WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Nightwing #85, on sale now from DC Comics.
Barbara Gordon has been at a superhero crossroads for much of the past year. After suffering grave, personal losses during last year's crossover event "Joker War," Barbara decided to step down from the Batgirl mantle a second time and instead resume her superhero work as Oracle. As she finds herself among the first targets in "Fear State," Gordon makes a fateful decision to step up as Batgirl once more to help take back her city. In doing so, Barbara shares her reservations about the most traumatic event of her life that led to her first Batgirl retirement in Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's controversial story Batman: The Killing Joke.
For Barbara, the decision to step away from the Batgirl mantle and take it back up was not a move made without considerable emotional weight and painfully fresh memories of the worst night of her life. The Killing Joke had the Joker shoot her point blank in the spine to prove a point to Commissioner Jim Gordon and the Dark Knight while Barbara endured a lengthy paralysis from the assault. Cutting edge medical technology would restore Barbara's mobility and lead her to reclaim the Batgirl persona but "Joker War" reawakened traumatic demons that, coupled with the death of her younger brother James Gordon, Jr., led her to once again retire from the superhero role. As Barbara dons the Batgirl cowl once again in Nightwing #85 (by Tom Taylor, Robbi Rodriguez, Adriano Lucas and Wes Abbott), Barbara shares one of the most painful aspects to Dick Grayson about her ordeal following The Killing Joke.
Barbara quite rightfully points out that despite The Killing Joke being the single most traumatic moment in her life, the story was not ultimately about her at all but rather all part of the Joker's sick, twisted game with her father and Batman. This effectively made Barbara a supporting character in the worst day of her life, in a meta-textual nod to her assault being a glorified plot device, a controversy that has long been associated with The Killing Joke since its initial publication in 1988. With this admission, Nightwing makes his own observation about Barbara's evolution since the incident.
Nightwing points out that even though The Killing Joke wasn't initially a Barbara Gordon story, she certainly made it one in the years that followed. The single biggest development spiraling out of the 1988 original graphic novel was Barbara creating the superhero mantle of Oracle and not only lending vital support to the rest of the Bat-Family but to superhero teams in the DC Universe as prominent as the Justice League and leading her own team, the Birds of Prey. Oracle effectively saved the day countless times, perhaps more so than her time as Batgirl.
In or out of the Batgirl mantle, one thing has always been crystal clear about Barbara Gordon: she is a superhero through and through no matter what moniker she is using at any given time.
With her usual computer systems and communications network compromised early on in "Fear State," Barbara has decided to forego her self-imposed retirement and take a more hands-on approach to keeping Gotham City safe joining fellow Batgirls Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown to help retake their city.