#barbara gordon meta
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I desperately want to know what the extent of the editorial mandate re: Babsgirl is, because the spectrum of Tom Taylor only depicting Babs as a perfectly abled Batgirl to Ram V only using her as Oracle is too much variation for me to place all blame for writers' creative choices on editorial
Like...Kelly Thompson is on Twitter insinuating that editorial is to blame for why Babs is going to be Batgirl and not Oracle in her Birds of Prey run, but there's clearly some level of writer capacity within the mandates for Babs to be depicted as visibly disabled or only used as Oracle, from her being an ambulatory wheelchair user who occasionally uses a cane in Batgirls:
pages from Batgirls (2021), by Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad
To other writers seemingly being perfectly capable of only utilizing her as Oracle for entire arcs at a time:
pages from Mariko Tamaki's 2021 Detective Comics run and Ram V's 2023 Detective Comics run
And I want to know what the mandates actually are so I can figure out how much responsibility any given writer vs. editorial bears for the ongoing ableism and sexism whenever Babs pops up in a comic
Because I can certainly believe there's some sort of editorial mandate on the wheelchair or referencing her spinal chip being faulty, but I find it EXTREMELY difficult to believe we're back in the Burnside-era anti-Oracle mandates given there are multiple writers only utilizing Babs as Oracle right now
#it's just infuriating to see 'editorial' being trotted out as an excuse when there's clearly a capacity to show her as disabled and Oracle#I just don't think there's a DESIRE to#barbara gordon#dc comics#batgirl#oracle#birds of prey#detective comics#barbara gordon meta
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Still thinking about how Morally complex Babs truly is. I mean, let's think about what she's done that other heroes (that she is commonly associated with; Core Birds and Bats) don't.
1. She attempted to snipe Black Mask. This is the crux of my reeling but it's still worth mentioning. Yes, Helena has shot at people and so does Red Hood, but I don't think they ever did so from a distance like Babs was going to.
2. She embezzles money from criminals to fund her operations. It's canon that she has stolen money from various crime lords including Blockbuster digitally. I would not be surprised if she also pinched some profits from various corporations as well. This funding is so extreme that it causes the Hunt For Oracle arc itself.
3. She was thrown in prison and shot a government agent. Thanks to someone recently posting them (I found them via a mutual follower reblogging them), she was thrown in prison after she took the bait and downloaded a file meant to catch hackers, and thrown in prison. She gets broken out and is only in 2 of 12 issues for The Hacker Files, but this is still huge.
And finally, 4. Barbara has actively worked with villains and morally grey assassins more than once. Lady Shiva, Savant, Poison Ivy and more have all worked with Barbara, and she has helped give Savant and Creote a second chance. Few of the Bats have done anything similar.
Tl;DR, Barbara is a Morally complex and fascinating character, and the fact that she basically had her soul torn out is horrific of modern DC. This is the Barbara we love and hold dear.
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Tim: So, and for what reason was I 17 years old for the last 15 years?
Damian: That's what you're complaining about? They couldn't even bother to give me a proper characterization until much later on. And then it is one that does not align with my upbringing!
Stephanie: At least you weren't killed just because of misogyny
Dick: Yeah, I wonder how anyone let that through. But then again, I shouldn't expect anything else from writers who made me stuck as Ric for two years and all the, you know, Tarantula stuff
Jason: It's honestly like they just spin a wheel every day to figure out if I'm a villain, hero or anti-hero
Duke: Forget about the writers, the fans also have some... wild assumptions
Stephanie: Yeah, like that you're the normal one!
Cass: Or that I'm mute. Just there to give emotional support
Barbara: Or that the most traumatic thing to ever happen to me is framed as something good just because I became Oracle. I barely had one page of dialogue in that entire story!
Tim: At least they get one thing right.
Dick: And that is?
Tim: Bruce.
Jason: Yeah, what is up with that?! It feels like I've become his punching bag! Why is he considered a hero again when he is just plain abusive at this point?
Duke: Patriarchy
Barbara: And male power fantasy
#meta#dc#dc comics#batman#batman comics#metafiction#tim drake#jason todd#dick grayson#damian wayne#damian al ghul#I could have talked more about other issues but if I'd do that I'd be sitting here until tomorrow#cassandra cain#stephanie brown#duke thomas#barbara gordon#robin#red robin#nightwing#dc signal#dc orphan#batgirl#dc spoiler#dc oracle#red hood#bruce wayne#batkids#batsiblings#batfam#batfamily
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Saw a post where someone wasn't sure if Tim being good at computers was a fanon thing or not and friend I am happy to inform you that he's been a computer/tech guy from some of his earliest appearances in the comics.
Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #620 (Rite of Passage part 4) - immersed in the ~web~
Robin II: The Joker's Wild #3 - tabletop roleplaying games and spending hours in the basement on the computer - not beating the geek allegations on these fronts, Timmy
Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #676 - Dick was more into traditional detective work and tended to outsource the computer stuff in these days
Batman (Vol. 1) #514 (Prodigal part 10) - hackin' through all the garbage and garble
Robin (1993) #33 - Robin sneaking in and connecting Oracle with the baddies' mainframe so she can do her thing and steal all their data >:)
Nightwing (1996) #6 - "no you're really talented and well suited to be Robin." "no, you." "no, YOU!"
Tim is definitely not as good as Babs/Oracle, but he's certainly her back-up for computer work in the 90's batfam. They're tech buddies and Robin!Tim is her little assistant sometimes, it's super cute:
Birds of Prey (1999) #19 - happy to play with big sister's fancy high-powered toys
Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) #125 - real cute kid
And Dick will hand off computer jobs to his little brother when he doesn't want to bother Babs 😂 (that outsourcing I mentioned):
Nightwing (1996) #68 - examine them pixel by pixel, eh? welp, sounds like a job only you can do, Timbo, you got this buddy, byyyyeeeee
And then when he'd grown up and been doing this for years, he leveled up accordingly, and did stuff like use his access to the League of Assassins computers to overload the generators in every base he could find, etc. etc.
