Top 5 Fridays: What Could Happen To Barbara Grayson In Earth 2: World's End

Welcome back to Top 5 Fridays, the #1 spot where you accidentally click and then immediately push "back".  For this week's installment I figured we'd talk about what's going on with Barbara Grayson in Earth 2 and Earth 2: World's End.  Now in case you haven't read this week's issues, I suggest you go and do that because I'm going to spoil the hell out of what's going down with Barbara and Dick Grayson or you could just read my reviews because my "Explain It!" tells you exactly what's going on, so SPOILERS all around.  In this week's Earth 2, we saw that Barbara managed to narrowly escape a falling asteroid and then got out of being sacrificed to a parademon only to be shot by some nobody with a gun in Earth 2: World's End.  Now while I initially wanted Barbara to die from the falling asteroid, once she escaped it I was back on board with her kicking ass and taking names, so when she got shot I was ridiculously upset about this woman that I love reading about.  I'm a whirlwind of emotions.  For this Top 5 Fridays I want to go down the Top 5 things that I can see going down with Barbara being shot and where that story might take us.  So let's dive into this list and see what my unimaginative mind can spew out.






#5.  Barbara Grayson Simply Dies

So this is the absolute worst possible scenario there could be.  Barbara Grayson is simply shot and we just move on and treat it like it was a necessary evil that proves how harsh the people of Earth 2 have become.  Nobody gets anything from that story, we already know that times are tough in Earth 2 and shooting Barbara isn't going to make that fact anymore real.  If Barbara just dies and we move on I'll be done with the series but it's very unlikely that something like that could happen and that's why this is at the bottom of the list.  It's my cop out for a real #5, but I still think it belongs on this list.  Also I wouldn't really give up on the series, I just like to talk big.




#4.  Barbara Becomes Paralyzed and There's No Reason For                                     An Oracle On Earth 2

Now this is kind of along the lines of her just dying, but with an entire fandom out there that misses Barbara Gordon being wheelchair bound, DC just might take it out on her Earth 2 counterpart and slap her into a chair.  This scenario is right up there with her dying in my mind because in the awful war torn world of Earth 2, there's nothing really for a character like Oracle to do.  Interwebs are dead along with most of the power, communications have pretty much been shut down, so it becomes a story about Dick Grayson trying to get his son Johnny and his paralyzed wife to safety............. That's an awful story.  That would just be the rotten cherry on top of the melted sunday we got in Earth 2 #29 this week.  I'm not saying that I didn't like the story, I'm just saying that it was dark and depressing as hell and led up to Barbara getting shot.  Fans of Oracle that screamed fowl when the New 52 started and Barbara wasn't handicapped anymore would get what they wanted here and then I'd have to hunt them all down and make them pay for clamoring so much for DC to do this to Barbara.  So as unlikely as this scenario might sound, we've been there before.




#3.  Barbara Dies and Dick and Wildcat Team Up

Now you may think that this scenario is unlikely only because of Dick having a son and him jumping into super heroics might come off as him being a bad parent because really, who are you getting to be a babysitter so you can spend your time beating the crazy out of people, especially in Earth 2's current situation?  But let's just say that the child care front is taken care of, what's stopping Dick from teaming up with the Earth 2 power house Ted Grant and being like The Doobie Brothers and taking it to the streets?  Yeah I know that this Dick isn't exactly like his acrobatic counterpart and the idea of training to become a vigilante during this war with Apokolips would take more than a musical montage to get him into the game.  But if Barbara is destined to die here it doesn't seem like too much of a leap to think that Dick would want some revenge for the loss of his wife and if Ted Grant's along for the ride, well we've got a really suitable dude to get Dick into shape.  This isn't the best scenario, but it's certainly better than the last two.




#2.  Barbara is Saved By Doctor Mid-Nite

This is almost my favorite scenario that could play out and it only missed being #1 on this list because I've been thinking about something else all week and I'm not about to give up on it until Daniel H. Wilson, Marguerite Bennett and Mike Johnson tell me that it's absolutely not going to happen.  Okay for this scenario we've got Barbara just shot by the douche on the train.  Dick sees that she's unresponsive and picks her up and starts looking for someone to help.  That's when we introduce Dr. Charles McNider and after we get through making fun of his name, the good doctor and Dick run into an abandoned building and McNider saves her life.  So not only do we get Barbara surviving her ordeal, but we also get one of my favorite Golden Age heroes introduced into the New 52.  Yeah, he only saves her life and isn't doing any super heroics, but this could lead to him going with Dick and Ted Grant to find safety and maybe somewhere down the line the heroics can get started.  I really dig this and I almost want it to happen because Dick is having a hard enough time without his wife dying on top of it.

#1.  Barbara Becomes The Spectre

Once upon a time the Spectre was apart of the Justice Society of America and in this new Earth 2, I don't see any reason why the Spectre can't make an appearance and help the "Wonders" of that world in fighting back the alien threat.  This is the best scenario I can think of with Barbara Grayson getting shot because with the exception of Hal Jordon, it seems like gun shots are the catalyst for the Spectre to get up inside of you.  It works so well too, Barbara is shot and dies and then becomes imbued with the Spirit of Vengeance and we see her go all wrathful on the threats to the world, while creating drama between Dick and her about what she's become and how they'd reconcile this hiccup in their marriage.  Hell with this scenario we can have The Spectre and we can also have Dick and Ted Grant palling around and having their own form of justice as they Doobie Brothers it up.  I just think this could be really cool and hope to see it in future issues of Earth 2 and Earth 2: World's End.

That's it for this week's Top 5 Fridays and I hope you enjoyed the list.  If you have some better ideas punching you in the brain to let them out, I would love to hear them.  A lot of people seem to be giving up on this title, but Earth 2 is the reason that I got back into comics, so I'm going to ride this pony until it's dead and I hope all of you do too.  It's just so much fun seeing these Golden Age heroes re-imagined even if they can have personal lives because of being stuck in a war.  With any luck we'll see the events of Futures End become erased and we can see these heroes defeat Darkseid and we can see them get on with their lives.  I hope you all have a hell of a week and we'll see you in seven for the next Top 5 Fridays.  Boosh!