Question about Batgirl; what did Bruce mean during your Gretel arc when he whispered "You were always meant to be Batgirl" to Barbara? I've been curious for awhile.

This was MEANT to be the end result of the thread that Barbara was unsure about her position as Batgirl. She was going back to an identity she thought she had abandoned and her self-doubt and other destructive mental processes left her feeling she wasn’t sure if she had ‘earned’ that right.

Batman and Nightwing had both shown concern about her jumping back in, OUT OF LOVE, but she, in her tormented state, took that as thinking they didn’t believe she was capable of coming back yet.

So when she finally was tested against a mind-controlled Bruce, he let her know, with no nonsense…Yes. You were MEANT to be Batgirl.

It was a very clear story through-line, it’s in practically every one of the early issues. HOWEVER.

A lot of Cass and Steph fans took it as meta-commentary. At the time, I thought that was just really overreacting.  But since I am not above meta-commentary, in retrospect, I see where they could come up with that impression. My response is, in this reality, Steph and Cass had not been named as Batgirls, as much as I wished they had. So remove that meta thing and you can see what it was…Batman being the closest thing to a dad he can be.

I hate Batman-as-eternal-jerk.The Batman I like cares. About EVERYONE. That’s why he does it. And he wanted Barbara to know he was proud of her.

No secret message. I was constantly (still am) fighting to get Cass and Steph included…the idea that this is intended to erase them stems, I think, from an understandable but mistaken place.

It’s funny, too, because I feel like if I had placed a different emphasis on the phrase, it wouldn’t even have come up.

But Steph and Cass fans are understandably sore and I don’t blame them.