Why I Won't Miss Oracle

There has been much consternation over the announcement that Barbara Gordon will become Batgirl again, and apparently lose the wheelchair (although we don't know the details yet, and I've heard rumors that she'll be using an exo-skeleton, so she'll still be in the wheelchair when not fighting crime...?) This fine editorial by Jill Pantozzi is a good example of how dismayed, and even angry, many people are about this change.

I don't specifically disagree with anything Jill has said, and I certainly don't think taking Barbara out of the wheelchair is a particularly bright move (DC: "We're going younger--so we're ditching Cassandra and Stephanie, and putting Barbara back in the costume!!").

But I also can't say that I'm sad to see the character of Oracle go, either.

Let me make a couple of points that seem to escaped everyone's notice so far.

A. There Is No Relation Between Barbara Gordon's Physical Condition And Her Status As Oracle

Everyone I've read seems to be making a very odd assumption--Barbara's paraplegia is why she became Oracle, after the Joker destroyed her career as Batgirl.

But that shows a short memory, and a lack of knowledge of DC history.

Let me remind people (or inform them if they never knew): Barbara Gordon had retired as Batgirl BEFORE The Killing Joke. She did NOT stop being Batgirl because of her Joker-inflicted injuries.

Yeah, I know, that goes counter to what you think you know about the character. But for years prior to the Killing Joke, Barbara had been questioning her Batgirl role. In Crisis On Infinite Earths, Batgirl spent several issues feeling inadequate as a super-hero, and contemplating quitting. Supergirl's sacrifice encouraged her to say, but in many of her appearances afterward she had doubts.

And in Batgirl Special #1 (1988), published a few months before The Killing Joke, Barbara hung up the costume for good. She decides that with all the other (and she believes better) super-heroes out there, she's not needed. And after suffering some injuries against a serial killer, she retires as Batgirl. Again--Barbara quit as Batgirl, on her own accord.

See, it wasn't the Killing Joke that made her stop being Batgirl--she already had abandoned the cowl. Oh, it's easy to understand the confusion--Killing Joke is, after all, one of the most famous stories ever by one of the most revered comic writers of all time, and the story has been reprinted one kajillion times. Batgirl Special #1? Never reprinted, and mostly forgotten because of the story that followed. Good luck searching the quarter bins.

But you see, Barbara didn't give up being Batgirl because of physical necessity. She did it because she didn't want to be Batgirl anymore. The Joker didn't take that from her. She took it from herself. And to suggest that restoring the use of her legs means she would automatically pick up the cowl again doesn't show a good understanding of the character.

But by the same token, that also means that she didn't need the injury to become Oracle. Given Barbara's skill set, she very well might have become Oracle anyway, even had Killing Joke never happened. She was still a part of the Bat-Family, still had research skills, surely still wanted to help fight crime in her own way. (or, hell, maybe she would have run for Congress again...)

But there's this assumption that wheelchair=Oracle, and no wheelchair=Batgirl, and that's just not the way it is (Of course, DC hasn't helped--Wendy Harris loses the use of her legs, and she becomes Proxy, a junior Oracle. Nice little ghetto you've created there, DC: female with paraplegia=you have to become a master hacker).

If DC chose to, Barbara could become a physical crime-fighter again without losing the wheelchair--hell, this is the DC Universe, I could name 15 ways to work that off the top of my head. And, if she were somehow healed, there's no reason she couldn't keep on being Oracle, if she chose.

But everyone, DC included, has this mindset that if she's paralyzed, she has to be Oracle, and if she's not, she has to be Batgirl. But that's letting the physical status define the character...and isn't that what everyone is upset about it?

The wheelchair and Oracle are two completely separate issues--or they should be.

B. Oracle Is A Terrible Comic Book Character

Before you attack me, let me clarify I'm not saying Barbara Gordon is a poor character. I'm saying that the concept of Oracle just doesn't work very well in comic books.

Oh, it's not just comic books. Just think of every movie or TV show where they've had a scene of someone hacking into something, or manning their computer and rapidly (and seemingly randomly) typing to defend against a threat. Now, be honest--100% of the time, isn't that the most boring part of that show? Did you really think the scene of nerds coding were the best part of The Social Network?

Well, it's even worse in comics, because we don't have the illusions of the sounds of keyboards clacking and the visuals of fingers flying over a keyboard and the swelling of background music to distract us. Having someone be a computer master is possible one of the least interesting and most impossible things to portray in a comic book. Seriously, how many scenes have they given us of Clark Kent actually typing out a story? Finding new and interesting ways to have Barbara typing and talking into a headset wasn't an easy task, and most creators failed.

And what makes it even worse is, 99.5 percent of the writers and artists who have portrayed Oracle have seemingly never actually seen anyone use a computer. Dear lord, given that our character is the supreme computer artist in the DC Universe, the amount of computer illiteracy and ignorance shown in Oracle stories is pretty damning. And this led, inevitably, to greater and greater "powers" for Oracle, because creators had no patience (or knowledge) to show someone taking hours to hack into a network or decrypt a file. Nope, Oracle could find out anything in the universe with two keystrokes, she could make computers do anything...hell, she shut down the entire internet with zero notice in 5 seconds. She's essentially become a "magic" character, omnipotent, with no real rules...and that's boring.

Oh, I know, it is the DC Universe, and there is dramatic licence, but really, Oracle became nothing more than a human Mother Box, a living sonic screwdriver, a deus ex machina to solve any hero's problem when the writer can't think of a better way to get out of the corner they've painted themselves into.

And what a storytelling crutch she became. Batman, the greatest detective ever, essentially stopped detecting, and relied on Oracle to solve every problem for him. What started as the occasional consult became a raging dependency, and not a single story was allowed to pass without Bruce or Dick having to get information from Oracle that they should have been able to find themselves. Hell, we seemingly reached the point where none of the Bat-Family could even wipe their own ass without having Oracle pull up a file and explain to them how to do it. I'm overstating things, but I think the over-reliance on Oracle seriously hurt the DC Universe, and especially the Bat titles.

None of which has anything to do, of course, with Barbara Gordon herself. She's just been trapped for awhile, though, in an unportrayable role, but not allowed to leave because it's become unthinkable for her to leave the wheelchair.

But again, there's no reason the wheelchair means she has to be Oracle. I'm against magically healing her, because as I've said many times before, I'm against going backwards, and against immature nostalgia substituting for creativity and progress. But I 100% support her no longer being Oracle. Find something else for her to do. Let someone else be tech support for the DC Universe. Because I doubt that any of the Barbara Gordon supporters out there believe that the only role for a handicapped person is resident computer whiz.

Remember, wheelchair ≠ Oracle.