History Characters / Batgirl

* Hackette: Some superheroes did not know Oracle was really Barbara Gordon, and most supervillains (assuming they even knew about Oracle) did not know Oracle was a woman. Some even speculated that Oracle was actually an A.I.

* IJustWanttoBeYou: Tries to usurp Barbara's Batgirl because he believes he would make a better 'Batgirl of Burnside' than her.

* OneSteveLimit: During the Joker Wars,Batman fought an unrelated villain called Mirror.

->''"'ve always been little. Obscure. Easy to forget. People thought I'd disappeared too, like my parents. So that's what I did. I made myself small -- small and quiet. Kira faded away... and Seer was born."''

* NoSocialSkills: What with her upbringing, it would be odder if she did ''not'' have trouble interacting. She didn't even ''learn to speak'' before her pre-teens! There was also a famous scene in the 2007 run of ''ComicBook/BatmanAndTheOutsiders'' where she strutted around in the nude, with SceneryCensor to cover up the naughty bits.

* PlatonicLifePartners: She has this dynamic with Tim Drake in the Pre-''Flashpoint'' timeline which was generally presented as a LikeBrotherAndSister relationship. After jointing Bruce's Outsiders in the Post-''Flashpoint'' timeline, Cass develops this same type of dynamic with newcomer Duke Thomas.

[[Characters/BatmanBane Bane]] | Characters/{{Catwoman}} ([[Characters/CatwomanSelinaKyle Selina Kyle]]) | [[Characters/BatmanClayface Clayface]] | Characters/HarleyQuinn ([[Characters/HarleyQuinnTheCharacter Harleen Quinzel]]) | [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] | [[Characters/BatmanLadyShiva Lady Shiva]] | [[Characters/BatmanLeagueOfAssassins League of Assassins]] ([[Characters/BatmanRasAlGhul Ra's Al Ghul]] | [[Characters/BatmanTaliaAlGhul Talia Al Ghul]]) | [[Characters/BatmanMrFreeze Mr. Freeze]] | [[Characters/BatmanThePenguin The Penguin]] | [[Characters/BatmanPoisonIvy Poison Ivy]] | [[Characters/BatmanTheRiddler The Riddler]] | [[Characters/BatmanTheScarecrow The Scarecrow]] | [[Characters/BatmanTwoFace Two Face]] | [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGalleryPart1 A-H]] | [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGalleryPart2 J-R]] | [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGalleryPart3 S-Z]]\\

[[WMG:[[center:[-''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' '''[[Characters/{{Batman}} Main Character Index]]'''\\

* ''[[ComicBook/Batgirls2021 Batgirls]]'' (2021 - ) [-as Oracle and Batgirl-]

!Post-''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'', Batgirl of Burnside:

[[folder:Mary Elizabeth "Bette" Kane / Bat-Girl / Batgirl I / '''Flamebird''' /Hawkfire]]

* MissionControl: Plays this role for Franchise/{{Batman}}, ComicBook/{{Nightwing}}, [[ComicBook/{{Batgirl2009}} Batgirl]], and the ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey.

* VagueAge: Prior to ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'', her age in relation to other characters often fluctuates. See entry under MayDecemberRomance.

-> ''"It's only the end if you want it to be."''

* TheCowl: Barbara was inspired by Batman and takes after him: she wears dark clothes and a cowl, she has no powers, and she patrols Gotham at the night, hunting criminals. In ''Comicbook/ElseworldsFinestSupergirlAndBatgirl'', Barbara serves as The Cowl to ''Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}'''s The Cape: she is rude, cynical and bossy; but she wants to protect and help people. ''Comicbook/LexLuthor'' even accuses her from "[skulking] around in the dark alleys and back rooms".

* EarnYourHappyEnding: In ''Comicbook/{{Convergence}}'' she finally marries Dick.

** Pre-Crisis with Kara Zor-El alias ''Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}''. She was her best friend.

** She has now been retconned to the same age as him thanks to Comicbook/{{Flashpoint}}. They were already about the same age in earlier works such as Batman: TAS.

* RetCon / RetCanon: Barbara's age. She was originally a college graduate with a Ph.D while Dick Grayson was still in high school (later a Congresswoman while he was in college, meaning she was, at some point, at least 25), but has been gradually de-aged over the years until the post-Comicbook/{{Flashpoint}} reboot has them at the same age, and barely out of college. Rumor has it that one of the reasons for the reboot was that word around the office was that Barbara was probably pushing 30 by this point, and that wasn't workable. This arguably began with ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', which showed her as roughly the same age as Dick and paired them up romantically.

** And eventually get married for good, in Comicbook/{{Convergence}}.

* TraumaCongaLine: Barbara doesn't have a great time as Batgirl. She's wanted by her own father for apparently killing her brother, her father puts her love interest in the hospital (who then wants to sue Jim), she's still suffering from PTSD, and her closest friend/semi-boyfriend Nightwing seemingly dies in Comicbook/ForeverEvil2013.

