Who Is Batgirl?

The one real mystery to come from "Battle for the Cowl" is Batgirl's identity. I mean come on, we all knew Dick was going to take up the mantel of the Bat, and that Tim was going to become Red Robin. Batgirl is the only secret DC has truly succeeded in keeping.

As for who could be under the mask, there are four contenders:

Cassandra Cain: Okay, so they've basically said that it won't be her. But I think that she's still in the running. This wouldn't be the first time DC's done something like this and said "Gotcha!" after the whole comic industry had gotten worked up over it. Plus, Cass hasn't been Batgirl for that long. She still has a lot of stories to tell. It was only recently that she learned to speak, and the fact that Shiva is her mother came even later.

Barbra Gordon (Oracle): Don't be convinced by the "Oracle: The Cure" postings up all over the internet. Nothing in that miniseries stated that Barbra had regained the use of her legs, or even remotely considered taking up the Batgirl costume again. More than likely, she will be involved with the "Batgirl" series as a mentor to whoever is in the costume. She did it for Cassandra, and Misfit. She also may take on a protege, the newly-awakened Wendy. But Batgirl? She's beyond that now.

Charlotte "Charlie" Gage-Radcliffe (Misfit): A distant maybe, Charlie qualifies as a possibility because she was under Oracle's tutelage, and she also was a sort-of member of the Birds of Prey. In her first apperance, she dressed up in a variation of Barbra Gordon's Batgirl costume. There are a few things keeping her from the role, however. The first is her status as a wild card, both in personality, and in the fact that we haven't really seen enough of her. True, Cassandra showed up out of nowhere, but that's better than a girl who's made a few apperances, had a couple lines each time, and really hasn't settled in yet. Plus, she has superpowers, which sort of defeats the whole "anti-superpowered batfamily" thing. at this point, it would be much better for her to expand her own persona.

Stephanie Brown (Spoiler): Recently returned to Gotham, Stephanie is the perfect candidate to take up the mask. Most believe her dead, her current persona has a lot of baggage attached, like pretending to be Penguin's lackey in "Gotham Underground" and the fact that her identity was publicly revealed back in "War Crimes". Also, she's been trained by Batman, Cassandra, and Barbra, not to mention the fact that she was Robin for 71 days. With the mask of Batgirl she gets a fresh start, and that is, after all, why she came back.

The Batgirl identity has always been the one bat-name that Batman could never fully control ever since Barbra sewed the first constume herself, and fought crime unsanctioned. The new Batgilr will doubtlessly be a delicious surprise.