An up-and-coming Batgirl is stepping on Gotham criminals’ toes

Barbara Gordon had only been Batgirl for a month before she started getting noticed - only it wasn’t in the way she had hoped.

It wasn’t Batman, the man her police commissioner father had often worked with and who had inspired her to put on her own cape to cowl to fight crime in Gotham. Not yet, at least - the few times they’d crossed paths had been short and largely amounted to Batman telling her to stop what she was doing. He saw her as little more than a fangirl who was going to get herself killed, and she was going to be wearing his logo when it happened. She wasn’t just jeopardising her life, but also the fearful reputation he’d been building up with Gotham’s underbelly for years. Batgirl never listened, and continued helping out where she could, determined to prove herself to him.

It wasn’t the media. The world at large knew nothing of Batgirl yet - her escapades hadn’t been high-profile enough for that, and she hadn’t been around long enough. Most of the thugs she’d fought had gotten confused and thought she was Batman as she fought with them.

It was the Gotham City criminal elite. They’d found out about the up-and-coming Batgirl making waves in the city, and they didn’t like what they were hearing. One Bat was bad enough, but two? No way. The only good thing about Batman was that he could only be in one place at a time. They couldn’t lose their one and only advantage over him.

The worst part was, she was good. It wouldn’t be as easy as sending some thugs out to deal with her. No, they would have to come up with a much more clever solution than that.

Batgirl may have shown herself to be capable, but a few things were clear about her that showed she wasn’t quite invincible like the Batman yet - from reported sightings, she was young, and she was after the big Bat’s approval. Her gear was a lot more homemade, meaning she was less versatile with her gadgets and more **** with her batsuit. And at the end of the day, good as she was, she was still human - she didn’t fight like a demon, like Batman did.

The criminal elite put their heads together and brainstormed. How could they use these facts to get rid of her once and for all, before she became a real problem?