DC Comics Re-Hires Gail Simone As Writer Of ‘Batgirl’ Less Than Two Weeks After Firing Her

So, just a few weeks after announcing on her Twitter feed that she'd been informed she would no longer be the writer on Batgirl, Gail Simone has now revealed, again via Twitter, that she's... the new writer on Batgirl?

It's true. As Simone put it in a follow-up Tweet, this is "not a hoax."There will almost certainly be some debate over how this entire scenario played out behind the scenes, and what ultimately led to Simone being put back on the book. Fans will likely never know exactly how everything went down. That said, it seems irrefutable that the wave of negative fan reaction to her dismissal played at least some role in Simone's return. Simone, one of the few female writers currently working for DC and the only one featured in the opening wave of the publisher's heavily hyped New 52 initiative, has cultivated a very passionate fan base over the years. In the aftermath of the announcement of her removal from the book on December 11, that fan base made its voices heard. Now, less than two weeks later, it seems she's right back where she was.

This isn't the first time comic fan reaction has played a role in causing a publisher to back away from a controversial decision -- some fans will recall when Mark Waid was removed as the writer of Marvel's Captain America in the 1990s before being quickly reinstated -- and it almost certainly won't be the last.