Tomorrow. TOMORROW Batwoman #1 drops! WOOOOOO!
But keep in mind, too, that writer Gail Simone‘s Batgirl dropped last week.
source: insidepulse.com
Let’s get y’all caught up on Batgirl, shall we? The original “Bat-Girl” made her debut as Betty Kane in Batman #139 (1961), as the sidekick to Batwoman. In 1964, she was removed from publication only to reappear as Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl, the daughter of police commissioner James Gordon. That debut occurred in Dectective Comics #359. This incarnation of Batgirl was way more popular than Betty Kane, and she appeared in comics from 1966 through about 1988, until the fateful shooting in the graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke, at the hands of the Joker that left her a paraplegic and ended up bringing about another transformation of Batgirl.
At the hands of editor Kim Yale and comic book author John Ostrander, Barbara Gordon was reinvented as The Oracle, the awesome info-broker of the DC comic universe and leader of the Birds of Prey. In 1999, Helen Bertinelli (better known as Huntress) assumed the Batgirl identity until Batman ixnayed that plan. However, also that year, Cassandra Cain took the Batgirl identity in the “No Man’s Land” series. Cain’s Batgirl became the first Batgirl to be featured in a monthly comic from 2000 to 2006, when Cain gave up the identity, but she’d reclaim it in Teen Titans only to then pass it on to Stephanie Brown (previously known as Robin and Spoiler), who got her own Batgirl series in October 2009. That Batgirl, however, was canceled after 24 issues.
Whew. Got all that? Okay.
So the upshot is, Batgirl ain’t done! HELL, NO! Like a freakin’ PHOENIX! Here she comes! This time, it’s the original Barbara Gordon reclaiming the identity and here’s the kicker–she’s no longer paralyzed, which brings with it a lot of mixed feeling from a lot of different quarters. Here’s a great discussion between Jill Pantozzi and Gail Simone about that issue.
So not only do we have the super-awesome Batwoman getting her own gig this week, but the return of Batgirl hit us last week.
Comics. Where just about anything is possible.
Happy reading, happy superhero-ing!
Andi Marquette 