May 24
Oh Bette you trend setter you
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Oh Bette you trend setter you
Bring Back the Bombshells Batgirls!
In helping a friend of mine map out who all has been Batgirl across various DC continuities, I remembered a little jaunt to TVtropes where it mentioned that in a charming little number called Bombshells, the batgirl identity is shared by a baseball team.
This reminded me to actually go READ Bombshells, and oh. My. GOSH. It is the BEST FUCKING THING EVER!
What is Bombshells?
Basically, almost every male superhero got yeeted from the story or relegated to side character/civilian, while every female superhero takes the spotlight and gets to KICK SOME NAZI ASS (it's set during world war 2). Plenty of people get spotlight, but I'm gonna argue that the MAIN characters are probably Kate Kane's batwoman, Diana of Themyscira's Wonder Woman, Mera's Aquawoman (she hates that name, lol), Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, Zatanna, and Kara Starikov's Supergirl. All the storylines tend to revolve around them.
Oh, also it's super gay. Like, every single character is a lesbian or bi, there's tons of ladies kissing and dating and having implied sex, and at least one character---one of the batgirls actually---is trans.
In summary, go read bombshells it's really good, but today I'm here to specifically talk about:
The Batgirls (and boys)
"One for the ribbon, two for the pearls! Three for the crimefighting---
So first off, Bombshells is an elseworld, so it can do whatever the fuck it wants with backstories and shit.
Subsequently; this version of Kate Kane is a major league baseball player, and her Batwoman costume is literally just a pallet swap of her baseball costume (plenty of people figure out her "secret" identity because of this, but she's not super concerned about it). She uses an actual bat as her main weapon as Batwoman, and it kicks ass. More fanfic writers, and hell, comics writers need to hand the Batfamily some baseball bats, because it gives us scenes like this:
Or this:
(Yes her bat has a gun, it's supplied by Amanda Waller through goverment money, don't question it. Her baseballs are also explosives).
Oh, and also this:
Anyway, point is, Batwoman has a bat and it's great. But this means when Gotham's bat-weilding protector gets drafted into the Bombshells to go fight Nazi's, some new faces have to pick up the slack in Gotham.
And so:
Inspired by their vigilante/baseball hero, Harper Row, Kathy Duquesne, and Nell Little pick up some bats of their own and start busting up crime! The three of them are mechanics, that old car is their batmobile, and they're the best of friends!
Of this original trio, Kathy is "the brass" or the leader, and she remains nominally in charge through the whole thing. Nell is "the brawn" and while every batgirl is good in a fight, Nell is a bit of a demolition specialist. Finally you have Harper, "the brain" who invents their gadgets, works on their batmobile, and also jokes that she's the mascot, as this whole thing was her idea.
They don't stay a trio for very long though! They're quickly joined by "the beauty" Alysia Yeoh, an old friend of Kathy's, in an effort to break Cullen Row out of a prison-like orphanage (she's the t-girl btw):
You may notice another girl crouched in the corner up there too! That's Bette Kane, Kate's niece and the rightful owner of Kane Industries who will forcibly take it over, clean it up, and use it for good on her 18th birthday in like a week!
In the meantime though, she heard about the batgirls and decided she wanted in! She crashes their jailbreak and helps them wreck shop! She mostly shares the "brass" role with Kathy---a leader in her own right.
Anyway, their now quintet quickly finds the awful headmistress of the Pinkney orphanage berating one Tim Drake, who still has a living dad somewhere, but was snatched up by a dirty cop because this whole city runs on Newsies rules (not even kidding, I'll get there in a sec). Turns out Tim and Alysia are old best friends. Anyway, Tim fills them in on the sitch: the headmisstress has been using the orphans as slave labor to build war robots for the nazis.
The batgirls (now including Tim!), bust up the basement and the robots, free all the orphanage kids, including Cullen, toss the awful headmistress and the dirty cop helping her to one Detectice Maggie Sawyer---Kate's wife---and the day is saved!
In the subsequent week, Bette takes over Kane Industries, starts funneling funds into housing for immigrants and refugees and relief and aid and all that good stuff, and also recruits the final batgirl of the team: Felicity Smoak (the chick in braids)! Thus we have a full team!
Who's who in the alt text
I'm only halfway through Bombshells, but the batgirls and their adventures are a recurring plot thread, since protecting Gotham is entirely up to them while Kate is away. They gain lots of other allies and enemies (including one hispanic immigrant Lois Lane who does straight up help them pull a newsies and make their own newspaper with the real news in it at one point), and their sections are probably one of my favorite parts about the comic. It just feels so sweet and high school, while still feeling Batman-esque/Gotham-typical.
Why You Should Care:
Now. I may only be halfway through Bombshells, but I am in LOVE. With the story and the characterizations and everything!!! And the batgirls are a personal fave of mine cuz I'm a sucker for found family and teens fighting crime and bat-weilding superheroes!
But my point is: for all that fanfic loves these tropes too, there is NO fanfiction for them (or at least not on ao3). There's practically nothing for the Bombshells continuity PERIOD, which is a shame, but also to be expected for an elseworld.
But that's why I'm here and telling you about it!
You guys! This is fanfiction! We love flinging the batfamily through alternate universes and making lots of different characters take on the familiar Batgirl and Robin roles!
