On the subject of Batgirl, I've never liked the character, and consider her a mood-killer for the avenger-of-the-night sophistication of Batman stories.
She is a saturday-morning-cartoon level character that dumbs down any storyline. And having her crippled and/or raped by the Joker in THE KILLING JOKE, and then having her become "Oracle", permanently crippled and turned all dark drama, is a pathetic attempt to bring seriousness to an inherently silly character.
It reminds me of a 1989 COMICS JOURNAL review that talked about late-1980's comics, modernized and darkened up with so-called "adult" elements of "realism", that created a whole class of comics that were too immature for adults, and too adult for children, and appropriate to neither audience.
The "dark" Batgirl is a manifestation the cartoonishly dark silliness that rapidly shrunk the comic book market in the 1986-1996 period. Where publishers focused too much on the adult market, and largely abandoned material that for decades had brought in new younger readers, focusing entirely on exploiting a thinning, aging fanboy market. A very small cult of readers.
THE KILLING JOKE, and its ongoing silliness with Batgirl's wheelchair continuity, is a character that perfectly manifests that splicing of the dark with the juvenile, and the darkly silly result.
