six month Robin training that's supposed to make them so strong or whatever...how did that not result in her being a prodigy? She's the only Robin who was an experienced superhero before she took on the mantle?
Bruce literally tells her "Tim did this better" when he was training her about something, which makes no sense considering she came into being Robin with way more skills and experience and martial arts prowess??? When she was surviving on her own and fighting villains before that? When she could nearly sneak up on Bruce even before that?
You could claim she's a "bad student" or whatever, but she was a clearly very good at taking her gymnastic coach's instructions, enough to become a genius at it, so that doesn't really hold water.
The only explanation that would make any sense would be that Bruce taught her badly on purpose. which. unfortunately wouldn't be too far out of character from how he treated her in that era. (And that she apparently improved a lot under Babs tutelage as Batgirl but not his. So. Not a good look for him)
I mean the real answer for why all this makes no sense is DCs misogyny ofc. But it’s pretty wild how there’s no justification for this in universe.
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