And the meta continues not to happen. Today's flavour: Batgirl

[buggery]

There I was, innocently answering a question for karabou, when I realised I was again thinking thoughts that deserved meta -- in this case, about 1988's Batgirl Special and its continued resonance in modern canon.

Most everyone who's even glancingly familiar with current Gotham comics knows that Barbara Gordon is no longer Batgirl, was shot and paralyzed by the Joker, and now works with the cape crew from her wheelchair as Oracle. What some relative newcomers to the Bat-comics don't realise -- I didn't, until I started delving into back issues and listening to people who'd been reading the comics since well before Batman: The Animated Series kindled my own fascination with the Dark Knight and his family in the early 90s -- is that Barbara had actually chosen to retire from her crime-fighting career before she was shot.

The Batgirl Special, subtitled "The Last Batgirl Story" by scripter Barbara Randall, tells the tale of the last case Babs felt she needed to close before she could hang up her Batgirl suit permanently, a murderer called Cormorant who had nearly killed Barbara earlier in her crime-fighting career. As the issue opens, we see a brief flashback to the last Batgirl-Cormorant confrontation (after which he seems to have presumed her dead) followed by a two-page spread of a murder victim sprawled between the shelves in a library, aghast patrons clustered around, and Barbara Gordon, Head Librarian, at the center of it all.

Here's her internal monologue, from the narrative boxes on these two pages:

That was four years ago, but it never stops happening. He's been killing me in my dreams ever since.

Every time I'm scared, I see him. Every time I dream of him, I wake up shaking.

And now, this. A murder right under my nose, in my library.

Did he leave the hat to taunt me? Does he know who I am?

Babs swiftly takes charge of the situation, keeping the bystanders back and delegating another librarian to call the police while she makes her own quick assessment of the crime scene. But the theme of her being haunted by Cormorant continues through the book; we see her laying awake at night, wondering "what am I going to do when I see him? What if he hurts me again?"

Barbara seems able to lay the spectre of Cormorant to rest by the end of the story, when she boxes her Batgirl costume up and sets that aside, too. That same pattern of reaction repeats itself with the Joker, though, after he shoots her in Alan Moore's The Killing Joke. As recently as Dylan Horrocks's "Secret City" storyline (Legends of the Dark Knight #180-181) which ended just last month, we see a Barbara Gordon who continues to be haunted by her fear of the Joker.

Arguments could be made (and probably either have or will) that having Babs react to the Joker now the way she did to Cormorant then is going backwards with her character, that she's not being allowed to make any progress that would wind up changing her characterisation. I disagree. I think it's brilliant characterisation to see Babs repeating this same pattern after another, similar (if much worse) trauma; that's what people do, in the real world, and moreover she hasn't had the opportunity for the same closure with the Joker that she did with Cormorant. (Note: I'm deliberately avoiding major spoilers for the plot and ending of the Batgirl Special, since so many people haven't yet read it, and I'd appreciate it if anyone responding to this post in comments would take the same care.) It also adds tremendously to the eeriness and immediacy of Babs's continuing fears to be able to look back and see their roots.

Actually, there's a lot of stuff in the Special that now seems to foreshadow later events. We see Babs linking into her library database from home to do research for Batgirl's case. Her friend Marcy (who sewed the original Batgirl costume) looks at it and muses, later, that "anyone could wear it. Do you suppose there's another little Babs out there right now?" -- in response to which Babs wonders whether she'd put a stop to the theoretical girl vigilante (Helena), or give her Babs's own costume (Cassandra).

Perhaps eeriest of all, foreshadowing-wise, is the ad immediately following the last page of the story (which, unfortunately, is probably not included in torrented scans of the comic -- could somebody who's seen the .cbr clear this up and/or point others to where to find the file?), for The Killing Joke. That book's listed as having been released in 1995, but apparently that was just the first large-scale reprint.

So, those are my thoughts, such as they are. Now I'm throwing this open: Tell me yours.


Also...


Robin's panties are lacy love.
Thanks, your_martyr. I think.

Comments

[gchick.livejournal.com]

I don't have the Batgirl Special .cbr (and now I wanna see that ad!), but the Killing Joke was definitely 1988. As you guessed, the 1995 date is for the current TPB edition.

[nos4a2no9.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the Batgirl special, but I think you make a good point: Bab's inability to banish tragedy from her mind (and yet deal with it enough to function) really does make her into a more realistic character. And poor Babs! Really plays into that whole 'Women in Refridgerators' theory, huh? Why do you think the Powers that Be decided to make TKJ (and her injuries) canon? I've never heard any official explanation for why they decided to give Batgirl the axe and put her in a wheelchair; I understand there was quite a bit of lag time between the Joker's attack and Babs becomming a BoP. Was that in the plan all along, or do you think the DC editors just did it to cut down the Batfamily numbers?