Of all the members of the Bat-Family to have a secret identity, Barbara Gordon potentially has the most precarious. She doesn't live with Bruce Wayne, her father's Commissioner Gordon, and she doesn't have the same resources as Batman and Robin - at least not at first.
The fact that Babs is Gordon's daughter has proven to be a major source of tension between Batman and his most trusted ally for years, and so it should come as no surprise to hear that multiple stories have explored what would happen if the commish ever discovered the truth, both in and out of mainstream continuity.
Before Crisis on Infinite Earths, it's revealed that her father had deduced her identity as Batgirl just as Babs decided to tell him the truth. Furthermore, stories depicted in Batman: The Animated Series (Over the Edge), and Injustice: Gods Among us (the comic) have shown just how devastating that revelation could become, with it causing a rift not just between Gordon and his daughter in one instance, but also between the entire police force and Batman.
Her identity is once again under wraps in DC Rebirth, but only time will tell if her father learns the truth once more.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
