So this post dovetails with a conversation Shaun and I have been having about gender and comic heroes and science geekery. Southern Fried Scientist is trying to answer this question here -

Why do heroes so rarely hold advanced degrees? And why are villains so often among the highly educated?

And there are bigger cultural questions, of course -about how we feel as a culture about knowledge and learning, especially book-learnin’ and perhaps even especially especially science-learning: “[t]he message is clear. Power corrupts, and knowledge is the most powerful force in the world. How could someone so educated not become twisted and evil by their own knowledge?”

Shaun and I were coming at it from a different direction - looking at the number of scientist-heroes in the comics world, most of which are mentioned in this post: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Reed Richards (actually Reed Richards isn’t mentioned in the post, but Batman is, though it’s an earlier vision of Batman as world’s greatest detective) — there is definitely a strata of comic book superhero types who develop or enhance their power because of their big, inventive, science-y brains. And we couldn’t think of any female superheroes who fit into that mold at all. Now, of course, the sample size for female superheroes is pretty small, but still, not one?

(Which doesn’t take anything away from the post’s overall point that these big, science-y brains are usually not the first thing thought of when we think of these heroes, and even if they are it’s not the advanced degrees that we focus on in the same way that we focus on, say, Dr. Doom, PhD.)

Which brings me to Batgirl, our own librarian superhero extraordinaire, who should be the exception that proves this rule and who, well, kind of sadly is. I want to love Batgirl, despite that unfortunate “girl” in her name. And a lot of the time I really do like Batgirl, but that liking is despite her librarian-self, not because of it.

Shaun bought me the Showcase collection of classic Batgirl comics a while ago, and I did read the whole thing. Batgirl’s origin story is kind of silly. She doesn’t exactly get a Big Bad that inspires awe or fear - Killer Moth is not very intimidating. And the whole librarian thing is obviously, painfully played for contrast - Batgirl is awesomer because when she is not!Batgirl look at how not-awesome she is.

from Showcase presents: Batgirl, v. 1

Now, leaving aside that Princess Leia hairdo which means her aesthetic probably has a very different impact on my generation than it did in the 60’s, I find it interesting that they make sure to put the brain part in - she’s not just a shy, or mousy, librarian. She’s super-smart.

So super-smart that she even has a Dr. title! That’s one super-smart librarian.

But I expect that we don’t have to worry about her absolute mental genius power corrupting absolutely because she is, in fact, a mousy female librarian type of brain.

Though perhaps we should worry about her power corrupting, because she didn’t have to work very hard for it — she has a lot of knowledge from literature to martial arts — but her intelligence is of the fact-retrieval kind and it enabled by a photographic memory.

And we also can’t rely on professional ethics to set any limits. She can instantly connect people to the dicey books that they check out and use that memory to fish the criminals’ personal information out of patron records.

She might not turn that information over to her police commissioner father, but that’s only because she is going to head off and nab the evil-doers herself.

All that aside, though, I still like this Barbara Gordon. She is smart, she’s also sassy. She stands up to Batman and even though her behavior is frequently explained by 60’s female stereotypes painted with a very broad brush (see Batgirl and Supergirl fight over Batman!), sometimes there are twists where they go - see, she’s not a stereotypical female at all! Most of all, she’s positive. And proactive. Good librarian traits.

Which brings me to the updated Batgirl - who I don’t like nearly so well. In Batgirl, Year One she spends a lot of her time moping about what other people won’t let her do. Now, part of the mopiness may be related to the fact that they update everything but leave her with the silly Killer Moth origin story, but a lot of it is just morose. Not fun at all.

And what’s really frustrating about it all to me, is that it didn’t have to be that way. See, Batgirl circa 2003 has all of the pieces - she’s got her geek-girl chops -

(She’s getting rid of her comptuers there to make sure that no one will be able to trace her breaking and entering into the Justice League Headquarters back to her)

She’s got a good sense of the significance of information - knowledge is power - information is power -

This Barbara Gordon is not all about instant perfect recall of esoteric facts - she’s not all bound by what is in her collection. She’s developed important information gathering skills - science-y ones even - that mean she is has to go out and proactively do stuff to gather the esoteric facts.

And more than that - she has the skills to do stuff with information. To use it as power and to use it as weapon.  But she really, really doesn’t. All she does is mope. And her dad laughs at her for wanting to be a cop.

And yes, she does invent Batgirl and she does start at least doing something.

But for all that knowledge and understanding she seems to have - the something that she does involves running as far away from actually using knowledge or information as any kind of power ever. “I need something physical,” she moans.

.

Because working here would suck, right?

Now - spoilers ahead - not for any book I’m going to talk about, but for Batman: The Killing Joke…

One of the things from that post way up there that started this off was a discussion of Charles Xavier, who does use his academic credential, but who is in a wheelchair and thus more human and less absolute-power In the Killing Joke, Barbara Gordon becomes one of many female superheroes maimed in the service of plot advancement and making a bad guy seem even badder.

What does a punching, kicking, hand to hand fighting superhero like Batgirl do when that physicality is taken away from her? Because that is one of the things that this all comes down to - try as we might, we just don’t let go of the idea that we’re physical/powerful or smart/wily. But not both.

Well, this is mega-long already. So check here tomorrow as we continue this theme with Oracle.

ETA - Link to part 2

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p.s.  The post title doesn’t come from the comics at all - it comes from here. Never aired, and they kept Killer Moth dude around too!