Barbara Gordon: Batgirl, Oracle Appreciation 2020

[Rac7d*]

Burnside was bigger then it gets credit for around here.

Suprised it wasn’t adapted into a cartoon yet

[Jackalope89]

Suprised it wasn’t adapted into a cartoon yet

No kidding. Seeing Babs play pingpong with Penguin was rather surreal.

[Factor]

At this point, they should just launch a Batgirls book with Babs as the lead alogside Steph and Cass.
They could all keep their unique identities (Oracle, Spoiler, Black Bat) while going by Batgirls as a team.

[atomicbattery]

Oracle's not coming back until the old farts who view Barbara Batgirl as their fantasy girlfriend similar to Jean Girl are out of the way.

I love this- all we have to do is kill all the Boomers, then we can put Barbara back in her chair and send her to her room, where she belongs.

For the past several years, Warner has had a merchandising initiative called the DC Super Hero Girls which has been enormously profitable. A chunk of Generation Z, and now Generation Alpha, knows Batgirl as Barbara Gordon. So it might not just be the ‘old farts’, but a lot of little girls who need to ‘get out of the way’.

What an amusing little echo chamber this place can be

[kjn]

I love this- all we have to do is kill all the Boomers, then we can put Barbara back in her chair and send her to her room, where she belongs.

For the past several years, Warner has had a merchandising initiative called the DC Super Hero Girls which has been enormously profitable. A chunk of Generation Z, and now Generation Alpha, knows Batgirl as Barbara Gordon. So it might not just be the ‘old farts’, but a lot of little girls who need to ‘get out of the way’.

What an amusing little echo chamber this place can be

The same was true during the the Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey eras. Babs as Batgirl was still around in Batman: TAS and its spinoffs. Just as Oracle is still around in the upcoming The Oracle Code.

I also know that reverting Babs to Oracle again wouldn't be easy, and might not be the right choice from a long-term narrative perspective. But currently Babs is stuck in a creative dead end, where the only story that matters and which is constantly returned to is TKJ.

For all I know the "right" decision might be to borrow from "JLA: Created Equal" and make her a Green Lantern.

[Digifiend]

She can be Oracle without being put back in the wheelchair. She basically played both roles in the Rebirth Birds of Prey series.

Honestly, the best solution would be to just make Batgirl a shared mantle, with both Babs and Cassandra Cain (who becomes Batgirl in one of the other graphic novels) active in the role. Cass is in dire need of a new codename. New 52 called her Orphan because she was one, but her old history was restored when Shiva got aged back up, meaning her name no longer makes sense. She needs to revert back to one of her others, Batgirl or Black Bat. I know fans might like it if Steph was Batgirl again too, but unlike Cass her current identity - and her original one - Spoiler, is viable long term.

Perhaps Babs should carry a portable computer with her as Batgirl so she can continue to relay information as Oracle while out in the field. Maybe in the form of a voice activated system in her cowl?

[kjn]

The role of Oracle is one thing, but that's really independent on if Babs uses a wheelchair or not.

But the wheelchair I think has proven to play a valuable meta-narrative role. Not in the sense of visible representation (though that's also valuable), but in that the wheelchair was used to externalise the trauma from TKJ. It was a symbol that both showed what had happened to her, and that she had moved past that experience.

Mairghread Scott understood that perfectly:

Batgirl (2016-) 027-011.jpg

Without the wheelchair, Babsgirl was either de-aged and infantilised and robbed of her experience (Burnside) or writers felt compelled to continually revisit the TKJ trauma with Babs in the role of a victim rather than a survivor.

[Aahz]

Honestly, the best solution would be to just make Batgirl a shared mantle, with both Babs and Cassandra Cain (who becomes Batgirl in one of the other graphic novels) active in the role. Cass is in dire need of a new codename. New 52 called her Orphan because she was one, but her old history was restored when Shiva got aged back up, meaning her name no longer makes sense. She needs to revert back to one of her others, Batgirl or Black Bat. I know fans might like it if Steph was Batgirl again too, but unlike Cass her current identity - and her original one - Spoiler, is viable long term.

