Batgirl

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Batgirl

Information
Real name:	Barbara Gordon
AKA:	Babs, Bat-Brat, Mystery^[1]
Species:	Human
Hair:	Red
Eyes:	Blue
Relatives:	James Gordon (father) Sam Young (husband)
Base:	Gotham City
Affiliations:	Batman, Gotham Police Department
Voiced by:	Melissa Gilbert^[2] Mary Kay Bergman^[3] Tara Strong^[4] Stockard Channing^[5] Angie Harmon^[6]

Batgirl, real name Barbara Gordon, was the daughter of Commissioner James Gordon. Later in life, she became Commissioner of the Gotham Police Department herself.

[edit] History

[edit] Pre-Costume

When the renegade artificial intelligence HARDAC attempted to replace the most influential members of Gotham (including James Gordon), Barbara was one of the few who initially felt something was wrong. Using a few skills she picked up from her father, Barbara managed to help Batman save everyone.

[edit] Batgirl

Barbara Gordon takes after her father, James Gordon. Like the Commissioner, Barbara is a skilled crime fighter dedicated to wiping out Gotham City's lawbreakers - but not as a cop. When Commissioner Gordon is framed by the notorious villain Two-Face, Barbara dons a bat costume and finds that the uniform fits her better than she had first imagined. Whether they like it or not, Batman and Robin soon realize that they have a new red-headed ally in the form of Batgirl. In her daily life, Barbara is a student at Gotham State University. Her academic skills are matched only by her gymnastic ability, which she utilizes to her full advantage as Batgirl. Batman and Robin learn to trust and rely on Batgirl's contribution to eradicating Gotham's criminal element. Ironically, Barbara is also the girlfriend of Dick Grayson.

Early on, Batman deduced the masked red-head who fought so hard to clear Commissioner Gordon could only be Gordon's daughter, Barbara. When Dick Grayson left Gotham, Batman found himself calling on Batgirl to work with him on special cases. Eventually, Batman told Batgirl the secret of his dual identity and granted her free access to the Batcave and all its technology. The Batcomputer quickly became her domain and now she even surpasses Batman, Robin and Nightwing in cyber-expertise.

Barbara lives in a private townhouse near Gotham's trendy Park Ridge. A service lift in Barbara's bedroom closet runs down to the secret basement where Barbara stores her Batgirl crimefighting gear. In addition to costumes and weapons, the basement also serves as garage for Batgirl's highly-advanced Batcycle, a gift from Batman.

Her double life as Batgirl sometimes puts Barbara at an emotional crossroads. As the daughter of the Police Commissioner, Barbara was raised with respect for law and order, but her actions as Batgirl technically label her a vigilante. If Batgirl were ever caught and unmasked, the scandal would certainly destroy Commissioner Gordon's career. Still, Gotham is a city that breeds an extreme kind of criminal and extreme crimefighters are needed to handle situations regular cops can't. Barbara believes the good she does as Batgirl is worth the potential risk to herself and her father. She often takes on some of Batman's dangerous villains including Harley Quinn, Catwoman, and Poison Ivy. She is great friends with Kara In-Ze, also known as Supergirl, and has teamed up with her in the past, most notably when Livewire escaped and joined forces with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. Yet, later on, when her then-boyfriend, Dick Grayson, learned of her identity as Batgirl and got into an argument with Batman that he left Gotham and became Nightwing.

Barbara was also found to be the only organ donor (either living or dead) to Nora Fries, Mr. Freeze's wife, and she was kidnapped. However, Dick Grayson was present during the kidnapping, and though he failed to save Barbara, he was aware of Freeze's plot. Batman and Robin managed to interrupt the operation before it took place; the battle that ensued caused Freeze's lair to explode. Batman, Robin, and Barbara were able to evacuate Nora and Koonak in time, but Freeze had fallen into the fiery blast and was assumed dead. In actuality, he and his polar bears survived. In Gotham, Nora was cured.

When Catwoman broke into the Gotham Police Department Special Crimes Dangerous Evidence Vault, someone had beaten her to the punch: the place was completely looted and disorganized. Detective Selma Reesedale entered the Vault shortly thereafter, caught sight of Catwoman, and sounded the alarm. Catwoman escaped, though not from the eyes of Batgirl. Pursuing the cat-thief, she saw Harley and Ivy head toward Arkham Asylum, wanting to avoid a future crime, she pursued them letting Catwoman escape. Her pursuit was foiled altogether when the men of Gotham disappeared. Detective Reesdale had gone missing as well. Since she was last seen with Catwoman, the remaining members of the Gotham Police Department held Catwoman accountable. Catwoman, however, had committed no such crime. Searching for evidence, Catwoman broke into Reesdale's apartment. Batgirl (who knew Catwoman was innocent as well) entered shortly thereafter, and the two discovered a shocking secret: Detective Reesedale was actually a man.

