Batgirl: Year One excerpts

[3goodtimes]

Issue #3 of Batgirl: Year One. Batman and Robin confront the new vigilante in town.

Heh.





Babs recalls her first meeting with Robin.


Issue #4. Barbara's first attempt at swinging around Gotham.



Oh dear.





Yes, knock out the much younger girl and drag her back to your cave. Good plan, Bruce.

Your lair, Dick?

Later, in issue #6, Dick gives Babs a bike and some bat toys.

"Oh my god, she's totally breathing on something I breathed on! My masturbatory fantasies have been fulfilled."

I love the little bat ears on that helmet.

Comments

[protogarrett]

More, please. Never seen this before. It's excellent. I've never seen Babs as Batgirl.

[3goodtimes]

I highly recommend buying the trade (or book or whatever they call em) of Batgirl: Year One. It's wonderful. A fab introduction to Batgirl Babs.

[crinos]

Wow, seriously?

You know, I was born in 83, so by the time I was old enough to appreciate comics Babs was already wheelchair bound, and even I've always thought of Barbra as Batgirl.

Its official: I feel old.

[protogarrett]

Same here for 83, but I never read DC till Scans Daily.

[joasakura]

you..feel..

ok, so I'm going to just go drag my mummified remains over in the corner, here.

:remembers, vaguely, babs as congresswoman from her own youth:

[autolychus2]

Yeah, me too. I was in 9th grade in '83.

[saralakali]

Same here. (Though technically Yvonne Craig was my introduction to Batgirl, so let's hear it for librarian!Babs.)

[joasakura]

I loved her batgirl costume. *_*

[retro_nouveau]

Heh. Never just you. (Default icon for three years.)

[irrelevant]

Oh, oh Babs. *laughs hysterically* This is the Batgirl I love: snarky, badass, and ew, gtfo of my face Boy Wonder. Sooooo much better than D Grayson's Soap Opera Wing melodrama of never-freaking-happened.

I love this girl so goddamn much. And you're right: those ears are awesome.

[3goodtimes]

Haha! See, I like Dick and Babs together, but only with a certain dynamic. Namely, a playful cat and mouse game with a bit of an edge. Though I understand the need for dramallama and tears sometimes, I think they could really make Dick and Barbara shine as a couple if they brought more humor and sexiness into the mix.

As it stands now, they're better off platonic or with someone else entirely.

[darkknightjrk]

Man, I really need to get this book. :D

[cloud_wolf]

LOL. I especially like the art. So pretty!

This seems a good place to ask whether Robin: Year One is any good. Is it? Because the cover on the trade is kind of really pretty but I don't know whether the story is good.

[3goodtimes]

Oh yes, it's excellent. I like it as much as I like Batgirl: Year One. I might post some of it next week, and I think someone else is planning on putting up a few scans as well.

[zordboy]

"Yes, knock out the much younger girl and drag her back to your cave. Good plan, Bruce."

Well, to be fair, this is *Bruce* and *Dick*. She really didn't have much to worry about ^_^.

[3goodtimes]

Yeah, but she didn't know that then! Some most likely crazy dude in a Batsuit knocked her out and dragged her back to his big, scary cave. There's not much comforting in that scenario, haha.

[weezus]

I don't know how many times I've re-read this. It's one of the very first books I bought being a little new-comer to comics and I still love it.

[jcbaggee]

What!? You're going to post this, but you leave out where Dick has to dress as Batgirl? ;)

Adore this mini. I really wish DC would get someone (preferably Darwyn Cooke) on some kind of on-going set in or around the Silver Age. There's huge potential for a fun, cracky book there.

[nezchan]

It's nice that her first memory of Dick is standing at crotch level to him.

[jkcarrier]

While she notes that "he's grown a few inches". Egad.

[cmdr_zoom]

Yeah.
To which inches are you referring there, Babs?

[benicio127]

I loved this issue. I read through it so fast, too. You know it's good when you just can't put it down.

[ladymirth]

This book is one of my absolute favourites. Babsgirl reminds me so much of Stephie...only with more gtfomyfacebiatch-ness.

[thebigapricot]

I know some folks don't like it, but I really love Batgirl Year One. Barbara is just so full of joy and spunk. There is a live motion comic of the book available on iTunes. Live motion comics very rudimentary so not for everyone but I really enjoyed it.

[math_camel]

I admit there were some issues with this one, but I still really like it. Just look at how pretty the art is! And all the little things like the bat ears on the helmet, the heel switch from costume to uniform and Dick sitting on his tippy-toes on the roof. So cute!

[kirke_novak]

How to get your ass whooped: an easy guide:

Call Batgirl "Just a girl"


Yup, that just about covers it.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, Dick has fought Catwoman and probably Poison Ivy by this point, you think he'd know better...

Feh.

