Personally? Tim Drake and Dick Grayson, the Robins, are more iconic, but Barbara Gordon Batgirl is maybe the most or second most important aspect of the mythos (give or take the death of the Waynes) for something I don’t think this show ever brought up: Her background/origin story is, symbolically, the most beloved, most well known and most clear-cut undercutting of the wealth-facism (“I’m rich, so I MUST be right”) that otherwise threatens to swallow the Bat mythos whole and make it borderline unreadable. (Stephanie Brown took up this role in the 90s, after The Killing Joke, for context.) And that has nothing to do with combat skill, intelligence or how iconic they might otherwise be. For severely undercutting a problematic undertone of the Bat-mythos? Barbara Gordon WINS.
batgairl is bad joke .. remember how dick become nightwing so he no longer had to b under the shadow of batman? well thats exactly what bat girl is.. its a character that lives under the shadow of the batman …
in my opinion ..she should be oracle from the start ..not necessary in wheel chair from the start but my point is she shouldn’t be extention of the batman brand
but now that i think about it .. the robins are also a bad joke .. why is batman exposing all this kid to the worst Gotham has to have to offer.. that can not be good for their mental health
I don’t know about “bad joke” but while I appreciate that characters shouldn’t be relegated to being in the “shadow” of another character, its useful. First of all, it can create a sense of legacy, similar to Miles Morales picking up the mantle of spider-man following a certain event. It gives the idea that the ideals transcend the character, that being Bat-(gendered pronoun) is bigger than bruce wayne or whoever.
Further, it can be used to create an easy and obvious link between characters who share similar stories/settings/ideals. E.g. when you open up a bat-(gendered pronoun) book you can be reasonably confident you’ll be getting street level crime fighting in gotham city by an unpowered super hero with martial arts, wits, and gadgetry as their main tools. It’s one of the peculiarities of Spider-Woman (jessica drew) in the marvel universe. Until fairly recently she was more of an avenger/spy/shield agent hero rather than like basically any other spider-hero.
This all makes it easy for a newer comic reader (because every comic is someone’s first) to expand their reading (e.g. if you like spider-man (peter parker) it won’t be a stretch to pick up and try spider-man (miles morales) as opposed to, say, Thor.)
That said, its important that each member of a “brand”, if you will, be able to carve out their own unique space. While cross-pollination is good, you obviously don’t want to confine bat-girl or whichever to fighting bat-man’s disgarded villians. She should develop her own villians and mythos as well.
At the end of the day, as long as the character is treated with the respect of being their own character, then its fine. It’s when bat-girl/woman is JUST a distaff counterpart of bat-man that things become problematic. Being a counterpart can be part of them but it should only be just that: a part. not what defines them.
Thanks for the new segment Awesome Comics! It was nice to get some detailed looks at these characters.
There did seem to be some teething troubles to the new segment. Mostly, in how it felt a little flatter. Partly the was just having less panelists, which is fine. But a lot stemmed from the fact that since this segment was more… grounded in the text, i guess. Aiyanna and Porter looked a little uncomfortable compared to, say, one of the movie reviews since they had to remember talking points rather than going off their heads. However, I’m sure this will get better as the cast gets used to the new format and having a more methodically passed segment might be nice to break up the more energetic ones.
My last thought, I’d like to see more of these discussion of these characters as story devices. Power level comparisons aren’t my bag, but I was really interested by the notion of Tim Drake attempting to counterweight a darker bat-man. In future segments, I’d like to see the panelists debate the value that the characters bring based on the stories that can be told with them.
Regardless, the segment was great and I hope to see more in the future.
Channel Awesome
I think Robin wins in the fighting category, but Batgirl wins in intelligence and being iconic.
Robin is just as iconic as Batgirl is, possibly more so. If you ask who is Batman’s sidekick, most people will immediately say Robin after all.
Personally? Tim Drake and Dick Grayson, the Robins, are more iconic, but Barbara Gordon Batgirl is maybe the most or second most important aspect of the mythos (give or take the death of the Waynes) for something I don’t think this show ever brought up: Her background/origin story is, symbolically, the most beloved, most well known and most clear-cut undercutting of the wealth-facism (“I’m rich, so I MUST be right”) that otherwise threatens to swallow the Bat mythos whole and make it borderline unreadable. (Stephanie Brown took up this role in the 90s, after The Killing Joke, for context.) And that has nothing to do with combat skill, intelligence or how iconic they might otherwise be. For severely undercutting a problematic undertone of the Bat-mythos? Barbara Gordon WINS.
robin is more important than bat girl
batgairl is bad joke .. remember how dick become nightwing so he no longer had to b under the shadow of batman? well thats exactly what bat girl is.. its a character that lives under the shadow of the batman …
in my opinion ..she should be oracle from the start ..not necessary in wheel chair from the start but my point is she shouldn’t be extention of the batman brand
but now that i think about it .. the robins are also a bad joke .. why is batman exposing all this kid to the worst Gotham has to have to offer.. that can not be good for their mental health
jesus… am i making so many grammar mistakes today
i wish there was an edit or delete option in the comment section
I don’t know about “bad joke” but while I appreciate that characters shouldn’t be relegated to being in the “shadow” of another character, its useful. First of all, it can create a sense of legacy, similar to Miles Morales picking up the mantle of spider-man following a certain event. It gives the idea that the ideals transcend the character, that being Bat-(gendered pronoun) is bigger than bruce wayne or whoever.
Further, it can be used to create an easy and obvious link between characters who share similar stories/settings/ideals. E.g. when you open up a bat-(gendered pronoun) book you can be reasonably confident you’ll be getting street level crime fighting in gotham city by an unpowered super hero with martial arts, wits, and gadgetry as their main tools. It’s one of the peculiarities of Spider-Woman (jessica drew) in the marvel universe. Until fairly recently she was more of an avenger/spy/shield agent hero rather than like basically any other spider-hero.
This all makes it easy for a newer comic reader (because every comic is someone’s first) to expand their reading (e.g. if you like spider-man (peter parker) it won’t be a stretch to pick up and try spider-man (miles morales) as opposed to, say, Thor.)
That said, its important that each member of a “brand”, if you will, be able to carve out their own unique space. While cross-pollination is good, you obviously don’t want to confine bat-girl or whichever to fighting bat-man’s disgarded villians. She should develop her own villians and mythos as well.
At the end of the day, as long as the character is treated with the respect of being their own character, then its fine. It’s when bat-girl/woman is JUST a distaff counterpart of bat-man that things become problematic. Being a counterpart can be part of them but it should only be just that: a part. not what defines them.
Thanks for the new segment Awesome Comics! It was nice to get some detailed looks at these characters.
There did seem to be some teething troubles to the new segment. Mostly, in how it felt a little flatter. Partly the was just having less panelists, which is fine. But a lot stemmed from the fact that since this segment was more… grounded in the text, i guess. Aiyanna and Porter looked a little uncomfortable compared to, say, one of the movie reviews since they had to remember talking points rather than going off their heads. However, I’m sure this will get better as the cast gets used to the new format and having a more methodically passed segment might be nice to break up the more energetic ones.
My last thought, I’d like to see more of these discussion of these characters as story devices. Power level comparisons aren’t my bag, but I was really interested by the notion of Tim Drake attempting to counterweight a darker bat-man. In future segments, I’d like to see the panelists debate the value that the characters bring based on the stories that can be told with them.
Regardless, the segment was great and I hope to see more in the future.
I actually have no opinion on this subject but your introduction in this video made me laugh. ^.^