Re: Babs needs to walk again
So is Batwoman a "junior rooftop fighter"? Is Huntress? Is it just the "-girl" suffix that makes her neither a foil for him nor his equal? Is it her gender? Is it the concept of "any other vigilante in Gotham" that's automatically lesser? What prevents her from being written as I described?
This is especially true in that I utterly reject the "uber-father" interpretation of Batman. Really, no offense but WTF? Batman is a loner by nature. Every time they deviate from that, it jumps the shark. Think about it, almost every decent interpretation of the character has had him as a loner (much of B:tAs, the Burton Batman film, Nolan's Batman films, much of the late 80s and 90s period in comics) while almost every one that has been kiddified and crappy has featured Robin front and center. The 60s TV show, the Silver Age silly period in the comics, the Superfriends cartoon, the Shumacher films, the list goes on. In fact, the very purpose of the Robin character in the first place was to lighten up Batman and make his stories more kid-friendly. The character itself is a walking Bowdlerization in shortpants and fairy boots. If you're envisioning Bruce Wayne as an "uberfather" of a "Batfamily", you're doing it wrong. One of Batman's core attributes is that his relationships with other people are distant, awkward, and cold, hamstrung by his inability to let himself get close or attached to anyone.
Barbara's lack of that flaw is one of her core strengths she can use to position herself and make herself better than him. Unlike Batman, she's a natural inspirational leader who can and does gather allies, whereas Batman trusts no one.
I'm really thinking we're never going to get any form of agreement on this issue between us, as we have fundamentally incompatible views on Batman. Mine is the brooding, tormented loner with a heart of gold as seen in the Burton and Nolan films and Mask of the Phantasm. Yours has "and Robin!" tacked on to it. The two really don't mix.