** She almost recognizes a disguised [[Comicbook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]] this way when her FemaleGaze falls upon his rear.

* WhatTheHellHero: [[Comicbook/BlackCanary Dinah]] gives her a few of these. First for accidentally burning her storage unit, and then for concerning herself too much with her social media fame. Barbara's GadgeteerGenius Qadir also calls her out on this.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: For a few years after the ''Comicbook/{{New 52}}'' began.

* PutOnABus: After the Comicbook/InfiniteCrisis, she has a FaceHeelTurn, followed by a HeelFaceTurn, and is subsequently benched until being wiped away from existence by ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}''. She's finally reintroduced in ''Batman & Robin Eternal'', however.

* BattleCouple: With [[Comicbook/{{Robin}} Tim Drake]]. [[RelationshipRevolvingDoor On and off. And on and off. And on and off.]]

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: For a period following the ''Comicbook/{{New 52}}''.

* FunPersonified: Arguably the most upbeat member of Batman's "family", next to [[Comicbook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]].

* {{Squee}}: Stephanie herself squees relatively often, as she is a teenager who has managed to remain [[PluckyGirl light-hearted and chipper]] despite the traumas in her own life. When the possibility of a team-up with the Comicbook/BirdsOfPrey comes up she is ''ecstatic''.

* TeenPregnancy: A nineties plotline in ''[[Comicbook/{{Robin}} Robin]]'' has her go through one of these.

** And in the ''Comicbook/{{New 52}}'', she manages to pull a BatmanGambit on her father as Spoiler.

* AgeLift: Pre-Reboot she was in her early twenties, around Jason's age. However, in Rebirth she appears to be closer to Tim's age, in her mid teens.

[[folder:Betty Kane / Bat-Girl / '''Flamebird''' /Hawkfire]]

Bette Kane is the first Bat-Girl (note the hyphen), who worked alongside her cousin, Kate Kane. Across all versions, a big part of Betty's character is her one-sided crush on Dick Grayson, then Robin.\\\

Post-Crisis, Bette eventually retired from the Bat-Girl role and became Flamebird. She became associated with the Teen Titans as a member of the Titans West in an attempt to get Dick's attention, but did eventually earn her stripes as a hero. Following the events of ''ComicBook/BeastBoy'', she founded the Titans LA as its leader.

[[folder:Barbara Joan "Babs" Gordon / Batgirl I / '''Oracle''']]

[[folder:Cassandra Cain / '''Batgirl II''' / Black Bat / Orphan II]]

[[folder:Stephanie Brown / Spoiler / Robin IV / '''Batgirl III''']]

[[Characters/BatmanBane Bane]] | Characters/{{Catwoman}} ([[Characters/CatwomanSelinaKyle Selina Kyle]]) | [[Characters/BatmanClayface Clayface]] | Characters/HarleyQuinn ([[Characters/HarleyQuinnTheCharacter Harleen Quinzel]]) | [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] | [[Characters/BatmanLadyShiva Lady Shiva]] | [[Characters/BatmanLeagueOfAssassins League of Assassins]] ([[Characters/BatmanRasAlGhul Ra's Al Ghul]] | [[Characters/BatmanTaliaAlGhul Talia Al Ghul]]) | [[Characters/BatmanThePenguin The Penguin]] | [[Characters/BatmanPoisonIvy Poison Ivy]] | [[Characters/BatmanTheRiddler The Riddler]] | [[Characters/BatmanTheScarecrow The Scarecrow]] | [[Characters/BatmanTwoFace Two Face]] | [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGalleryPart1 A-H]] | [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGalleryPart2 J-R]] | [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGalleryPart3 S-Z]]\\

* BlackSheep: Batman alternated between accepting and training her to treating her like one of these so often that it's a wonder the poor girl's head didn't explode.

* DisabledLoveInterest: To Nightwing, while she was Oracle.

-> See Characters/TeenTitans

* AffirmativeActionLegacy: Subverted. It looked like she was going to be the standard continuity's first female Robin, but more recent interviews reveal that her run as Robin was mainly a publicity stunt: [=DC=] did it fully intending to bring back Tim's Robin and kill her. Both [=DC=] and some fan contingencies claim that she 'doesn't count' as a Robin, she was never given a memorial in the Batcave like the ''other'' dead Robin, and according to the new reboot, there's only been four Robins... guess which one they left out?
** It's acknowledged in story as well. [[ComicBook/{{Robin}} Tim Drake]] quit the job after Batman tricked him into some convoluted training exercise involving a false future. Alfred thinks Batman just took Stephanie in to make Tim jealous (not helped by the fact that he compares everything she does by how Tim would do it). It's also notable that Bruce withheld a lot of the same respect and trusts he'd given his other Robins; she wasn't informed of the secret identities of characters such as Catwoman, she was never told Bruce's real name, and most notably, was never informed of his other aliases, specifically Matches Malone. It was this lack of trust that led to the events of ''War Games''. Catwoman actually comments on the fact that Bruce seriously failed Stephanie by not giving her the same trust he'd given Tim, Jason, and Dick.

