We see in the second image that she's in her Batgirl costume too, which I think people have overlooked/not noticed.
qmpG7f.jpg
We see in the second image that she's in her Batgirl costume too, which I think people have overlooked/not noticed.
qmpG7f.jpg
Recovery is also empowering.
I think it's more dubious to have a team where 2 of the male characters have been paralysed and got better while the female who was paralysed in an encounter where she was not just sexually degraded but the attack was to get back at a man has to be the one who has to live with the after effects.
That is a very negative double standard. The Batfamily are all very adept at tech they don't need someone at a desk feeding them info. They managed without it for years they can do without it going forward.
One of the things I wish had been left out with the 52 reboot was the shooting. Pre-52, Ostrander/Yale, Dixon, Simone and certainly others but predominantly those four, took a character No one gave very much thought to and turned her into an icon really. The way she became Oracle, the shooting was a footnote for it.
With the reboot, the identity of Oracle has been relegated to a footnote with the way she became Oracle being more of the identity for her.
Of course that's part of the heroic trope...how many times have we gone back to the Wayne shooting? However, it really needs to be left behind for her character. It would be excellent if they could rebrand babs as Oracle but also as an active character without returning her to that previous status, but i don't see the editorial pool at DC being that creative.
This works before she became Batgirl again, now though if she goes back to Oracle cause she can’t walk again Oracle turns into her back up plan. The identity she chooses because she can’t walk anymore.
Babs destroyed her implant in her last issue. So going by her tie in that’s where the Babs being reinjured comes from.
Last edited by Godlike13; 07-25-2020 at 11:33 PM.
So, I'll be honest, I think that getting Babs out of the chair by way of reboot was a mistake. I loved the idea of a character who continued to be a superhero despite their injury and I think that it could've been interesting to see Babs going back to Batgirl or maybe becoming Batwoman in a way that maintained the wheelchair as a part of her secret identity, but she regained her ability to walk nine years ago and I think the ship has passed on crippling her again. I think DC agrees, otherwise they would've done it by now.
Now... That said... Oracle is Babs' own identity, it's something that was given to her by herself and something that was never really successfully transferred to someone else. I'd love to see her revisiting it even if it's while she's operating as Batgirl, and I don't think that there would be a reason that she wouldn't or couldn't do so. It's honestly been weird to me that even as Oracle as an identity and a trait of Babs being introduced that aspect has been foreign.
Either way I'm looking forward to Batman 100, especially as a fan of Steph but to also see what the new status quo is going to be for Cassandra and Barbara.
I'd really like to see them play around with the idea that was introduced in the Birds of Prey show where Babs is still in the chair but uses an exoskeleton to do the superhero thing. That would be a really interesting take, to me.
"We come into this world alone and we leave the same way. The time we spent in between - time spent alive, sharing, learning together... is all that makes life worth living." - Jean Grey
There is a flip side to that. Far too often, superhero comics wave a magic reset wand where the character is magically restored. In a way, it is the opposite of recovery. A true recovery is predicated that there are consequences to an action.
Also, earlier in the thread it was brought up that TKJ is an alternate universe story, but I believe that's a false take. Alan Moore might have thought of it and written it that way, but for DC TKJ was most assuredly in their main continuity from the beginning. Brian Cronin has written an in-depth look at how DC handled Babs post-TKJ and pre-Oracle. There is also the case that Barbara Randall was commissioned to write "The Last Batgirl Story" before TKJ was published.
«Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvellous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out» (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History [4.56.1])
Sure, but Batgirl as a woman has to be the one who never gets to recover? She has no agency over her own body, she's brutalized and crippled so that male characters can have their moment- and that's it.
Batman was broken and got better, why can't Batgirl? It's inherently misogynistic. Hell, Dick Grayson got shot in the head recently and he's fine. Only Batgirl has to have her narrative be forever indebted to a dated story that even the writer himself doesn't care for.
Is it a knock against Clark Kent's character to say that he *is* Superman? Babs is Batgirl, that's her identity and it was torn away from her for years, so that she could be a constant reminder to Batman about his failures. I don't like the implication that a female character cannot have ownership over her identity, or that she's a lesser character because she is who she is.
"Something heinous and external happens to a woman and she has to become empowering" is also a misogynistic trope. It paints a negative portrait that she couldn't have had growth without having been broken. She should be able to decide her own narrative.
Oracle could have been anybody and would have the same character, the only time Babs really comes into play as an important piece of Oracle is when she's painted tragically.
Burnside was hugely popular. If you search Batgirl merch on any website or stuff for kids with Batgirl- it's all very sparkly '66 mixed with Burnside Batgirl. Very pop art, in the way Harley Quinn is also depicted.
Those are the character's 2 most pivotal incarnations.
Last edited by Flash Gordon; 07-26-2020 at 07:01 AM.
