When was batgirl made

Unlike older versions of Batgirl, though, the new Barbara Gordon is decked out in canary yellow Doc Martens, takes selfies, and sometimes parties harder than she should. Sketches of Batgirl's new look: practical grad student. From DC Comics. Batgirl started life oddly: she was introduced in as part of an attempt to make the Batman series seem less homoerotic. After parents accused the Batman series of having too much homoerotic subtext, the writers introduced Batwoman as a suitable female love interest for Batman and Batgirl as a niece-like character, setting up Batman, Batwoman, Robin, and Batgirl as a nonthreatening nuclear family.

Most Americans, though, got to know her on the campy Batman television show starring Adam West. Yvonne Craig as the classic campy Batgirl.

Photo via Pop Culture Safari. Unlike the regret-ridden backstories that motivate male counterparts like Bruce Wayne or Peter Parker, Barbara approached her early adventures as Batgirl as personal intellectual exercises, choosing to prove her worth as a detective only to herself. With no considerations of fame or prestige for her alter ego, Babs frequently deferring credit for her successes to the men in her life.

Even when she was elected to Congress in triggering her retirement as Batgirl , Barbara saw it more as a means to help her father out of a tight spot by running in his place than anything else. The creation of Batgirl — comic panels via ComicsAlliance. In the story, Barbara endures the trauma of a highly sexualized attack by the Joker, who shoots her. Immediately after the publication of Killing Joke, editor Kim Yale and writer John Ostrander began conversations about how to reintroduce Barbara into the comics on a regular basis.

From there, Barbara grew into a harder, colder leader, even assuming control of the Suicide Squad briefly and working up to running her own all-female superhero team the Birds of Prey. Barbara Gordon as Oracle in a digital comic by Tom Taylor. Image via Multiversity Comics. As Oracle, Barbara Gordon become something new rather than dwelling on what was lost.

Gail Simone began petitioning fans to help her create a unified design document that would ensure that her wheelchair was always drawn to be consistent with what a person in her circumstances in real life would use. Team Affiliation: none. First Appearances:. Batman comic book Batman TV Show Batman the Animated Series cartoon Superhuman Powers: Photographic memory; utility belt which contains battarang bat boomerang , tear gas pellets, bola, smoke bombs, mini-binoculars, swingline with grapple; utility pocket book which has other helpful aids.

She also has keen athletic and acrobatic skills. Biography : The original Batgirl was created by Bob Kane in Worse yet, she was shot in the pelvic area…a place where a man would never dare be shot in comics, undressed and defiled.

In an instant, she was left a paraplegic and lost everything that was precious to her including the ability to create life. A mechanism to move a story along. Barbara was a plot point and undeserving of being one. Barbara was inexplicably treated in a manner that no woman, comic book or not, should be treated. She was strong, independent, and deserved better.

She was used in a manner to make Batman better. She was shot, he wanted revenge. Even Alan Moore regrets what he did to Barbara citing it to be overtly violent. As horrendous as The Killing Joke was and as the past has shown, it also turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As a paraplegic Barbara had two options. She could either A wallow in pity or B do something about it. The Killing Joke left Barbara as a paraplegic.

They saw her as a capable crimefighter who was able to overcome any sort of adversity. So, instead of relegating her to bedrest, they gave her as many computers as possible and turned her into Oracle.

As Oracle, rather than being able to fight one crime at a time, she could fight an unlimited amount of crimes. This meant that she became the eyes and research station for nearly every hero in DC. Oracle forced Barbara to rely on something other than her hands and feet….

She suddenly began to tap into her expansive knowledge o f science, her above normal intelligence, her photographic memory, and most importantly, her connections that were scattered across the DC Universe.

Without any over-exaggeration, Barbara was the most important character in DC. Through Oracle, DC was able to reach and empower a huge yet untapped segment of the comic book market…people with disabilities.

She singlehandedly changed the way that disabled people are perceived. During her first few appearances as Oracle, Barbara was drawn in a way that feeds the disabled stereotype.

However, in what would become a defining trait of the character, Barbara showed her resilience. Within a few issues, she picked herself up and began to come into her own.

If there was ever a moment in the history of Barbara Gordon that could lay claim to her turnaround, it was the incredible Birds of Prey run.

The series ran from until , spanning just north of issues. In , DC created the Batman Family comic book, which ran for 20 issues. Batgirl was one of the main features in the book, frequently teaming with Robin. Batgirl meets Batwoman in Batman Family 10, when the retired superheroine returns to crime-fighting. The two fight Killer Moth and The Cavalier , and learn about each other's secret identities.

When Batman Family ended at issue 20, stories featuring these characters were merged with Detective Comics, beginning with issue in , and Batgirl continued her adventures there. Even after the "Batman Family" feature left Detective Comics, Batgirl continued to appear in the back-up stories through issue October Crisis on Infinite Earths, a limited mini-series published in , was written in order to reduce the complex history of DC Comics to a single continuity. Although Batgirl is a featured character, her role is relatively small- she delivers Supergirl's eulogy at the conclusion of the story.

Post-Crisis, Supergirl does not arrive on Earth until Gordon has established herself as Oracle; many adventures she shared with Batgirl are now retroactively described as having been experienced by Power Girl. Within the storyline, Gordon recounts the series of events that lead to her career as Batgirl, including her first encounter with Batman as a child, studying martial arts under the tutelage of a sensei, memorizing maps and blue prints of the city, excelling in academics in order to skip grades and pushing herself to become a star athlete.

The Modern Age of Comic Books had significant changes to the comic book industry as characters became darker and psychologically complex, abandoning the light-hearted themes of earlier ages. After her back-up series of stories ended, Barbara Gordon continued to be Batgirl, but increasingly felt inconsequential in a world filled with super-powered heroes.

