Power Girl. In Secret Origins #20 featuring Batgirl and the Golden Age Dr. Mid-Nite (1987), Barbara Gordon's origin is rebooted by author Barbara Randall. Within the storyline, Gordon recounts the series of events that led to her career as Batgirl, including her first encounter with Batman as a child, studying martial arts under the tutelage of a sensei, memorizing maps and blueprints of the city, excelling in academics to skip grades, and pushing herself to become a star athlete. Batgirl Special #1 and Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) DC officially retired the hero in the one-shot comic Batgirl Special #1 (July 1988), written by Barbara Kesel. Later that year, Barbara Gordon appeared in Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke. In this graphic novel, the Joker shoots and paralyzes Barbara in an attempt to drive her father insane, thereby proving to Batman that anyone can be morally compromised. Although events in The Killing Joke exert a great impact on the character, the story has little to do with her. In 2006, during an interview with Wizard, Moore expressed regret over his treatment of the character calling it "shallow and ill-conceived." He stated before writing the graphic novel, "I asked DC if they had any problem with me crippling Barbara Gordon—who was Batgirl at the time—and if I remember, I spoke to Len Wein, who was our editor on the project", and following a discussion with then-Executive Editorial Director Dick Giordano, "Len got back onto the phone and said, 'Yeah, okay, cripple the bitch.'" Although there has been speculation as to whether or not editors at DC specifically intended to have the character's paralysis become permanent, Brian Cronin, author of Was Superman A Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed (2009) noted that DC had hired Barbara Kesel to write the Batgirl Special specifically to retire the character and set her in place for The Killing Joke. Following the release of the graphic novel, comic book editor and writer Kim Yale discussed how distasteful she found the treatment of Barbara Gordon with her husband, fellow comic writer John Ostrander. Rather than allow the character to fall into obscurity, the two decided to revive her as a character living with a disability. Gail Simone would include the character's paralysis in a list of "major female characters that had been killed, mutilated, and depowered", dubbing the phenomenon "Women in Refrigerators" in reference to a