![](http://i500.listal.com/image/2832904/400full.jpg)
*"Sorry, the tapes aren’t online. Grossly unfair to us cybervigilantes, if you ask me. I’m thinking of writing my congressman."*
- Name: Barbara Gordon
- Alias: Oracle, formerly Batgirl I
- Age: 27
- Occupation: Unemployed/Vigilante
- Skills & Abilities: Before becoming Batgirl Barbara Gordon was a proficient martial artist, and during her ten year tenure as Batgirl was well-trained by Batman in more advanced martial skills, stealth, and a number of weapons. In addition she is highly intelligent, has a strong memory enhanced by meditative techniques, and has a grasp of computer software second to few. Her time since then has only enhanced her other talents. She has a nearly completed master's degree in Forensic Psychology, and the two years since becoming the Oracle have honed her skills with computers to a razor's edge. She is only boasting a little when she says that every system has a vulnerability and she can and probably already has found that weakness. Since her injury she has supplemented her weakened martial capabilities with a gun, and while she has not yet had occasion to use it in combat she keeps in considerable practice with it.
- Equipment: An old, well-used Colt M1911 in excellent repair, with a number of after-market modifications to enhance accuracy and better manage recoil. The Oracle's Tablet, Oracle's answer to the Bat Computer, a largish but otherwise typical looking laptop computer whose case conceals an array of custom-made and prototype hardware and software, including a theoretically impenetrable permanent link to the Bat Computer.
- Personality & History: Despite being the daughter of the GCPD's most, and periodically only both competent and honest cop Barbara Gordon's early life wasn't exactly superheroic fare - the most horrific tragedy in her early life being her parents divorcing when she was twelve. That said her youth wasn't exactly typical, Jim Gordon had a reasonably paranoid bent regarding the city of Gotham, and insisted on Barbara learning how to protect herself - and she was determined that if she was going to do anything, she would do it well. From the age of five she studied martial arts four days a week, principally Wing Chun Kung Fu.
As she developed physically she also grew psychologically - the Sifu taught that the power he was giving them should only be used righteously, and every day she witnessed her father's frustration at the degeneration of the city, while also hearing whispers and rumors and stories of the actions of Gotham's dark knight.
Her transformation from Barbara Gordon to Batgirl was a gradual thing, shifting from interfering with evil acts in progress if she witnessed them to subconsciously seeking them out to eventually donning a (crude) mask in emulation of the Bat-Man. It wasn't two weeks after she donned the mask that she was sought out, first by the Batman's young protege known as Robin, and soon after by the man himself. It would not be long before she would be properly inducted, beginning two of the most important relationships in her life.
Four years after her induction Robin departed, leaving Barbara behind in Gotham, alone with Batman...for less than a week. To say she was a little annoyed at Bruce for getting a new Robin faster than most people replace a goldfish is a bit of an understatement. Despite that she did her best to adjust to Jason Todd as the new third member of their team, although she felt that she was being pushed into the background. At this point Batman and Batgirl became less of a team and more a pair of heroes who regularly worked together, although unlike Dick - she retained the moniker of Batgirl. The divide between Batman and Barbara only grew following the loss of Jason Todd, and his similarly swift replacement by Tim Drake. Despite the growing estrangement between her and Bruce she established a friendship with the young detective, but spent considerable amounts of time assisting Nightwing in Bludhaven.
As her later years as Batgirl were going on she began to fray a bit, the strain of pursuing a degree in forensic psychology at Gotham University while simultaneously crimefighting and making some token effort to have a social life -and- sleep required the day to be about twelve hours longer than it actually was, and Batgirl's work became sloppier as a result. Forced to choose, she elected to hang up the cowl on July 3rd, 2009, although she vowed that it was just a leave of absence, not permanent. While for the next several years she would re-don the costume often in times of need the days of being the Batgirl on a nightly basis were at an end.
Just over a year later - on July 10th of 2010 - her and her father were attacked at a family dinner by thugs working for the Joker, gassed and captured. Despite Barbara's training and her father's considerable abilities they were unable to escape from their captors, and the Joker began to enact his plan to drive Jim Gordon insane, brutally torturing Barbara, beating her to the point of death and shattering her legs. By the time Batman arrived on the scene the damage was done. Barbara and Gordon were rushed to Gotham Mercy, and while Jim Gordon made a full recovery from his physical injuries Barbara Gordon would not be so lucky. She had escaped injury to her brain, and would survive her wounds, but even with extensive surgery and physical therapy, it would take years for her to even begin to regain the ability to move, if she ever did - the doctors gave it a less than ten percent chance that she would regain her full mobility, and most doubted she would ever walk again without crutches.
The psychological wounds from her ordeal, combined with the trauma of losing her ability to run, climb, fight, or even go to the bathroom without help nearly broke Barbara, and for the better part of a year she moped, any excitement from her and Dick finally getting a place together killed by the humiliating helplessness, needing his help to do even the most basic tasks. She threw herself into her recovery, quickly mastering the use of a wheelchair, her already strong upper body growing used to the task of hauling herself around as necessary. The surgeries, paid for by Bruce Wayne, reassembled her legs into proper order with enough titanium screws to build a Terminator, allowed her to begin the arduous process of regaining the ability to walk, a process that never seemed to get any faster or easier, the best she ever managed being able to hobble her way to the bathroom without needing to climb into her wheelchair.
A year after receiving her injury she was contacted by Batman, who needed assistance with a mission, assistance she could provide with her technical expertise. At first she took it as an insulting piece of charity, but despite that she agreed, using her information gathering skills to assist Batman in foiling a plot by Riddler from her home. Such missions would happen again and again, and she gradually came to accept and even enjoy the role, beginning to train herself on the computer like she had once trained with staff and fist, and that more than anything helped her in her recovery from the injury, her near-berserk focus on regaining her legs abating to more healthy levels. She could still do something worthwhile, even from a chair.
Over the past three years Oracle has become legendary, effectively becoming the technical wizard of the superhero community. Despite that, she maintained her anonymity, keeping her activities as Oracle secret even from Dick, allowing the Oracle to gain a legend around it like Batman had once had, a myth among hackers. She perpetuated the theory that Oracle was some kind of net-consciousness, a benevolent ghost in the system.
- Story Arc: Revenge. Barbara Gordon may have begun to cope with her disabilities, she may have made great strides on the path to both physical and emotional recovery, but the trauma of what was done to her and her father that fateful night four years ago is still a raw, open wound in her mind. For the last four years she has subconsciously done everything in her power to avert her eyes from the Joker, let Batman deal with him, but if he should fall into her sights could anything stop her from unleashing all her technical prowess on him and destroying him as thoroughly as he tried to destroy her?
- In Costume Appearance: Sometimes Barbara puts on her Bat-Sweater before she does Oracle stuff.