About the new Batgirl book: A Scan From Batman: The Return

[maxisanacorn]

Being a big fan of Stephanie Brown, I've been in a bit of a state of despair, but then I saw this panel on tumblr, wondering what people thought.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmfpz5FppC1qd6q84.jpg

It's pretty blatant..." Here's a program that will enable you to "use your legs" again, and yet they haven't shown anything about it, per se - UNTIL a few months later BAM we have an image of Babs in the batsuit on the cover of a book. And here Bruce saying she can customize it however she wants, so, it doesn't have to look like the picture hence why her Batgirl costume on the released cover is different, but has some of the same..piping and look. What do you think? Do you think this new Batgirl book will actually be about Digital!Babs being Bruce's ghost in the machine and DC has taken the opportunity of her returning to "action" from being Oracle took the opportunity to over hype it as her "grand return" when it's not as...rebooty as one might think, just a new role for Barbara Gordon and a return to action.

Gail Simone has been rather outspoken about the response to the news, and there are times it seems it is indeed a true reboot given her comments, but then, there are times certain comments seem like they are trying to assuage fears but editorially not give too much information away as to pop the media bubble since it's getting LOTS of media attention. Part of me can't decide if I'm frustrated with her or am incredibly sympathetic for she now having to deal with the concerns of Stephanie and Casandra and backlash from Disability groups while still sitting on full details she can't reveal. She seems stuck between a rock and a hard place with it and has to kind of...censor what she says until she can say more?

What do you think? Why would Morrison have this if it was not going to be used? Is this just DC being extremely sneaky in advertising and by looks of it, getting exactly the result they wanted.

Thoughts? I'd hate to think this concept was scrapped so quickly, why else would they include it?

Comments

[looking2dastars.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking everyone protesting Batgirl #1 is just adding fuel to the hype train.

[heckfire]

I'm inclined to agree.

[shadowpsykie]

a recent tweet said she sees no reason why Steph and Cass would no longer be in the universe, or used by DC....

[jaybee3]

Yeah, but there was "no reason" Cassandra Cain couldn't be used anytime between Battle for the Cowl and The Return of Bruce Wayne (what with the"big plans in 2010" B.S.) and instead there seemed to be a concerted effort to bury her for over a year and pretend she never existed. So even if Cass and Steph still "exist" in this retconned/rebooted world I have zero confidence in DC using them unless they are in one of the few books left to be announced (I am still confident Tim will be, at least) - and I don't think they will be.

Dan Didio has wanted Babs back as Batgirl for years, they almost did it during Oracle:The Cure, they were PLANNING it even while the Beechan Cass Cain mini-series was still being printed. When Steph became Batgirl, there was an ALMOST universal black-out on the Batgirl who existed between her and Babs (even said Batgirl was Steph's BFF and Oracle's ward-of-sorts), why should DC be any different here and pretend the Steph/Cass Batgirls never existed either?

And yes, I am very bitter about this, sorry...it just seems we've gone through this before.

[maxisanacorn]

Gail has said she wanted to use Cassandra and it was permitted but then Gates of Gotham was okayed instead and she was barred access again. It seems such a touch and go system!

[mrstatham]

And there's that thing again - 'Gail said'. We're all tending to accept what she says at face value because she's a 'nicer' creator, frankly. I sure as hell trusted her when she said that Barbara Gordon wouldn't take a JLA quick-fix on her legs or anything along those lines as long as the technology wasn't available to others outside the superhero community, and.. Well. Go figure.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

With due respect, while I agree that Gail's word is questionable, I think that's just the nature of the business.

Gail's a professional. And professionals don't air office politics, they answer to their superiors and toe the company line.

While I've always found Gail to be respectful online, but at the end of the day, DC pays her. And it's to them that she owes her loyalty to. Just because she has a generalized complaint about comics at large, doesn't mean we should really expect her to speak out against her bosses.

[mrstatham]

No, no, I understand that, but at the same time, I've still lost respect for her with this Batgirl thing. Her stance on Barbara Gordon, for instance was exactly what I've stated - That Barbara wouldn't get her legs fixed until the procedures that did it were available to the DCU's public as a whole. And we can almost guarantee that won't be the case here. We're not going to see a whole load of disabled people walking again.

She's also spoken out against her bosses before, frankly, on a number of issues - One of the most recent ones being Didio's comment about Bane, and moving him away from what Simone has been depicting him as - Which she clearly wasn't too impressed by. I personally think she likes that she's a little more in touch with the fanbase than most DC creators are, but at the same time, because although it puts her in touch with the people who like her work, it also allows her to cover her back if necessary.

I've never bought her arguments that she wanted to put Cass in the book - To me, that's just her appeasing fans by saying she did her best.

