So I just read your BOP run for the first time the other day. It was as addictive as it was heartwarming. I noticed that the character voice for Oracle is SUPER DIFFERENT than your current characterization in Batgirl. Are they two separate people in your m

Great way to ask this question. To me, it’s a timeline. Barbara is Barbara.

But it’s a timeline. Barbara in Batgirl: Year One had a VERY different voice from Oracle. Because of her age, maturity, and experience.

To me, we are looking at Batgirl as she is in the VERY first months of her career as a very young woman. She’s also full of a little bit too much enthusiasm, she hasn’t yet experienced everything that’s coming.

To me, I read her as being closer to the Year One stage. The Barbara Gordon that becomes Oracle, that’s still inside her.

I’ve talked about this a lot, but when you look at some of the great adventurers of literature, they have a timeline, it’s not just endless status quo.

You can read, for example, the regular adventures of Tarzan, or THE JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN from when he was just a kid. You can read early Conan stories, or KING CONAN from when he’s old and the ruler of everything.

It’s stages…the same thing takes place for me with Batman and Superman. In Batman: Year One, he’s a complete newbie, nothing works right and he almost ruins everything. In Dark Knight, he’s an old, bitter man. Right now in Superman and Action, we see two different segments of his timeline.

For Batgirl, it’s the same way. This is the early part of her career, she’s only been back for a number of weeks, really. She’s going to make mistakes, she’s going to be over or under-confident, she’s just starting.

The Barbara that is Oracle, she grows into that. But it is IN there.

That really is part of the joy of an iconic character, is charting that growth, measuring the achievements and drawbacks, the wins and losses.

This is inexperienced, just-starting-out Barbara. Barbara who rules the world, that comes later, it’s her destiny.

That’s how I see it, anyway. Barbara is always destined for greatness, the thing we’re doing now is watching her struggle to get there.