''(Both laugh hysterically) ''\\

* LogicalWeakness: Because so much of her fighting style is based around reading body language, she has a hard time fighting foes who aren't human and thus don't have human body language (She was geared to read human body language so trying to read someone or something that's not human would be like trying to understand Russian when you speak Mandarin), people who can keep up with her body language reading ability (like her mother Shiva who is the deadliest assassin in the world and also seems to have this ability), people who are physically augmented to be able to perfectly coordinate and control their movements so as not to give away their moves while "bluffing" very well (this would apply to low-level enhanced individuals like Deathstroke whose body language Cassandra noted as being like a chorus that's "too fast with too many instruments" to pick up anything significant), and of course those who specialize in ConfusionFu (people like the Joker fall into this category as the Joker was overwhelming her in a fight much to Black Canary's shock. Batman explained that she can read the Joker's body language but to her "It's just gibberish".)

* TheQuietOne: She speaks little and mostly with short words. This is the result of [[AbusiveParents her father]] raising her without talking to her or letting her hear people talk, so that [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower body language would be her language]]. Even after [[AppliedPhlebotinum a telepath]] fixed her inability to talk pre-''Flashpoint'', she was never comfortable with words.

* ARealManIsAKiller: Subversion.

* {{Retcon}}: The AuthorsSavingThrow is obvious, so let's discuss her origins. Even though her upbringing was a neverending training from hell, she did love her father, and yet she ran away from him. The reason was that her first kill was the very first time she had witnessed death up close and due to her body-reading abilities, she thought it to be very, very, scary. Thus she found out her upbringing was evil. Now enter the last issue of Adam Beechen's miniseries about her where it is revealed that she hated her dad all along, and that she had actually witnessed her father committing murder up close many times before her first kill.

* LeroyJenkins: A common habit of hers is to jump into situations without thinking because she's used to being able to win almost any fight with no preparation. This can cause problems when her objective is more complex than just "beat the bad guys", as shown when she accidentally ruined Batman and Robin's sting operation on a human trafficking network.

** It's acknowledged in story as well. [[ComicBook/{{Robin}} Tim Drake]] quit the job after Batman tricked him into some convoluted training exercise involving a false future. Alfred thinks Batman just took Stephanie in to make Tim jealous (not helped by the fact that he compares everything she does by how Tim would do it). It's also notable that Bruce withheld a lot of the same respect and trusts he'd given his other Robins; she wasn't informed of the secret identities of characters such as Catwoman, she was never told Bruce's real name, and most notably, was never informed of his other aliases, specifically Matches Malone. It was this lack of trust that lead to the events of ''War Games''. Catwoman actually comments on the fact that Bruce seriously failed Stephanie by not giving her the same trust he'd given Tim, Jason, and Dick.

[[folder:Betty Kane / Bat-Girl / Flamebird / '''Hawkfire''']]

Post-Crisis, Betty was never Bat-Girl, and began her career instead as Flamebird. She became associated with the Teen Titans in an attempt to get Dick's attention, but did eventually earn her stripes as a hero. When she learned that her cousin was the new superhero Batwoman, Betty wanted to join her on her adventures. However, Betty's overconfidence led to her almost being killed, and as a result, she began taking crime fighting more seriously, adopting the name "Hawkfire".

-> See Characters/{{Batwoman}}

* TookALevelInJerkass: After Stephanie's death in War Games Cass became much more temperamental and ruthless even before her editorially mandated FaceHellTurn. This went away after her stint as a villain was over.

The Jawbreakers are a pair of cosplayers. Their characters are from an old (fictional) animé--''Science Battle Hero'' Nuclea, which was translated in the US as ''Atomina''. The Jawbreakers are, in the cartoon, enemies of Atomina. In their local animé enthusiast community, the Jawbreakers are known for always being in-character. This makes them unpopular despite their devotion to their craft.

* {{Bosozoku}}: The Jawbreakers are modelled after bōsōzoku (outlaw biker) gangs as they were during the early 1980s. But with a much more punk-like look...and pastel colours.

[[folder:The Mirror]]
!!The Mirror
[[quoteright:700:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mirror_batgirl2_fitting_costume.jpg]]
!!!'''AKA''': Jonathan Mills
!!!'''First Appearance''': ''Batgirl'' Vol. 4 #1 (November, 2011)

The Jawbreakers were contacted by somebody claiming to be Batgirl. A half-mil just showed up on their bank account, with a promise that they’d get another once Batgirl would be dead. They then received assistance in stealing a pair of high-tech bikes. The latter apparently are what convinced them to go with the contract. Since then, they have bbeen willing to act as muscle for whoever is willling to pay them.

