If you only read one piece on DC's decision to make Barbara Gordon back into Batgirl, read this one. Yes, it's long. It's also incredibly thorough and well thought-out.
I'm generally there with you (other than that I'm pretty much not buying anything by DC or Marvel that's not Daredevil, although I'm certainly going to look at what DC does). Simone's definitely rationalizing, and I do get that if she didn't write Batgirl, someone who cared less would (similar to Devin Grayson's decision to kill Nemesis back in Catwoman). And yeah, the rationalizations are flat.
But what it comes down to is that the fanboys running DC want everything the way it was back when they started reading comic books. That means Barry Allen is the Flash, Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern (oh god, the way Johns practically creamed in his pants writing Hal in those early issues), and by golly Barbara Gordon has to be Batgirl.
I have a sad feeling that this relaunch is going to be a dismal failure because the target audience they're trying so desperately to reach isn't interested in the medium. And in the meantime I have to wonder how much of the old guard they'll lose along the way.
they did it because Barbara Gordon looks hotter in a Batgirl costume than in a wheelchair. Also, because for some of the staff there of a certain age, Barabara is the "real" Batgirl.
I think they shouldve kept her as Oracle.
Id be just as happy with the asian or blonde Batgirl, instead.
The hotness is a factor of the costume itself being sexy (a gymnast in skintight leather is going to be attractive, period), but as a character, she was more interesting (and thus more attractive) as Babs/Oracle, if only because that was the era when good writers actually handled her. But yeah, it's the staff of a certain age who are the big factors here.
And yeah, getting rid of the two perfectly good Batgirls they had already also just annoys me.
Hotter to whom? Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair looks like sex on wheels to me; Barbara Gordon in a skintight catsuit looks like every other costumed heroine. But okay, let's say they were only talking about presumed typical responses to attractiveness: if there were only about cheesecake, they would be keeping Birds of Prey alive, because that series is all babes, all the time. You get constant two-page spreads of Babs' jiggly, scantily-clad superheroine friends. Heck, even Misfit's hot, if you like jailbait.
The one of Simone's rationalizations that seems most likely to me is the complaint that Oracle had gotten too powerful. DC does not like its men to rely on women for anything other than sex or sexy eviltimes or mothering. Oracle was too damn competent, and her sex life was about her, not about any of the male heroes. (It was so joyous to watch her use Dick for occasional sex without letting him turn her into the victimized object of his manpain, seriously.)
Agreed to the last (and to the rest, of course). As Eric notes in his essay, if it was just a matter of Babs being used as a deus ex so Batman can concentrate on hitting instead of detecting, that's a matter of getting the writers to not suck, not a flaw in the character.
I've been rereading the original Suicide Squad run, and damned near squeed at re-seeing Oracle's first "appearances," (as a disembodied computer voice talking to Flo, and later being one of the few other than Eve Eden or Tom Tresser to win a battle of words with Waller). And I can't think of any other character who generally moved in a continually positive arc since her re-introduction, getting better and better over the years.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-26 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-25 08:46 pm (UTC)I have a sad feeling that this relaunch is going to be a dismal failure because the target audience they're trying so desperately to reach isn't interested in the medium. And in the meantime I have to wonder how much of the old guard they'll lose along the way.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-25 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-26 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-25 09:01 pm (UTC)I think they shouldve kept her as Oracle.
Id be just as happy with the asian or blonde Batgirl, instead.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-26 12:32 pm (UTC)And yeah, getting rid of the two perfectly good Batgirls they had already also just annoys me.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-26 02:03 pm (UTC)The one of Simone's rationalizations that seems most likely to me is the complaint that Oracle had gotten too powerful. DC does not like its men to rely on women for anything other than sex or sexy eviltimes or mothering. Oracle was too damn competent, and her sex life was about her, not about any of the male heroes. (It was so joyous to watch her use Dick for occasional sex without letting him turn her into the victimized object of his manpain, seriously.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-26 02:11 pm (UTC)I've been rereading the original Suicide Squad run, and damned near squeed at re-seeing Oracle's first "appearances," (as a disembodied computer voice talking to Flo, and later being one of the few other than Eve Eden or Tom Tresser to win a battle of words with Waller). And I can't think of any other character who generally moved in a continually positive arc since her re-introduction, getting better and better over the years.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-26 02:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-26 02:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-26 10:17 pm (UTC)