Warning: Spoilers for Batman Mysteries and Scooby-Doo #11!
The question of whether or not Commissioner Jim Gordon always knew that Barbara Gordon was Batgirl can now be accurately answered. The comics rarely get the chance to delve into whether Gotham’s original champion knows his daughter is a crime fighter, at least in recent memory. Barb is more active as Oracle these days, while Gordon generally appears in stories featuring Batman more often than Batgirl.
However, Batman and Scooby-Doo mysteries #11 by Sholly Fisch, Puste, Carrie Strachan and Saida Temfonte features a rare pairing between Commissioner Gordon and Batgirl. The ending suggests that Commissioner Gordon always knew that Barbara Gordon was Batgirl.
A moment like this awakens a specific curiosity in the reader. One wonders if, within the main canon of DC Comics lore, did Gordon ever know that Barb was also the often badass Batgirl/Oracle? Examining this comic, as well as the previous comics from the DC vault in between, should bring audiences closer to a better answer to that question.
Did Commissioner Gordon always know that Barbara Gordon was Batgirl?
A Scooby-Doo crossover suggests the answer is yes
In between Batgirl duties, Barbara Gordon takes a job at the local Gotham Public Library, something her Scooby Gang friends and her father coincidentally decide to visit to celebrate her achievement. At this point, Barb has had frequent adventures with Scooby-Doo and his amazing friends, but she still hasn’t told her father about being a crime fighter or about her online Oracle legacy, so she tells them to be a little discreet. about your extracurricular activities. activities.
Just then, the library is invaded by Scooby-Doo’s latest monster of the week, Grotesque, someone who tests Barb’s skills as Batgirl when she knocks him out. After Grotesque is unmasked, Barb makes a joke about leaving the library business to be a police officer. Jim responds that their family already has a good crime fighter and detective. But he then whispers in his daughter’s ear, “and you too,” making her ponder whether Gordon really knows she is a superhero. As Batman’s deep lore suggests, Gordon more than suspected – he always knew.
When Gordon learned Barbara was Batgirl in the Bronze Age
Jim has a secret during the 70s-era Batman stories
Detective comics #417 features an alternate story titled “Batgirl in A Bullet for Gordon!” by Frank Robbins and Don Heck. In it, Jim Gordon and Batgirl work together to track down a cop killer who murdered the Commissioner’s friend. When facing a group of mobsters, Barbara almost slips when her father enters the room, saying “Careful… he has a gun!” Barb is relieved when she feels like Jim didn’t catch her and almost call him dad, but the story ends with the twist of Gordon wondering if Barbara will ever confess to him that she is Batgirl.
Previous issues would continue to expand on Gordon’s secret knowledge of Batgirl’s secret identity, as in Detective comics #421 when he subtly tells Batgirl that he stopped worrying about whether his daughter was safe elsewhere the moment he saw Batgirl. This secret would culminate in Detective comics #422 “The Unmasking of Batgirl!” by Frank Robbins and Don Heck. Convinced that she has failed as Batgirl, Barbara confronts her father determined to leave the superhero behind to run for Congress, but before she even has the chance to unmask herself, her father calls her “Babs.”
She is shocked to discover in the next issue that her father has known she is Batgirl for some time, as Jim says: “After a lifetime of police work, darling – few things escape my trained eye!” A line like that seems to suggest that Gordon may have known his daughter was Batgirl for even longer than the initial issue of Detective Comics.. It plays on the fact that Gordon is almost as skilled a detective as Batman. He may not be the greatest detective in the world, but unlike most of the employees at the GCPD station, he is very good at his job and has been for a long time.
Jim Gordon always remembers that Barbara Gordon is Batgirl, even after Crisis
Timeline changes
Following Crisis on Infinite Earthsthe DC canon has been rebooted, and as such, so has Batgirl’s relationship with her father. Modern DC has returned to Barbara Gordon as a crime fighter, and Jim Gordon didn’t know it, at least as far as she knew. The nature of Gordon’s knowledge would not be addressed again until Birds of Prey #89 by Gail Simone, Paulo Siqueira, Robin Riggs, HI-FI Design and Jared H. Fletcher. This happens years after the events of The killing jokeafter which she overcomes her trauma by becoming Oracle.
In this issue, Barbara decides she’s finally ready to tell her father about her hero lifestyle. except he already knew she was Batgirl, it’s just being Oracle that’s a surprise for him. In your own words, “I knew you had some unusual friends, Barbara. But did I think you were the great and powerful Oz? No. That didn’t occur to me.” He was, however, aware that she had been Batgirl for a long time. The reasoning is the same as that given during the Bronze Age: Gordon is too good a cop to not know there’s a superhero right under his nose.
Gordon’s dynamic with Batgirl in the modern era
He is destined to always know about his superhero affairs
DC would reboot again once after Flashpoint, which rebooted the DC Universe entirely with The New 52, partially restoring the previous canon with Rebirth. One of the things Rebirth didn’t bring back into the canon was Barbara’s last confession to her father about being Batgirl or Oracle. This would lead to Clown #2 by James Tynion IV and Guillem March, where Jim Gordon proves his detective skills by dropping the sudden bombshell that he always knew Barbara Gordon worked with Batman.
As all of these cases suggest, why it can never be pinpointed exactly when Commissioner Gordon discovered that Barbara Gordon was Batgirl, the feeling was always that he was a good enough detective to eventually figure it out, even if he figured it out off-panel. When he’s alongside a bunch of superheroes, including the World’s Greatest Detective, it’s easy to forget how skilled Gordon is at his job. This is proof. At the very least, Gordon would be very incompetent if he didn’t figure out through his nose that Batgirl it was his daughter.
Batman and Scooby-Doo mysteries #11 is on sale now from DC Comics