Preferred identity for Betty / Bette Kane?

[MajorHoy]

Doesn't mean it has to be. Nightwing was only used in relation to Superman/krypton prior to Dick Grayson adopting it. Bette just needs a writer to take her seriously and use her well and not as a joke or fodder for plot advancement.

But Dick has always had a direct connection with Superman, so when he took the name Nightwing it was a direct acknowledgement of that.

Bette's use of Flamebird wasn't in homage to Jimmy Olsen or Ak-Var.

[Oberon]

Aside from Bette being graduated by now... you want her abused again?

I am a true fan of Bette's, since I was a kid, very long ago.
I didn't gaslight you, so please don't gaslight me or my thoughts

Or *other things*, for that matter.

[Oberon]

I referenced a story from 20 or so years ago, where Superman told Lois that he had told both Dick and Bette the legend.
In the very early Batman family, silver age, there were stories with all of them, including Superman. There was a connection but its been trivialized or forgotten.
my conclusion is whether seen or not, it plays to the idea that Bat-girl was a member of the Bat family, before Batgirl (Barbara)

and that other Batwoman.
We need to stop denying this canon, especially because it is supposed to be all true now.
Obviously in the early Bat Family's adventures, Bette was given additional training. And continued too, whether seen or not.

[MajorHoy]

. . . In the very early Batman family, silver age, there were stories with all of them, including Superman. There was a connection but its been trivialized or forgotten.
my conclusion is whether seen or not, it plays to the idea that Bat-girl was a member of the Bat family, before Batgirl (Barbara) and that other Batwoman.
We need to stop denying this canon, especially because it is supposed to be all true now.
Obviously in the early Bat Family's adventures, Bette was given additional training. And continued too, whether seen or not.

Do you know when Betty as Bat-Girl and Superman were in the same story back during the early Silver Age?

I believe Kathy Kane's Batwoman was in stories with Superman back then, but offhand I'm not aware of Bat-Girl and Superman appearing in the same story back in the 1960s (or 1970s).

[Oberon]

You're right, I'm going from inference. However, we all know how easy it is for retcons and backstories to come into play.

None of that should negate the facts. She is an original character that should be not retconned out of her various glories. Like her fight with Deathstroke.
It seems that post Nu52, Bette has been very shrunk, for a character who never was treated this way before.
In fact her role in Nu52 was mostly to serve as an object lesson with Kate. I just don't think someone who was so capable before should be that diminished, for story reasons.

[MajorHoy]

You're right, I'm going from inference. However, we all know how easy it is for retcons and backstories to come into play.

However, I go more by when she was first re-introduced into post-CoIE comic book stories.

from Secret Origins Annual #3 (1989)


from Who's Who in the DC Universe #2 (September 1990)

And, yes, I did buy / read those when they were originally published.

You'll note there is no mention of Kathy (Batwoman) Kane since DC essentially erased her in the early post-CoIE continuity, and Bette was never "Bat-Girl" in the past at this point in time. Nothing was ever said about how she chose the name "Flamebird".

DC can come up with all the retcons they like after the fact, but they never established a reason for how Bette knew about a Kryptonian Flamebird or why she took that name in the beginning when she first started being called that.

[OBrianTallent]

However, I go more by when she was first re-introduced into post-CoIE comic book stories.

from Secret Origins Annual #3 (1989)


from Who's Who in the DC Universe #2 (September 1990)

And, yes, I did buy / read those when they were originally published.

You'll note there is no mention of Kathy (Batwoman) Kane since DC essentially erased her in the early post-CoIE continuity, and Bette was never "Bat-Girl" in the past at this point in time. Nothing was ever said about how she chose the name "Flamebird".

DC can come up with all the retcons they like after the fact, but they never established a reason for how Bette knew about a Kryptonian Flamebird or why she took that name in the beginning when she first started being called that.