[thelostglove]

I'm not putting any money down on what it'll mean in the fall, but yeah, I thought of this when I saw the Batgirl cover too.

[maxisanacorn]

Yeah only too coincidental right? I don't know whether to call DC advertising a genius or if this is the worst they could possibly to do fans in the meantime.

I mean, they said this Batgirl has dark secrets and all this go around, which means to signify it's "all new" but yeah...idk, this is interesting to me. Ever since I was reminded of this again I've gotten a bit less..panicked because that means the book is just changing focus or Stephanie and Cass are just going to be in Batman Inc because Morrison or the powers above OBVIOUSLY are showing some sort of plot point here we just haven't gotten to yet.

[thelostglove]

In my limited experience, taking comics hype at face value seems like a short path to misery, but this week hasn't made it easy to avoid.

[icon_uk]

"Batman: The Return" also featured the request from Bruce for Dick and Damian to stay together as Batman and Robin in Gotham, and look at how quickly THAT'S being dissolved....

[kenn_el]

They DID stay together, though. Supposedly there are reasons for the retooling which might be given when the books launch: either resetting the universe or adding some event that changes things, to explain why what we're seeing advances of occurred. OTOH, it could just be change for the sake of change and a marketing strategy. Then, again, I'm all for a mobile Barbara, and a non-Batman Dick, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

[icon_uk]

Apparently the murder of Ryan Choi's Atom, and the reason for Deathstrokes Titans team even existing was all part of a plan which they just haven't got around to explaining even NOW, so DC's ability to play the long game fails to excite me.

Whilst I like the idea of Dick as Nightwing too (weird red lenses to one side), the reason for Dick leaving his role, not so much Batman, as Damian's mentor and foil had better be bloody damn SPECTACULAR to be worth the loss of their dynamic, because I can't see Bruce and Damian being remotely as interesting as they currently stand. Unfortunately, powerful emotional beats have been where Morrison's Bat-run has been sorely, solrey lacking IMHO. A lot of bang, a lot of flash, but very little in the way of heart.

[mullon]

I've decided to ignore everything on the internet until August and just cautiously hang around Marvel, whose pile of crap is more managable.

[golden_orange]

I'm not 100% sure on this, to be honest. On one hand, it allows DC to put Barbara in the 'Batgirl' role while still downplaying the negative implications of taking a fairly high-profile wheelchair-bound character and 'curing' her. On the other hand, to me it kind of smacks of a 'having your cake and eating it too' solution which has the potential to backfire, and the whole 'partial' retcon thing never seems like it works in the long run; trying to please everyone usually ends up pleasing no one.

I can't help but wonder whether, if they are absolutely determined to make Barbara Batgirl again, it might not be better just to quickly pull the Band Aid right off, so to speak, and do a full retcon rather than pulling it off in increments; either way's going to hurt, but the first option gets the pain over right away while the second option just makes it last longer.

[shanejayell]

I HOPE this is the direction DC is taking, but I'm not holding my breath.

[silverzeo]

Wait.... England Bordering School... like Barb's story from the Batman and Robin movie?

[maxisanacorn]

Well that's a way to get rid of Stephanie, really, or keep her just regulated to Batman Inc. books...

I hope this what they do, that way Stephanie can be BATGIRL or give herself a new moniker while Babs can be...this digital Batgirl that pretty much evokes her old self.

It seems too coincidental. I'm going to die if Stephanie Brown looses the bat ears though, she could just rename herself easily if they want to call Barbara Batgirl again.

[mrstatham]

No, the English Boarding School was/is a plot point in an upcoming issue of Batman Inc that Morrison is writing, and it ties in with the issue of Batgirl meeting Squire of the Knight and Squire pairing that's coming up shortly.

[thehefner]

So... it's going to be Babs as "Batgirl" in Tron?

[icon_uk]

That certainly seems to be the vibe that they were going for... though limiting ones cyber-existence in a virtual world to a basic human avatar when there's no need to, seems approaching the perverse.

[jarodrussell]

Which is why Tr2n sucked so hard. The greatest hacker on the planet has been locked in a computer for 900-ish years subjectively with access to his base code and he makes no modifications to himself, doesn't even add in a threading module for multitasking.

Then again, that's pretty much what happened to Oracle. The greatest hacker on the planet in infected with a nano-virus capable to reproduction and regeneration, she has a copy of its source code in her photographic memory, and only thing she decides to do is have it yanked out.

Epic fail * 2.

[sharky_chan]

Well, not to jump back on my "generally speaking, comic and movie creators know nothing about science and technology and never fail to make it boring" rant, but...generally speaking, comic and movie creators know nothing about science and technology and never fail to make it boring ^^;;.

