Still Analog in a Digital World

We’ve taken a look at where Barbara Gordon was, now let’s take a look where she is.
Currently she seems to be playing Alfred to the new Batgirl Stephanie Brown. Don’t get us wrong, we like girls named Steph here at Analog and this one in particular. We're just not sure yet this is the Batgirl anyone is looking for. So let’s talk about it.

First off, we have the star of this new show. Stephanie Brown, who has decided to to pick up the mantle of Batgirl that Cassandra Cain left. We'll discuss that later. Stephanie’s dad was a D-list Batman villain named Cluemaster. She has spent most of her career trying make up for his actions. She donned the the persona of Spoiler to fight crime. She then became involved with Tim Drake who was Robin. While we are willing to give Steph a chance at Batgirl, we liked the Spoiler identity better for her. Hope everyone caught that. WE LIKE STEPHANIE!

We admit that we have had limited exposure to Steph. So far she has been portrayed as klutzy here and not very competent. She is willing, and has a sense of humor. But she comes off someone we doubt Tim Drake would hang around with long. Tim Drake is the exact opposite of this, and seemed a natural at being a crime fighter. Stephanie is portrayed as so inept here and the past, you would wonder how she hasn’t gotten herself killed. Oh, wait she did. But lets skip that nonsense. Thank you, Chuck Dixon for getting us out of that.

Now we get to our main gripe about this title. Barbara Gordon. Writer Bryan Q Miller has yet to find Barbara’s voice, in my opinion, And has cast her as helper or Alfred to Stephanie’s Batman. Which is fine for Alfred. We love him but Barbara got mad skills that aren’t being tapped.

It’s not really Miller’s fault, the damage was done back in her own title Birds of Prey. Barbara was an ass kicking, super hacker that you just didn’t mess with. If you did get the upper hand on her it wasn’t for long. Despite the wheelchair, she had become central to the DCU. Got a major crisis? Get Superman and then coordinate everybody else with Oracle (Babs’ online identity). Although she wasn’t often directly where the action was, she never seemed on the sidelines. She had knowledge her operatives needed to kick ass. Without her calling signals they were good, but she made them awesome.

Years of continuity were unraveled in just one incident. New writer Sean McKeever took over from Gail Simone and just didn’t get Barbara. Right off, the bat he proved this.  A berserk robot on the rampage, accidently kills a young girl that Barbara fails to save. Now Barbara isn’t always successful, who is?

But this time Superman was there to scold her. He basically told her she was a screw up and needed to be constantly monitored. And he would be the one doing the monitoring. And if she screwed up again, he was shutting her down permanently. You never screwed up and didn’t save someone like maybe... your dad, Superman?

She has never recovered from this in my opinion, Writer McKeever was soon removed, not sure why, but I was glad he was. But after this, Barbara was unsure of herself, moody and downright bitchy at times. Seeming to have lost her sense of purpose. Tony Bedard was installed as the writer and was setting up a brilliant new locale called Platinum Flats. It was full of her own new tech bad guys to fight.  But the plug was pulled. And that was that. All the Bat titles were being relaunched. So Birds must go.

After several successful relaunches of Bat titles. Still no Barbara? Where is she? Oh, we have a new title named Batgirl but we won’t tell you who is in it. Stay tuned. This attempt at creating a buzz lead to many online fights on who should be Batgirl.

This fractured the audience for this book in my opinion. The biggest argument was whether Barbara should get out of the chair in a universe where this possible. I nearly came to blows with an online friend because he’s firmly in the camp she should walk again, and I am firmly in the camp that she shouldn’t.

The title finally appears, after the bat relaunch buzz had died down. Who is Batgirl? Stephanie Brown. Which can’t please the Cassie Cain crowd, who I was never among. Cassie leaves the mantle in the first issue, which stumps me.

But some of her fans say it makes complete sense. Since she was fighting for her adoptive dad Bruce and he is dead. She has nothing to fight for. Funny logic to me. Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon and Tim Drake still have a reason to fight and are doing fine.

Anyway, we get a title starring an inept Stephanie, and co-starring her helper, Bitchy Barbara. They agree to team up at the end of issue 4. Where is the super hacker that helped the JLA take down White Martians? Don’t know, but we hope she will be back.

She has even been reduced to eye candy in wheelchair for the always on the make Green Lantern Hal Jordan. He’s caught practically looking down her blouse while he fights zombies. He spouts some bull about getting critical info to Barbara while doing it. Leave her alone, we saw her first. We realize she has a mind to go with the body. Go kill some zombie, you jerk.

So does this mean you are quitting this title? You don’t seem to want Stephanie even though you like her. You're not in the Cassie Cain camp. You don’t want Barbara to walk and don the cowl again. What do you want?

I WANT BIRDS OF PREY BACK! with a good writer and art team. You took it from me.

But that's NOT happening. This is the Batgirl title and Barbara is in. So I’ll keep reading. But it has not been my Barbara, and I won’t be happy until starts acting like herself again. We hope Writer Miller will makes this happen. We really do want to love this title.

I was pretty tough on this title but I think things have improved with the next issue so take a look here.