Finally a ret-con that’s worth it!  There are the harmless ones, Thomas Wayne in a man sized bat costume.  There are the hurtful ones, Clone Saga.  But rare are the ones that enrich a previous story.  This issue of Brave and the Bold is a lost chapter to the Killing Joke.

Story is, Wonder Woman, Zatanna and Batgirl (Babs version) go out for a night on the town.  Barbara needs to be convinced to go out, her shoes hurt, she feels uncomfortable.  The ugly duckling of the group.  But her super friends will not be defeated by the villain known as low self esteem.  She dances, she sings karaoke, she feels beautiful for one amazing night.  The glass table of subtlety is shattered by the hammer of exposition, but the scene still works.  The book ends with THAT scene straight out of the killing joke, followed by Oracle waking up.

While the dinner scene is a bit heavy with oracles this and oracles that talk, it works in context for the characters.  Wonder Woman and Zatanna know what will happen to Batgirl.  They can’t stop it but they can start building her up before  she’s brought down.  Barbara could have been shot and given up.  She could be a sad statistic in the world of women heroes and ended up in a refrigerator.  But instead, as Oracle, she has become arguably the most important woman in DC (with connections to Birds of Prey, Batman, Justice League and Titans and from there the entire DCU).  All of which comes from her friends being selfless for her.

The great thing is this “untold story” does nothing to change the history of any of the characters.  It enriches previous stories without causing any holes in continuity.

My only issue is the implication that Barbara things there’s something sapphic occurring between Wonder Woman and Zatanna.  Granted, Diana grew up on an island of women so its not out of the realm of possibility.  But the story is partly about how close these women are.  For Babs to think this either a) she doesn’t know her friends that well or b) we don’t know them that well.

So which one is it?  Leave comments.