She's Batgirl
There have been four Batgirls. Well, technically five, but officially four.
The original Batgirl--often called the "Golden Age" Batgirl, though she actually debuted during the Silver Age--was a young girl named Bette Kane. At the time, giving superheroes big "families" was all the rage, so there was Batman, Batwoman, Robin, Batgirl, the Bat-Mite, Ace the Bathound, and so on. She barely had a characterization, just a "romantic foil" relationship with Robin, who was still stuck in the "girls have cooties" stage. Definitely not a triumph of feminism.
After cosmic reboots, she was never Batgirl. The next (first) Batgirl came about because of the campy TV show: the show wanted to pull in young men and women, so the producers wanted to give the show a female character in tights, both a role model for girls and some titillation for the boys. She was Barbara Gordon, daughter of the police commissioner. Interestingly, she became Batgirl pretty much on her own, as much to show her dad she'd grown up as to fight crime. She became "Batgirl" rather than anyone else because she had a little crush on Batman, but she had already trained herself in judo and gymnastics. Even more interestingly, she had a photographic memory, thus having the potential to be a better detective than Batman. I may have mentioned this before, but being the World's Greatest Detective was Batman's original shtick. Having a supporting cast member who could possibly be better at his whole shtick? And that supporting cast member being a woman? Perhaps a bit more of a triumph of feminism.
Oh, sure, she still got the same ridiculous "girl-centric" stories that women got in comics (and elsewhere) at the time, like finding the right man to marry and things of that nature. Complaining that she got treated like a stereotypical woman at the time would have been like complaining that every woman got treated that way. There are better ways to complain about femininity in comics, nowadays. She faded away a bit as time went on. Eventually she was practically forgotten. If she had been, perhaps things would be different these days. Instead, Alan Moore remembered her, and had permission to cripple her in his prestige-format book "The Killing Joke." The crippling stuck. She continued being pretty much forgotten . . . until J. M. DeMatteis was writing a book called Suicide Squad, dealing with a team of criminals and anti-heroes drafted by the US intelligence and para-military community to perform very dangerous missions for a chance at reduced sentencing (or absolved guilt in the case of most of the anti-heroes). A background subplot dealt with the identity of a super-hacker called the Oracle, who was offering intelligence and data processing for the team. Eventually, it turned out that the Oracle was Barbara Gordon, who was picking up the pieces of her life after being crippled by turning herself into the sedentary super-hacker and information broker Oracle. She bopped around a bit, settling in the Batbooks, until she was given her own title (sort of) in Birds of Prey, where she worked as a coordinator for theoretically a small team of super-heroine operatives (but usually just Black Canary until the last few years of the series).
While Barbara was busy with the Birds, Helena Bertinelli (aka Huntress) tried to deal with the mess that was the No Man's Land by being both Huntress and a new Batgirl. That only lasted a couple of months, though, before Batman judged her too unreliable and gave the Batgirl costume Helena had made to a girl named Cassandra Cain.
Cassandra was the next long-term Batgirl. She was raised by mega-assassin David Cain. Cain had strange ideas about martial arts and child-rearing: Cassandra was trained to be fluent in only one language, the "language of violence." Basically, she was taught to express herself with martial arts and to read peoples' body language to understand how others express themselves. She was brought onto an assassination and killed the target . . . and her abilities at reading body language was so acute that she watched the target's death throes and was traumatized by it. She ran away, living on her own somehow (it's never been explored exactly what she had to do to survive for years) until she ended up in Gotham during the No Man's Land. Oracle found her and made her a part of her Baker St Irregular-type of operators around Gotham at the time, and events conspired to have her meet Batman--who, having been trained by Cain as well, understood her "language of violence" upbringing. He started to trust her and gave her the Batgirl mantle. A psychic messed with her head so she could have an understanding of actual language (its been documented that people who don't learn to speak in their developmental years show a great difficulty in learning later in life). She tried to learn to read, but it turns out she has some form of dyslexia. She had a weird relationship with Batman (especially after he learned she actually had killed someone), but they mostly weathered the storm and she affirmed her loyalty to the idea of Batman (but not Bruce Wayne himself; this is important). Her series had some high points over the years, but despite being a somewhat solid-ish performer, was canceled with the onset of Infinite Crisis and the One Year Later events.
And that's when the suck truly set in.
After 1YL, Cassandra reappeared as a dragon-lady-ish villain in Robin. It was completely unrelated to any of her previous characterization. DC tried to fix the horribleness, but also kept shoveling crap on her. Finally, Bruce Wayne was declared dead and Cassandra Cain quit her life as a super-heroine.