Red Robin (2009) #8 - yeah that was pretty dumb of you Ra's :)
So yeah, it was a bit of a specialty of Tim's, in large part because he was introduced just at the turn into the 90's, when personal computers were really starting to take off and become widespread. (Robins gotta be cutting edge and all)
Of course, by no means does it follow that the other Bats suck at computers (there is no 'smart one' they are all incredibly smart and capable). This is especially true as reboots and the sliding timescale of comics have moved the DC characters into modern times, where computers run the world and everyone grows up with one in their pocket. The baseline familiarity and expertise that everyone can be expected to have is just much, much higher these days.
It gets exaggerated in fanon as all character traits do, but computer guy Tim is definitely not something just made up out of whole cloth :)b
#Tim Drake#Robin#DC Comics#batfam#Dick Grayson#Nightwing#Barbara Gordon#Oracle#Alfred Pennyworth#Batman#Dick and Tim#Babs and Tim#DC Comics panels#fanon vs. canon#Cam posts#Cam reads comics#DC meta#meta#not a fully extensive list by any means - just the stuff that I could find from my notes and general rummaging#Also: there are some fantastic additions to this in the comments so check out the notes!
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Fictober23 Prompt: 13 - "Come with me, hurry."
Fandom: DPxDC
Rating: T
Warnings: -
Duke didn't know what was happening anymore right now. All he knew was that it had started with simply wanting to help someone. Or rather even sooner, with having been forcefully paired up with the new transfer student that everyone for some reason avoided.
The new transfer student, Danny Nightingale, had joined his class around mid semester, he wore a lot of apparently customized -as he later learned- ghost themed accessories. Somehow he got away with it without constantly getting sent to the principal for violating school uniform guidelines. Partially Duke believes that the teachers just gave up after the first week.
Aside from that the first time Duke had even seen the guy, for a short moment he thought that he had looked directly into the sun but then a second later his vision was back to normal like nothing happened but the transfer was staring at him with an eyebrow raised. They had stared at each other for a long time and Duke was sure that right then and there they both had noticed each other's possible Meta status.
But nothing strange had happened after that for a little while, well major really. Minor things kept happing and Duke was convinced that the guy had to be a Meta. The strange little incidence of things going missing but reappearing the next day, utilize or tool appear in the others hand like out of nowhere, the guy suddenly leaving class without explanation, well sometimes at least asking to get excused but still leaving even if their teacher said no or the bouts of green light Duke occasionally caught around the guy.
This transfer student had to be a Meta. Duke had no problem with it, in fact he was kind of happy to find that one of his classmates was a Meta. He just didn't know how to bring it up to him. Considering that most Metas in Gotham lived in hiding and fear, he knew he couldn't just go, walk up to the guy and bluntly ask if he was a fellow Meta.
So after a little discussion with his siblings, Duke decided he would just keep an eye out for his classmate. Trying to complete the friendship route first before and hoping that this way Danny would open up to him. So for now he was making sure the other stayed safe and all that, Duke had even asked his siblings if he should tell Bruce about his Meta classmate just in case but they had told him that as long as nothing major happens to the kid it should be enough for them to keep an eye out.
The friendship route was going great in Duke opinion. Well that was until he got partnered up with him for a group project. Duke really wanted to say that working together with Danny on the project was making it so much easier to connect with the other aside from just joining him during lunch break or trying to strike up a conversation before classes. But the or their group was not making it easier, in fact, Duke got the feeling they tried to actively exclude Danny if it weren't from him.
The day when they all met in the library made it even more obvious. Danny hadn't even known they were meeting up to work on it until Duke texted him asking where he was. He gave the other the best Damian Glare impression he could muster up when he found out and then a Jason death glare impression when they found excuses to leave once he called Danny over when he saw him walking through the library doors.
"Duke, it's fine real. I always have been one of the odd ones out." Duke had definitely not been fine with it when Danny had played it off, especially when he offhandedly mentioned that he got bullied before. Well at least Danny was enjoying his time with Duke, plus Danny was a genius, especially in all the science and engineering subjects. If their idiot group mates wanted to pass up on an A+ with extra credits then it was solely their fault for being judgmental.
Duke had gotten to the point that Danny had even agreed to come with him to the Manor to hang out once, all he now needed to do was clear it with Bruce and make sure that his noisy siblings weren't going to freak Danny out.
He was just about to call Bruce up to see if it was fine when the doors of the library were kicked in by people dressed completely in white carrying deceives that looked like scanners. He was just about to comment to Danny what weird people they seemed to be when he noticed Danny had pulled up the hood of his jacket over his head and for the lack of better words looked frightened.
Duke had only locked once between Danny, and these weird guys before deciding what he needed to do. He shot a quick look towards Babs who was working the library counter and looked about ready to have them kicked out. Duke signaled her, while also shooting off a message into the group chat with the others.
"Danny." His newly made friend had his back turned to the door and looked like he was trying to find an escape route. Duke frowned at the way Danny flinched when he placed a hand on the other's shoulder. Whoever these guys were, Danny was afraid of them or had some sort of trauma and Duke would bet his entire comic collection on the fact that it has something to do with Danny being a Meta. "It's okay, trust me. They won't get you."
"What?" Glowing green eyes peeked at him from under Danny's hood, he clearly remembers them to be blue.
"They won't get you. I promise." Duke repeated, ignoring the color change for now. By now Barbara was trying to get these people out of her library but these people continued to yell something about ecto-entities and those some papers at her. They were advancing into the building and Duke could see that Danny's flight reflex was going to break out soon.
Duke made a brief eye contact with Barbara. She nodded.
"Come with me, hurry." Was the only warning he gave Danny before he grabbed the other's hand and dragged him to the back of the building, towards the hidden doors.
"What are you doing?!" Danny sounded so confused and Duke looked over his shoulder hoping he was giving the other a reassuring smile.
"Helping you!"
"But I am not-"
"These guys are after you right? Let's get away from them first and then talk!" Duke cut him off pushing Danny through a hidden way into an underground path.
"You don't even know me and-"
"I don't need to know you, to see when someone needs help."
He could see that Danny clearly wanted to say something, there was still fear in these still glowing green eyes and Duke wondered once more what these people must have done to Danny for the other Meta to be scared like this. Danny needed to know that they wouldn't get to him as long as Duke and his family were around. He was going to be protected and be able to live normally without fear of these people showing up to hunt him for his powers.
