Batman Chronicles Vol 1 #5 p.16 by Brian Stelfreeze

Description

After being shot in the spine by the Joker,[1] Barbara Gordon lies in the hospital, full of pain and self loathing as she remembers her history leading up to the Joker’s attack on herself and her father. Batman surprises her at the window, and Barbara bitterly hurls recriminations at him for using her as a pawn in his game with Joker. She ends by asking if his laughter with the Joker was about her. Silently, Batman leaves.

Ten weeks later, Barbara returns home. She finds her disability humiliating and frustrating. She even blames her father for refusing to exercise his power and have an armed police guard when the Joker invaded their house. She begins six months of therapy, and fights through her fear to try to make a new life for herself, using a Wayne Foundation grant to build herself a powerful computer. Using her newfound affinity for hacking, she makes some money and finds an online community in the early days of the internet.

One day, her father tells her of a metahuman cybercriminal named Ashley Mavis Powell, aka Interface. Babs decides to take the case, since she had nothing else to do, and Powell’s crimes disgusted her.

A few days later, as she wheels around Gotham, Powell sneaks up on Barbara and threatens to murder her if she doesn’t stop her investigation, then pushes her into traffic. Enraged at Powell’s attack, Barbara seeks out martial arts training tailored to her disability, and an internet user by the name of “Matches” (who is really Batman) points her towards Richard Dragon. Dragon helps her to stop reaching for the past, and look to her future with the art of escrima. As a result of her training, Barbara dreams of the ancient Oracle at Delphi, finding a woman with a green mask who reveals herself as Barbara herself, inspiring her codename and symbol.

Using her new identity as Oracle, Barbara sets a trap for Powell, and when Powell uses her psychic link with computers to come after Oracle, she finds herself stuck in a logic loop, unable to break free. Barbara sets Powell free, but uses her new power over the criminal to force her to turn herself in.

A year has passed since Joker’s attack, and Barbara finds herself with a new life, a new mission, and she embraces it with joy.