She doesn't have to know about the Kryptonian diety. She was Flamebird (supposedly now) while Dick was Robin. She's flashy, she's bright and she's imaginative...maybe she just came up with it on her own. That can happen. Just because we know there's a connection, doesn't necessarily need to mean she has a connection.

[Oberon]

I've noted that before: that you believe or possibly see them as not quite the same.
But I thought that in her adventures with Beast Boy, 2000 or so?, that she did mention an Aunt Kathy.
Or that was more recently perhaps.
at some point an attempt was made to bring that in. Plus the scene where she is fighting Cass Cain and says "Bat-girl, been there, done that "

Are those the same character to you, or would you be able to expound?

I think that what was originally done to her originally was then half-heartedly attempted to unite/combine.

Essentially, yeah, DC did these things after the fact. If this new Flamebird was not created post COIE,

she may never have been at all.
But then it would be likely that Betty might return as a Bat-girl, eventually.

So it is pretty weird. In some ways, her origin is as fractured as Donna Troy's, who goes back to her days (there was a Wonder Girl in the early '60s but it was Diana, younger)

As you may remember, I read comics since the '60s. I gave up DC, after COIE because it was insulting that they killed Kara, Barry and changed so much else I just didn't want to read them.
I read Legion for a little while, but gave that up. Nope, it wasn't really until the nu52 that I noticed Bette again.

Well actually I came across Elegy and realized who she was (I was vaguely aware of Bat-girl/Flamebird)

I wanted more. I came for Kate, but I stayed for Flamebird. Well, I'm trying to stay.

As for Kryptonian connections, I'm going with that story that says Supes told Dick, and Bette about the legend

[Oberon]

I am trusting that the story where Superman told Lois about Dick/Bette and NW/FB is some sense of canon.

Stories about Betty, in the early '60s expressed that Batwoman, Batman and Robin, reluctantly accepted her, but she saved the day a couple of times, and most obviously received some training and had natural athletic ability - that could be a Wayne/Kane thing, and of course best money, trainers, etc.

But my head canon would suggest that maybe she was induced to forget her time as Bat-girl but the idea of Flamebird came back later.

Major Hoy, you're right, in a way, Bette didn't really acknowledge her Bat-girl past in the first Batwoman volume, or I don't remember.
But around that time Batman Inc sort of retconned her with Kathy the original Batwoman, in a flashback.

There really are no pure characters from their first origins. Someone said Superman didn't fly right away either.

[TheRay]

Ak Var is Flamebird.

[MajorHoy]

Ak Var is Flamebird.

Ak Var was the second to go by "Flamebird" in pre-CoIE continuity.

Was he ever mentioned again after CoIE?

[Restingvoice]

I thought she showed up in Dark Nights: Death Metal Trinity Crisis and One-Star Squadron?

I didn't know the character so if she did it wouldn't stick with me

[Oberon]

She appears in a cameo, as Robin/NW remembers the original Titans - when she appeared as her original Bat-girl.

Bette or Betty, as the first Bat-girl, was the template, to me in some respects as

Spoiler, who enjoys more popularity but is Blonde and similar to me in other ways.
I suppose there is only room for one Blonde in the dark, dark Bat Family.

[Oberon]

Well, many characters in both DC and Marvel have the same name, and tropes.

If Dick can be Nightwing, and I imagine Ak Var's partner is a "Nightwing"

than why can't Bette be Flamebird.???

[MajorHoy]

Well, many characters in both DC and Marvel have the same name, and tropes.

If Dick can be Nightwing, and I imagine Ak Var's partner is a "Nightwing"

than why can't Bette be Flamebird.???

Dick took the Nightwing name in part because of his connections with Superman.

Ak-Var (as Flamebird) was partnered with Nightwing (Van-Zee) but in the Bottle City of Kandor. Van-Zee was Superman's cousin. But Ak-Var's and Van-Zee's adventures were pre-CoIE. I don't know if they ever made it into post-CoIE continuity.


from Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe Vol. XVII (July 1986)