I guess that begs the question of whether Babs post-Oracle would've wanted to be Batgirl again if she got her legs back. I mean, that's what happened, but at the time in Post-Crisis I'm not sure if that would have been the case.
Well, she recovered in the sense that she transformed herself and became something else rather than wallow in the pain and the manpain that spurred what happened. That was what John Ostrander and Kim Yale were going for. I don't think that's any less of value than Batman building himself back up after Bane broke him.
Dick got shot in the head and turned into "Rick," he was pretty far from fine.
No, but saying he doesn't have much going for him as a character without Superman would be in my opinion.
Is Jason reinventing himself as Red Hood just a constant reminder of Batman's failures? I think reinventing herself shows plenty of ownership of her identity and that doesn't make her any less of a character for it. Just reducing Oracle down to representing the Killing Joke is a disservice to the character in my opinion.
It doesn't mean she couldn't have had growth without having been broken, but that she isn't defined by the tragedy that happened to her. Is that not empowering in-spite of the circumstances it came about in? It's all about her deciding her own narrative and not letting others define it for her."Something heinous and external happens to a woman and she has to become empowering" is also a misogynistic trope. It paints a negative portrait that she couldn't have had growth without having been broken. She should be able to decide her own narrative.
Oracle could have been anybody and would have the same character, the only time Babs really comes into play as an important piece of Oracle is when she's painted tragically.
I think it massively misses the point of Oracle and the stories told with her to say that it could have been anybody. Oracle was defined by Barbara Gordon's never give up attitude, strong sense of justice, intelligence, and her relationships with the Batfamily.
I think that implies more of an emphasis on visuals than actual, meaningful, storytelling in my opinion. And I don't think that makes much sense in the main continuity. I think DCAU and Bronze Age Batgirl are equally relevant.Burnside was hugely popular. If you search Batgirl merch on any website or stuff for kids with Batgirl- it's all very sparkly '66 mixed with Burnside Batgirl. Very pop art, in the way Harley Quinn is also depicted.
Those are the character's 2 most pivotal incarnations.
The very last thing I'd want to compare Batgirl to is Quinn.
Totally agree, why can the male characters heal and get better from broken backs, death, shot to the head and so much more. But Barbara has to remain crippled?
It makes no sense and she should be out fighting as Batgirl.
I don't see why she can't be Oracle in some missions and Batgirl in other missions?
Why does she have to be crippled again after finally being healed?
It took far too many years for her to be healed.
I don't think Batman fans would be happy if Bruce stayed crippled for all the years Babs did.
I HOPE DC use their brains and keep everyone happy and let Babs do both, she can be Oracle and Batgirl.
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Not sure if anybody has already encountered this, but I'm going to leave it here. Sums things up better than I could. Gives good insight into both the identities of Barbara Gordon.
http://imagetext.english.ufl.edu/archives/v7_4/cocca/
Last edited by Flash Gordon; 07-26-2020 at 10:47 AM.
Aesthetics and visuals are probably the most important part of comic books. They're a visual medium first and foremost.I think that implies more of an emphasis on visuals than actual, meaningful, storytelling in my opinion. And I don't think that makes much sense in the main continuity. I think DCAU and Bronze Age Batgirl are equally relevant.
The very last thing I'd want to compare Batgirl to is Quinn.
Bronze Age Batgirl, and the DCAU Batgirl (not counting the horribly misogyny of the Killing Joke adaptation, but like whatever let's just pretend that **** never happened) both fall into exactly what I'm talking about. They're colourful, fun, pop art Babs. Who is not 'empowered' but POWERED. She doesn't need to be empowered through victimization of women, she already is powerful.
Yvonne Craig's Batgirl in the '66 show mixed with Burnside (which really does take most of it's aesthetic from a more updated riff on that) is the character. The DCAU Batgirl of the 90s and the Bronze Age Batgirl are very similar.
I only brought up the Harley Quinn comparison because Harley is very pop art and VERY POPULAR, not because I'm a fan (I'm not). Most Batgirl merch and fan art I see is in the vein of that. So judging by that and the success of Burnside, that's what people want.
The Sherlock Holmes angle is just my own flair. I love Babs' smarts and deductive skills. She remembers things similar to how Sherlock Holmes puts puzzles together in his brain. She's idiosyncratic and bloody brilliant.
Last edited by Flash Gordon; 07-26-2020 at 10:41 AM.
100%! Unfortunately the whole concept of 'empowered' is problematic because it divorces inherent power from a female character.
She can and should be able to do both! In 2020, leaning closer to 2021- the role of "info broker" is really a super duper part time gig. It's something Babs can do while she has her morning cup of coffee and surfs articles online, ya know? She can be Oracle and really just get all that stuff done before 8am when it's time to go to work/go kick ass as Batgirl.
Last edited by Flash Gordon; 07-26-2020 at 10:49 AM.