The De-aging of Barbara Gordon.

[oasis1313]

Actually, that wasn't an Annual.

That was the Batgirl: Futures End one-shot from 2014.

Yeah, that was it. I thought it was cool. Wish they were doing that now.

[Cmbmool]

Dick and Babs are suppose to be the same age now. While one can argue Babs is portrayed as too young, one could also argue that Dick is portrayed as too old.

I blame the artist for showcasing these heroes in their respective ages and that is Dick as the old guy and Babs as the Young woman. I mean it's more embarrassing given Dick is more college bound than Babs ever was in the DC current timeline.

[MajorHoy]

I blame the artist for showcasing these heroes in their respective ages and that is Dick as the old guy and Babs as the Young woman. I mean it's more embarrassing given Dick is more college bound than Babs ever was in the DC current timeline.

I believe it's been said Barbara already got her undergraduate degree from college. (She was one of those students who was smart enough to finish high school a few years earlier than typical American students and then took less than four years to earn her college bachelor's degree.)

[Confuzzled]

Is Dick really portrayed as all that "old"? He can pass off as a 22 year old stud who carries himself off incredibly well. Which would be natural after living with Bruce for so long, observing his personas (both Bruce Wayne/Batman) and emulating the good qualities like self-possession etc.

[Aahz]

Is Dick really portrayed as all that "old"? He can pass off as a 22 year old stud who carries himself off incredibly well. Which would be natural after living with Bruce for so long, observing his personas (both Bruce Wayne/Batman) and emulating the good qualities like self-possession etc.

At least Dick seems (in his own book) not really less mature than pre-flashpoint, Barbara on the other hand seems way younger than pre-Burnside now. (Ok when Dick was guest in Batgirl he seemed to be as young as Barbara).

The problem is imo that the current Batgirl book is trageted at a much younger audience than the other Batfamily books, even those who star the younger Batgirls.

[Confuzzled]

At least Dick seems (in his own book) not really less mature than pre-flashpoint, Barbara on the other hand seems way younger than pre-Burnside now. (Ok when Dick was guest in Batgirl he seemed to be as young as Barbara).

The problem is imo that the current Batgirl book is trageted at a much younger audience than the other Batfamily books, even those who star the younger Batgirls.

Yup, Dick is definitely more goofy and silly around Babs which I also think is natural considering their history and equation.

Regarding Barbara's own "personality regression", I don't really see it as a regression and I buy it. As an incredibly shy child and teenager who was pretty "mature", "serious" and "focused" for my age at the time, I always felt I was missing out socially and on an interpersonal level. So after some change of scenery with college and early college internships that forced to be more of an extrovert and be very social, I opened up a LOT. I became very goofy in my early 20's to the point that I actually may have come across as even more immature than Current Babs. My high school friends couldn't even believe I was the same person during our reunions. OTOH my college friends won't believe I was anything but an extrovert, charmer and all around goofball.

So I get Babs's transformation. Right from a young age, she was incredibly dedicated to being ambitious and fulfilling her dreams, living up to her parents' very high expectations of her etc. It's possible she compromised on her social life more than she wanted to and didn't allow herself to let her hair down as much as she wanted to during her teens. The events of The Killing Joke then ended up being incredibly traumatic and temporarily must have crushed all her hopes and dreams. It also must have given her a lot of time for introspection, where she wondered whether it was truly worth pouring so much of herself into her mission and goals in life. She didn't allow herself much of a break when she immediately recovered, trying to overcompensate for her "years lost as Batgirl". But once she had that complete change of scenery with Burnside, she realized this was the chance she always wanted, time to take it a little more easy (as she claimed in book), enjoy life a little more, try to socialize and please people more than before, afford herself to be more self-indulgent emotionally, allow herself some distractions etc. It also helped that her college mates were as vibrant and fun, and Burnside itself was far less of an oppressive and downer of an environment as main Gotham.

