DETECTIVE COMICS # 875

[superfangirl1]

We learn more of jim jr past: such as a young boy he had a diagnostic evaluation at Arkham Asylum, was suspected of sending a football player to the hospital by unknown means and the disappearance of Barbara friend.

James Gordon wonders if the incident where he was dropped from a bridge as a baby and not being there for him while growing up had anything to do with jim jr unusualness.

Comments

[icon_uk]

Did James Jr just refer to his mother as "Mrs Gordon"?

[misterbug]

ADOPTIVE Mother, Sarah Gordon, nee Essen. His birth Mum is either dead or divorced, I forget which.

Although the above pages confuse me - I thought Babs was born after Jim jr. was?

[icon_uk]

I gave up trying to work out how the localised time dilation eddies in Gotham affect the relative rate of ageing of many the inhabitants, sometimes within the same family.

[darkknightjrk]

James' birth mother, Barbara, divorced Jim and left him for Chicago, taking James with her.

And considering how smaller James looks, I think it's still established that Barbara is older than James.

[espanolbot]

Barbara is technically only Jim's adopted daughter, while bing his biological niece, she was already about 12...ish when she moved to Gotham to stay with Jim after her biological father and mother died in a carcrash.

At least this is how it used to be, and in one of Jim Sale's post-Long Halloween stories (so... Batman year... three or so?) it had Babs moving to Gotham to live with Jim, and she was already in either her early teens or something.

[darkknightjrk]

That doesn't sound like those two need to contradict--early teens are around 13, so having Barbara be around 12-14 and James around 7 or 8 would work.

Granted, there are some continuity boo-boos in this issue, such as Sarah being James' wife that close to the "Year One" era when she married him around Knightfall, but the ages probably could work if you squint at them at the right way.

[icon_uk]

Thinking about it, that actually doesn't work timewise. Gordon only married Essen when Babs was already in a wheelchair and had been Oracle for some years. There's no logical way that Babs should be mobile when she would have been "Mrs Gordon"

[corrinal]

Yeah, that doesn't work. Jim and Sarah married when James Jr. was approximately eight or so (James was kidnapped again around the planning of their wedding). But at the time, Babs was already in a wheelchair.

Forget it. It's just too confusing time-wise. Chalk it up either to retcon punch or Superman singing the world back to life.

[jaybee3]

I was thinking that too. By the time Sara married Jim, Barbara's Batgirl days were behind her. There's no way she would look like a teenager. It isn't inconceivable that Barbara is 10+ years older than Jim Jr. (especially if the adoption story is intact) so unless this is a subtle retcon I don't get it.

[benicio127]

Babs.... is technically Jim's niece, her parents died and Jim adopted her, making him her adoptive father.

[kamino_neko]

Divorced. And still alive at this point in the story, at least. Another scene is her calling Jim to thank him for taking James on this trip.