Fandom Heresies: The Dick/Babs Romance Is Bad For Barbara Gordon, Part 3

Greetings, my fellow random response generators! Falconlord here with another round of Fandom Heresies, where I discuss my more controversial opinions on various fandoms. Other related series will include Fandom Orthodoxies, where I discuss ideas that the fandom at large and I share, and Fandom Funnies, which is random miscellanea I find amusing. Like, for example, discussing what Dungeons and Dragons classes the main cast Tales of Symphonia would be.

This sub-series discusses the Dick/Babs romance, and how it contributed to a steady devaluation of her character. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

Today, we will discuss how the Dick/Babs romance came to be and how it coincided with a steady downgrading of Barbara’s accomplishments.

And yes, before anyone objects, Oracle is a superhero. Bite me if you think otherwise. And remember, if you enjoy these posts you can support me on Patreon or buy me a hot chocolate

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Fandom Heresies: The Dick/Babs Romance Is Bad For Barbara Gordon, Part 2

Greetings, folks! It is I, Falconlord5 with another round of Fandom Heresies! Today we’re going to talk about how and why Barbara Gordon was created, her relationship to Catwoman, and how she was routinely positioned as a love interest and equal to Batman rather than his sidekick. Part one of this series is here and part three is here

But first, I have a simple question: would it kill Kevin Feige and his crew over at Marvel actually read the comics their less-than-stellar movies are based on? Watching Black Widow this weekend was like watching Smallville in its last days. Random, incoherent cameos and shout-outs to various Marvel properties that are supposed to give comic readers a jolt of recognition despite not resembling their comic book namesakes. It’s just, ah, aggravating especially when you consider that the original comic book characters were engaging and interesting in their own right and didn’t need all this kerfuffle.

Bah. But I digress. We’re here to talk about Barbara Gordon, and how she came from the last good live-action adaptation. Join me under the cut!

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Fandom Heresies: The Dick/Babs Romance is Terrible for Barbara Gordon Part One

Hello and welcome to Fandom Heresies, where I talk about all my controversial opinions regarding different fandoms. DC, Marvel, Disney, Nintendo… I have heretical opinions about them all. And, because heretics gotta heretic, I’m going to share them with you.

Today, we’re going to talk about one of the many ways DC has screwed over the original Batgirl, everybody’s favourite redhead Barbara Gordon (we’ll discuss how DC likes to screw over the other two Batgirls, Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown, in a later post and possibly different series. After all, it’s not like DC’s horrible treatment of those two characters hasn’t been a source of fan complaint for what? Fifteen years now? Something like that. Hardly heretical). Specifically, we’re going to talk about how, since the 90’s, DC has continually de-aged and undercut Barbara to serve Dick Grayson and the Dick/Babs romance. We’ll talk about how Barbara started out life as a replacement love interest for two different characters (Kathy Kane’s Batwoman and the Eartha Kitt version of Catwoman, respectively) for Batman, how she evolved into her own character (with some bumps along the way; I’m looking at you, Frank Robbins) and how, starting in the 90’s, DC began undercutting Barbara in favour of Dick. This is part one of three. The other two are here and here.

Remember, if you like these posts, please support me on Patreon or buy me a hot chocolate.

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