Barbara Gordon

O'Neil and to a lesser extent Dixon (and, fine, Grayson) made a point of not letting her become "a plot device or tool for Batman" by having her argue with Batman pretty regularly. "Bruce, no, drinking the bone hurting juice will hurt your bones."
"BUT I MUST."

She was instrumental to teaching me about the real heart of the industry. Gail Simone had gone on record saying it would be insane and immoral to turn Oracle back into Batgirl. Fast forward a few years, DC has decided to do just that... and Simone volunteered to write it. To ease the transition or whatever, but she was still earning a paycheck writing the exact shit she'd previously said would be crazy and wrong to do. That's what the industry does. The suits in charge try to figure out what will make them the most money, and order writers to jump through the hoops regardless of what the writers think are good or even moral stories.

It's not the only thing to make me drop DC and Marvel in favor of just supporting indy books, but man was it a stark example of the big publishers just utterly breaking a writer.

Reminds me of JMS's dealings with Quesada over Sins Past and OMD. Funny how the writers always do their best work IN SPITE of directives.

I prefer Oracle at the end of the day, but I do wish people were more exposed to this kind of Babsgirl instead of the Burnside/DCSHG shit DC is dead set on pushing. Her personality didn't change overnight when she became Oracle, it changed overnight when they decided to make her a bootleg Stephanie.

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Truth be told she never was a reboot Stephanie Brown during the burnside stint to the point it's almost the inverse.

Pure sex.

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When I say bootleg I mean shameless imitation, not accurate recreation. People who say Burnside Babs is “literally Stephanie” are... kind of insulting Stephanie. It’s really the levity in the books’ tones that draws the comparison more than anything, which Babs’ characterization changes to accommodate.

Man, Babs was adorable back then. She's no slouch now, but still. Damn.

I think something that is overlooked when talking about the Burnside era is that it was coming off the heels of Simone's dour and downbeat run, and was an intentional tonal departure for the book. Even within the story it's Babs purposefully trying to have an upbeat and fun-filled life after dealing with all the prior shit. Whether or not you though it worked or fit the character, it's an intentional shift both in and out of universe.

Detective comics who feel like detective comics but also that teenager feeling, what a good nostalgia

Pre-Crisis Babs was somewhere between her late 20s and mid 30s.

I don't think Burnside was trying to imitate BQM Batgirl really. The tone is wildly different where Bryan Miller had more of a self-aware Buffy quality where Steph was a snarker while Burnside is more influenced by Tarr's artwork that really verges on girly shoujo atmosphere.
As for Bab's characterization I'm sure if you approaching from an Oracle lenses it's a betrayal but I see it more of a divergence of a Babs who never retired from being Batgirl before being shot.

Should have had a kid with batman

I was NEVER a fan of the such wide open eyeholes and it looks dumb as well as being somewhat impractical

It's supposed to allow for ease of expressiveness. She can't do the Dreamworks face if you can't see her eyebrows.

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Her cuteness is one thing time will never change.

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This whole run and it's stealth deaging of Barbara was weird. The costume is a fine costume for a 16 year old girl, but that whole run was weird.

I say this, yet expressiveness was never a problem for Cassie.

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>Has a guest
>walks out in a t-shirt and panties

Never change, Babs.

I want to fuck the shit out of her.

Do we have any solid numbers on her age? She does look and act a bit older in this run. Though she is oddly flirty with Moth. Wonder if the deaging is just to make her more hip, or to make shipping her with Dick less awkward.

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She's in graduate school.

Dicks and Babs ages had already been synced up in the post crisis timeline, it's more just the New 52's unilateral deaging of everyone and time compresion. IIRC at the beginning of the new 52 Dick was 21 and Babs was 23.

Almost there.

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I never get that argument about the costume. It's just a two-piece costume.

The deaging was a result of Nu52 compressing all of Batman's history into a five year timespan while retaining Babs as being paralyzed after becoming Batgirl. Babs is currently 23 or 24. Granted, Babs' age has always been wonky as fuck. She had a PhD when she debuted in the Silver Age, which would put her in her late 20s at the earliest, and by the time CoIE rolled around had not only had a crimefighting career, but had also retired and served a term as a Congresswoman. While simultaneously being best friends with the teenage Supergirl. Her appearances post Killing Joke in Suicide Squad had her looking downright middle-aged, but she seemed to get progressively younger over the next 20 years.

Babs has a bad habbit of opening doors with consideration about who might be behind it.

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>Her appearances post Killing Joke in Suicide Squad had her looking downright middle-aged

And how!

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