"Meta's gotta stick together. Don't worry I will make sure you're safe!" This wasn't how he had hoped to open up this topic with Danny. He had wanted Danny to bring it up naturally once they had gotten to be really good friends. So that Duke could let him know he wasn't alone.
#fictober23#danny fenton#danny phantom#dp x dc#dpxdc#crossover#dcxdp#duke thomas#barbara gordon#duke believes Danny is a Meta#He is determined to make sure Danny is safe#Metas gotta stick together#The Guys in White will have one hell of a time trying to get to Danny#They definitely won't get to him on Signals watch
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if every DC writer could read DC first: batgirl/joker that’d be great
even in just the last few pages it really nails their dynamic and the meaning of the batgirl mantle. Cass more than anything has a deep seated need to prove herself. shes competitive and babs knows this
THESE PANELS RIGHT HERE!! THIS WAS THE WHOLE POINT!!
“you’re going to make people forget me and thats okay” GOD I WISH
more than anything the batgirl mantle is about needing to prove yourself be it to the men in your life (babs), to the readers (cass), or to the writers (steph)
this is why babsgirl doesn’t really work anymore. babs has proved she’s capable as oracle she doesn’t need the batgirl mantle anymore. batgirl was the first name cass was given and it was someone else’s—thats not inherently a bad thing. it gives her a reason to keep fighting and it suits her natural need of competition.
anyways if you aren’t gonna read Batgirl 2000 at the very least read DC first: batgirl/joker
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Re: the last ask
Making Dick bi and working in a shout-out to Tim's sexuality as well is one of those little things that really shows how well the Gotham Knights team understood their audience. Specifically, it demonstrates a really keen understanding of the difference between writing for a Bat-family audience as opposed to a Batman audience.
You can see that in a lot of little things throughout the game, to the point that I'm really impressed. It's in the design of Gotham, both in leaning hard into the exaggerated gothic architecture (have you seen the cathedral??) and the choice to go for a "neon noir" aesthetic rather than gritty gray-and-brown ""realism""; it's in the design and utilization of the female characters, favoring showing off their personalities over making them look "sexy;" it's in the way all the writing about Bruce focuses on his kindness and nobility and portrays him as a stern but obviously loving father figure; and it's in the little details, like how Jason gets e-mails from cooking blogs, his therapist, and his favorite bookstore. Heck, it's even in the nature of the various references scattered throughout the game, like which friends are sending emails to check in on which knight, and the specific street art projects that fill out that one collection side-quest.
It's one of those things where I'm not surprised if it reviews badly because most video game reviewers fall more firmly into the Batman fandom demographic. They're more likely to favor the Arkham games, with their inspirations in the grim & gritty dark ages, and since Gotham Knights didn't try to do anything new or special with the gameplay there's not much here for them.
But for the Batfamily audience, the people who really want to be playing Nightwing and Robin and Batgirl and Red Hood? They went above and beyond in understanding what that audience (in general) favors in their stories, and it's awesome.
#meta#dc comics#gotham knights#no plot spoilers#dick grayson#tim drake#jason todd#bruce wayne#barbara gordon
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Thinking about Jim, do you think he also gets this good cop good father protection because of Barbara Gordon's admiration of him? Reading it from Barbara's perspective like all her stories have Jim Gordon as the best dad and her wanting to be a cop or as a child being the gcpd little cheerleader. Like trying to tie that with her role as Oracle but then even thinking of like The Hill where Jim shot and killed a teenager and his response to the mother was that the kid was armed like... it is hard to think that she would have that blind admiration of him. I also think she is more willing to work with morally questionable characters since she has a history of working with those types of characters. What do you think DC needs to do with Barbara Gordon to get actual interest in her again?
the solution for babs is simple — she needs to be oracle again.
no ifs whens or buts — babs being batgirl again is such a spectacular downgrade from her time as oracle it’s almost unreal. babs as a character, her growth after being shot, her rediscovery and pursuit of her own autonomy, her vindictiveness, her need for control, her relationships with the birds and wendy and cass and steph, make her an infinitely richer and more interesting character than when she wears the cowl. that’s even ignoring the ableist rhetoric behind her “reclaiming” her power by getting an implant and leaving her chair, which like, vom, because it’s a whole other can of worms.
unlike batwoman where there’s a completely different identity and mantle that’s seperate from bruce, batgirl is unequivocally the subordinate to batman. the girl denotes her lack of authority. cass and helena come the closest to shaking this off, but it’s still a very deliberate character dynamic that dc upholds. batgirl 2009 also successfully orients the mantle around babs and steph, but a large part of that is that bruce isn’t present in the story.
babs was at least two years older than dick in the original canon. she was a librarian who had a life outside of the community. she was a support for other disabled women. she’d tell bruce to shut the fuck up to his face. she was singularly the most important resource to the league and all other hero teams. she was a complicated person with a lot of trauma, not the cool girlfriend archetype. i also dislike that she’s dating dick while he’s nightwing and she’s still batgirl. imagine if they made dick robin again and had him date babs as oracle. it’d be so weird!
wrt jim gordon— a lot of babs’s unequivocal support of him comes from dc’s general inability to admit that he’s a deeply flawed human being in a position of power. the narrative rarely actually criticises him over his decisions. however, i also think people forget that like…. a lot of babs’s politics is tied up with the police. she’s essentially a one woman surveillance state, and she historically struggles with boundaries around the people she loves. she does work with people that the other bats wouldn’t — isley, waller, etc, but i don’t think that necessarily separates her from the police because often the police or armed forces do the same thing. her modus operandi is also very similar to bruce in a lot of ways too.
in saying that tho, i do appreciate that she’s willing to just say fuck it, full throttle and getting a god damned law degree to bust bruce out of a murder charge. she’s an icon. let her be cunty again!!
#im in my hating cops era (i never stop)#barbara gordon#batgirl#batfam#dc comics#jim Gordon#the ask and the answer#dc meta
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#batman#dc#titans#dick grayson#Nightwing#Robin#roy harper#wally west#donna troy#Bruce Wayne#barbara gordon#i’m genuinely curious#I’m hoping to get metas and things to add to my reading list#polls#dc polls#dc poll
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When does Barbara discover Tim’s identity? She definitely doesn’t know Robin’s name as of The Hunt for Oracle:
– Nightwing v2:46
…but she presumably learns it later on, and she definitely knows by Identity Crisis. Do we know at what point she finds it out?