The kidnapping explained, the two deduced the disappearances must have been caused by something within the Vault. Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, however, had already visited and looted the joint. Tracking the two to a Monastery, they discovered the weapon: a gun manufactured by Mr. Freeze. Reesedale and the other Gotham men returned, only to arrest Catwoman despite Batgirl's protests. Quinn and Ivy, who had fled the scene, were labeled accomplices. Commissioner Gordon declared costumed characters a major threat, and Gotham became a small war-ground.

Harley and Ivy broke Catwoman free, but the three were caught by Batgirl. However, the Gotham Knight didn't intend on arresting them; instead, she wanted to solve the true reason behind the disappearances and. However, Quinn, Ivy, and Catwoman were arrested during the meeting;She became distraught over her father's sudden hardline stance and tried to reason with him as both Batgirl and Barbara Gordon, to no avail. This didn't stop her from breaking Catwoman, Quinn, and Ivy from prison. Batgirl managed to escape, and was declared Public Enemy #1. Together, they formed a plan.

To gain entrance to the Police Headquarters, the police had to be distracted. Catwoman, Ivy, and Quinn dressed as Batgirl, and were "caught" in different areas of town. The forces divided and their attention focused elsewhere, Barbara Gordon headed into the Headquarters. Inside she met Detective Reesedale who let her in to the Special Crimes Dangerous Evidence Vault, where she investigated Mr. Freeze's locker, and found a picture of Nora, Victor and an unknown woman named D. She asked Reesedale about the Comissioner's "evidence" aganist Batgirl, when the Detective could not supply the answers she confronted her father, throwing batarangs at him, tipping him into the Bat-Signal. Barbara's suspicious were true her father had been replaced by an android, made by Mr. Freeze technology. She soon realized the D was none other than Dora Smithy, her father's secretary and friend. Dora had taken Gordon to Gotham Ice Cream Industries where she kept him in a chronogenics chamber. Batgirl had figured her location with Detective Montoya. Montoya broke in but Dora, using Freeze's own technology, froze her inside of her car. Batgirl came in after and subdued Dora briefly. She managed to break free (unaware that doing so would open Gordons chamber and revive him). With her enhanced strength, due to Freeze's gauntlets, she fought Batgirl and held her, with her desires of the costumed villains destroyed poured out.

Gordon was revived and told her that if it wasn't for Freeze then Nora would be dead. Dora refused to believe this. When told she was just like Mr. Freeze, just in a different costume, she denied it. She backed up on the catwalk she was standing on and fell into a bath of chemicals, similar to that her brother-in-law fell into years prior. Dora was locked up in Arkham, under "cold storage".

Batgirl was also with Batman when Tim Drake was kidnapped by the Joker and tortured into becoming a "son" of the Clown Prince. While Batman took on the madman, Barbara confronted Harley Quinn. In the fight, they fell off a cliff, and though Batgirl tried to get Harley back to safety, she fell into Arkham Canyon.

[edit] Post-Costume

Commissioner Barbara Gordon

Barbara was the last of Batman's partners to relinquish their roles. She was also the girlfriend of Bruce Wayne for an undetermined period. For as yet unknown reason, the intimate relationship was eventually terminated, although both remained close friends afterwards.

Later on she assumed the role of Gotham City's Police Commissioner. Initially, Barbara was distrustful of the second Batman, Terry McGinnis; this distrust was stressed when Spellbinder used his technology to make her believe that Terry had killed Mad Stan. But she eventually formed a mentoring relationship with Terry, even helping him on occasion, especially when the Joker returned and had attacked Bruce in the cave. Barbara has since welcomed Batman back to fighting crime. When Barbara's husband District Attorney Sam Young was targeted by the assassin Curaré, both she and Terry stopped her. She saved Terry's life by throwing a discarded batarang at the killer, amazed she still "had it".

[edit] Background Information

[edit] Trivia

In an episode of Batman Beyond an older Barbara Gordon looks over her old costume in the Batcave and remarks about the bullet holes being gone. In the Gotham Girls episode "Bat'ing Cleanup", Barbara is seen studying a bullet hole in her costume.

At one point during the later series Justice League Unlimited, an episode featuring Batgirl was discussed. The episode would have featured Barbara being ordered by Batman to stay off a case involving Kirk Langstrom and an army of Man-Bats, in which she had recently gotten herself injured and put in traction. Defying Batman's orders she would have temporarily assumed an Oracle-like persona and recruited Huntress and Black Canary as her field agents (after finding Nightwing to be unavailable) who then help her to stop Langstrom's Man-Bats. ^[7] The episode was never produced as the rights to the Batgirl character were not held over and were being used by the team on The Batman at the time.