I've noticed that a lot of people have been spontaneously drawing pictures of Batgirl lately. I find this to be confusing, since a lot of people don't know where it started or why it started.

But I... have a theory.

One of the victim's of DC's new Crisis is Cassadra Cain, the current (well, the late now) Batgirl. Now, I don't mean that she died directly because of the Crisis, but rather that she was apparently deemed expendable; she died in the most recent issue of her comic and they said that the next issue would be the end of Batgirl.

This angered me somewhat, since Batgirl was a much more interesting read than Batman itself.

Mind you, they could still pull a "well, she's alive but she isn't gonna be Batgirl anymore" trick, but I doubt it. The Crisis is all about streamlining continuity, even at the expense of fan favorite characters.

Anyhow, I have a theory about how this art started.

I'd wager that on some forum somewhere, somebody was posting about this event. The rash of Batgirl art coincides too neatly with Cassandra's death to be a coincidence. And then, some artist on whatever forum it began in said,

"Hey, I bet you they're doing this to bring in a new, fresh Batgirl."

Then someone said, "Hey, I wonder what they're gonna make her like?"

"I dunno. Lemme just draw up my ideas."

And from there, the challenge spread. Artists completely unaware of Cassandra's passing drew their own versions of the Dark sub-Knight, and the rest is history.

If anybody knows the real origin of this web phenomenon, I'd really like to know, but if it has been lost to obscurity, then I think that my theory makes a lot of sense.