Look, this is a question that has an official answer, but contextually that answer needs a bit of reading into it.
So the first time Babs ever calls Tim ‘Tim’ on page is Robin #89, in June 2001.
That panel during The Hunt for Oracle is August 2000 and what I consider the ‘this is pushing it’ zone.
After No Man’s Land, Barbara gets a bit more…grumpy on page about the fact she officially hasn’t been told Tim’s identity.
You’ve got this page from Birds of Prey #19 (right before Hunt) where Babs is noticeably poking at the issue:
Barbara is suspicious and clearly investigating the issue, which realistically just came to a head during No Man’s Land when Tim became so famous as The Kid Inside.
Plus, of course, there’s another contemporary issue: Bruce tells Steph Tim’s identity in Robin #87 (April 2001). Having Steph know but Barbara not know was pretty narratively an unlikely situation to persist.
So we get this reveal a few issues later:
Barbara ‘works it out herself’ some time between August 2000 and June 2001.
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One thing I keep thinking about is because superhero comics are simultaneously niche and cultural icons, the general public understanding of characters can be starkly different to the actual medium. Often this is harmless fun but it can be a problem considering arcs about female and minority characters often suffer in the realm of reprints and adaptations, and therefore never have the same impact on the public consciousness. And I think this explains the erasure of Oracle.
Yes, Killing Joke was misogynistic as hell and as a massive Barbara fan I have serious issues with it. But then what Kim Yale and John Ostrander did with Oracle in year one was moving, beautiful and undeniably feminist. I'm not disabled but I got serious chills reading the story and it is honestly one of my favourite comics. From there she grew to become a staple in the DC universe and helped launch the wildly successful Birds of Prey superhero team.
And she was a disabled hero who was psychologically complex and kickass in a fight. She also was seen as an attractive woman who had love interests like Dick Grayson. She got to train the next generation of Batgirls. As Oracle Babs thrived.
Not to mention according to Scott Peterson's article on DC women kicking ass, the creative team at the time were seeing an overwhelming positive response to Oracle from people who saw themselves on the pages of a superhero comic for the first time thanks to Babs:
"we were the ones getting the mail from disabled fans. We were the ones reading letters about how much Oracle meant to them, how much it meant to see someone in a situation so much like their own, someone who by then had been come such an important part of the DCU, treated with respect and admiration by not only Superman and Black Canary, but by the Batman, a guy who treated pretty much no one with respect." (Scott Peterson, 2011)
But if you look at the mainstream perception, her success is less obvious.
Batgirl has always struggled in adaptations, and Oracle even more so. The versions of Oracle that have been translated onto film and TV haven't caught in public imagination in the same way, to the point she was straight up cut out of the recent Birds of Prey film.
Not to mention Killing Joke is one of the most iconic Batman stories of all time that not only has been reprinted countless times but was one of the select few comic arcs to be adapted into animation. Contrarily, Oracle Year One was reprinted in English once after the original date: the Batgirl 50 years celebration. This collection is expensive and not something you would buy without considerable investment in the Batgirls. It certainly isn't one that would show up if you google 'best batman comics'.
If you see this you understand why people marginally invested in DC mythos considered her return to batgirl was seen by some as a feminist move, rather than an ableist one. Gone were her years of development, one of the most powerful information brokers in DC, and two other beloved Batgirls. And the real insult: killing joke was still canon. Yes, they kept the misogynistic violence and ditched the disability rep and the character growth. And that is despite the fact Killing Joke was made to be part of an else world, not main continuity.
#dc musings#Barbara gordon#batgirl#oracle#dc#dc comics#batman#batfamily#ramblings/meta#hopefully this is something
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You mentioned about your cass cain reddit post (read it all and loved it btw) that you knew even more behind the scenes dc drama than what made it into the post. If you’re comfortable with it and still remember, would you like to share some of the behind the scenes dc drama that didn’t make it into that post now? (Ofc just ignore/delete this ask if you’re not comfortable with it I was just curious XD)
Necessary context: this ask is referring to this write-up I did for r/HobbyDrama a little over a year ago, which I offhandedly mentioned to a couple of people awhile back was "9 pages in a Word doc and STILL left a bunch of stuff out."
Okay so most of the stuff I left out, I left out because it was more about Barbara or Steph and the larger situation around how DC handled the Batgirl mantle more generally than it was about Cass and the whole debacle that happened there. Since the post was already getting so long, I chose to just not talk about a lot of that for length purposes and to keep the write-up more focused on a) Cass as a character, b) editorial or creative decisions that actually impacted Cass specifically, and c) top-level issues, since the write-up was geared towards an audience who largely doesn't read comics. I also left a few things out because they're somewhat hearsay and/or "known to be true but technically unverifiable information," mostly for credibility reasons.
Largely, the thing you have to understand about DC's treatment of Cass is that there was a major power struggle at DC between those who wanted Barbara Gordon to become Batgirl again and those who wanted Cassandra Cain to remain Batgirl. The "Babs vs. Cass" fight and viewing Cass's treatment within the context of this massive internal push for Batgirl!Babs is the backdrop through which the majority of this industry drama needs to be understood, because otherwise a lot of the stuff that happened to Cass doesn't make much logical sense.
So, with that being said...here's a list of eight things I either cut entirely or barely mentioned that may not necessarily be directly related to Cass but are nonetheless relevant to the larger debacle of "DC's mishandling of the Batgirl mantle" that impacted Cass's character trajectory. General warning for the immense psychic damage you will inevitably experience if you read this and its length, because between the screenshots and quotes and explanations this ended up being much longer than I expected it to be.
