"22 years for Batgirl, 22 for Oracle."

21 for Batgirl (1967-1988).  22 for Oracle (1989-2011) (Based on the DCU guide.  I said 23 above because I thought she debuted a few issues earlier).  Although to be fair, it took a year or so to officially confirm Oracle was indeed Barbara Gordon. 

"Ah, yes, nothing like good ol' fan entitlement!"

Wanting TPTB to leave a character as they currently are is "fan entitlement?"  I'd think demanding a character be changed to reflect a reader's preference would be more of a case of that, even if it is a change back to a prior status quo.  ("I want the REAL ***** back!")

++++

Or you chose to NOT ignore them and come up or think realistic explanations, like, you know, there is no reason to believe Superman even has a secret id or that his white shirt is not see-through.

And I have no idea what you mean about Daredevil (Dr. Midnight I am not familiar with). We don''t "ignore" that DD is blind. We accept he is blind and has superpowers (hearing, touch, smell and radar sense).

I'd bet that the renumbering of the really high-numbered comics is a planned, one-year thing, and that they'll be back to their original numbering by autumn 2012. To paraphrase Walter Sobchak, "70 years of continuous publication from Detective Comics to Action Comics? You're damn right I'm living in the past!"

I'm actually going to miss Phil Hester on Wonder Woman and Chris Roberson on Superman. I thought they both really brought those titles back into focus after the six months of JMS's wanky scripts. If we get a normalized Alec Holland Swamp Thing out of this, that too would be cool, though I'm not holding my breath after return of homicidal Swamp Thing in Brightest Day.

Cheers, Jon

Kevin - "Barbara Gordon was 1966, not 1967."

Fair enough.  I was going by cover dates rather than street dates.  However, both of her superhero ids debuted in January issues, so both ids get pushed to the previous year.  (With a slight edge to Batgirl since I believe Oracle's debut was just after the time DC did the "Winter" "Holiday" issues to narrow the gap between cover and release dates.)

Peter, more like delicious lemonade being made out of some pretty foul lemons.  Taking a dismal fate that had befallen a character and using it as an opportunity to build her back up as a stronger, more unique, character. 

But beyond that, tragedy plays a role in a lot of superhero origins (which Barbara's shooting was basically reworked to be).  Liking the character that results doesn't mean you necessarily think the tragedies they go through are "good things," per se.  I don't think Batman fans are thrilled poor Bruce was orphaned at a young age.

(Edit - ugh!  Typos!)

makes me wonder exactly what form of reboot this will be, if any

I've been mulling it over, and think DC has an easy 'get out of jail' card ready. There's been no mention about the current 'multiverse', so I have a feeling that if the new titles tank, DC will claim they all take place on one of the renumbered Earths and go back to things pre-Flashpoint.

It just seems insane to me (from a business standpoint) that they'd gamble on all of these title launches with mostly ordinary creative teams and hope folk flock to books because of the premise.

As a matter of fact, I think that would've been the least complicated solution after COIE: have every Earth destroyed except for one we hadn't seen before, which would become the 'new' Earth 1.