Would it have been better if Barbara was kept to be closer to Bruce's age rather than the more modern interpretation where she's supposed to be the same age as Dick?

>>149306677 (OP)
If she were she’d be considered an old maid.
No long term boyfriend ever by that age means spinster.

>>149306677 (OP)
She should be old, but still fuck Dick.

>>149306718
Just have her hook up with Bruce.

>>149306677 (OP)
She should be older than Dick but younger than Bruce

>>149306677 (OP)
You fucking casual.
O'Neil era Earth One Batman was 32
Earth One Batgirl was 25
Earth One Robin was 18

And the de-aged post-crisis Babs was the perfect sweet spot. It let her dodge the wall for a few more years.

>>149307494
Barbara shouldn't dodge the wall

>>149307494
Eh, their ages were floating. In OP's pic, Dick wasn't even in college yet, he wasn't 18, didn't look it at all. In The Brave and The Bold, Bruce had an adventure with Sgt Rock in France during WW2 which would have put him in his 40s in the current day. And in one of the Detective Batgirl back-up stories, an 18 year old college student considers Batgirl old enough to be of a different generation.

>>149306677 (OP)
I feel like it wouldn't change much

>>149306677 (OP)
The only time she was remotely interesting was when she was shot through the spine.

>>149306718
That is what Jason Bard was for.

You know, her own love interest tailored to her instead of retconning all of her shit to make her younger and younger with each passing crisis and reboot so Dick can fuck her without people being grossed out.

De-Aging Barbara is a direct consequence of De-Aging Jim. If he gets younger, she gets younger, and I for one like the dynamic of a younger Gordon that's more hands-on in helping Batman.

>first they met when Babs is already a full adult and Dick was first year in college, after Dick is already Robin for ~5 years (up until zero hour)
>then they met when Babs graduated college early as a teen, after Dick is already Robin for ~1-2 years, so Babs is slightly older than him but ambiguously so so she could return his feelings without being a pedo since he was in middle school during Robin Year One (Batgirl Year One)
>Nightwing Annual #2 retcons it to them being the same age
>then they met after Babs moves from Chicago in high school (tho pre new 52 she was from Ohio), after Dick is already Robin for ~1 year and they're the same age again (new 52)
>now they're fucking childhood friends who meet soon after Dick starts living at the manor, before Dick was Robin, having her always be a gothamite and are the same age again (Taylor's run)

At the rate they're retconning her in the next 5 years Babs will be in that circus tent when his parents die.

>>149310715
>Nightwing Annual #2 retcons it to them being the same age
I am surprised it took mainline comics this long to make that retcon, because DCAU had made Dick and Barbara being the same age popular over a decade earlier.

>>149310653
They deaged Babs before they deaged Jim. She was made Dick's age back in 2006.

>>149310653
>and I for one like the dynamic of a younger Gordon that's more hands-on in helping Batman.
I'm the opposite. I hate making Gordon another younger guy so the artists don't have to learn to draw older people, and writers don't have to figure out how to write an older, non-combatant character.Young Gordon works for earlier stories, but I prefer a contemporary one who's long in the tooth these days and has to deal with that.
Breyfogle probably did make him too chubby though.

>>149306677 (OP)
I'd honestly prefer it if Dick was a 14-ish and Babs was 17-ish and teased Dick with /ss/ vibes while throwing it at Daddy Bruce.

>>149306677 (OP)
I think Batman: the Animated Series did it best
>>149310653
Gordon should be old

>>149310715
> Babs will be in that circus tent when his parents die.
I hate this, but it wouldn't be the worst thing.

I like her being Gordon's daughter and a Gothamite, but I think they should tone down the major-metropolitan vibes. Part of the appeal of using a fake city like Gotham is it doesn't HAVE to be a 1:1 with modern day New York. You can have it be more like the 60's where there's a bustling skyscraper business district in one part of town, and have quiet hills and rolling suburbs with a lot of people living a comfortable middle class lifestyle in another part of town.

>>149310869
>but it wouldn't be the worst thing.
Yes it would.

>Bruce
>Tim
>Raptor
>Heartless
>one of the Talons I think?

Is already too many people. Babs doesn't need to be added to it.

>>149310914
Oh, see, I wouldn't have anyone else except maybe Bruce be there that's stupid.

>>149310763
People are talking about the dark age de-aging, not the mid 00s. You know, post-crisis retcons?
They de-aged Jim in Batman: Year One. They de-aged Batgirl in her Secret Origins issue.

>>149311147
No, getting rid of Raptor is stupid. Dick's mom's best friend, the Snape to his Potter, who literally worked for the circus?
Why does he need to go?

>>149310829
Playing both sides is scandalous as fuck.

Eh not really.

