Preferred identity for Betty / Bette Kane?

[Oberon]

Yes, and I'm also aware there was some series just prior to Nu52 Batwoman, I think, that had a male/female couple and I think they were in our world, not Kandor.

My ultimate guess is that if you have a NightWing and Flamebird on the table, they seem to be a couple, but editorial doesn't want Dick with Bette, for whatever reasons.

Despite the idea of the triangle that many comics stories employ, they won't bring her back to her rightful place.

So, maybe they should make Barbara Flamebird


and let Betty go back to being THE ORIGINAL BAT-GIRL

because she was, and I won't ever let them forget it.

[Restingvoice]

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)

New 52 onwards only the legend is mentioned

[OBrianTallent]

Yes, and I'm also aware there was some series just prior to Nu52 Batwoman, I think, that had a male/female couple and I think they were in our world, not Kandor.

My ultimate guess is that if you have a NightWing and Flamebird on the table, they seem to be a couple, but editorial doesn't want Dick with Bette, for whatever reasons.

Despite the idea of the triangle that many comics stories employ, they won't bring her back to her rightful place.

So, maybe they should make Barbara Flamebird


and let Betty go back to being THE ORIGINAL BAT-GIRL

because she was, and I won't ever let them forget it.

While the idea of Barbara picking up Flamebird is a fun and interesting idea, the thought that Nightwing and Flamebird has to be a couple is ridiculous. As is the thought that DC would ever put Bette back to being Bat-girl. They already have three even if two are unofficially named.
I think it would be far more interesting to have Bette be Flamebird and decide she's NOT interested in Grayson. Everyone loves Dick Grayson...why doesn't Bette Kane? Writers write Bette as wanting to be a super-hero to garner someone else's attention, to prove to others that she is good enough. That was one of the things I like about Raab's Beast Boy series, he wrote Bette being her own woman.
Bette does well as Flamebird. She's flashy and bright and fun and exciting. She's an Olympic tennis champion (or at least was, does that still stand now?) She sets her sight on something she gets what she wants. I want to see someone write that Bette Kane, Flamebird.

[Oberon]

Well of course I wasn't serious.
But you bring up a point that we've tossed around in this or Bette related boards for several years now:
that even as Flamebird, they should not push the romantic angle, but rather the partners as crimefighters.
I didn't see, firsthand the earlier Beast Boy adventures, but understand her role there.

I liked her role in the first Batwoman volume in nu 52, without the denial of her previous exploits.
There was much better use of her, Jacob and other cast members in the first run, before the creative team left. That is when Bette returned as HawkFire and it was too contrived for me.
In many ways Batwoman herself has suffered from some (not all) of the various other writers who've handled her since her initial days.

It would have been something to see where they might have gone with all those plot threads.

[MajorHoy]

. . . I liked her role in the first Batwoman volume in nu 52, without the denial of her previous exploits.

Depends on which version you read as to how much "denial" there was or not.

In the printed single issues, I think it was issue #2 where Bette complains to Kate about how Kate was dismissing Bette's previous experiences by Bette telling Kate she (Bette) had been a Teen Titan.

But around that time, it was decided that in the New52 there had never-ever been any previous versions of the Teen Titans prior to the team introduced in the New52, so that line was altered for the tpb collection so that there was now no mention of Bette's previous membership. (Don't know if digital copies were also changed to reflect that, and Batwoman wasn't the only series that had to have a Teen Titans reference scrubbed for the collected version.)

[TheRay]

There’s no reason not to use her as Batgirl.

[Oberon]

Sure. And DC changes their continuity and timeline so often, why should she be beholden to it, is what I say.
I understand that due to some recent series, Dark Metal? - that "everything is in continuity or canon",
while we've yet to see any connective tissue, this should mean that all of Bette's history and more or less relationships to Waynes, Kanes, etc are more or less true in some form: she came to visit Aunt Kathy, figured out who she was, decided she could too.
Had some adventures, left for a while/whiles
but eventually re invented herself as Flamebird.
It's really not hard or awkward to see it so.
Around that very time of the New52 were also a couple of interesting issues of Batman, INC that had Batwoman Kate in it, also some flashback of the old Batwoman, and some fascinating retcons of Silver Age stories, but also showing an obvious Betty/Bette as Bat-girl. So, to me, nothing is really definitive and DC mostly caused this.
Embrace the Flame!

[MajorHoy]

. . . Embrace the Flame!

DC doesn't seem to, and I'd prefer that Bette would develop a whole new identity since I don't buy into her being "Flamebird" and "Hawkfire" ain't all that great, either, as far as I'm concerned.

[Oberon]

Have you ever really elaborated on what she should be? Do you care that much? I assume yes, to some degree, since I always see you on these forums about her.
So what would you have her be? And how? Does she evolve from the vapid-sort of portrayal from early post-COIE?
That earliest stint of Bette showed her to be rather Robin-crazy, sort of an exaggerated (dare I say '80s version) of her youthful persona as Bat-girl.

But you see them as being different or not the same character.

[MajorHoy]

Have you ever really elaborated on what she should be? Do you care that much? I assume yes, to some degree, since I always see you on these forums about her.
So what would you have her be? And how? Does she evolve from the vapid-sort of portrayal from early post-COIE?
That earliest stint of Bette showed her to be rather Robin-crazy, sort of an exaggerated (dare I say '80s version) of her youthful persona as Bat-girl.

But you see them as being different or not the same character.

In the 1970s, I read reprints (in b&w) of some of Betty's/later Bette's early 1960s appearances, and I also read the 1970s stories where she was still Bat-Girl in both Teen Titans and an appearance in Batman Family. I liked her and I liked the Kathy Kane version of Batwoman.

But then first they killed off Kathy Kane, and later they tried to write Kathy out of continuity.
I really haven't read much of Bette as Flamebird until she turned up in the New52. Wasn't thrilled with how she was treated there.

[Oberon]

To some degree, we're on equal footing.
I was vaguely aware of her early '60s stories. I seem to remember seeing her, the others in color. But later I saw b/w reprints and her stint in the TT before they upgraded (middle/end of '70s).
I've always had some affection for these two characters myself, both Kathy the original Batwoman and Betty. I don't remember her death story originally but came across it later.
Years later I saw this panel from Kingdom, '99, where Batman sees a "ghost" of Kathy Kane, and recalled her all over again.

I was okay liking Kate as her own character her own Batwoman, as long as it acknowledges Kathy. This seemed to happen eventually, but it seems

after being reintroduced, sorta, in the "Cutter" storyline (Detective?), they wanted to admit some of Betty/e's continuity (costume, vague references) but not all.
Maybe they thought it would be too complicated and would draw in Kathy who they didn't want to deal with/yet.

[MajorHoy]

NOTE: Thread / poll was created in April of 2021.

With 59 people having voted,

* Flamebird = 45 votes
* Hawkfire = 4 votes
* "I don't care what they call her" = 4 votes
* Bat-Girl = 3 votes
* "DC needs to come up with a new identity for her" = 3 votes

[TheRay]

She has saved Batman, Nightwing, and Batwoman before, so she's my Batgirl.

[Oberon]

Another thought is while they don't want her to be Flamebird, they don't want her to be a Bat-girl either.
If she comes back at all we might have to have her be HawkFire, which is so lame.

[TheRay]

I think Hawkfire works better for Thara.