In the previous post on this subject, I specified that whenever two or more icons with their own stature, a stature resulting from their appearances in featured serials, appeared together in Inclusive Ensembles, all such team-appearances would be crossovers. By contrast, though, when icons possessed a single or combined stature-icon and one or more charisma-icons-- that is, icons who had only been Subs in in the universe of a Prime icon-- only the first encounter of the stature-icon and the charisma-icon(s) would rate as a crossover. My example in the essay was that of an early Avengers ensemble, combining stature-icon Captain America with three charisma-types. Another example that I've cited in a previous essay is the title Femforce, which teamed a bunch of neophyte heroes with "Ms. Victory," a reworking of a forties heroine named "Miss Victory."
Successful spinoffs, in contrast, usually take a path opposed to that of funneling charisma-characters into ensembles, where they have collective stature. Usually a given icon is introduced in a Subordinate relationship to a Prime icon or icons, and then the Sub icon gets a separate serial, thus accruing some degree of stature, depending on how the serial fares in terms of either quantitative or qualitative escalation.
One of the more convoluted ascents to Prime stature, though, is the "Barbara Gordon Batgirl." As a distaff version of Batman, she followed in the wake of two previous Sub Icons, the "Kathy Kane Batwoman" and the "Bette Kane Bargirl." There's no indication that either of these Bat-dames were considered for any sort of starring status. But although Batgirl Two debuted as a Sub as well, she had from the beginning a better shot at Prime stardom.
Barbara Gordon came into being thanks to the ABC BATMAN teleseries that lasted from Spring 1966 to Spring 1968. Sometime in 1966, ABC asked the editors at DC Comics to conceptualize some new female characters for the TV show to adapt. The show's writers particularly wanted to add a female crimefighter to aid the Dynamic Duo, and the result was that the second Batgirl appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS #359 (dated January 1967 but probably distributed at least two months previous). A few months later, Commissioner Gordon's daughter Barbara was mentioned in a BATMAN episode broadcast in March 1967, paving the way for ABC's version of the heroine to officially appear in September 1967.
For the next two years following Batgirl's first comic-book appearance, she made guest appearances in various BATMAN stories, as well as one in JUSTICE LEAGUE. However, while in comics she didn't immediately ascend to Prime status, in the BATMAN teleseries she was immediately a full member of the Bat-team. This ensemble I would judge to be Semi-Inclusive because in it Batman and Robin, though separate characters, functioned as a unit and thus as a "combined icon," while Batgirl was a new member inducted, however unofficially, into the ensemble. By the rules I advocated in the previous essay, only the first episode in which Batgirl became a regular Prime within the ensemble would be a crossover-episode.
The same basic principle applies to the cartoon series that quickly followed the demise of the live-action show. Although ADVENTURES OF BATMAN displayed some indebtedness to the West-Ward-Craig ensemble, Batgirl only appeared in 12 out of a total of 17 episodes. However, that's enough of a majority to make her at least a semi-regular rather than just a guest star, with the result that Batgirl's first episode on the cartoon, name of "The Joke's On Robin," counts as a crossover.
The year after the cartoon Batgirl started appearing on TV, comic-book Barbara Gordon received a long-term berth, starting in DETECTIVE COMICS #384 (1969). Thus, all of Batgirl Two's previous comics-appearances qualify as "proto-crossovers," and every time she guest-starred with another hero AFTER getting her own series, that was a crossover. This also includes the short-lived "Batgirl-and-Robin-Team" in BATMAN FAMILY, which became Gordon's first-- but not last-- Inclusive Ensemble.
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