I’m not trying to convince anyone to like a specific ship or character. My intent was just to point out that Barbara in the main universe and timeline hasn’t actually dated/been romantically involved with the list of bat characters posted above.
Pre-Flashpoint, she dated Dick.
Post-Flashpoint, she briefly dated Luke Fox, who she’d just met, pretty much only interacted with in civilian mode, and broke up with amicably.
While I didn’t like the Barbara/Luke pairing (largely because the relationship was undeveloped and just suddenly there), I don’t view it as a hindrance or obstacle to a Dick/Babs pairing. For one, Luke seems more like a friendly co-worker than someone like Jason Todd. Jason would likely be a complicated love interest (for many reasons); however, even that relationship wouldn’t necessarily be insurmountable IMO.
As a non-bat example, the new52 post-Johns paired Carol with Kyle. (Gah! No idea why, other than they wanted to shake things up, explore new relationships, and/or thought purple looked cool with white.) Rebirth rolled around and there was no mention of the relationship. Kyle dated others, and Hal/Carol reunited. So, either the new era cherry picked what remained canon, or Hal understood and accepted that two people he cared about explored a relationship.
In general, I see Dick as having more emotional intelligence than Hal, so pending dramatic flares, I think he could respond similarly… just like Babs accepts/understands that he was with Helena.
Elseworlds/AUs/other media/potential futures (like Batman Beyond)/etc. have sometimes paired Barbara and/or Dick with bat related characters other than each other. I’m personally not a fan of this as it often seems mask-focused rather than character-focused (discussed in posts above). However, I try not to let the relationships/actions in those types of stories impact my view of the canon characters negatively.
For another non-bat example…
- Do I prefer AU Mera with AU Arthur instead of AU Orm? Yes.
- If AU Mera hooked up with AU Orm, would I hold that against MU Mera? No.
- Could exploring a relationship between Mera and Orm be interesting? Sure, both were raised as royalty of enemy kingdoms and have done questionable things in the name of protecting their people; however, I think romance should be avoided or at least kept to AUs based on the history of the characters and their relationships with Arthur.
- Do I still think Arthur/Mera are the OTP of the Seven Seas? Yep.
Anyway, I think this thread about favorite DC ships got derailed a bit, so this post is going to be the end of my discussion here. To recap on topic:
Favorite: Dick/Babs
Power couple: Hal/Carol followed by Arthur/Mera
Hero/civilian: Wally/Linda followed by Diana/Steve
Runners up: Barda/Scott, Ollie/Dinah, Ralph/Sue, Hawks specifically in the 2018 series
