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Batgirl is one of a number of characters acting as a
Comics titled Batgirl have their own pages:
* The first series was published from 2000-2006 and featured Cassandra Cain, the
* The second series was published from 2009-2011 and featured Stephanie Brown, formerly known as the Spoiler. This series is found
* The third series began publishing in 2011 and will feature Barbara Gordon as Batgirl. Despite her lengthy publication history, this is the first ongoing series to feature her as the title character. Its page can be found
=== The various women to use the identity and name of Batgirl are (In Chronological Order): ===
1) The first Bat-Girl (note the hyphen, not used by any other Batgirl) was Betty Kane, debuting in ''Batman'' #139 (April, 1961). She was the niece of
Batwoman and Bat-Girl were
==== Tropes exhibited by the Betty Kane Bat-Girl include: ====
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2) By 1966 the ''
In story, Barbara Gordon had created a "Batgirl" costume for herself to go to a masquerade ball, showing her personality by spending the time and effort to make it fully workable as a crimefighting outfit as well as a costume party winner. On the way to the party, Barbara saw a crime in progress by Killer Moth, and wound up helping Batman and Robin solve the case after an initial misunderstanding or two. Thrilled by the adventure, Batgirl opted to take up heroing full time.
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Unlike her predecessors, who were seen as a distraction or annoyance by the Dynamic Duo, and were never allowed to tackle cases by themselves, Batgirl was treated as an almost-equal by Batman, and mostly worked on solo adventures in a ''Detective Comics'' backup feature. This both reflected the effects of the Women's Liberation movement of the time and was appreciated by them. Eventually, Barbara Gordon was elected to Congress and became a part-time costumed heroine operating in Washington, D.C. She continued to guest star in other series and had a recurring feature in the short-lived ''Batman Family'' series.
But by the late 1980s, interest in the character had waned, and Barbara Gordon was shot and crippled by the Joker in ''
A mysterious hacker and information broker named "Oracle" began appearing in ''
As of September 2011, Barbara is back as Batgirl in a new #1.
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==== Tropes exhibited by the Barbara Gordon Batgirl include: ====
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** She has now been retconned to the same age as him thanks to Flashpoint. They were already about the same age in earlier works such as Batman: TAS.
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3) Helena Bertinelli, better known as the
==== Tropes exhibited by the Helena Bertinelli Batgirl include: ====
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4) A character introduced in ''No Man's Land'' in 1999, Cassandra Cain became Batgirl with the assistance of Oracle and Batman. Cassandra first appeared in ''Batman'' #567 (July, 1999).
In her backstory, Cassandra was raised by her father, notorious assassin David Cain, to have body language as her "native tongue," allowing her to read people's movements and emotions from the tiniest of clues. With the addition of constant martial arts training, Cain hoped to turn Cassandra into a superhuman assassin. The training had the side effect of making Cassandra unable to understand spoken or written language. However, when Cain had Cassandra kill a human being for the first time she read the victim's dying agonies and understood on a primal level what death was, and silently vowed never to kill again, escaping from her father.
Cassandra Cain was the first Batgirl to get her own continuing solo title, which run for 74 issues (April, 2000 - April, 2006). The first major arc of which had her confront a psychic who "rewires" her brain to understand spoken language so that he can communicate with her more effectively. Unfortunately for Cassandra, this also shut off her ability to read body language, her one real advantage over most of her opponents. The second arc of the series had her relearn this skill with the help of
While the ''
Eventually, it was revealed that Cassandra's new personality was the result of being
Despite reestablishing her as a hero, DC decided to separate Cassandra from the Batgirl persona and had her renounce the identity in the first issue of a new ongoing series, replaced by Stephanie Brown (See below). DC then declared that 2010 was a "big year" for Cassandra, but fans have called
A quick side note: Cassandra briefly took on another identity, Kasumi, in the ''
==== Tropes exhibited by the Cassandra Cain Batgirl include: ====
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5) About the same time as Cassandra Cain's
==== Tropes exhibited by the Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe Batgirl include: ====
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6) As of October, 2009, a
Early reports stated that Stephanie would be Spoiler post-reboot, but she has yet to appear in actual continuity. This originated from an attempt to fit Grant Morrison's "Batman: Leviathan Strikes!" into the New 52 continuity, but this got to be too complicated. They finally said "screw it," set the story in pre-Flashpoint continuity, and kept Stephanie as Batgirl for the duration.
For tropes on the series itself see
==== Tropes exhibited by Stephanie Brown Batgirl include: ====
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{{quote|'''Stephanie:''' When my dad was mad at me he'd lock me in the closet—what did yours do?
'''Cassandra:''' Shot me.
''(Both laugh hysterically) ''
'''Stephanie:''' Oh, man.
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{{quote|'''Batgirl:''' "Little late but nice effort."}}
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