Yvonne Craig: The first major thing that I chose to cut was a paragraph about Yvonne Craig, the actress who played Barbara Gordon in Batman '66, and the near hero-worship that a lot of (specifically middle-aged, white male) creatives, editors, and managers at DC had for her. Basically, the broad strokes of this issue is that due to their weird obsession with Yvonne Craig's Babs–which is probably due to them having childhood crushes they never got over–several men with power within DC (including Dan Didio himself) shared a sentiment that Barbara was the "one true Batgirl" and no one else but her should ever be Batgirl. Basically: if Barbara Gordon couldn't be Batgirl, Batgirl as a mantle wasn't worth using at all. This led a concentrated decade-long effort to put Babs back in the Batgirl cowl, which obviously influenced the various attempts to push Cass out of the role.
I chose to cut it for two reasons: it was more related to Babs and why there was such a coordinated effort to make Babs Batgirl again rather than Cass as a character unto herself, and it's largely "very well-respected and often-repeated hearsay, but still hearsay." The prevalence it had within the rank-and-file creatives at DC is suspect, but we know that several prominent creators, editors, and upper management shared that perspective (even if they largely don't talk about it on-record). We know this sentiment absolutely existed; Scott Peterson, for example, talked a bit about how "crazy he was for Yvonne Craig" in his interview about creating Cass. It's just not a particularly well-sourced discussion point and was more suited for a write-up on Babs than it was a write-up on Cass.
Batwoman's Costume Design: I barely mentioned Kate in the write-up and only in relation to how Cass's book was cancelled to make way for the theoretical Batwoman solo book that never happened, but there's actually a lot of really interesting industry drama behind Kate's creation. Specifically as it regards Batgirl...Kate's costume was originally meant for Barbara, per Alex Ross:
"The design I did was initially for the proposed idea of a new version of Batgirl, so it was intended to be another stab at bringing back Barbara Gordon, or having the new Batgirl be costumed as a tribute to her, maybe even with a red-haired wig." -Alex Ross, "Giving Batwoman Her Look"
Ross and Paul Dini had been planning to revive Babs as Batgirl for years, but Bat Office Head Editor Denny O'Neil was staunchly against it so it never happened:
"Paul Dini had this idea of putting Barbara Gordon in the Lazarus Pit to revive her…spine, I guess," Ross said. "At least, that's what he would've done in the television show had they continued doing more cartoons, and her spine was broken the way it was. I thought it was a great idea, and we pitched then-Batman editor Denny O'Neil with these drawings of that costume design.........and that went nowhere. Denny shot it down, because, according to him, everybody loves Barbara Gordon as Oracle and as a handicapped character. The theory was that DC didn't have enough handicapped characters, so they weren't going to do anything with Barbara as she was. And the design went into the drawer." -from "Giving Batwoman her Look"
When O'Neil retired in 2002, the floodgates opened and we started seeing a concentrated creative/editorial push to make Babs Batgirl again. Of course by that time Cass was already well-established, so Ross's design was later re-purposed for Kate Kane's Batwoman and the power struggle largely manifested in a gradual sidelining of Cass from major Bat events (starting with Hush, as I mentioned in the write-up) in an effort to pave the way for putting Babs back in the cowl. Which brings me to the next piece of industry drama I cut.
War Games: There's...a lot of industry drama behind both the conception and execution of War Games. Most of it isn't particularly relevant to this answer or the original write-up, but there are two things that are. One, the fact that Stephanie's death was mandated by editorial and everyone involved knew it was coming. This is what prompted Steph's temporary takeover of the Robin mantle. Depending on who you believe, either Robin writer Bill Willingham, Batgirl writer Dylan Horrocks, Detective Comics writer/Bat Office editor Andersen Gabrych, or Dan Didio himself suggested that Stephanie become Robin as a story trick for readers and a sort of narrative "consolation prize" in preparation for the fact that they were about to kill her:
“The whole way through it was planned purely as a trick to play on the readers, that we would fool them into thinking that the big event was that Stephanie Brown would become Robin but we knew all along it was a temporary thing, and she was then going to die at the end of this crossover story.” -Dylan Horrocks at Auckland Writers and Readers Fest in 2011
"I knew coming into the Robin series that Spoiler was doomed to die. And I wouldn’t have done that, but that was already locked in even before I came on Robin, so I had no point at which to say you shouldn’t do this. But, I did I have this hair-brained idea that, well, if she was going to die — she was such a frustrated character…I mean, everything she wanted out of life she pretty much didn’t get. So, can we give her one little reward before she dies and let her become Robin for awhile." -Bill Willingham for Word Balloon in 2012
"You know, me and Stephanie, we go way back. The story with Stephanie Brown goes, they came to me as Executive Editor with the "War Games" story, and said 'we're going to kill Stephanie Brown.' I knew Stephanie Brown for who she was, and said, 'I don't know, if this is going to be the big ending to your story it doesn't feel big enough at the time, because the character wasn't strong enough yet.' So I said, 'Why don't we make her Robin for a short period of time, build some interest in her, and then we kill her!'" -Dan Didio for Newsarama
Steph becoming the major collateral damage of the immediate post-O'Neil editorial era would later set the stage for why she was viewed as an acceptable compromise choice to become Batgirl during the Reborn era.
Two, the writer of Cass's solo at the time, Dylan Horrocks, was so discomforted and offended by the concept of the story (and particularly its treatment of Steph) that he deliberately kept Cass out of the event's "main action" as much as possible during her tie-in issues. This has been widely reported for years and while Horrocks himself rarely goes on record about it, he has made some comments that more-or-less confirm it:
Horrocks: "I'd write [Batgirl] very differently today....for me, it was...complicated. One day I'll write about the experience properly. The War Games event was deeply depressing." -Dylan Horrocks on Twitter in 2012/2013
Sidenote: War Games was actually the last straw for both Ed Brubaker and Horrocks; Brubaker was fed up with all the editorial mandates/executive meddling and Horrocks was frustrated by the Bat Office's misogynistic and grimdark story direction, so they both left right after (Brubaker for Marvel to write Bucky Barnes' resurrection and Horrocks for indie comics).
So why are Horrocks' writing choices relevant to DC's subsequent treatment of Cass? Well, as I stated in the original write-up, it heralded the beginning of a "there can be only one" era for female Bat characters. DC could handle the idea of several male Batfam members running around at the same time but apparently more than one female Bat at a time (regardless of moniker) was just too much for them. It was also the last major Bat event to feature Cass in any significant capacity until her post-reboot reintroduction. So while she was largely removed from the action for good reasons, War Games stands as a haunting precursor to the direction DC was headed with her character: sidelined and replaced in favor of characters editors were planning on using (Kate), could agree on using (Steph), or liked more (Babs).
