barbara gordon

I don't have a whole lot of OTPs, but Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon are right there at the top of the list. They're two characters who have felt made for each other since the first time I saw them together, and even when they're not romantically entangled --- which is pretty frequently the case for characters that I always picture together --- and even when I don't actually want to see them romantically involved, which happens almost as often, their interactions always have a sense of history that makes them compelling and interesting. It's that interaction that takes center stage in this week's Batgirl #45, a character piece about two people whose lives have been pulled in drastically different directions and who don't know if they'll ever have the same connection that they once did. And it's one of the best takes on their relationship that I've ever read.

Q: Someone asked me this one, so now you have to do it: who, in your "head" "canon," do you consider to be the necessary members of the Bat-family? - Benito Cereno, via Tumblr A: Finally! I've been waiting for like five years for someone to ask me a question that would allow me to go into a needlessly in-depth explanation of how some part of Batman worked, and now, after all these years, it has happened for the very first time. As for this particular question, it's an interesting one, and if you'd like to see Benito's answer to it, it's up on his Tumblr. If you do go look at the list, though, you'll see the problem in trying to answer it. After 75 years of collecting sidekicks, butlers, teammates and assorted hangers-on, Batman has a whole lot of people in his extended family. And if I had my way, I'd keep 'em all.

Warner Bros. Interactive and DC Entertainment have announced the pricing and release date for Batman: Arkham Knight's first major piece of downloadable content. Now that Scarecrow's fear toxin has started to dissipate and Gotham's Rogues Gallery is locked up at GCPD (spoilers: criminals go to jail), it's time to go back to an era long before the Arkham series started. During the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum, Barbara Gordon was already the Oracle, who helped the Dark Knight from her Batcomputer at home. Batgirl: A Matter of Family will have you playing as Babs back when she donned the cape and cowl, long before the horrific events of Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke.

In today's polls, we look at love in the Bat-family, where romance typically takes a backseat in the Batmobile to justice, punching, and moping. Is there such a thing as a great love interest in Batman's life? Do Tim and Steph belong together, and is Dick meant to be happy ever after with Babs or Kory or you? (It's you, isn't it? We didn't include a poll for that one, because it was always Dick and you.)

It’s been some time since we’ve heard anything on the development of TNT’s proposed Titans series, based on the DC Comics Teen Titans, but at last pilot casting may have begun. That said, the leaked lineup for the pilot script may tease some major changes to the comic team, as well as some surprising Batman inclusions. Take this with a grain of salt for the moment, as pilots are often subject to change, but Nerdist claims to have gotten an early look at the Titans pilot script, which in addition to the expected inclusions of Dick Grayson, Raven and Starfire (the latter two are teased at the very end), also features several notable new members. For one. a wheelchair-using Barbara Gordon will act as support for the team (not yet calling herself Oracle), while other members include DC heroes Hawk and Dove, in this continuity a male-female pairing, and lovers at that.

DC's new take on Batgirl has been one of the pioneers of a new movement towards mainstream comics for a progressive young female audience -- a movement whose other flagbearers have become a mantra of sorts in 2014; Lumberjanes, Ms. Marvel, Gotham Academy, etc. In the hands of creators Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher and Babs Tarr, Batgirl offered a satisfyingly contemporary and feminist take on Gotham superheroics. So it came as a particular disappointment when last week's Batgirl #37 contained themes and imagery that were transphobic and transmisogynistic, leading several critics to call out the creative team for their insensitivity. This weekend the creators offered a statement of apology, saying, "we want to acknowledge the hurt and offense we've caused."

A favorite among many longtime and hardcore Batman fans, writer Alan Brennert released a statement on Facebook this week regarding his lack of compensation for the use of the character Barbara Kean Gordon in the upcoming Fox TV show Gotham, a live-action series based on the Batman characters. Brennert wrote a story in 1981 where the character was created as the fiancée of then-Lt. James Gordon. While it was an out-of-continuity story, the character was later brought into canon as Commissioner Gordon’s wife (most notably in Batman: Year One, and in the films Batman Begins and The Dark Knight). In the television series' pilot episode -- which ComicsAlliance staffers have seen and verified -- Barbara Kean is introduced as James Gordon's bride-to-be, played by Erin Richards. For this reason, Brennert requested equity in the character and compensation for her use in Gotham – a request that has been denied, which has in turn inspired consternation among Brennert's fans, industry observers and other creators.

As Batman: Arkham Knight, the next entry in the popular video game franchise about Batman beating the criminally insane into submission in asylums of increasingly improbable sizes and complexity, draws nearer, we're starting to get to the point where we're getting a steady stream of information about the game. Today, with the release of a new set of screenshots, we got some of the most interesting

After teasing us with Facebook and Instagram pictures of a Birds-of-Prey-like logo on a jacket and a t-shirt, the official Batman: Arkham Origins Facebook page has revealed that a very young Barbara Gordon will appear in the game.

In case you haven't heard yet, Grant Morrison recently offered his take on the end of The Killing Joke, the seminal 1988 story from Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. Widely considered one of the greatest Batman stories -- and possibly the greatest Joker story -- of all time, the ending is, arguably, a bit ambiguous. In an interview on Kevin Smith's "Fatman on Batman," Morrison said he belie