[eyz]

I sure hope so...And also that we'll have a book called Batgirl where we'll be able to follow both Steph and Cass...
...yeah...
..right..

:(

[angelophile]

How do you explain Gail's line in the blurb about the book about how the citizens of Gotham will be able to "look up and see Batgirl"? (Because Cass and Steph don't count, apparently.)

[mrstatham]

I don't think DC have any intention of following Morrison's Internet 3.0 idea for Babs. The costume design for that cover is plainly different than what's displayed on that page, and I doubt Gail would want to be limited by something else another writer's laid down.

[maxisanacorn]

He does say she can edit it anyway she wants...

[grimmbear]

Maybe she is hinting that there will still BE a Batgirl they can look up and see (Steph) but the real brains of the Batgirl unit is Babs.

[angelophile]

Really?

[jarodrussell]

"I'm not convinced that taking Oracle out of the chair due to magic is really what that corner of the DCU is about." - Gail Simone

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Auther C. Clarke

I'll let you figure out how I feel from those two quotes, although knowing SD it'll end up probably being a question about why I hate Oracle.

[mrstatham]

This is my reason for not trusting a word Simone says anymore. The first chance she's got properly, she's jumped aboard a book with a concept that she's spoken out against in the past. Whilst it may be a case of handling a bad concept so other people can't screw it up worse, it's still going against what she said in the past.

She declared that Oracle shouldn't and wouldn't, from her perspective, get out of the chair until whatever does it is available to the DCU at large. This goes against that entirely.

[jarodrussell]

Gail Simone successfully trades on the superficiality and short-term memory of her audience. This time, in particular, she talks about how "thrilling that a generation of comics readers will be experiencing [Barbara Gordon leaping, fighting, and swinging over Gotham] for the first time," yes back in February she was talking about the four year old paralyzed nephew of someone she consults with who "says he's going to grow up to be, 'Mr. Oracle.'"

So, yeah, the next generation gets to get excited about Batgirl "leaping, fighting, and swinging over Gotham," but what does "Mr. Oracle" get out of the deal?

Re: 10 chars

[greenmask]

I'd just like to reiterate for the good of lurkers, members, and one-time onlookers - this account has been banned.

Re: 10 chars

[julian]

Thank you.

Re: 10 chars

[greenmask]

You're very welcome!

Re: 10 chars

[aphelant]

Are the mods reporting this account to Support/Abuse? I'm sure they'd like to know about it, even if they can't TOS it.

Re: 10 chars

[greenmask]

Yup, it's been done. Thanks for being on the look-out for us, though. We appreciate it!

Mod note

[greenmask]

Pictures outside of a cut need to be 300x400 max. Shrink it or add a cut, please!

Re: Mod note

[maxisanacorn]

How might I edit that? I'm not very good with tech, this was my first "posting" I've ever done.

Re: Mod note

[greenmask]

You'll need to edit your post (that's the pen & paper icon on th eleft above where it says "comments", make sure you're working in html, and then add [cut] before the image and [/cut] after it, making sure to change the square brackets to little pointy ones like these: <

You won't want to shrink it this time I think - the text would get lost.

Don't hesitate to ask if you find any more problems!

[grimmbear]

What you say makes sense. Babs as a digital invader/ICE kind of program and Steph as the "real world" counterpart. Even if they keep Black Bat (we need to get used to the name) out of the mix it works and doesn't invalidate all the character growth of Oracle.

[kenn_el]

Steph can be 'Spoiled Bat'!

[maxisanacorn]

I'm hoping to death this is what happens, which is why I posted this, it's sort of my security blanket/net/WHERE IS MY BLUE RING right now, even if it's flimsy at best. I know it seems Morrison's idea for Red Robin and the Outsiders hasn't pulled through yet, but it may happen...they've said these numbers ones are only the beginning, there will be more title launches like Batman Inc in 2012. So we'll see. They haven't announced a Captain Marvel book yet, which is funny because Captain and Mary Marvel are probably two of the best canidates for a "reboot" ESPECIALLY Mary.

Gail Simone has been so cryptic, and while some comments are offputting and really not very promising, there are other elements that suggest things might be okay and this is all PR doing it's evil advertising and hype and BOY is it creating hype.

ALSO this Batgirl might be something out of Flashpoint, like Zero Hour maybe, two Barbara Gordons and the current "Batgirls" have to go after her or something. It would just be a change in her perspective. Flashpoint is still really, fuzzy in how everything is going to turn out and then there's the allusion to 52 and the multiverse. There are so many things DC might not be telling us right away.

I honestly think DC really missed the boat to just do a whole Batgirl-like team book, not really a team but sort of Batgirl Inc really. That way everyone get's their favorite.