Batgirl (2008)'s Sales Performance: I cut this bullet point largely because it's ultimately a footnote in the larger saga that was Cass's limbo years. Basically, after the resolution of the Evil Cass arc DC reassured fans that they "had plans" for Cass as Batgirl. This later manifested via her appearances in the Batman and the Outsiders (2007) run and (eventually) a new solo mini. Unfortunately, Batgirl: Redemption Run didn't perform nearly as well as DC hoped for a variety of reasons: many Cass fans swore it off due to it being written by Adam Beechen (the writer who wrote her heel-face turn in the first place), the first issue was poorly written, the story wasn't particularly engaging, etc. The tepid reception and subsequent poor sales of this mini were then used to retroactively justify booting Cass out of the Batgirl mantle entirely during the aftermath of Bruce's death in Final Crisis and the Battle for the Cowl event.
However, DC was already planning on taking Batgirl from Cass and giving it back to Babs at the time, and it likely would have happened even if the mini had done well. The way we know? This image foretelling the events of the Reborn era and Blackest Night was teased in the final issue of Dick's Nightwing solo, as was this one from the end of Babs' Birds of Prey run. That's not Cass kissing Dick, folks; that's Barbara Gordon, Batgirl once again. This planned choice was, as I stated on Reddit, later confirmed by Dan Didio in an Editor's Column during Steph's Batgirl run, who said that at one point Babs was "as close to being Batgirl again as Dick was to being dead in Infinite Crisis" (which is to say, very nearly a done deal). I suspect that only a last-minute internal writer revolt–particularly from Gail Simone, who we know was a vocal supporter of keeping Babs Oracle–stopped it from happening.
Cass's Absence in Battle for the Cowl: I mentioned this in the original write-up but largely glossed over the particulars. In-universe, Cass had just been adopted by Bruce, was fully Batgirl again, and was largely reconciled to the rest of the Batfamily after the Evil Cass arc. And yet her only appearances during the Battle for the Cowl event (and the aftermath of Final Crisis more generally) were cameos in the main book and a main role in the BftC: The Network tie-in oneshot. Literally the only thing she did for the entire duration of BftC was create the Network, which helped the Bats deal with Gotham rogues, and take out a few criminals alongside Huntress. So you have DC continually downplaying and sidelining Cass in a story where she reasonably should have had a major, co-starring role. This event also marked her final appearance as Batgirl, which leads into the next issue I cut.
Batgirl (2009)'s Marketing: this one's very complicated and doing it justice would involve tracking down a lot of old ads and interviews revolving around how DC solicited and marketed this book in the lead-up to the reveal that Stephanie Brown was the new Batgirl, which I simply didn't have time to do at the time of the original write-up and ultimately would have just sidetracked the whole thing, but in short: readers didn't actually know who the protagonist of the new Batgirl solo was going to be when the title was announced. DC had cancelled Birds of Prey and announced both a new Batgirl book and a miniseries called "Oracle: Search for the Cure" (which later became Oracle: The Cure). So Babs' return to the cowl was being solidly teased, but Cass was still Batgirl and showed no real signs of wanting to give up the mantle.
DC's marketing and editorial teams played up this ambiguity by baiting both Babs and Cass fans in order to drive sales: this included teasing ads, early issue solicts that deliberately obscured who was wearing the cape, and a refusal to confirm who the Batgirl of the upcoming solo title would be during interviews and con panels. They chose to heighten the ambiguity even within the title itself: early covers of the run often obscure Steph's hair, eyes, and sometimes even her whole face; the first two issue covers even feature Steph in both Cass's and Babs' Batgirl suits to heighten the confusion. So was the Batgirl of the new title going to be a newly "cured" Barbara Gordon, a second shot for Cassandra Cain, or someone new entirely?
Obviously, none of these things happened. As we all know, Stephanie became Batgirl. The choice to make Steph Batgirl was a compromise decision, as Didio mentions in his editor's note (linked above):
"After long discussions it was agreed that Oracle had become such a strong character there was no sense going back. And since we wanted to make a change, Cassandra no longer seemed right for the role (Not to worry Cassandra fans; plans are afoot, in a very big way, for our favorite non-lethal assassin in 2010). As for Wendy, Bette, and Misfit, none felt strong enough for the position. That left us with the one choice we all agreed on, Stephanie Brown......from the time of her death to the outcry for a memorial and ultimately to her return, there is no denying that her character had connected with a portion of our fanbase and, more important, connected to the Batfamily. It just seemed to make sense that she was the one, and given her history and ties to all the members of Batman's world, the potential is there to make this new Batgirl the one fans will be speaking about for a very long time."
So as previously stated, Steph's treatment during the War Games era ultimately set the stage for her to be the compromise choice for the new Batgirl; she became this interim buffer character because everyone at DC was fighting over Babs vs. Cass and she was the only one everyone could agree deserved the title, and she thrived in that role over the next two years. And a new Birds of Prey book was then announced in the aftermath of Oracle: The Cure and Blackest Night, so Babs' prominence as Oracle survived for another two years until the New 52.
But Cass? Well...Cass unceremoniously handed the Batgirl mantle off to Steph, seemingly fucked off for no discernable reason, and showed up in a grand total of six issues across the entire Batbook slate over the next two years while being largely written out of the Batfam's history and having her reasoning for leaving Gotham retconned from being a choice into being an order from Bruce. Which segues us directly into the next piece of drama that I somewhat glossed over in the original write-up.
The Reborn-era Editorial Erasure Edicts: Bryan Q. Miller, the writer on Steph's Batgirl solo, was under strict editorial edict to basically not mention Cass or include her in the run if he didn't absolutely have to. For example, when he asked editorial if there was a reason why Cass left Gotham, they basically told him "she leaves. why? Because she just does, so your book can exist. Come up with a reason to make her leave and then don't use her."