Why not bring forth the Bombshells Batgirls?
If you're writing your own elseworld, I suggest you nab this adorable team, or something like it! If you're writing an alt universe crossover, feature these guys!
They are the Batfamily found family you want! They CALL THEMSELVES a Bat-family! They all move in together! They loooooovvveee each other! And, as is the nature of the Batgirl mantle, they do what they do largely as independent operatives without adult supervision!
I would really love to see these guys yeeted into an alternate universe and have to cope with just HOW different their continuity is. Not only will they inevitably be flung way into the future, since they're around in the 40s, but in most continuities they're completely unconnected from each other and are absolutely not a team of bat-weilding crime fighters! It would be so baffling for any mainline batgirl and robin to meet a team that is so disconnected from them and so unconditionally supportive of each other and so Badass Adorable!
In Summary:
I may have lost the plot a little with this, but my points are:
Bombshells is really good and you should all go read it
Bombshells has a team of adorable bat-weilding batgirls that has all the found family crime fighting tropes you could want without the bad blood of the mainline batfam
More people should write fanfiction for Bombshells
The Bombshells!Batgirls in particular I think are a great place to start with that. Nab the premise of a baseball team being crime fighters, or Gotham being protected by a group of scrappy children whenever the big bad vigilantes are away, or give these colorful kids their Bombshells!backstories.
Also use the Bombshells universe in particular when you're flinging bats across the multiverse. Yeet these babies into a mainline comics verse and let the juxtaposition and chaos run WILD! There's a million and one of these fics for the Young Justice cartoon, I know ya'll can do it for Bombshells
Also. Take every opportunity to give your Batfamily, and your Batgirls in particular, an actual bat. It'll be so much fun, I promise
Anyway, I'll probably be back with another Bombshells rant later, PEACE!
UNCOMFORTABLY TIMELY POLITICAL ALLEGORY 🤗
Who is your favorite Batgirl?
Betty Kane
Barbara Gordon
Helena Bertinelli (No Man's Land)
Cassandra Cain
Stephanie Brown
Nissa (Batman Beyond)
Tiffany Fox (Future's End)
Barbara Wilson (Burtonverse Movies)
Harper Row, Kathy Duquesne, Nell Little, and Alysia Yeoh (DC Bombshells)
Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe (Birds of Prey Comics)
Other
Results
DC Bombshells
BARBARA GORDON
In the universe of DC Bombshells Barbara is a French Pilot named Barbara Gourdon born to a small-town policeman and a farmer, she demonstrated a gifted intelligence at a young age that quickly lead to her learning how to fly small planes. During 1916 she would enlist in the French Air Force and earn the title of 'The Batgirl' for her natural gift for flying. She would fall in love with a German Pilot named Luc Fuchs (This universe's analogue to Luke Fox) whom would go MIA and eventually would be presumed dead.
This event would lead her into searching for a way to bring him back, landing her in a bog in Louisiana. Upon reaching the bog she would be turned into a vampire, causing her to go into hiding, believing herself to be a monster and isolating herself in an abandoned manor named "Belle Reve Manor House" somewhere during this she would meet Junie Moone (Enchantress), Rose Wilson (Ravager) and Waylon Jones (Killer Croc) who would join her self-isolation in Belle Reve Manor.
We first meet her in DC Bombshells Annual #1 in her vampiric form, wherein we also get to learn her backstory. This issue takes place in 1941 wherein Amanda Waller enlists a soldier named Francine Charles to retrieve her. Francine heads to the bog and shows her evidence that Luc is alive, causing her to agree to help Amanda Waller and later becomes a member of the 'Suicide Squad'
CASSANDRA CAIN
Unfortunately we don't see much of Cassandra in this universe but we do see her as the Black bat in a small cameo appearance before she later falls in with Katana and helps her protect those affected by Lex Luthor's extraterrestrial attack.
STEPHANIE BROWN
If you thought we barely saw Cass, we see Steph in a single epilogue panel where she's seen becoming one of the Batgirls with the description of "And a girl, all in purple, has been seen spoiling best-laid plans of crooks and villains the whole city over."
UNIVERSE SPECIFIC BATGIRLS
From left to right we have Nell Little, Felicity Smoak, Alysia Yeoh, Tim Drake, Cullen Row, Harper Row, Kathy Duquesne and Bette Kane.
Inspired by the feats of Batwoman Harper, Kathy and Nell form the 'Batgirls' to fight crime, quickly adding members to their team, all of whom use bats to fight off crime. They come into their own as a unit when after the departure of Batwoman to join the 'Bombshells' they are tasked with keeping Gotham safe in her absence.
Other links:
Merchandise under this line
Promotional/cover art
in a world or fanfiction where Bruce wayne dies or disappears who's your favourite character to take up the mantle of batman
Dick grayson
Jason todd
Tim drake
Damian wayne
Cassandra cain
Barbara gordon
Stephanie brown
Duke thomas
Kathy duquesne
Terry mcginnis
DC Comics: Bombshells #19
Back once again with another animated dc movie review. This time with the somewhat forgotten Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman. The 4th film in the DC Animated Universe. Just because this one doesn’t get talked about all that much. Does that make it good or bad? Watch the video to hear more of my thoughts on this movie.