Finally got this volume and dug into it. Some of the stories I've already got in the original issues. Others were completely new. Now I can read Batgirl's early history with the gap's filled in!

Thoughts:

Love those Silver Age artists!
To be honest, most of the stories have rough spots in the art. I guess deadline pressures were the main problem. Even working with those tight deadlines, for publications most people considered third-rate at best, those artists showed themselves to be truly skilled pros. IMO they used just the right level of detail for a comics story. Too bad these reprints couldn't have been in flat colors on newsprint!

That Silver Age writing...well....
I much prefer the overall tone of Silver Age stories to that of most recent superhero stuff. I also appreciate compressed stories. On the other hand, a lot of these stories are much too compressed for their own good. The wild, wacky, anything-goes approach to concepts, plots, and story construction also produced rather hit-or-miss results. With a little more room and a little more restraint they could have been much better. Still, they're almost always fun to read. And that's the first duty of any superhero tale.

You're a credit to your gender, Babs!
At her best Batgirl boasts a combination of mental and physical prowess as good as you'd see with any superhero. Linda and I, in our own different ways, have each found her an inspiration and a role model. No doubt there have been others as well.

But sometimes those male writers took what looked like an awfully patronizing approach to her and to other superheroines. You see that in some of these stories. Most notoriously there's the one where Batgirl and Wonder Woman pretend to be romantic rivals over Batman--then actually turn into rivals! And there's the one where Batgirl's female vanity leads her to check her hair and so forth at the most inopportune times. At least in that one she is shown turning the tables in the end by exploiting the male compulsion to gawk at the girls....

This girl got around
In the space of a few short years Batgirl made dozens of appearances in eight different titles. She had her own solo backup series in "Detective" and co-starred with Batman and Robin, Superman, Supergirl, and the JLA. In one story Supergirl learns at the end that Batgirl was on the case all along and would have solved it in the end even Supergirl hadn't gotten involved. Not bad! And not a bad record of appearances for what most readers consider a second-stringer.

One of my favorite of the superhero Showcase Presents series. My favorites of all in the Showcase books have been unexpected. Sgt. Rock, Jonah Hex, and House of Mystery.

Your forgot Unknown Soldier.

Just what kind of a librarian was she, anyway?
In the earliest stories Barbara Gordon is described as the "head librarian" at Gotham's big-city public library. Pretty impressive for a woman in her twenties in a profession where experience and seniority count for a lot (I was in my late 30s when I became head of a small-town PL--and if anything that was considered fairly young).

In a later story she is described as a computer programmer--evidently an early library IT person. Much later this would become canon when she metamorphosed into Oracle. But in the early 1970s stories she's usually shown clerking at the circulation desk. That's most people's idea of what a librarian does. But it's actually considered entry-level work, not something a library professional at a big-city institution would be likely to have spent much time doing. I get the impression that maybe Gardner Fox had a better idea of what a librarian does than did some later writers. Or maybe all those late nights out crime fighting affected Babs' performance adversely enough to get her demoted....

Motorbike musings
In the early stories Batgirl's bat-cycle is a motor scooter with a bat-shaped fairing. One supposes she must have souped it up quite a bit, given the unimpressive performance of most scooters of that era.

In the mid-1970s "Batman Family" stories she graduated to a real motorcycle. It was drawn (not always well) in such a way that I wonder what in the world the artists used for photo reference. At least Black Canary got to ride a fairly recognizable Honda CB series machine in a 1970 "Brave & Bold" story! Batgirl's bike is just a very generic-looking 1970s motorcycle-thing.

Latter-day artists (as in "Batgirl: Year One") have sometimes portrayed her on big-inch V-twin cruiser bikes of the sort Harley-Davidson is associated with. Those big-bore cruisers look cool, all right--but they're built for highway speed, not trick maneuvering on streets. They also aren't the best choice for a slim, five-something rider. I know a former Harley rider who stands nearly six feet tall and has lots of outdoor activities under her belt, and she admitted that the bike was a challenge for her to manage. She's now looking at a smaller V-twin like the Yamaha Virago. I know I appreciate the light handling of a bike in that class (and I'm about the same size)!

Or if Batgirl really wanted to look like a superhero she could ride a Kawasaki Ninja series bike. They make a 250-cc that would probably be just her size. Beats me how anyone rides those things, though.

Only because I haven't read it yet. After I finish Teen Titans Showcase volume 2 maybe. Then there's both Haunted Tanks, Enemy Ace, Metamorpho, Brave and Bold vol. 2, House of Secrets vol. 1, and some others I'm forgetting. To say nothing of about 10 Marvel Essentials I have yet to get to, and a couple of Omnibuses and Absolutes. I'm absurdly behind and it's why I've not bought much of anything for a couple of months or more now (save the aforementioned House of Secrets).

Yeah, the bike seemed to vary wildly from story to story.

I'm probably going to get the Sgt. Rock volume for the library. My brother used to love those DC war comics. "War That Time Forgot" did pretty well with our boy readers.

I have "War That Time Forgot" too, but I've found it slow going, despite the dinosaurs and army men premise which should have made it the most awesome comic ever. The stories are extremely repetitive (even more so than you'd think), is the problem. If I read it in small doses, one or two stories at a time, then put it aside for several weeks, repeat, then it's more tolerable. Rock and Jonah Hex though, I read in just a few sittings.

It's quite the alternate universe world. Not only are there dinosaurs scattered here and there in the mid-20th century, but there were televised winter Olympics before World War II, air-sea rescue using helicopters during the war, etc.

I'd no idea how many early Batgirl stories Gil Kane illustrated. That was a real treat to discover. And I really liked the Don Heck - Dick Giordano collaborations in that volume.

And it concluded with the feature story in the first super hero comic I ever bought with my own money, Superman Family 171 -- bought because Batgirl was on the cover.

My first Batgirl comic was one of those Heck-Giordano stories. That issue was also the first-ever mention of Ra's Al-Ghul, IIRC.

And that "Superman Family" issue was indeed good.

This was the first Batgirl collection since Batgirl: Year One that I felt comfortable buying for my niece, and she loved it. I'm not 100% sure if I'd get her the recent Batgirl vs. Catwoman story by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire if it comes out as a trade paperback, but I think DC's really missing out on a lot of good Barbara Gordon stories.

My comics-loving niece liked "Year One" as well.

Answer accepted. I can just tell from the others you liked that you're going to place Unknown Soldier on that same pantheon.

I lose out a lot of good stuff with my black and white ban

I know. I do wish they would put color on the Essentials/Showcases. Same cheap stock, just slap color on it like the comics from the old days.

I don't subscribe to that "line work" argument at all -- these things were drawn with the idea they would be colored. They are not shaded like the artist might do if he knew it would be black and white.

My general rule for reprints is I want it to include what it used to have. If there is a pin-up it should be there. Color, then color. The complete uncensored story

I dont care about the paper per se, if that is different.

You can't beat the price point, though. Im just someone who would pay a little more, even for a little less, for it to be in color.

You're Shazam! Chronicles idea was brilliant BTW. Wish they'd start that up.

Where is our hostess in this thread?

I'd be all over a Shazam! chronicles, even though I stopped with the first Supermn Chronicles; the reason being that Superman didn't have CC Beck doing art chores. Between the first Chronicles, Superman: The Dailies and Superman: Sunday Classics, I have all the golden age Supey I need.

I can't believe what a lousy job DC's been doing with the Fawcett material they own; their recent Shazam: Greatest Stories thing was awful-- over half of the book was post 70's Shazam. Can anyone really say that's the best Shazam stuff?

I'm not going to interrupt another librarian!