#this also comes very much through in BG09 and the Futures End and Rebirth issues of 2011 and the entire concept of Batgirls

[zahri-melitor]

There's this thing that I've noticed on my Birds of Prey and Batgirl read, that I can probably use Burnside as a dividing line on:-

Post 2014, there's definitely been a shift to portray BOP and Batgirl as the 'girls team', to the exclusion of non-female characters.

Like do not get me wrong. Birds of Prey has always been at its heart about a small group of women working together (and frequently against the forces of misogyny). But it wasn't exclusionary. Dixon's run has Ted Kord and Jason Bard and Dick and Tim as supporting characters through it. Simone's BOP runs have Savant and Creote as antagonists and supports, they have Dawn Granger AND Hank Hall. There are male heroes around and supporting!

The premise was 'Barbara calls in the characters she sees that she needs for this mission' and sometimes that is her close friends and allies, and sometimes it's very pointedly people she's not close to because she's pushing people away for Reasons, and sometimes it's the only person who has the skillset she needs, and sometimes it's because she's meddling and trying to reform someone, and so on. She has complicated reasoning for how she puts a team together, and who she calls on for assistance.

And yes, part of the point of BOP is to showcase the wide range of talent available in female DC characters for any scenario you can think of, why are you not building teams that are at least 50% women more often?

But there's this trend that starts emerging from n52 onwards, particularly once Simone is removed from the books, where the titles sort of stop interacting with male heroes outside of dating them. No, why are you calling up all the female vigilantes in Gotham to help with this situation but none of the men, even when you're actually closer to a number of the guys? Is there a reason that there's a no-men gas or something? No?

I love seeing strong women heroes who are friends and who are enemies and who fight together and have complex relationships. I love the depth! But also it feels super walled off and unnecessarily inverted to only allow men in as characters to DATE, when from the very beginning they've been used to build characterisation and showcase the women's skills.