Gail Simone responds to the Batgirl controversy and mentions Cassandra Cain

I have to admire Gail Simone for doing this-- addressing the end of Oracle in an interview with the woman who wrote the most impassioned, affecting essay about DC's plans for Barbara Gordon. This interview is some big time damage control from DC, and I have to express my complete and open admiration for Simone for doing this. When DC wrecked Cassandra Cain's narrative, all her fans got were smirking dismissals and vague promises. In this case, a creator is tackling reader concerns head-on in as open and candid a way as possible without giving away secrets best left for the stories themselves. That said, I still see more divisions and impassioned essays in our immediate future.

But here's what I really want to talk about.

Cassandra Cain. And the silence from DC regarding her. While trying her best to soothe understandably upset Oracle fans, Simone hints at two things. One, that many of these characters are being re-set to earlier points in their careers:

This is a huge wave going through the DCU, and part of that wave is that most of the Bat-verse, and the DCU at large, are going to be shown a bit earlier in their careers, a bit less experienced. We don't want the characters to already know everything. As time goes on, at both DC and Marvel, characters notch up so many victories that we often start to think of them as infallible, which is kind of death for adventure fiction.

And two, that for now, there are zero plans for Cass in the new order:

I know people are worried about Cass and Steph. All I can say is, I cannot imagine that those characters won't have a role in the new DC. It just seems very unlikely. If no one else is using them, don't be surprised if they show up in Batgirl in the near future. They are awesome.

It could very well be that point one answers point two-- Cass will be re-set to before she became Batgirl. It could also be Simone just isn't privy to DC's plans for Cass because she's not the one writing the character. For now. Grant Morrison has already revealed Batman Incorporated-- with its international league of Bat-associates, it's the book that's most likely the best fit for Cass-- will continue with a new #1 in 2012, so perhaps she'll soldier on in the Blackbat costume as if nothing's changed. In this case, no news would be good news (as they say in the news industry right before they get fired for being wrong about no news being good news).

This is interesting:

When Steph was announced, I don't know if you remember, Jill, but there was a massive outcry from the readership. Massive. They felt that it was a betrayal that an Asian character, Cass Cain, who was much beloved and tremendously popular as Batgirl, was being replaced by a blonde-haired white girl. There were angry letters and threats of boycotts, the whole thing.

That's true. But a sizeable chunk of that outcry wasn't just the replacing of Cass with Steph. It was also that before doing so by having Cass quit being Batgirl-- in the most asinine, perfunctory way imaginable short of her slipping on a banana peel into the path of an oncoming steamroller or being beaten up and murdered by a baby-- they wrote her completely out of the DC universe as if she'd never existed, turned her into a grotesque Dragon Lady stereotype, mooting the entire character arc of her monthly series, returned her as an evil Batgirl, stuck her in Batmand and the Outsiders and just as quickly jerked her out again, involved her in a shamefully slapdash miniseries, set her up for new adventures, then wrote her out of the DC universe again at the beginning of a storyline in which by the nature of her relationship with its central figure she should have been a major player. And then more vague promises before having her show up again seemingly repaired for the foreseeable future. And now a huge, potentially game-changing announcement involving almost DC character that's ever existed in the company's long history... except Cass. To understate the matter, fans tend to find such things unpleasant.

Especially when, with such a track record, DC could just as easily do worse to Cass and her long-suffering fans.

However, in lieu of hard info and in the interest of generating some good will for my favorite DC character, I'm going to try my best to stay positive and use my mighty brain to convince my uncertain heart my good friends at the company that owns her wouldn't do something quite so stupid as put us through all that again, not when they so recently gave Cass a compelling new identity and sense of purpose. Which is why I'm going to keep grinning as if my face had been badly Botoxed by a doctor of uncertain credentials operating in a seedy strip mall also featuring a massage parlor, a title pawn establishment and more empty storefronts than tenants.

Yes. See how happy I am? See my smile? It's a big, big smile of love and joy and it means I'm anxious to see what Morrison's going to do with Cassandra Cain in Batman Incorporated volume 2! Or what Gail Simone's going to do with her in Batgirl volume infinity! But would it kill someone at DC to include something to that effect in one of their many relaunch press releases?

Batgirl Unbound: To make some happy, one must make others unhappy...

