Librarian by day, BATGIRL by night!

I just learned that superhero Batgirl's alter ego is Barbara Gordon, librarian!
Yippee! Now I have another cool comics role model to praise alongside intrepid reporter Lois Lane.
Check out Batgirl's history at fan web sites here and here.

Comic books are kind of like the soaps ... The characters have long, complicated life stories with all kinds of improbable plot twists. So Barbara Gordon starts out as Batgirl, but then she gets shot by The Joker in a special one-issue comic called "Batman: The Killing Joke" by Alan Moore. Moore, by the way, is one of the most celebrated and respected comic writers of our day. He wrote the postmodern apocalyptic classic, The Watchmen. I actually have a copy of The Killing Joke, which I bought when it came out way back in 1988. (Read a quick synopsis and review of The Killing Joke here.)

So Barbara Jordon is shot by the Joker and left paralyzed, which means Batgirl's crime-fighting career is thrown for a serious curve. But no! Barbara Jordon becomes ORACLE! As a fan web site puts it:

She used her researcher's talents from her job as a librarian and a grant from the Wayne Foundation to begin anew, this time using computers as her library, community and her battlefield.

(Here's the link. Recall that the Wayne Foundation refers to Bruce Wayne, Batman's millionaire playboy alter ego.)

So Barbara Jordon enters the 21st century as Oracle, librarian, computer diva and super-researcher extraordinaire!

I love it!