The bullet severs her spine, permanently paralyzing her from the waist down. Gordon is grief-stricken upon learning the extent of her injuries, as is her ally and off-on again lover Dick Grayson, the original Robin currently known as Nightwing.

Initially, Gordon's paralysis plunges her into a state of reactive depression. However, she soon realizes that her aptitude for and training in information sciences have provided her with tremendous skills that could be deployed to fight crime. In a world increasingly centered on technology and information, she possesses a genius-level intellect; photographic memory; deep knowledge of computers and electronics; expert skills as a hacker; and graduate training in library sciences. One night, Gordon has a dream in which an all-knowing woman similar to Oracle at Delphi of Greek mythology has her own face, it's then that she adopts "Oracle" as her codename.

She serves as an information broker, gathering and disseminating intelligence to law enforcement organizations and members of the superhero community. In "Oracle: Year One," Oracle also trains under the tutelage of Richard Dragon, one of DC's premier martial artists, to engage in combat using eskrima from her wheelchair. She develops her upper-body strength and targeting skills with both firearms and batarangs. Following her paralysis and recovery from depression, Oracle founds the Birds of Prey, a team of female heroes, whom she employs as agents and extended members of the Batman team.

After her unsuccessful partnership with Power Girl, Oracle later joins forces with the superheroine Black Canary. They form the nucleus of the Birds of Prey organization. While Oracle serves as the basic head of operations, Black Canary becomes her full-time employee and field agent.

During the cross-over event War Games, Black Mask commandeers Oracle's computers and satellites and engages in a fight to the death with Batman. In order to prevent Batman from killing his adversary, Oracle initiates the Clock Tower's self-destruct sequence, provoking Batman to rescue her rather than continue the battle.

This results in the destruction of Gordon's home and headquarters in the clock tower. Subsequently, Oracle decides to move on, and leaves Gotham City altogether. She cuts her ties with Batman, and after a temporary world trip with her team, relocates to Metropolis. Although Oracle overpowers Brainiac and expels him from her body, the advanced virus delivered by him remains despite his absence.

The virus steadily causes cybernetic attachments to sprout all over her body. Oracle develops cyberpathic powers that allow her to psychically interact with computer information systems. Although she loses these abilities after the virus is rendered dormant following an operation by Doctor Mid-Nite, she discovers she can move her toes. However, this proves to be short-lived; Gordon remains paralyzed. During the company wide cross-over Infinite Crisis , Oracle teams with the Martian Manhunter in Metropolis to coordinate a counterstrike to the Secret Society's global jailbreak.

When DC continuity jumps forward one year after the events of Infinite Crisis, Oracle and her team continue to work in Metropolis. Oracle works with Batman, although not on a regular basis as before.

Oracle continues to lead the Birds of Prey, and expands the ranks of the operation. In Birds of Prey 99, Black Canary leaves the team and The Huntress becomes the team's de facto field leader, while Big Barda has been brought in as the group's heavy-hitter alongside a larger, rotating roster; Oracle also makes an attempt to reforge her alliance with Power Girl, however, when Oracle invites her to rejoin the team, she replies that she'll do so "when Hell freezes over.

Eventually, Spy Smasher is forced to admit her defeat and returns control of the Birds of Prey organization to Oracle. At the conclusion of the arc, Oracle also adopts Misfit into the Birds of Prey. In Countdown , Oracle dispatches the Question and Batwoman to capture Trickster and Piper following their role in the murder of the Flash. She struggles to keep the identities of the world's heroes from being stolen and coordinates the response to a global crisis engineered by the Calculator, a villainous hacker and information broker.

In issue 5 of the comic book series The All-New Booster Gold , the title hero is given the mission of traveling back in time in order to prevent "a tragedy that he discovers never should've happened — the Joker shooting and paralyzing Barbara Gordon, Batgirl.

In the Final Crisis storyline, Darkseid , who has finally gained control of the Anti-Life Equation attempts to put the mind-control equation on the Internet. Both Oracle and Mister Terrific make desperate attempts to stop Darkseid, even attempting to shut down the entire Internet. Unfortunately, they both fail and those affected ended up mindless slaves of Darkseid.

Freed from Darkseid's control after the restoration of the Multi-verse, she attempts to shut down the criminal Unternet set up by her opposite number, the Calculator, as a Darkseid-free replacement for the regular Internet and still used by tech-savvy criminals. Even though Oracle foils him, she starts doubting her abilities and fears she's losing her edge and brilliance, which results in her disbanding the Birds of Prey team to do some soul-searching.

The Calculator's plans finally come to their fruition, and Kuttler, hoping to save her dying daughter Wendy takes on the Babbage alias and begins prowling the digital world of Alta Viva, a virtual world game, for fragments of the Anti-Life Equation unleashed by Darkseid. Barbara, now living in a dilapidated apartment in Gotham, becomes aware of Kuttler's activities when Cheesefiend, one of her informants, is brutally killed, with the Anti-Life Equation itself, after coming in contact with Babbage.

Hoping to stop the Calculator and prevent him from piecing together the fragments of the Anti-Life Equation in his possession, Oracle travels to Hong Kong, hoping to steal them back by the means of an advanced supercomputer programmed to track the chunk of data left behind by Babbage. However the Calculator discovers her attempts, swearing vengeance upon her. She manages to defeat Calculator, curing the Anti-Life Equation's fragments.

Working with Leslie Thompkins, Barbara has begun to mentor the Calculator's daughter, Wendy, who was crippled following an attack at Titans Tower, which took the life of her brother Marvin.