It has been said (in the comics and by readers) that Barbara did more good as Oracle than as Batgirl. Beyond being a reliable information broker to superheroes, she also showed how someone confined to a wheelchair could still be a fierce combatant and a capable ally in the fight against evil.
I’d lean towards Oracle in that regard.
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I found her to be more compelling and interesting as Oracle, to be honest. She experienced something terrible, but refused to let that tragedy define her, establishing a new identity for herself in which she was, frankly, more effective than she’d been as Batgirl. Pushing her back into the role of Batgirl felt like a step backward for her. The fact that it has been largely at the expense of Cassandra and Steph hasn’t sat that well with me, either.
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@J3D28F.17202 I wholeheartedly agree about Cass and Steph. If they really wanted Babs back in the suit, there were better ways to go about it than a reboot that made things even worse for everyone, especially two of her successors.
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Really, I think Steph better fits as her own hero than she ever did as Batgirl or Robin. Cass was a great Batgirl, but she can do just as well as Orphan.
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@Jay_Kay Perhaps if “Orphan” wasn’t the name of a serial killer that hated her guts and whose very existence was hinged on the approval of another character.
Yeah, I still hate everything that did in the Eternal books. It took all the development and growth of those two characters and flushed them down the toilet and infantilizing them at the same time. What wretched mistake.
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The worst part is, removing Cass and Steph’s history as Batgirls was totally unnecessary. Barbara being Batgirl again did not at all require them to have not been Batgirl during the interim. Once again, I’d almost respect it more if they tried to say Barbara had never been Oracle. It would still be stupid, but it would be stupid in a simpler and more logical way.
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Wow, I totally missed all those grammatical mistakes in my previous post. I guess I got blinded by rage there.
@BatJamags, you’re right, they could’ve had Babs back in the mantel without affecting those who came after, but DC is run by people who aren’t very smart, and happen to loathe Cass, Steph, and other characters their paying customers actually like. Did anyone else notice the sad hypocrisy that detractors of the New52 were scolded for “wanting things to stay the same forever”, yet DC’s reboot tossed aside newer characters in favor of older ones? Even more hypocrisy that James Tynion IV gave Tim back his old origin, but didn’t provide that courtesy to the characters he reinvented (for the worse). Rebirth supposedly making both continuities “count” apparently does apply to Cassandra or Stephanie beyond a cheap tease. Is it any wonder I don’t buy much DC anymore?
There’s a way to make this all work out, but I doubt anyone at DC is capable of doing so as well as it could be.
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Oracle is so much better, I also feel like she was more useful as Oracle and it kind of had a good message that there are more ways and sometimes better ways to be a hero then just going out and fighting people physically. I fell in love with her character when she was Oracle during Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone’s runs on Birds of Prey as well as when she was working with Batman. Now with her on her own, you get a lot less Batfam interaction which I miss a lot. She was a character that had a lot of her own identity, I feel like her being Batgirl again was a step back, like making Dick Robin again would be a step back, like he works best as Nightwing and other Robins work better in that role as Robin, same with Barbara, she was at her best as Oracle and other Batgirls did better as Batgirl than her. I dont like how YOUNG her books feel now, it just feels like immature and overly “girly” in a way where I feel like you can feel the marketing of “We need to target GIRLS, so we have to put “girl” things in” and it feels just…bad and dumbed down in a way. Im not a huge fan of her being Batgirl because I also feel like in her role as Batgirl she is always going to be a lesser VERSION of something else, like she is human and just from her size and other aspects, there is always going to be 100+ people who are just better at what she ist trying to do, As Oracle she was pretty much the BEST at what she did, her being involved in things made sense and it just worked, as Oracle she was pretty much the only one who could do her job, as Batgirl there are SO many people who could do what she does. Especially with the Batfam so big, she feels unnecessary. I just loved her personality as Oracle too and I feel like with her back as Batgirl since the new 52 she has just felt like an entirely different person with just the same name. It also doesn’t make sense to me that she would be Oracle and once she was unparalyzed she would go right back to being Batgirl, Oracle felt like an evolution of her character not just something she was only doing as this lesser consolation because she couldn’t be Batgirl.
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Here’s my hot take on it, I love Barbara, I don’t care if it’s as Batgirl or Oracle. She was Oracle for most of my life so I’m always going to have a soft spot for that incarnation but when it come to the "man in the van " person in Batman’s ear feeding him info and data I’d rather that role be filled by Alfred, cant get get enough of that bloke if you ask me. So I’m happy that shes back out in the field kicking butt as Batgirl.
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@TagdollRebel, I agree with you on Alfred being the voice in Bats ear.
Love babs and I think she is contributes more as Oracle but I dont want her to be stuck in the chair it makes me sad 
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*RagdollRebel, sorry
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As Oracle she became the glue that held the DC heroes together.
As Batgirl she was a badass!
Tough call, but I’ll go with Oracle.
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I still miss Oracle a lot. I love seeing seeing her again in YJO, and I’m really looking forward to The Oracle Code from DC INK.
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Oracle, a lot more interesting.
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Batgirl hands down. Her Bronze Age stuff rules!!!
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I tough one but I have to say Batgirl
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There’s nothing Oracle can do that Batgirl can’t, but there are things that Batgirl can do that Oracle can’t… going with Batgirl here !
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Barbara has always had the more stylish uniforms too, always digged the purple and yellow look
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@sirreal_: Not to jump down your throat, but since others have made the same point: There are plenty of things that Oracle in fact does do that Batgirl doesn’t, where as there’s not a great deal that Batgirl does that other members of the Bat-Family don’t. To phrase it less confusingly: Batgirl strikes me as somewhat redundant in the modern bat-family (in the Bronze Age when it was just her, Bruce, and Dick, sure, but now?), while nobody else fills the role Oracle does.
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Whelp I need sleep. My actual secret identity is real close to Batgirl’s and for a second I thought there was a glitch in the Matrix or something!
Now my answer! I love Babs as Oracle. I think she is a really powerful character and great role model for my son who is in a wheelchair. However, it seems that she still pulls off the computer work as Batgirl.
If we look at her as Batgirl NOW, post Oracle, her mental health is better without a roomful of screens watching Joker keeping her from downtime
. So, I would say as Rebirth Batgirl bc she still has the computer skills and confidence but also the fighting skill and has found a way to at least reign in her inner demons and smile again
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