TITANS Casts Savannah Welch as Barbara Gordon

 
Dick Grayson is about to be reunited with Barbara Gordon.

Variety has revealed that the HBO Max series Titans has cast Savannah Welch as DC Comics' Barbara Gordon for the show's upcoming third season.  Formerly on the DC Universe streaming service, Titans was brought over to HBO Max along with other DC Universe shows Doom Patrol and Harley Quinn.

According to the article, Barbara Gordon will be "Gotham City Police Commissioner.  Uses a wheelchair.  She used to be Batgirl until she was shot and paralyzed by the Joker.  She has a combative relationship with Bruce Wayne.  Her life gets more complicated when Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) returns to Gotham, rekindling their old romance and starting a new crime fighting partnership."

Welch, 36, is an actress and musician who became a leg amputee as a result of an injury accident in 2016.  She has appeared on the History Channel series Six, and has appeared in the films Tree of Life, Boyhood, and The Transcendents.

Created in 1967 by William Dozier, Julius Schwartz and Carmine Infantino, Barbara Gordon first appeared as Batgirl in Detective Comics (vol.1) #359, and later that same year on the Batman television series episode "Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin", as the daughter of Gotham City's Police Commissioner James Gordon.  In her debut story in the comics, while driving to a costume ball dressed as a female version of Batman, Barbara Gordon intervened in a kidnapping attempt on Bruce Wayne by the super villain Killer Moth, which gained Batman's attention and led to a crime-fighting career.  Although Batman insisted she give up crime-fighting because of her gender, Batgirl disregarded his objections.

In the controversial 1988 graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke, writer Alan Moore had Batman's arch-enemy The Joker shoot and paralyze Barbara in an attempt to drive her father insane, thereby proving to Batman that anyone can be morally compromised.  One year later, writers John Ostrander and Kim Yale gave Barbara Gordon new life in Suicide Squad (vol.1) #23 as Oracle, a mysterious computer expert who assisted and supplied information to various DC Comics heroes in their fight against crime.  The character's popularity led to the creation of the series Birds of Prey in 1996, where writer Chuck Dixon partnered Oracle with Black Canary and a rotating cast of female DC superheroes.

In 2011, DC Comics rebooted their continuity in The New 52, effectively making the character younger in a modern timeline where she became active again as Batgirl.  In the new continuity, the events of The Killing Joke took place three years before current events, but it was established she was paraplegic during that time.  Barbara Gordon regained her mobility after undergoing experimental surgery at a South African clinic.  In recent months, Barbara has a new life as a PhD student in the hip Gotham borough of Burnside, in between adventures as Batgirl and with the Birds of Prey.

Welch will be the fourth actress to portray the character in live-action, after Yvonne Craig in the Batman TV series, Dina Meyer in Birds of Prey, and Jeté Laurence in Gotham.

Titans Season 3 is expected to be released on HBO Max sometime in 2021.