[sistermagpie]

I know I'm always curmudgeonly about this topic, but I don't get why this story is loved. We used to have two different characters. And now it's like "Woo-hoo! They retconned away Babs' personality to make her totally like Stephanie Brown!"

Which is not a criticism of Stephanie since that's her actual personality. But it's not a good thing that Chuck Dixon can only envision one kind of female crimefighter with Batman and Robin, the plucky teenaged girl with her hands on her hips sticking her chin up at mean old Batman. Real Babs would have no time for this.

Re: Feh.

[irrelevant]

Actually... what I thought the first time I read it was: DCAU Babs.

And then I was happy. :)

Which is not to say that I don't very much appreciate Babs in all her incarnations, because Barbara Gordon is never not awesome, but I hold a special place in my heart for DCAU Babs. And she's what I saw in BG:YO, and why I liked it so much.

Re: Feh.

[cmdr_zoom]

This.

Can you suggest another direction to go with the character to get away from the horribly dated and sexist original stories? 'Cause I don't think anyone considers that an acceptable option anymore.

(edit and repost to reorganize my thoughts)

Re: Feh.

[sistermagpie]

It's been a while since I read them but are they so sexist? Obviously the time period had a much higher level of accepted sexism. And they are dated, just like the rest of the 'verse at that time but are they all cringeworthy? I'm usually surprised at how much I still love Bronze Age stuff.

Nowadays it's basically just about doing flashbacks and it wouldn't be hard to keep Babs' basic backstory or even just skip the backstory and just do flashbacks to her time as Batgirl that are more modern, same as they do with Batman himself. Most of the flashbacks I come across now tend to be Babs as a teenager dating/flirting with Robin--the relationship that never actually was--or otherwise being the young girl to some adult male (like I remember one with Ollie).

I would love flashbacks to, say, Babs when she was a congresswoman and Dick was her intern (and she didn't know he was Robin), or Babs as the superhero librarian. Or just her on a case alone or with Batman. Part of it, of course, is the current idea that Bruce never dealt smoothly with anybody--like in this story where he's playing a ton of mindgames.

But then, it's not like I have all those old stories in my head so maybe I'm changing them in my memory. But I tend to think of all the stuff from that time period as being canonical.

Re: Feh.

[3goodtimes]

Though I enjoy Batgirl:Year One, your ideas sound fabulous too. I wish they'd do the congresswoman story or more Barbara and Bruce interaction from her early days.

As for the flirting with Robin... she didn't appear to do that much in this book. She basically rejects him over and over again. And because this was sort of a Dick-centric post, I didn't put up all the Babs without Robin scans (of which there are many).

I think what I like about this is that Barbara is strong, smart, independent, good-hearted, but also human. She's new and she makes mistakes. She's a young girl, so she's annoyed by a boys' advances. She's overly cocky. And she's a decent version of Babs. In the comic book world, most heroes go through different incarnations. Although I'm quite fond of various Barbaras, this one is lovable too, and I don't see anything wrong with an author putting forth his approach to her backstory.

But yeah... I'd love to see another Year One with your preferred Babses as well. The more the merrier.

Re: Feh.

[sistermagpie]

Oh yes, I've read the story. The flirting with Robin was more me thinking about how often when her time as Batgirl gets referenced it's part of the "Babs/Dick tru luv 4-evah!" idea with the two of them.

I don't find this Barbara unlovable at all, I should say. I don't need to see a different Year-One. (If nothing else, I doubt it would top this art, which I completely love.) What frustrates me is more that I feel like it gets praised for something that's really a flaw--making her into Stephanie. Not because Stephanie's unlikable either, but to me it seems suspiciously as if Chuck Dixon just can't imagine a different dynamic and girl, you know?

Re: Feh.

[3goodtimes]

Hmm. Well, I have to say, I don't see her as a Stephanie knockoff at all. Steph's got more insecurities, and less keen intelligence (though she's still smart). Her humor is different, and I would say her style of interaction with other Bats is a bit more friendly-goofy.

Re: Feh.

[alienist]

You are so very not alone. I take Flawed Gems as canon over this, personally.

(...I seem to prefer Secret Origins to Year Ones in general.)

[leorising]

Also, page 4: Impossible catch! Crotch!

So we've had crotch shots from Iron Man and, erm, was it Wonder Woman?, recently as well. Being the lazy sod I am, you'd wait forever for a compilation post if you waited on me, but maybe some enterprising SDer could take a poke at it give it a try? :D

[retro_nouveau]

I love year one stories. They all go through it, one of my favorite memories is from Mask of the Phantasm when the kid in the black ski mask drops in on a heist and almost ends up crushed between truck and wall.

Dick smoothly puts his hand on her shoulder, and she's looking at it like "Aw, great. Now I have to wash the cooties off my cape." XD

[queenanthai]

This was the best damn series.

[kryptongirl]

I love the art style so much. Thanks for scans, you've inspired me to re-read it!

[skalja]

Aaaah, the series that made me love Marcos Martin.