Which leads us to the current Batgirl: Stephanie Brown. Unlike all previous versions of Batgirl (except the short stint by Helena Bertinelli), Stephanie actually had experience as a crimefighter before becoming Batgirl. She started out as the Spoiler, "spoiling" the crimes of her father--Arthur Brown, aka the Cluemaster--in the pages of Robin. She had a lot of enthusiasm, and some gymnastic moves, and some common sense, but that was about it. Batman didn't approve, but Robin was kind of attracted to her so he helped her out. Eventually, Batman decided to give her some training, but gave up on her because, again, he felt she was unreliable. She got some mentoring from the Birds of Prey, but that didn't end well for . . . some reason. Then, in a shocking turn of events, Tim Drake quit being Robin, and Batman--in an attempt to shame him back into the tights--gave the mantle to Stephanie. She did a decent job, but it was very brief, and then she died. Sort of. She actually faked her death and hid in Africa, doing charitable work for a while. Then she came back, tried to resume her life before becoming Robin, and found it wasn't quite as easy as she'd hoped. Tim Drake wasn't quite the same guy from before, having suffered from a lot of death in a short damn time. He tried to exercise more control over his life by forbidding her to be Spoiler (there was other stuff going on, but it basically boils down to that). She refused, but then, after witnessing Cassandra's retirement moment, she took Cass's Batgirl outfit and is currently DC's Batgirl (after gaining acceptance from Barbara Gordon, who had a vested interested in the Batgirl name and in keeping girls from being damaged by it).
And that's where we stand now. I've been meaning to post about these events for a bit, but I wanted to wait until the introductory arc on the new series ended.
Cassandra Cain not being Batgirl anymore, I can buy. How she gave up the Batgirl name is silly. She is loyal to what the Bat-legacy stands for. She wouldn't quit just because Bruce Wayne was dead. Now, her being tired and burned out from the garbage shoveled on her in the past few years, that I can buy. But what she ended up doing? She beat up some mooks, stripped out of her outfit (in the rain!) and walked away, after a (brief) soliloquy to Spoiler. Supposedly, there are plans for her some time in 2010. Considering her past treatment, I'm not really confident, but I'll remain optimistic, because that's what I do.
And the thing is, aside from how Cass gave it all up, the series so far is pretty well written. Brian Q. Miller wrote 4 episodes of Smallville, which isn't really a glowing pedigree, a fill-in arc on Teen Titans (a pretty good one), and now Batgirl. Those are all his writing credits I could find. Despite what might be lack of experience, this Miller guy is pretty good. There's some weirdness, which I'd mark down as inexperience with comics, but other than that, on writing alone, I'd recommend this Batgirl series. I guess having someone else under the cowl was the kind of creative resurgence the Batgirl idea needed . . . but did they have to drop the previous Batgirl in such a strange way, after dumping bad after bad on her just to have the new girl come in?
The original Batgirl--often called the "Golden Age" Batgirl, though she actually debuted during the Silver Age--was a young girl named Bette Kane. At the time, giving superheroes big "families" was all the rage, so there was Batman, Batwoman, Robin, Batgirl, the Bat-Mite, Ace the Bathound, and so on. She barely had a characterization, just a "romantic foil" relationship with Robin, who was still stuck in the "girls have cooties" stage. Definitely not a triumph of feminism.
After cosmic reboots, she was never Batgirl. The next (first) Batgirl came about because of the campy TV show: the show wanted to pull in young men and women, so the producers wanted to give the show a female character in tights, both a role model for girls and some titillation for the boys. She was Barbara Gordon, daughter of the police commissioner. Interestingly, she became Batgirl pretty much on her own, as much to show her dad she'd grown up as to fight crime. She became "Batgirl" rather than anyone else because she had a little crush on Batman, but she had already trained herself in judo and gymnastics. Even more interestingly, she had a photographic memory, thus having the potential to be a better detective than Batman. I may have mentioned this before, but being the World's Greatest Detective was Batman's original shtick. Having a supporting cast member who could possibly be better at his whole shtick? And that supporting cast member being a woman? Perhaps a bit more of a triumph of feminism.
Oh, sure, she still got the same ridiculous "girl-centric" stories that women got in comics (and elsewhere) at the time, like finding the right man to marry and things of that nature. Complaining that she got treated like a stereotypical woman at the time would have been like complaining that every woman got treated that way. There are better ways to complain about femininity in comics, nowadays. She faded away a bit as time went on. Eventually she was practically forgotten. If she had been, perhaps things would be different these days. Instead, Alan Moore remembered her, and had permission to cripple her in his prestige-format book "The Killing Joke." The crippling stuck. She continued being pretty much forgotten . . . until J. M. DeMatteis was writing a book called Suicide Squad, dealing with a team of criminals and anti-heroes drafted by the US intelligence and para-military community to perform very dangerous missions for a chance at reduced sentencing (or absolved guilt in the case of most of the anti-heroes). A background subplot dealt with the identity of a super-hacker called the Oracle, who was offering intelligence and data processing for the team. Eventually, it turned out that the Oracle was Barbara Gordon, who was picking up the pieces of her life after being crippled by turning herself into the sedentary super-hacker and information broker Oracle. She bopped around a bit, settling in the Batbooks, until she was given her own title (sort of) in Birds of Prey, where she worked as a coordinator for theoretically a small team of super-heroine operatives (but usually just Black Canary until the last few years of the series).