This era is still pretty opaque in terms of what we know about what various writers were and weren't able to do with Cass, but we do know that Miller specifically was disallowed from featuring her in-person in Batgirl and highly discouraged from mentioning her in general. However, he noted on multiple occasions that he liked Cass and would be happy to use her:
Babs and Steph are the core of this title, no doubt about it. While we'll have another passing reference/flashback to Cassandra soon, I'm leaving the rest of Cassandra's story to whichever lucky duck gets to write her elsewhere in 2010. As for Batwoman, I'm leaving Kate in Rucka's capable hands for the time being.
-Miller in an interview with CBR in 2009
If at some point the story I’m telling feels like it can only be told with Cassandra as a part of it, then believe me, I’ll try to find a way to work her in. As it stands currently, however, Cassandra’s fate and future are not in my hands. -Miller in an inerview for Broken Frontier in 2010
Had the book continued past Issue #24, we know that Cass would have had a recurring role as Black Bat in the present day as well as being featured in a Batgirls time-travel story, teased through one of Steph's Black Mercy hallucinations in that final issue. Other than that, we still have no real idea to what extent Cass's presence would have been allowed in the Batgirl book had the New 52 not happened.
Now, I will note that some of the omissions of Cass during Steph's run were seemingly his choice. He's mentioned that he left Cass off of Steph's infamous "Batfamily whiteboard history lesson" cold open from Batgirl #15 on purpose, for example:
The reason she didn’t make the white-board history lesson for Wendy was simply that I didn’t feel it appropriate to poke fun at her. Steph has a smirky little good natured time editorializing the Bat family tree. To suddenly have a serious/tribute panel in the mix would have gotten in the way of the tone of the opening. Now, that’s from the writing standpoint. From a character standpoint, Steph drew for Wendy what she deemed to be the pertinent players on the Gotham board and their connections/histories, given her role as Proxy. You’ll note, she also didn’t mention her own role as Spoiler (though she just couldn’t RESIST drawing that adorable little Spoiler with the broken hearts over in the Tim/Robin section).
-Bryan Q. Miller responding to a fan letter from Caitlin in 2010
It's certainly possible that the editorial edict surrounding Cass's presence in the book also impacted his decision to leave her out of the history lesson. We simply don't know. However, the above response is the only statement he's ever given on that issue and we've yet to hear anything to the contrary.
Outside of Batgirl, DC also went to considerable effort during this era to erase Cass's importance both as Batgirl and to the Batfamily more generally. From being basically excluded from every Bat book except Tim's globetrotting Red Robin book to descriptions like these:
Black Bat: one of several former (and temporary) Batgirls, the wonderful Cassandra Cain has adopted a new Batman Inc. identity as the Black Bat, operating out of Hong Kong. -Batman. Inc (HC Edition)
It was not a fun time to be a Cass fan.
Elsewhere, we know that Gail Simone was actively campaigning editorial to let her use Cass in a significant capacity in her relaunched Birds of Prey book. There was also a substantial rumor at the time that Cass would be taking the White Canary mantle from the villain Simone introduced in her opening arc (see this twitter thread for more on that). For varying reasons related to both DC's general treatment of Cass at the time and a hesitance to give Cass to Gail specifically (which I'll elaborate more on in a moment), neither of these things ever happened.
We also know that Scott Snyder loved Cass and tried to get DC to let him write a Cass story on multiple occasions–a struggle which continued throughout the early reboot years and eventually resulted in the creation of Harper Row, as I mentioned in the original write-up. He eventually managed to convince editorial to let him write Gates of Gotham, which co-starred Cass in a significant role for the first time since 2008 and ended on a good note...and also wound up being her final appearance in comics for nearly five years.
Other than Snyder and Fabian Nicieza (who wrote the majority of Cass's few Reborn-era appearances in Red Robin), critical darling and editorial favorite Grant Morrison was the only other writer who was allowed to handle Cass. They're the one who gave Cass the "Black Bat" codename in Batman Inc. #6 and supposedly wanted to do a Cass and Steph team-up later on in that book. Unfortunately, because of the impending New 52 reboot they were ultimately only allowed to use Steph in "Leviathan Strikes" (and even her ability to be Batgirl in that final appearance was up in the air for awhile, causing the book's artist make Spoiler!Steph sketches for the story just in case editorial nixed her appearance as Batgirl).
So going back to Gail Simone for a moment, why wasn't she allowed to write Cass in Birds of Prey? After all, she was one of the few female writers in the comic industry, and a successful, well-renowned one at that. She was writing a women-led book helmed by Barbara Gordon that had featured and guest-starred a wide variety of DC's female heroes over the years and was actively asking to use the character. Well, even besides the various editorial mandates sidelining Cass and keeping writers from using her, there was another problem.
Gail Simone's Proposed "Christian Conversion Arc": The year is 2006, we are still pre-Evil Cass arc, and Gail Simone has been asked by DC management to pitch what she would do with Dick and Cass if assigned either Nightwing or Batgirl to write. She never actually turned in a Nightwing pitch, though apparently she had pretty strong ideas, but she did turn in her Cass pitch. And what did Gail Simone come up with?
Cass saves a Christian minister from a robbery, discovers Christianity, and becomes a hardcore convert who quotes the Bible and talks scripture with gang members while wearing a white outfit and being called "Angel of the Bat" as she protects Gotham's homeless and marginalized residents. No, really. That was her pitch.
I can't even begin to explain how bonkers this idea is and how many problematic elements are baked into it both conceptually and in the inevitable execution had the pitch actually been greenlit. I could talk about how Gail presents a fundamental misunderstanding of Cassandra as a character throughout her description of the pitch. I could talk about how unsuited this kind of arc is for Cass more generally given her stories up to that point. I could talk about the racist history of Christian missionaries in Asia and the awful implications of Cass apparently needing to find God to look after Gotham's most vulnerable residents and be "genuinely happy for the first time." I could talk about how the Batfamily already had two sincerely devout Christian characters in Jean-Paul Valley and Helena Bertinelli and forcing that narrative onto Cass was doing nothing new or novel. I could talk about the problems with Gail, an atheist, deciding that this was an arc she felt qualified to write for any character (much less one like Cass).
