Batgirl interview of doom

[nevermore999]

Okay, so before I get to my super mega review of Batgirl #3, I'm going to give my thoughts on this interview by Bryan Q. Miller.
The first comment to tackle is this:

From a dramatic standpoint, there aren't many places left to go with Cassandra. Steph's a work in progress.

At first this comment made me angry, but after thinking it over for a few

Comments

[milleniumrex]

Rant is made of win.

I have hope for wherever Cass will appear next, though. Hopefully it's by someone who knows how to handle her.

Big red ecks on Charlie.

[scottyquick]

CHECKMARK on your Charlie bits. That's exactly what I'm hoping.

[parsimonia]

WORD. Though I do wish that they could somehow make the abandonment thing go away entirely.

[parsimonia]

Particularly since she herself knows what it's like to lose your parents and have to rely on someone you don't really know and who has problems of his own for care and protection.

EXACTLY. I cannot imagine Babs being able to look her father in the eye and tell him she dumped Charlie on a friend--because Babs knows she owes a lot to having had a loving person take her in and become her parent. I can see her maybe having her own doubts about how good of a guardian she's being to Charlie, questioning whether or not she's doing a good job, but she wouldn't turn around and give up.

[nevermore999]

Well, I'd like a retcon too, but that seems unlikely (even more unlikely than my plan) and I was trying to respect bluejaybirdie's desire to see the fucked up abandonment dealt with, since her post struck a chord with me (I hate seeing it when callous behavior in comics/fiction trigger people's real issues. Another reason why writer's should be way more careful about their casual sexism and grimdarkgrittyness (which, I just read Archie Meets the Punisher. OMG Archie makes a vague attempt at it after meeting Frank, it was hilariousness, especially how Betty told him he'd have to dress way differently and
Veronica responded his declaration"I'm grim and gritty" with "Then take a shower." Ahem, sorry.)

[the_narration]

One of the things in that interview that makes me grit my teeth is the claim that in Bruce, Cassandra "had finally found a father she could rely on." That's not quite how I remember things. My memory is more like he treated her crap, then didn't notice when she went missing for a year, then ignored and dismissed her as crazy when she was brainwashed.

I'm deeply disappointed that Cass won't be a supporting character in Batgirl, intereacting with Steph and Babs, considering how close they both were to her at one time. Maybe she'll be able to join them after whatever other nonsense DC has planned for her has crashed and burned. (The vague mentions of "plans for Cassandra" worry me. Another round of being written by Beechen, perhaps?)

They've completely forgotten Misfit exists, haven't they? They had Babs dump her off on Helena just for the sake of that "Oracle: Search for the Cure" mini that didn't wind up meaning much, and now they're stuck with her having abandoned the girl.

[bluejaybirdie]

I agree pretty much completely with all of your points. I like BQM, and from what I've seen on s_d he's got a pretty good handle on the characters, but man, DC editoral makes me so sad/pissed off right now.

It really is very awkward how white the DCU's gotten lately, isn't it? They've gotten rid of Cass, made Hal the main GL again (John's black and Kyle's apparently partially hispanic), it looks like they're going to put blonde haired, blue-eyed Barry back as the Flash (it counts, red heads are uncommon!), and I can't think of a major book with a non-white lead (please, please correct me if I'm wrong).

Like I've said before, the thing with Charlie is unfortunatly enough to keep me away from the book, and I really hope DC resolves it.