I dunno, maybe because Barbara's character/personality arc loosely mirrored my own teens and early-mid 20's (thankfully no assaults by a psychotic clown for me) which is why I can really connect to it. I also think Barbara is still mature in situations that really matter. Just my two cents based on my own personal life experience.

[Jim Kelly]

The Batman timeline seems to be screwed up because they want to fit all these events into the timeline, but they don't want the timeline to be too long. It also seems that they don't want Dick to be too young when he starts out as Batman's partner--child endangerment--but it's okay for Barbara or Damian to be young when they start out. It's all too confusing.

[Godlike13]

Is Dick really portrayed as all that "old"? He can pass off as a 22 year old stud who carries himself off incredibly well. Which would be natural after living with Bruce for so long, observing his personas (both Bruce Wayne/Batman) and emulating the good qualities like self-possession etc.

Dick and his friends (the Titans) seem to have the modern sensibilities of the 90's. Where cellphones are a nonexistent concept and out dated pizza joints is a cool hang out. Rarely does one get the sense that the Titans are a group of 21 year olds.

[Confuzzled]

Dick and his friends (the Titans) seem to have the modern sensibilities of the 90's. Where cellphones are a nonexistent concept and out dated pizza joints is a cool hang out. Rarely does one get the sense that the Titans are a group of 21 year olds.

TBF Dick was raised by Bruce Wayne and elderly gent Alfred, not the most swinging people in town (unless Bruce was faking his "millionaire playboy" persona). Dick would be old-fashioned in some ways, though I agree that not having the Titans and him using cellphones is out of touch on the parts of the writers.

Or rather, they are pushing a more "timeless", generic and ill-defined view of youth for Dick and the Titans while for Babs, they are trying to be very hip with today's teens and culture. I think therein lies the main difference.

[ChaosIncarnate]

This is kinda OT, but for me the definitive Babs is Dina Meyer in Birds of Prey. I would love to see a Barbara Gordon closer to her portrayal in age and maturity, it's the perfect portrayal of the character in my mind. I haven't cared at all for Babs ever since New 52 took her out of the wheelchair, to be honest. And yeah, I don't get Dc's obsession with de-aging her. I feel like they're going off of the mindset that they have an adult Batwoman, so it doesn't matter to them if Barbara is younger.

[MajorHoy]

This is kinda OT, but for me the definitive Babs is Dina Meyer in Birds of Prey. I would love to see a Barbara Gordon closer to her portrayal in age and maturity, it's the perfect portrayal of the character in my mind. I haven't cared at all for Babs ever since New 52 took her out of the wheelchair, to be honest. And yeah, I don't get Dc's obsession with de-aging her. I feel like they're going off of the mindset that they have an adult Batwoman, so it doesn't matter to them if Barbara is younger.

The New 52 didn't de-age just Barbara Gordon; almost ALL characters were de-aged to some degree or another.
And I can only assume Babs seemed more de-aged than many others to line her up more with the Batman: The Animated Series-version of Batgirl since DC may have felt that version was the most "iconic" to a good chunk of their readership (as well as possibly to many of the artists and writers?).

[Jim Kelly]

I thought that Barbara Gordon aged through the course of the different animated series in the Timmverse. So by the time we get to BATMAN BEYOND she's a mature woman.

And wouldn't the most recent version of Batgirl, from other media, be in THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE. Granted, I saw that movie in Portuguese, so it might have come across differently to me than it was in English (never got around to seeing that version yet), but she seemed like a mature woman in that movie.

[MajorHoy]

I thought that Barbara Gordon aged through the course of the different animated series in the Timmverse. So by the time we get to BATMAN BEYOND she's a mature woman.

And wouldn't the most recent version of Batgirl, from other media, be in THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE. Granted, I saw that movie in Portuguese, so it might have come across differently to me than it was in English (never got around to seeing that version yet), but she seemed like a mature woman in that movie.

"Recent" and "iconic" are two different things, and a "mature" version of the character in Batman Beyond wouldn't make her "mature" (chronological-age-wise) in current, present-day in-continuity stories.