Barbara Gordon: Batgirl, or Oracle?

[Aahz]

Barbara was in her early 20s when she started her career originally in the comics. (She had a college degree at that point.)

In the original version she had a PhD. Post crisis she had two master degrees.

Personally i always saw the idea of Dick and Barbara as being in their early 30's as quite problematic since Bruce never seemed to age past his mid-30's. Pre-Flashpoint had aged up the original Batgirl and Robin to a point where they were now borderline surpassing Batman's age, when they were originally a good 10 to 15 years younger than Batman in the beginning of their careers. I mean think about that.

Dick was actually still in his late 20s pre flashpoint (around 27). With Barbara it was really hard to say how old she was, directly pre flashpoint they wrote her as if she was the same age as Dick, even if she had been older before. With Bruce in his late 30s everything would have still been logical.

That Babs would only be around that age near the end of Bruce's career as Batman and that she would be a mature woman and... and... marrying a 19 year-old Tim Drake?!?!?!

I'm not sure if the age difference was really that big. In the Tie In comics Tim allready worked as a teacher, it's possible that he was allready in his 20s. But I'm anyway not sure how consistent the time line of these games is.

[Carabas]

I lost my original draft of this, which was longer and better worded, but here goes...

If you hit "reply", there is the option to restore auro-saved text that you lost.

[Aahz]

I'm not sure if the age difference was really that big. In the Tie In comics Tim allready worked as a teacher, it's possible that he was allready in his 20s. But I'm anyway not sure how consistent the time line of these games is.

Also in the "Batgirl Begins" tie in comics Barbara is allready shown reading tweets from Tim, so he can't be as young as in the original comics. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a Arkhamverse version of Dicks and Tims origins ...

[Babs]

As much as I like the idea of Oracle for Barbara, I don't like what it did to the characters that she interacted with. Oracle googling everything for Batman, hacking whatever needed to be hacked, etc. really took away the from the detective aspect of Batman, or anyone else that she was helping.

That's true. On one hand, Barbara's powers as Oracle are great, on the other hand there's this. That to some extend, specially in the Arkham games, Batman is very dependent on Oracle. Almost to the point where you have to wonder how the boys all managed to get from 1939 to 1989 without her.
That's why i liked Oracle as the mentor of Stephanie Brown's Batgirl. That way, Oracle has a focused purpose. She's a mentor, not a tool Batman relies on.

Also in the "Batgirl Begins" tie in comics Barbara is allready shown reading tweets from Tim, so he can't be as young as in the original comics. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a Arkhamverse version of Dicks and Tims origins ...

Yuck. Ew. Bleh. That's words that come to mind when i think about the Babs/Tim romance in the Arkhamverse. It's almost as weird and creepy as the Babs/Bruce romance from the DCAU.

[Sardorim]

How about...

Bat-Oracle?

[Carabas]

That's true. On one hand, Barbara's powers as Oracle are great, on the other hand there's this. That to some extend, specially in the Arkham games, Batman is very dependent on Oracle. Almost to the point where you have to wonder how the boys all managed to get from 1939 to 1989 without her.

I recall that he had this huge computer in the batcave that did 90% of his detecting for him. Which generally didn't involve Batman being any more of a detective, just a slower one because he had to revisit the Cave more often.
Batman writers have always been lazy that way.

[Agent Z]

It's not even like most of the crimes that take place in Gotham require that much detective work.

"Hmm. Mrs. Branston was found frozen solid, her jewelry stolen and the only clue to who the identity of the perpetrator is a massive hole in the wall shaped like a man dome-helmeted suit. Most curious."

[Confuzzled]

It's not even like most of the crimes that take place in Gotham require that much detective work.

"Hmm. Mrs. Branston was found frozen solid, her jewelry stolen and the only clue to who the identity of the perpetrator is a massive hole in the wall shaped like a man dome-helmeted suit. Most curious."

What if it's someone setting up Freeze though?

[dominus]

Okay, just finished reading the New 52 run of Batgirl. Calling Batgirl of Burnside "Bat-Steph" is insulting. Steph *never* acted like Batgirl did... except for her appearances as Spoiler in Burnside. (Her appearances in Eternal and Catwoman were completely different.)

Burnside was ridiculously bad. When she was in Gotham it was a decent comic. Then they decided they wanted a trendy cartoon for the comic book. Might have made them a bit more money with a younger audience, but that could have been done with a spinoff that wouldn't be forced into current storylines/canon.

[MajorHoy]

NOTE: This thread was originally started in April of 2016.
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With 125 people having previously voted,

* Oracle = 80 votes
* Batgirl = 45 votes

[Rac7d*]

How about...

Bat-Oracle?

Which is what future state has given us she can have it

[MajorHoy]

REMINDER: This thread was originally started in April of 2016.
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With 130 people having now voted,

* Oracle = 84 votes
* Batgirl = 46 votes

Also, it turns out another thread / poll was started on this topic earlier this year (January 2021):

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...cle-or-Batgirl

The results of that poll, with 69 people having voted, are:

* Oracle = 36 votes
* Batgirl = 17 votes
* She can keep both = 11 votes
* Depends = 4 votes
* It doesn't matter = 1 vote

And in 2018, yet another thread about this topic was begun:

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...l-or-as-Oracle

but there was no poll included for that thread.

[Vakanai]

Batgirl. Batgirl is a kickass superhero.
Oracle just feels like a better Amazon's Alexa.

[Dataweaver]

Now I want one of Diana's sisters to be named “Alexa”.

[MajorHoy]

REMINDER: This thread was originally started in April of 2016.
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With 137 people having now voted,

* Oracle = 86 votes
* Batgirl = 51 votes