What a shock to learn Barbara Gordon will be dropping her Oracle identity and returning as Batgirl. You'd think she would have outgrown that costumed identity by now, but apparently she hasn't. I don't have to tell you why some comic fans are greeting this news with a somewhat less than positive response. One of my favorite bloggers, Innerbrat, will tell you point-by-smartly reasoned point. This is not a fan I'd care to alienate; too intelligent, too passionate! She's not the only one. Another blogger responds to the news at Lubbock Online. This fan deconstructs an ostensibly happy image produced by another fan of Barbara Gordon strutting away in her old school Batgirl costume, her Oracle wheelchair abandoned behind her. Andy Khouri also explains a lot of these feelings it at Comics Alliance. Other fans are concerned that current Batgirl Stephanie Brown is in big trouble.

My understanding is DC's trying to provide new readers a "jumping on point," and that strategy involves more classic versions of their characters. No more multiple Batmen-- Bruce Wayne will be wearing the pointy eared mask and scalloped cape. The iconic characters, hence the traditional Batgirl. I'm not convinced. It's kind of difficult to discuss these "iconic" characters and put them into perspective because we're comic fans. We know their narratives intimately; it's almost as if they're real to us, friends or even family. Or-- if Google image searches for "Batgirl" are to be believed, even lovers.

Sorry. That made even me shudder. Do NOT do a Google image search for Batgirl. I've written quite a bit about Cassandra Cain and you really do not want to know what Google keywords bring more traffic to those posts than any others.

To the public at large, however, Batgirl is probably less Barbara Gordon than that chick in the rubber costume from the 60s or 70s or whenever or that other chick who was in that one Aerosmith video where she and Liv Tyler got kinda semi-lesbianish and whatever happened to her anyway?

Go to a shopping center and ask a random selection of passersby if they know Batgirl's real name. Before you're arrested, you're bound to get some interesting replies, most of which will include the words "what," "the hell" and "are you talking about?" Commissioner Gordon's daughter? Paralyzed? You lying jerk! Gary Oldman didn't even have a daughter in that movie I saw!

What will those people care? While putting Barbara Gordon back in the Batgirl suit is probably exciting for one segment of already-committed comic fans-- and obviously is for Gail Simone, who will be writing this series-- I'm not convinced any of the new readers DC hopes to appeal to with this reboo-- sorry-- "relaunching" have any particular allegiance to the traditional comic book version: "I would've bought that new Batgirl series thingy, but I didn't recognize her without the mask, so I gave it a miss."

And meanwhile, a lot of loyal readers who have already been reading all about Barbara Gordon and loving her are now royally upset. Plus another character is getting the Heisman treatment. Hey, maybe this time they won't kill her off. You've got that going for you... at least... Pissing off Barbara-as-Oracle fans-- for whom she has an intensely symbolic importance-- and Stephanie-Brown-as-Batgirl crowd-- those who made their outrage known during the Robin Memorial Case Conflict-- doesn't seem like a smart move. Unless, of course, the angry go ahead and buy this book anyway because they're just that hardcore about reading comics. Especially comics written by Gail Simone.

That's this story's ultimate twist. Simone is one of the most popular writers for the fans most disgruntled by this abrupt change, plus she's as solid as they come at DC. I'm not a big fan of hers-- I've read more message board posts by her than comics-- but I did enjoy Simone's version of Gen13. While somewhat rambling, it was still entertaining, witty and full of well-written characterization. I especially appreciated Simone's take on Sarah Rainmaker, the most misused, ill-served character from the original series. Simone dumped some of the more strident elements (products of the MTV's Real World/frat boy aesthetic of the first series) and gave Rainmaker a bruised toughness that was touching and effective. But the character Simone is most associated with is Barbara Gordon, of whom she appears to be an unabashed fan. As a writer she comes across giddy about being on this book.

Wow! Shades of the whole "Cassandra Cain turns evil" controversy all over again, minus the shabby scripting. We all have pleasant memories of those fabled days, similar to the family reunion where that estranged ne'er-do-well cousin Cornelius Vandershot-- he who dropped out of Harvard, Yale and Princeton and ended up attending a state university and eventually living on a collective farm in British Columbia before becoming a lawyer specializing in personal injury suits-- attended with his harlot of a wife-- she of the untamed eyebrows and unshaven pits; she claims to be an author of some repute but I've read the titles of some of her "works," nothing but trash-- a-and so drunk on spirits he collapsed at the dinner table, giving Aunt Lydia such intense vapors she took to her bedchambers and hasn't been seen since, communicating her needs through a perpetually-locked double door by means of a silver bell.

Well, you can't make everyone happy all the time. Good lord, the DC writers, artists and editors have learned that lesson time and time again over the past 10 years or so. As far as I know, we still don't know what's going to happen to Cassandra Cain! It's going to be a long, hot summer!