So, how much does gordon know, exactly?

[BillCarson]

Doesn't he pretty much figure it out in Year One and use not having his glasses as plausible deniability?

[Chad]

Doesn't he pretty much figure it out in Year One and use not having his glasses as plausible deniability?

It's a possibility that his "I'm practically blind without my glasses" was a ruse but it's not like he then tells Batman he's got something stuck in his teeth. If it were a lie, I think the world's greatest detective would've caught on by now in which case, Batman would have no doubt that Gordon knows. Since Batman doesn't seem to be certain one way or the other (or seems to assume Gordon doesn't know) I don't think the Commissioner knew that early on. This does raise an interesting question: if Gordon knows, when did he learn the truth?

I personally would prefer that Gordon not know, but at the same time, I couldn't really argue with a revelation that he does. However, I wouldn't find it credible to learn that Gordon found out any time prior to the death of Jason Todd. There were just too many instances in which Gordon seems oblivious to the fact that Robin was killed despite his having attended Jason's funeral. In Batman 431, he asks Batman if Robin's with him that night and doesn't seem to understand why Batman hesitates before telling him no. When he meets the third Robin in Batman 465 during Tim Drake's first night out, he approaches him as if he's speaking to the previous Robin.

I think elbobbo has the best answer - that it depends upon who's writing the story. Blind Justice (Tec 598-600) pretty blatantly had Gordon approach Bruce Wayne and tell him he knows, but NML as Joriss pointed out seems to contradict that.

[BillCarson]

It's a possibility that his "I'm practically blind without my glasses" was a ruse but it's not like he then tells Batman he's got something stuck in his teeth. If it were a lie, I think the world's greatest detective would've caught on by now in which case, Batman would have no doubt that Gordon knows. Since Batman doesn't seem to be certain one way or the other (or seems to assume Gordon doesn't know) I don't think the Commissioner knew that early on. This does raise an interesting question: if Gordon knows, when did he learn the truth?

I'm not so sure about that. He's looking Bruce right in the eyes when he says it. I'm not sure if it meant that he knew he was Batman but it certainly was meant to be taken more than literally or it wouldn't have been drawn that way.

[hurk]

We might get a firmer answer in Grant Morrison's current run. From an interview with IGN:

IGN Comics: I've had a fun time watching Gordon's reaction to the new duo and seeing him voice suspicions about their possible identities. Are we going to see Gordon continue to wonder just who he's dealing with?

Morrison: Oh yeah. There's a big scene with Gordon in the Bat Bunker coming up soon that addresses just how much Gordon knows or suspects.

I doubt we'll get a clear-cut answer--more likely a "Oh, heck, you're that Nightwing fellow, aren't you" --but we'll see. You can read the article here.

[Lorendiac]

Don't forget when Babs confessed he said he already knew but didn't know about her being Oracle. So I think he knows some of it but not all.

That scene in BoP came as a shock to me -- because in my Batman-related comics from the late 70s and early 1980s, it was repeatedly made clear that Commissioner Gordon knew his daughter was Batgirl, and she knew he knew, and so forth! For instance, when she got lured into an ambush and shot in the arm by an assassin working for General Scar, back around 1980, she didn't try to invent some cock-and-bull story for her daddy about how the shooting had happened -- she just told him the real story!

I apparently hadn't noticed that the honesty within the Gordon family on these matters got retconned away into oblivion sometime after COIE, so I was as surprised at Jim Gordon saying, "Yes, I knew you were the original Batgirl" as I would be if, in another story set "here and now, in modern continuity," we suddenly had Alfred Pennyworth saying to Tim Drake, "By the way, I never mentioned it before, but I always knew you were the third Robin! You didn't think you were really fooling me, did you?"

[dumbstruck]

Gordon wouldn't be much of a detective if he hadn't figured basically figured things out. He maintains deniability to protect Bruce, Barbara, himself, et al.