Profile: Bat-Girl/Flamebird

Bat-Girl/Flamebird
Real name: Bette Kane (pre-crisis, her first name was spelled with a Y)
First appearance: as Bat-Girl in Batman #139, 1961, as Flamebird in Secret Origins Annual #3, 1989
Creators: Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff (pre-Crisis edition), George Perez (post-Crisis edition)

History: originally, this superheroine was created as part of the Batman family, along with original Batwoman Kathy Kane, and first took up the mantle of Bat-Girl, later making appearances in the Teen Titans as a member of Titans West. In the post-Crisis era, she was reinvented as Flamebird, a kooky fangirl-style protagonist who was a teen tennis player, and who wished for the kind of costumed career taken by original Robin Dick Grayson (who later became Nightwing), since she'd had a crush on him, and hoped to meet him in time, though when they finally did, it wasn't the fabulous dream Bette hoped it would be. Though not part of the Bat-family per se in this post-Crisis rendition, Bette similarly specialized in building gadgetry like Batman and his partners did, and practiced combat skills. And, her world view was of the more optimistic (and humorous) variety.

Was subjected to the following acts of discrimination: in a Beast Boy miniseries published around 2000, co-written by Geoff Johns and Ben Raab, and illustrated by Justiniano/Josue Rivera, she was made to look like a stupid idiot, as though her being hot was almost literally the problem, and the only way for her to be a "serious" superheroine was to dress in a more modest outfit and cut her hair shorter. The decidedly atrocious costume design Justiniano came up with as the artist was one of the biggest insults to the intellect, and when Bette was subsequently cast in the 2000 Titans Annual, the same writers even insulted her by having Arsenal and Nightwing talk about how they "love" her new outfit and attitude. The latter which included a panel with a bleeped expletive, as though being profane actually makes her more "serious" too.

What's wrong with how this was done? One of the most irritating things about these stories is that neither the writers, artists, nor the editors ever explain clearly why they believe how dressing or talking makes the character more "convincing" as a costumed crimefighter, if they even take the time to explain at all. And when you consider that Justiniano, as noted earlier, was arrested, convicted and jailed a decade later for possession of child porn, one can only wonder if he drew the more modest outfit for Flamebird as a form of virtue-signaling, and a way to conceal how evil and corrupt he actually was in real life.

Was there anything good to come out of this? Since then, the DCU's gone way downhill into a shoddy, sexless mess, and one can only wonder how much more awful Justiniano's costume design would be if he'd drawn it today, ditto Johns/Raab's writing. Like much of the rest of the DCU, even Bette's suffered bad writing since. Flamebird may be a minor character, but she's one of many who deserved far better than such an embarrassment, ditto her original creators, Finger, Moldoff and Perez, all of whom were insulted by Johns, Raab, Justiniano and even Eddie Berganza, who, if memory serves, was the editor on titles like the Titans at the time.