barbara gordon in thrillkiller
every few months i remember that Batman: Thrillkiller and Batman: Thrillkiller '62 exist and reread it and get obsessed with it cause genuinely its so crazy. its an elseworld where bruce's parents were killed by their employees and bruce didn't get any of the money (because they lost it during the great depression) so he's just chilling in the suburbs. he becomes a police officer and later commissioner gordon's right hand man and a really good detective. there's this vigilante duo that appears, and they call themselves batgirl and robin, and they show up to places where the police work dirty. bruce starts investigating it and he figures out who batgirl and robin are.
for broader context, batgirl is barbara gordon, the daughter of bruce's boss, commissioner gordon. she's a "madcap heiress" and lives in wayne manor. she quit college to run away to the circus and at the circus, she meets german immigrant and teenage aerialist richart graustark. richart (nicknamed dick) and her fall in love and they come back to gotham, where they become batgirl and robin.
while this is all happening, everyone is trying to stop this gang lead by bianca steeplechase, also known as the joker.
unfortunately, dick's family (of aerialists) is killed by bianca. at the same time, selina kyle is killed by bianca as well. bruce is framed for selina's death and becomes a fugitive on the run. dick and babs plan revenge on bianca and while executing their plan, bruce crashes their party to save babs from getting shot by bianca. unfortunately, bianca kills dick through her poisonous kiss and bruce and babs are forced to escape. now that dick is dead, bruce vows to continue dick's legacy -- but named after babs because she was the one who inspired him. he becomes "the batman" now, there's more story than that but this is enough because holy shit. the agency it gives barbara specifically is crazy.
as you can see through these sceenshots, yes, barbara is batgirl, but she's batgirl in the way that batman is batman in most other media. if that didn't makes sense: she's the leader, brains, and detective. even her Alter Ego is very similar to what bruce wayne's traditionally is: she's a very a charming "madcap heiress" and "ultimate party girl" (basically her version of "billionaire playboy"). barbara owns wayne manor, she owns the batcave, she buys, creates, (and uses) the arsenal of weapons, she drives and repairs the motherfucking batmobile, she is a better fighter than robin and batman (judging by how many times they get caught/injured compared to her). she's also the one with the cool toys. she's the master of disguise, and her crusade for justice is her mission. she's the one with the guilt complex, she's the one who uses the tear gas and smoke pellets. she's the one with the strong dislike for guns, and she was the one at the circus the night that dick's family died. she even gets the tragic backstory with a visual of kneeling over a dead parent's body! -- she is what all things Batman traditionally has
the amount of agency it gives over her story and also how it acknowledges that she is such a powerful and driven hero who's talent is equal to batman (in other medias) is honestly so cool!! esp since recently in the new 52 and rebirth eras, i feel like babs has been done so dirty by how she's portrayed -- recently, she's been portrayed as a lot younger and more naive and inexperienced as she's traditionally been, and often she's only there as a plot device or shallower character (in comparison to who she used to be). i think the era where she was oracle and the leader of the birds of prey in the 90s and early 2000s did a lot better on being accurate to who she was supposed to be -- in some of her earliest appearances, she literally had a PhD (in library science and later, in law) and even was a congresswoman. also, in this elseworld, barbara's and bruce's dynamic is especially interesting because she is still very much the one in charge -- and especially after reading newer comics or seeing fandom stuff where babs is included as a "batkid" (which i hate), this comic really reminds me of the era where babs and bruce very obviously cared a lot for each other but also did very much see each other as equals and he even looked up to her (like stated in gotham knights, or bruce wayne: the road home).
also its such an interesting play on how things usually are: in this book, dick is basically killed off for her character development (while yes, babs wasn't technically killed off for a male character's character development in the mainline comics, she was "depowered" and it left her with a lot less agency (which she did eventually get back -- as oracle), but mostly it was done for her dad's and bruce's character development and she was just a plot device in that book....
again, i really like how in Thrillkiller, bruce was inspired by her to become batman because usually its the other way around. her name comes first on the title and when people refer to them as "batgirl and robin", and pretty much everyone refers to dick through his relationship to her.
dick and babs they literally meet (in the flashback) when he falls into her arms... anyway i think its especially interesting how this comic with only 4 issues basically created THE first female batman story of the time (it was written before cass existed or helena was the bat (or before she was "batgirl" if that's what you prefer cause i would argue helena was trying to emulate batman, not batgirl, and that she was batman not batgirl in terms of who she was trying to be, who people thought she was, and etc etc)). but anyway barbara gordon the woman that you are <3
