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

[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.