Poor Babs. We still love you.
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28 comments:
Thank you, Wikipedia.
Erica Henderson, you're my hero.
(Typo on "cancer" though!)
FIXED.
Fucking THANK YOU.
Further proof that Batman is a huge jackass.
"Oh, yeah, I came back from the dead after being disintegrated. What? Spend a hundredth of a fraction of a percent of my immense and fabulous personal wealth on paying to heal one of my close, personal friend's crippling injury brought on by my nemesis' desire to ruin everything in my life when it would take less than a few minutes to find someone, ANYONE, in my fantastical and wondrous world to actually do so? FUCK THAT NOISE. SIT THIS ONE OUT CHICKEEPOO! HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAA"
Actually... Barbara is kinda stupid too, now that I think about it. Is there really no one in the DC universe that would be willing to barter some magic-techno-surgery whatsit for some info-support or however the hell her job as Oracle works?
Well, I think Damien's spine replacement was done with Talia's people, Batman might have already been lost in time or dead or whatever at that point.
This is more a problem of catering to an audience while totally ignoring the parameters of the universe. If they fixed her up right away it would be one thing, but people would be up in arms if suddenly this wheelchair-bound character could walk again since she wasn't useless after being paralyzed. This will be like Wonder Woman losing her powers all over again, except there will be some sort of "handicap-able" rally.
Moore has gone on record as saying that he never intended for The Killing Joke to be canon, but someone clearly liked it enough to adopt it into continuity. Once that happened, I'd guess that nobody dared "fix" it. In a way, doing so would be seen like not healing Batman's broken back or bringing Superman back from the dead (surprised you didn't include those as well, especially since the Superman bit would have been great if done in Monty Python style).
Yeah, but as they've left it now, it's a Refrigerator Woman scenario, basically.
Also, I personally feel that the way that Oracle is used is kind of insulting to handicapped people in the context of super-hero stories. Why not have a quadriplegic who has used his knowledge of cybernetics to construct a super-suit that he controls with his mind? Maybe it doesn't move its limbs, but it still flies and shoots laser beams and stuff. You could call him Vitruvian Man.
Or a double leg amputee that has been gifted with super strength?
Just because someone has lost the use of their limbs shouldn't mean that they're only useful in a support role.
its proof that men and women are biologically different. Women's bodies just reject the artificial parts...oh wait...
Too bad Babs wasn't in Japan.
1st Anonymous @Dan:
Never watched M.A.N.T.I.S, did you? _That's_ why.
Simply brilliant!
i would have to agree with Oracles expression in the last pannel. for if Damian wound up with a new spine surely that same tech could be used on Oracle. but dc has turned down requeste to make oracle walk saying it would weaken babs like that. plus batman own kid getting a new spine when oracle is still in the chair is kind of sexist in the dcu.
--If they fixed her up right away it would be one thing, but people would be up in arms if suddenly this wheelchair-bound character could walk again since she wasn't useless after being paralyzed.--
That's just it, people were up in arms not too long ago when Oracle: The Cure was being released and many thought it would eventually end with Babs being able to walk again. Of course with many a comment on how that would be a slap in the face of people in wheelchairs everywhere if she was able to do so via comic book science.
As someone who IS handicapped, I absolutely love Oracle and the fact that she wasn't fixed. I love having a superheroine who manages to be smart, strong, and most of all capable while still in her wheelchair. It gives me hope that I can still be awesome while I'm in mine.
I hate how often superheroes who are disabled get quick fixes--like they can't be superheroes so long as they're 'broken'...
Ha! That last panel killed me! Great timing and a totally unexpected gag!
Superb :D
Sarah- It's not that I don't think there's room for a strong handicapped character. It just doesn't make sense in the context of this universe.
@ Sarah & Erika:
There's a character in the SWEU (Tenel Ka) who, through her own stupidity, ended up losing her arm just above the elbow. She _chose_ to stay that way rather than having a prosthetic hand made for her like Luke and Anakin both had. It's something that probably hasn't been brought up overtly, but maybe there's some of that going on with Barbara.
Also, I agree that they'd be walking on thin ice if they decided to heal her at this point, and again, maybe that's part of why they decided to adopt her injury into full continuity.
Erica--
To be fair, most of what happens in comic books doesn't make sense in their respective universes. :P
I don't want to turn this into a heal Babs' spine debate, especially within somebody else's blog, but there's a real simple solution to please everybody.
DC however won't do it.
You heal Babs in the DCU--preferably retroactively, since Batman knew Zatanna since he was about eight.
Batgirl therefore would have always been the leader of Birds of Prey, not Oracle. You can even make her the lesbian Batwoman and eliminate the second Batwoman altogether. This would be fitting since Alex Ross designed the black and red costume for a proposed resurrected Babs Gordon. DC naturally said no.
You shunt the Oracle version into the Vertigo universe, which doesn't really have a shared world continuity, and you simply make that version of Birds of Prey more realistic. In that universe, both males and females would suffer the same trauma and be treated equally.
I understand the original reasoning behind Oracle, but DC's timeline has been completely rewritten. Her existence makes Batman a horrible person, sullies the reputations of Wonder Woman, Zatanna and a whole host of other super-heroes who have the means to heal her and gives the Joker a victory that's unconscionable.
In addition, she is less an emblem for the handicapped and more a symbol of sexism. Let's also not forget that DC went out of their way to transplant Wendy Harris from Super-Friends and permanently cripple her as well.
Oh, and outside of the Batgirl/Oracle question, I thought the cartooning itself was awesome. I didn't want to forget that :)
Okay. Done now.
Ray- I didn't feel like arguing anymore so I'm glad you've taken the reins. You've made my morning.
I didn't see this as a comment on sexism at DC or even a call to "fix" Barbara Gordon. I saw it as the the inherent logical problems of sustained narrative continuity. If you have functioning, reliable bionic technology or other miracle cures for real-world disabilities lying around, it becomes a challenge for writers to explain why these things are NOT being used by the fictional characters they'd benefit.
Plus, you know, funny.
I thought it was fairly common knowledge that Babs didn't want a cure unless it was available to EVERYONE - not just her with her connections.
It can also be seen as a refusal by Babs to let the Joker win the round. His intent was to try to prove that even Commissioner Gordon was only one bad day away from becoming another Batman villain. Every day that Barbara continues living, and fighting everything the Joker represents, in that chair, she's proving him wrong.
Poor Babs!
Awesome. :)
It is pathetic that Babs is still in a wheelchair.
It makes absolutely no sense, considering the healing possibilities right beside of her. Bruce - Shondra; Kate - Lazarus; Damian - MetalSpine.
More important... it is not only illogical but it also offensive.
Since she became paraplegic the character was always used as support. In 20 years the only books that really have her as protagonists were Oracle: The Cure.
While walking she was the protagonist of many many books. Including the best story about her... Batgirl Year One.
So... what is the point to keep her there to be always outshined and used as support? Doesn´t this means that DC have a support-only place for the handicapped?
Also. 99% of her stories now are about victimization and TKJ references.
Look at this:
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/9264/babsi.jpg
Is this a model????
No it is not a model for handicapped people. It is a model of victimization and re-victimization of women.
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