#batfamigans

[littleeyesofpallas]

Dumb bit of comic nerd shenaniganary I get my knickers in a twist about is how often people try to complain about that one time Batman and Batgirl had an awkward fling. And it's not like I ship it, it was half baked, with zero chemistry, and poorly written. But people will get all uppity about there being a problematic "age gap", which, for one, just is an immaterial thing in a work of fiction. But also it's just flat out wrong.

Bat canon is wonky at the very best of times, but there are a few anchoring events we are kind of expected to take for granted in any timeline that doesn't explicitly state otherwise:

Bruce starts Batman'ing at 25

Dick's parents die when he is 8, and in Year 2

It's not clear when Dick forms the Teen Titans, but the earliest it could be is 13, obviously.

When Barbara is introduced the Teen Titans already exist

When Barbara is introduced she works at the Gotham Libtary

Other than the 1966 TV show, this fact is extended to her having a MLIS; that's a 3 year degree, minimum.

90s continuity had her graduate high school at 16, this doesn't apply retroactively, but could be assumed of later iterations

part of her origin includes being inspired by Batman after overhearing a phonecall between Batman and Comissioner Gordon as a "teenager"

Dick drops the Robin moniker to go to college, implicitly around 17-18

Shortly after he dons the Nightwing moniker for the first time

(I'm not counting the nu52 timeline where she starts as a college undergrad because that one doesn't gel with any of the other versions and has to be its own standalone thing.)

Conveniently there is an overlap of constraints: if she is 13 in year one, the earliest she could overhear the phone conversation, and she graduates highschool early, then with 7 years of secondary education, the earliest she could debut at batgirl would be 22-23, which lines up with Dick being 16-17, nearly the latest time she can debut while he is still Robin. If she graduates HS at 18 she overshoots Dick's tenure as Robin entirely. This puts one cap on this.

But on the other hand, she can only get older than Dick if we try to nudge her timeline around. The other end of this is that if she overhears the phone call at 19, the latest she can, then she would have to spend a number of years between graduation and debut as Batgirl in order to give Dick time to form the Teen Titans at, at the earliest, 13yo. And that pushes her debut age to 25.

In either case, she is 6-12 years younger than Bruce, and conversely 12-6 year older than Dick. The split on Bruce:Dick:Babs ranging from 34:16:22 to 31:13:25. But, again, I don't think people who try to scrutinize the ""morality"" of fictional scenarios, least of all romantic age gaps, are in touch enough with reality to even warrant arguing with, but you see the problem with just the basic math, right?

She's a grown ass woman by the time she starts Bat"girl"ing and people just have this obnoxious hangup about infantilizing her all the damn time for seemingly no real reason, fans and actual creators alike. Is it because the name has "girl" in it? Is it because of some residual thing from Bette Kane being an obvious parallel to Dick? Or just the fact that they date at all? Is it just the general history sexism in superhero comics as a genre?

Also I didn't mention it because it's kinda firmly outside of consideration for this, but she even has a golden age story where part of her origins being inspired to be a superhero includes meeting Superboy as a teenager. They even dated for a hot second.

Seriously, people need to remember that she is decidedly not the same generation of heroes as the Teen Titans or even her seeming brand parallels like Super Girl or Wonder Girl --I won't try to nail down the Superfam and Batfam timelines, because they just do not play nice together, not enough to get a hard number on anyway, but Kara lands on Earth as a 17yo, vs Babs' aforementioned debut as a 20-something.