The Oracle Code

Cover for The Oracle Code
This graphic novel explores and reimagines the origins of one of the world's most iconic disabled superheroes: Barbara Gordon of Gotham City, also known as Oracle.

The Oracle Code

#1 New York Times bestselling author Marieke Nijkamp and artist Manuel Preitano unveil a graphic novel that explores the dark corridors of Barbara Gordon’s first mystery: herself.

After a gunshot leaves her paralyzed below the waist, Barbara Gordon undergoes physical and mental rehabilitation at the Arkham Center for Independence. She must adapt to a new normal, but she cannot shake the feeling that something is dangerously amiss. Strange sounds escape at night while patients start to go missing.

Is this suspicion simply a result of her trauma? Or does Barbara actually hear voices coming from the center’s labyrinthine hallways? It’s up to her to put the pieces together to solve the mysteries behind the walls.

In The Oracle Code, universal truths cannot be escaped, and Barbara Gordon must battle the phantoms of her past before they consume her future.

Practical information

Author: Marieke Nijkamp
Publisher: DC Comics
Publication year: 2020
ISBN: 9781401290665
Age category: young adult
Disabilities portrayed: paraplegia, spinal cord injury, wheelchair user
Genres: contemporary, graphic novel, superhero

Author

Marieke Nijkamp

Marieke Nijkamp is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends, Before I Let Go, and Even If We Break, the editor of Unbroken: 13 stories starring disabled teens, and writer of The Oracle Code.

The Oracle Code is an unapologetically disabled story. The vast majority of the cast of characters is disabled. It features wheelchair basketball and biped slalom. It’s a love letter to Barbara Gordon’s Oracle, the most important superhero in Gotham City. (Fight me.) It draws very heavily on my own experiences as a teen in a rehabilitation facility. It’s a story that doesn’t just explore disability but celebrates it too.
(We Need Diverse Books, March 2020)