Warning! Contains spoilers for Birds of Prey #10!

The Birds of Prey are currently on a dimension jumping mission to save former Batgirl Barbara Gordon from an enemy who still stop at nothing to kill her. After Barbara ends up separated from everything and everyone she knows, she decides the best course of action is to build something that Batman definitely wouldn’t approve of: a gun.

As a strange new dimension continually shifts around her in Birds of Prey #10 by Kelly Thompson and Robbi Rodriguez, Barbara Gordon makes a surprising discovery. Every time the dimension shifts and the environment changes, not only does Barbara’s outfit change, but so does everything she’s holding. If she’s holding a knife, it’ll still be a knife in the next version of the dimension, but it’ll look different to fit the new look of the dimension.

As Barbara muses to herself about this new rule of the dimension she’s trapped in, she reasons that if she, “for example,” built a gun, then it would still be a gun no matter what happens to the dimension. The new weapon may change appearance, but it never changes in functionality, and if Babs does go through with building an actual gun, her choice will prove once and for all that Batman was never her boss.

Barbara Gordon Was Never as Devoted to Batman as Others

She Defied Batman’s Rules as Both Batgirl and Oracle

Every other member of the Bat-Family came to Batman out of some sense of tragedy (usually dead parents). This pattern doesn’t hold true for Barbara Gordon. While Babs was certainly inspired to become Batgirl by Batman, she never really needed or asked for his permission to do it. In fact, most versions of the story have Batman heavily against the idea of Barbara being Batgirl. Despite this opposition, she continued to wear the emblem and eventually proved herself. Batman ends up recognizing (and needing) her as a member of his team, but Babs has never been one to follow his orders or even care all that much for his rules.

Batman’s two biggest rules for the Bat-Family are no guns and no killing. While Barbara Gordon has done her best to stick to no killing, she’s been a bit looser on the no guns. Growing up as the daughter of a cop, Barbara knows her way around a gun and likely has plenty of experiences with them from her childhood. While she’s not known for using guns as weapons, she also certainly wouldn’t have an aversion to doing so. Barbara Gordon’s character has always been just a bit more morally gray than others, with her even leading the Suicide Squad in her early years as Oracle

Batgirl Believes in Batman’s Mission, But Was Never His Follower

Barbara Gordon Has Always Followed Her Own Idea of Justice

With that history in mind, building and using a gun isn’t far-fetched. While it’s uncertain if Barbara Gordon will manage to actually build a gun in this shifting dimension, that she even considered it shows that she’s the one member of the Bat-Family who has never really subscribed to Batman’s rules. While characters like Red Hood often use guns, Jason took those up in direct defiance of Batman. Babs would simply use a gun if she had to, and she really wouldn’t care how Batman felt about it. That’s why, out of all the members of the Bat-Family, Batman was never really the boss of Batgirl Barbara Gordon.

Birds of Prey #10 is available now from DC Comics!