By the early 80s Babs had pretty much been phased out of the Batman books after Batman Family got cancelled due to her waning popularity and editorial being embarrassed by the 1966 show. Perhaps had they earnestly pushed Babs as a love interest to Bruce in the beginning (instead of her just having a crush on Batman but ultimately being independent) she could've been more popular and lasted a little longer. Babs' next big moments after Batman Family and various 70s backups was her giving a eulogy about Supergirl during COIE and then TKJ. So adult Babs was already a bust.

I get they wanted an independent heroine but Babs has always been similar to Wonder Woman in that she's iconic but not necessarily popular. Oracle and Birds of Prey was definitely her best time as a character as that's where a lot of her character growth came from and the Oracle name and wheelchair are popular among readers due to this. But ultimately new 52 reminded us that Babs was iconic first and the one iconic thing about her is Batgirl having red hair.

And then relationship with Dick is too popular/important to toss and DC is obsessed with making them starcrossed childhood friends to lovers.

So really love it or hate, but two of Babs' most important character traits in DC eyes are being Batgirl and dating Robin. And she can't date Robin as Batgirl unless she's as old as he is or else she's a pedo.

How would Bruce and Jim react to teenage Dick getting adult Babs pregnant?

>>149306677 (OP)
I know where thinking like that leads.

>>149306677 (OP)
She'd be even more irrelevant. 1) She'd only be allowed to flirt with character around her age and she stands no chance as Bruce's love interest against the like of Selina, Poison Yvy or Vicky vale (back then or now). With Dick, it's baby mode since the only competition is an alien who isn't a Batman character. 2) She'd still have ended up being cucked from the Batwoman mantle. No matter old she is "nerd girl learn to be Btaman through books" doesn't have the shoulders to be "female Batman".
>>149312898
I'd slap them both and stop trusting my daughter's judgement if I were Jim. Bruce wouldn't care until he starts to hate it when being a father would force Robin to re-evalute his priorities. Guess Jason would have happened much sooner in this timeline.

>>149306677 (OP)
No, considering adult Babsgirl had middling popularity at best and was barely around 13-15 years before getting tossed into limbo and was cripplied not long after that.

I get the whole point of her was to be her own heroine, even if she was named after a male one, but they should've introduced her as a 18 year old going to Hudson alongside Dick and just done the solo teen hero thing with her.

>>149306677 (OP)
Yes

>>149312855
Actually I prefer if she’s 6 years older than Dick. It makes the relationship more realistic and naughty

>>149306677 (OP)
I don't care

>>149306677 (OP)
I could've sworn there's a recent comic were Dick is older than Babs.

>>149306677 (OP)
Why not split her into two characters, one older, one younger?

>>149315886
We already have Bette Kane for that.

>>149314196
They wanted to mirror the TV show, where she was a young woman working at the Gotham Library.
She was introduced 2 years before Dick was sent to Hudson University.

>>149315886
What would be the point of that?

>>149310839
It's amazing how the DCAU was able to realize, "You know, The Killing Joke kind of sucks for Barbara as a character, how about we just not do it in our universe?".

Moore himself always said the story was supposed to be non-canon. It needlessly complicates Barbara as a character.

Ironically Timm himself would forget this lesson and direct a TKJ animated adaptation.

>>149306677 (OP)
Absolutely, Babs has always worked best as more of a mentor to the younger Bat females, and having her close to Dick's age makes that ridiculous. There have been exactly zero benefits to making her younger.
>>149318669
If they weren't retarded then TKJ could've been a good way to transition between her pre and post Crisis characters. After spending a term hitting one stonewall after another in Congress, she gets paralyzed, and starts realizing her idealism isn't going to do shit in the long run. So she signs up with the Suicide Squad and puts her librarian doctorate to good use, before eventually forming the Birds of Prey and being the mentor to both Spoiler and the new Batgirl.
Now all of that is highly revisionist and doesn't reflect the reality of how she was written pre-Oracle but you can easily make lemonade with the cliff notes version of pre-N52 Babs.

>>149318669
I mean Killing Joke itself technically isn't canon, just a nearly identical version happened in canon that resembled the events of the story.

>>149318669
>It's amazing how the DCAU was able to realize, "You know, The Killing Joke kind of sucks for Barbara as a character, how about we just not do it in our universe?".
It never happened because the primary audience for BTAS and TNBA was children and there's no way Fox or WB would ever allow something like that to air. Additionally, they chose to go with a Joker backstory that was more like Burton's movie version so the whole "one bad day" motivation is non-applicable.
>Moore himself always said the story was supposed to be non-canon.
He did not, and that's never been his attitude for writing stories.
>Ironically Timm himself would forget this lesson and direct a TKJ animated adaptation.
He never had any issues with the story itself, it just didn't work for the DCAU for the reasons I listed above. They barely got away with having Joker torture Tim in a direct to video movie in a way that didn't even leave any permanent physical damage.

>>149314775
OK.