While Barbara was busy with the Birds, Helena Bertinelli (aka Huntress) tried to deal with the mess that was the No Man's Land by being both Huntress and a new Batgirl. That only lasted a couple of months, though, before Batman judged her too unreliable and gave the Batgirl costume Helena had made to a girl named Cassandra Cain.
Cassandra was the next long-term Batgirl. She was raised by mega-assassin David Cain. Cain had strange ideas about martial arts and child-rearing: Cassandra was trained to be fluent in only one language, the "language of violence." Basically, she was taught to express herself with martial arts and to read peoples' body language to understand how others express themselves. She was brought onto an assassination and killed the target . . . and her abilities at reading body language was so acute that she watched the target's death throes and was traumatized by it. She ran away, living on her own somehow (it's never been explored exactly what she had to do to survive for years) until she ended up in Gotham during the No Man's Land. Oracle found her and made her a part of her Baker St Irregular-type of operators around Gotham at the time, and events conspired to have her meet Batman--who, having been trained by Cain as well, understood her "language of violence" upbringing. He started to trust her and gave her the Batgirl mantle. A psychic messed with her head so she could have an understanding of actual language (its been documented that people who don't learn to speak in their developmental years show a great difficulty in learning later in life). She tried to learn to read, but it turns out she has some form of dyslexia. She had a weird relationship with Batman (especially after he learned she actually had killed someone), but they mostly weathered the storm and she affirmed her loyalty to the idea of Batman (but not Bruce Wayne himself; this is important). Her series had some high points over the years, but despite being a somewhat solid-ish performer, was canceled with the onset of Infinite Crisis and the One Year Later events.
And that's when the suck truly set in.
After 1YL, Cassandra reappeared as a dragon-lady-ish villain in Robin. It was completely unrelated to any of her previous characterization. DC tried to fix the horribleness, but also kept shoveling crap on her. Finally, Bruce Wayne was declared dead and Cassandra Cain quit her life as a super-heroine.
Which leads us to the current Batgirl: Stephanie Brown. Unlike all previous versions of Batgirl (except the short stint by Helena Bertinelli), Stephanie actually had experience as a crimefighter before becoming Batgirl. She started out as the Spoiler, "spoiling" the crimes of her father--Arthur Brown, aka the Cluemaster--in the pages of Robin. She had a lot of enthusiasm, and some gymnastic moves, and some common sense, but that was about it. Batman didn't approve, but Robin was kind of attracted to her so he helped her out. Eventually, Batman decided to give her some training, but gave up on her because, again, he felt she was unreliable. She got some mentoring from the Birds of Prey, but that didn't end well for . . . some reason. Then, in a shocking turn of events, Tim Drake quit being Robin, and Batman--in an attempt to shame him back into the tights--gave the mantle to Stephanie. She did a decent job, but it was very brief, and then she died. Sort of. She actually faked her death and hid in Africa, doing charitable work for a while. Then she came back, tried to resume her life before becoming Robin, and found it wasn't quite as easy as she'd hoped. Tim Drake wasn't quite the same guy from before, having suffered from a lot of death in a short damn time. He tried to exercise more control over his life by forbidding her to be Spoiler (there was other stuff going on, but it basically boils down to that). She refused, but then, after witnessing Cassandra's retirement moment, she took Cass's Batgirl outfit and is currently DC's Batgirl (after gaining acceptance from Barbara Gordon, who had a vested interested in the Batgirl name and in keeping girls from being damaged by it).
And that's where we stand now. I've been meaning to post about these events for a bit, but I wanted to wait until the introductory arc on the new series ended.
Cassandra Cain not being Batgirl anymore, I can buy. How she gave up the Batgirl name is silly. She is loyal to what the Bat-legacy stands for. She wouldn't quit just because Bruce Wayne was dead. Now, her being tired and burned out from the garbage shoveled on her in the past few years, that I can buy. But what she ended up doing? She beat up some mooks, stripped out of her outfit (in the rain!) and walked away, after a (brief) soliloquy to Spoiler. Supposedly, there are plans for her some time in 2010. Considering her past treatment, I'm not really confident, but I'll remain optimistic, because that's what I do.
And the thing is, aside from how Cass gave it all up, the series so far is pretty well written. Brian Q. Miller wrote 4 episodes of Smallville, which isn't really a glowing pedigree, a fill-in arc on Teen Titans (a pretty good one), and now Batgirl. Those are all his writing credits I could find. Despite what might be lack of experience, this Miller guy is pretty good. There's some weirdness, which I'd mark down as inexperience with comics, but other than that, on writing alone, I'd recommend this Batgirl series. I guess having someone else under the cowl was the kind of creative resurgence the Batgirl idea needed . . . but did they have to drop the previous Batgirl in such a strange way, after dumping bad after bad on her just to have the new girl come in?