On the one hand, it sure appears to be Barbara Gordon as Batgirl for Batgirl #1...
On the other hand, it's written by Gail Simone, with art by Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes (good creative team). If you would trust any one writer with the proper handling of Barbara Gordon, wouldn't it be Gail Simone?
Clever, DC, clever!!!
In fact, DC's The Source blog has the following statement from Gail Simone on the book:
“Barbara Gordon is pretty much my everything. Because of the Batman TV show, she was the reason I fell in love with superheroes. Because she was a redhead who could kick ass, she is the reason I fell in love with comics. She was always forward-looking as Batgirl, a girl who was smarter than the male characters, who had class and elegance and style, as well as tough-as-nails grit. For a long time, there was simply nothing else like her in comics, and for me and a lot of other readers, her every appearance was joyful and explosive.
For many years, I got to write the character as Oracle, and there is to this day, no character who means more to me. This is classic Barbara as she was originally conceived, with a few big surprises. It’s a bit of a shock, to be sure, but we’re doing everything we can to be respectful to this character’s amazing legacy, while presenting something thrilling that a generation of comics readers will be experiencing for the first time…Barbara Gordon leaping, fighting, and swinging over Gotham. Now, when citizens of that city look up, they are going to see BATGIRL.
And that is absolutely thrilling.”
How can you read that and not be at least a little pumped?
As for Birds of Prey #1, I love the creative team, but it is definitely one of those "have to see it to see how it is being handled" types of books. But really, Duane Swierczynski and Jesus Saiz? Good team.
Really, the only thing I'm worried about now is the rumors that Morrison's Batman Inc. stuff is going to be cut short. If that's the case...wow, that's dumb. There's no reason Morrison can't do Batman Inc. with slight reboot stuff (like Dick becoming Nightwing again) factored in.