Being smarter than everyone else means that she can manipulate them, even if it is for what she considers to be their own good. If anything, the main complaint her friends have about her is that she has a tendency to be too powerful. She struggles with the loss of the gymnastic abilities that made her such an effective Batgirl, but lack of empowerment is definitely not Oracle’s problem. Babs uses her intelligence and computer skills not only to stop crime and take down bad guys, but also to help other women in the DCU get their sense of empowerment back. In Birds of Prey, Oracle leads an all-female team of superheroes, many of whom have suffered at the hands of male characters, both heroes and villains. That team-up led to the Birds of Prey comic series written by Chuck Dixon and later by Gail Simone and others. (Though she continues to be a capable fighter.) In fact, in Year One, Babs thinks to herself that while Batgirl was an imitation of Batman, Oracle is the superhero identity that is completely hers.ġ996 is also the year comics creator Chuck Dixon came out with the one shot comic Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey. Oracle demonstrated that being a superhero wasn’t about the body and that being in a wheelchair wasn’t an obstacle to being a superhero. In the world of superheroes, power often means physical power-the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound or even just keep up with Batman as he runs across the rooftops of Gotham. The idea that Babs still had everything she needed to be a superhero and a whole person after being paralyzed is a powerful one. You have everything you need.” Then Babs wakes up and decides to become a superhero again and fight the computer-themed supervillain Interface. The woman tells her, “You’ve lost nothing that matters. It’s time for me to make them work for me again.” Later in the comic, Babs has a dream where she finds a mysterious woman holding the mask that would come to be Oracle’s symbol. I had skills and abilities long before I became Batgirl. ![]() ![]() In Year One, Babs says, “I was tired of being a victim. In 1996, we finally get Oracle’s superhero origin story from Yale and Ostrander in Oracle: Year One. After this, various writers added her to their comics as the DCU’s premier information broker to the superheroes. Babs hadn’t been quietly retired she was still fighting crime, only now using her genius intellect and skill with computers instead of her gymnastic skills. It wasn’t until 1990 and Suicide Squad issue 38 that Oracle was revealed to be none other than Barbara Gordon. All readers knew about the character was that she was an amazing hacker and total badass who’d started helping out everyone’s favorite band of not-quite-heroes. In 1988, a mysterious new character, whose face was never shown, going by the name of Oracle showed up in Yale and Ostrander’s Suicide Squad. Midnight, but his blindness is part of his super power-seeing in total darkness-not something that happens to real people.) ![]() And, despite the many times DC has claimed to increase representation of underrepresented groups in comics, there hasn’t been another like her. Instead of spinning Babs’ story back to before she was shot or offering a miracle cure, they started writing DC’s one and only superhero with a physical disability. Comic book writer and editor Kim Yale-writer of comics like Suicide Squad and Manhunter-had problems with the treatment of Batgirl in The Killing Joke, and with her husband, fellow comic book writer John Ostrander, she decided to do something about it. There may not have been a plan for Barbara Gordon when The Killing Joke was written, but that doesn’t mean her story ended.
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