Barbara Gordon’s career took a violent left turn when a run-in with the Joker left her paralyzed from the waist down. Formerly known as Batgirl, she is now the information broker for Bat-verse, known to both her friends and enemies as Oracle. That right there is the crux of the problem. Her research activities for Batman and Nightwing, and her own desire to have a more proactive role in crime fighting, have brought her to the attention of Blockbuster. She has cost him millions in thwarted criminal efforts, and bank account drains. He wants to take her out before she can cause him anymore problems. The problem is that Oracle is a phantom on the internet; nobody has any idea who he or she is. Blockbuster is hunting her through a pair of hackers, and it becomes a deadly game of cat and mouse where Oracle has to stay a step ahead of her pursuers and alive long enough for reinforcements to get to her. It makes her confront both the limitations of her life now that she can’t be Batgirl anymore, but that doesn’t mean that she’s has to be helpless. Oracle is probably my favorite character in the Bat-verse, and an entire story about her figuring out who she is now, and kicking a little butt along the way, is my idea of a really good time. This volume is also the first time the Birds of Prey women finally meet each other in the flesh.
Nightwing, vol. 5: The Hunt for Oracle
ISBN: 156389940X
By Chuck Dixon
Art by Greg Land, Jackson Guice, Patrick Zircher
DC Comics 2003