Instead, I'll simply say that this failed pitch and Simone's consistently poor, exoticized handling of other Asian characters like Cheshire and Lady Shiva likely contributed to editorial's hesitance to hand her permission to write Cass during the Reborn era, and that I ultimately cut it from the Reddit write-up because I felt like including it would derail the post from talking about what happened to talking about "could have beens" (since this would have theoretically happened in place of the Evil Cass arc). It leaves Cassandra Cain as a truly good, kind person attempting to do good and save everyone she can rather than the racist caricature of a villain that we ultimately got; that's about the only good thing I can say about it.
......I'm sorry, everyone. I was going to do one final entry and talk about the Rebirth-era storytelling decisions and editorial edicts but I got to the end of this one and found I just couldn't do it anymore. I'm the embodiment of the Ben Affleck and Hayao Miyazaki smoking memes right now. I'm so tired, y'all. I'm so tired.
There's infinite amounts of racist, sexist, and ableist industry drama bullshit that I could cover related to DC's handling of the Batgirls and Cass more specifically and no write-up or additional posts will ever be able to sufficiently cover any of it with the depth, attention, and outrage it deserves. There's always more to talk about. There's always one more piece of awful bullshit to drag out of the shadows. There's always one more cut in the thousand fans have already talked about over the past twenty years. I could write a full-length book featuring several currently non-existent tell-all interviews with various creators and likely still not reach the bottom of the barrel. And the things that will likely never be public knowledge far outnumber the things we actually do know about DC's shitty treatment of Cass (and by extension Babs, Steph, and every other woman associated with the Batfamily).
And while things are better for Cass now than they were then, we're still far from any of the girls being treated well. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go. One day, I hope this won't be the case.
#cassandra cain#barbara gordon#stephanie brown#batman#batfam#cassandra cain meta#barbara gordon meta#stephanie brown meta#dc comics#dc fanwank#long post#VERY long post#dc drama#dan didio#asks
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The conclusions Babs and Bruce somehow learned from Stephanie’s death:
“We have to stop letting these untrained kids go out and fight by discouraging them and belittling them.”
The conclusion they were supposed to have gotten:
“These kids are going to do this anyways, so we have to train/prepare them and give them a safe place to advance their skills.”
#stephanie brown#spoiler dc#batman#barbara gordon#bruce wayne#batgirl#oracle#batfam#i've been re reading#batgirl 2009#and that scene where babs tells steph about showing her autopsy to misfit to stop her from crime-fighting...#oh how i wanted steph to snap back#(not that it maters but that was dumb anyways bc Misfit is literally a meta-human with healing powers so...)
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Do you ever revel in how fucked up your blorbos are? Idk about you but I love that (Pre-52) Dick is a sanctimonious asshole and huge bitch, Jason is a hypocritical self-serving sociopath, Tim is an insufferable and petty fuck, Babs is a control freak with an ugly jealous streak, Cass is a cocky and infuriatingly stubborn little brat, Steph is an angry and reckless punk, and Damian is a supercilious little snot. I love it even when it gets on my nerves. I want them to grow and develop and be better but never entirely lose those fundamental flaws. And not all of them will ever fully reconcile or be at ease with each other or ever become a cohesive and healthy family unit and I fucking love that too.
#characters need to be a little unlikeable for me to love them#they're all such different flavours of asshole and i love them so much#look at them#self-awareness of goldfish crackers#my beloveds#dick grayson#jason todd#tim drake#cassandra cain#stephanie brown#barbara gordon#damian wayne#batfamily#bat meta#blorbo appreciation post#spite waffle
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barbara gordon in nightwing #85 pt. 1
bonus:
#wow wow wow i did NOT expect to break the tumblr photo limit but ig this issue has a lot of babs#tom taylor's nightwing run has had its ups and downs but i can't deny it has BEAUTIFUL art#the whole monologue about how much good she's done as oracle THAT'S. WHY. SHE. NEEDS. TO. BE. ORACLE. AGAIN.#the meta tkj reference is so sad and yet so good cause she's fully RIGHT#it wasn't about her it was about the joker#but she made it HER story#and that's why oracle babs will always clear batgirl babs...always.#dc comics#oracle#batgirl#barbara gordon#comic panels#nightwing#dick grayson#dickbabs#written by: tom taylor#art by: robbi rodriguez#cover art by: bruno redondo#variant cover by: jamal campbell#1:25 variant cover by: bruno redondo#colours: adriano lucas#nightwing (2016)#issue 85#queue#pt. 2 out in a few hours :)
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I am so freaking angry about how DC has treated disabled characters in recent years.
Many people have pointed out all the negatives of making Babs into Batgirl again — taking away her character development, de-aging her, casting aside two other Batgirls, using comic book science to “”cure”” her, etc, all for the sake of nostalgia. Oracle was an icon and an inspiration to many, and that was taken from us. Some great meta on this here and here.
But what I don’t hear anyone talking about is how this was also done with Joey Wilson/Jericho of the Teen Titans, albeit in a slightly different way.
In the post-52 DCU, he doesn’t use sign language anymore (he’s mute) and instead uses technology to speak.
First of all, artists drawing Joey signing shows loving detail and care toward representation for that form of communication (which is frequently overlooked by able-bodied people). Joey using ASL is such incredibly important representation for everyone, and taking that away from him feels like an easy way out so artists don’t have to draw ASL and writers can give him typical dialogue. It reminds me of stories about deaf people (especially kids) who were disappointed when Hawkeye didn’t experience hearing loss in the MCU. There’s a lot of people who see themselves in different kinds of characters, and when you take that diversity away, you lose something important. I hate these cop-outs to fit differently abled characters into the cookie cutter superhero mold. Superheroes aren’t defined by their abilities — they’re defined by their heroism! Characters like Oracle and Jericho, among others, have reminded all kinds of people that anyone can be a hero so long as you care about helping others. That’s literally the point of superheroes. The superhero genre should always have room for diversity and representation of all kinds. Minimizing or erasing disability does a massive disservice to that legacy.
#I’m an able bodied person writing this so if you have thoughts or corrections to add please do!#dc comics#dc#dcu#oracle#barbara gordon#jericho#joey wilson#joseph wilson#teen titans#deathstroke#new 52#dc rebirth#tw ableism#disability representation#meta
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