* BadassBiker: The Jawbreakers are remarkably skilled motorcyclists. They can manoeuvre at high speed in confined surroundings, perform unusually sharp slide turns, stay on their bike in difficult conditions, etc. They are also adept at mounted sword strikes.
* {{Bosozoku}}: The Jawbreakers are modelled after bōsōzoku (outlaw biker) gangs as they were during the early 1980s. But with a much more punk-like look...and pastel colours.
* CatchPhrase: Whenever it’s vaguely relevant they’ll cry "Tomorrow cries danger!". This was apparently the Jawbreakers’ battle cry in the cartoon.
* CoolBike: They ride stolen prototype bikes. These were taken from an university robotics lab and are loaded with software that adjust the engine’s workings and the exact shape of the chassis in real time for maximum performances.

Jonathan Mills was involved in a car accident that left him as the sole survivor, as nearby bystanders managed to only rescue him from the engulfed vehicle. He begged to be allowed to die with his family but had to watch, in abject horror, both his wife and daughter burn to death. Some time afterwards, he devoted his life to ensuring that those who escaped death in similar, seemingly miraculous fashion, were "rightfully" killed. He considers his actions to be acts of kindness that provide a sense of closure.

->''"My rank is 'Corporal', little girl. *Use* it. You see, it’s all about showing *respect*."''

[[folder:Dagger Type]]
!!Dagger Type
[[quoteright:770:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dagger_type.jpg]]
!!!'''AKA:''' Unknown
!!!'''First Appearance:''' ''Batgirl'' Vol. 4 #37 (February, 2015)
->''"A fool? Girlfriend, you're famous! You've got it all and you don't even know what to do with it. The spotlight is completely wasted on a vintage-store hipster like you. And as my Mama used to say, if you can't take the heat, another Batgirl will kill you dead and take your place!"''

Dagger Type was a performing arts enthusiast who joined the fashion and modeling industry and rose to fame for his artistic tastes. He became hyper-fixated on Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) as his primary muse, and he began to dress in drag to impersonate Batgirl for the fame and glory.

* CombatStilettos: displayed the ability to fight and do acrobatics in stiletto-heeled boots.
* CreepyCrossdresser: Dresses in drag to impersonate Batgirl for the fame and glory.
* IJustWanttoBeYou: Tries to usurp Barbara's Batgirl because he believes he would make a better 'Batgirl of Burnside' than her.
* MythologyGag: Dagger Type's sparkly Batgirl costume is an exagerated version of the costume Batgirl wore on the ''Series/Batman1966'' TV series.
* SissyVillain: Dresses in a glittery copy of Batgirl's costume, and incredibly impractical high-heels.
* UnsettlingGenderReveal: Barbara has a shocked reaction when she pulls off the fake Batgirl's mask and realises it is a man under the mask.

[[folder:The Fugue]]
!!The Fugue
[[quoteright:363:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fugue.png]]
!!!'''AKA:''' Vinton Burwell
!!!'''First Appearance:''' ''Batgirl'' Vol. 4 #45 (December, 2015)
->''"Its true. You really do remember everything. I thought a lot about all the valuables you'd have locked up in that memory bank of yours. And you know me and banks...I just have to make a withdrawal."''

Vinton Burwell developed a bank heist scenario. Though the specifics aren't known, it involved passing himself for a plumber and left little evidence. He was thus able to repeat his trick over the years. However, one of his early robberies was witnessed by a young Barbara Gordon. Years later, this allowed Batgirl to deduce the truth about a recent heist in Gotham and arrest Burwell. When the flabbergasted Burwell asked how she knew, Batgirl boasted that she remembered everything. While locked up, he realised that if Batgirl remembered everything, then reading her mind would yield incredible treasures and secrets. He contacted an unscrupulous engineer, whom he paid using hidden stashes from previous heists. Using his new memeory altering technology, Burwell became the Fugue, and implanted Barbara Gordon with a memory of him being "Greg", her best bud back in middle-school.

* BankRobbery: The crime Burwell specialised in.
* FakeMemories: The Fugue tech allows for manipulating memories with a touch. Using the access rights created by the gloves, the operator can enter the person's memories in a sort of VR projection, and manipulate them. Memories can be added, subtracted, or altered.
* HypnoRay: A less powerful version of the Fugue's gloves relies on a device looking like a set-top box. It can emit a subsonic signal that makes people highly susceptible to suggestion.
* MassHypnosis: The Fugue's subsonic hypnotic effect can also be deployed from large pylons, but that requires an extraordinary power source, Still, a network of pylons could affect tens of thousands throughout an entire neighbourhood.