So similar to the Futures End Tie in?

[Artemisfanboy]

BoP is Harley’s team now. Oracle will need a new venue now.

I think it is. BoP is going to live and die on the Harley sword for good while now. Movie with a hot blonde in short shorts trumps history.

I hope not. I'm really not fond of Harley being a good standing member of the superhero community being invited to JL meetings or taking over the Birds of Prey as their lead character. I rather have Birds as just Dinah and Helena team up or no Birds at all if the alternative is them revolving around Harley with the other members being treated as her sidekicks from now on. I really hope the stuff Birds focusing on Harley with the Black Label mini and Azz oneshot ends up just being a phase.

And even if we end up in a situation where Harley becomes a standard expected member, the Birds should still be Babs team with her being the leader, either as Oracle or Batgirl. Harley should at best be another team mate.

[Shamrock Holmes]

So similar to the Futures End Tie in?

Works for me.

It's a little sad that Barbara's story arc in a Distopic Crapsac World is a more faithful outgrowth of what came before than the mainstream one.

[Frontier]

I think you're mistaking quantity for quality here, or perhaps better put, exposure for meaning. Sure, you can find lots of Babsgirl merchandise and secondary material, but that's also because we see an overall rise of that stuff. Don't also forget that the first Batgirl solo books were with Cass and Steph.

But when it comes to story quality? What iconic or groundbreaking stories have been told about Babsgirl since her return? Has anyone managed to say anything new about her? Or will TKJ references and callbacks be all we get?

Attachment 92445.

I thought this costume was a onesie.

Burnside was bigger then it gets credit for around here.

I don't think that success lasted once Babs Tarr left. The only thing that stuck around is the costume, and with that gone now I see media adaptions phasing it out.

I hope not. I'm really not fond of Harley being a good standing member of the superhero community being invited to JL meetings or taking over the Birds of Prey as their lead character. I rather have Birds as just Dinah and Helena team up or no Birds at all if the alternative is them revolving around Harley with the other members being treated as her sidekicks from now on. I really hope the stuff Birds focusing on Harley with the Black Label mini and Azz oneshot ends up just being a phase.

And even if we end up in a situation where Harley becomes a standard expected member, the Birds should still be Babs team with her being the leader, either as Oracle or Batgirl. Harley should at best be another team mate.

Yeah, beyond the movie I don't think sticking Harley with the Birds is good for the franchise's longevity.

[Godlike13]

I don't think that success lasted once Babs Tarr left. The only thing that stuck around is the costume, and with that gone now I see media adaptions phasing it out.

They failed to properly follow it up, but non the less if you looking for a modern Batgirl story people will talk about, or was trying to say something new. Burnside is that story. DC was so happy with the reaction it was getting it inspired them to do DC You. The Burnside run is one of the most talked about runs any Batgirl has had.

[millernumber1]

They failed to properly follow it up, but non the less if you looking for a modern Batgirl story people will talk about, or was trying to say something new. Burnside is that story. DC was so happy with the reaction it was getting it inspired them to do DC You. The Burnside run is one of the most talked about runs any Batgirl has had.

Yes...but DCYou (much as I personally liked a lot of the stuff DC tried during that era) is not something that most remember fondly, and sales tanked hard pretty much across the board, except for Batman and a couple of others. I think DC went too hard after a demographic with the wrong product, and learned from that and is pouring that into the OGN market.

And I hope The Oracle Code is at least as good as Black Canary Ignite and Shadow of the Batgirl, so Oracle fans can get more great stories of Babs as Oracle!

[Godlike13]

DCYou was an attempt to try build off runs like Burnside and Grayson. DCYou flopped, but that doesn't mean those runs that inspired it were bad.

[Frontier]

I think Burnside is probably the most memorable thing DC has done with the title, at least as a revamp, in recent memory although I feel like it represents a lot of the issues that have become systemic with the title since then.