No, you're correct. The Gail Simone run of Batgirl, as recently as 2011, was way better than the current runs that just got cancelled.
Among the progressive cohort of millennials, it is shameful for a white cis straight male to find the female form attractive. Simply mentioning it, when the statement is unbidden or unwanted, is considered "catcalling", which is of course considered "harassment". The comic buying consumer base has been mainly straight white (and black) males since forever, and basically continues to be to a large extent even now. Despite the gatekeepers' best effort to chase the old boys away, they have basically been unable to garner a new, more diverse audience for most comic books, because the audience they are trying to capture simply is not interested (they have other interests already, like anime/manga, or K-Pop, or TV shows, or food trucks, or posting a lot on Instagram, etc.) The claimed 40% percentage of women buying comics is a lie..it's more likely to be closer to 10-15% given what I've seen at stores and comicons. I was at a Comicon last weekend, and the panel on "Women in Comics" (hosted by Amy Chu..it was actually very tame with a lot of geeking out and very little politics) was tiny, and had more women on the panel than in the audience.
- amychupanel.jpg (72.52 KiB) Viewed 3359 times
There is no middle ground for the SJWs. They can't abide by pretty much anyone being sexy in comic books. The women have to lose all of their curves, and the men have to do the same with their bulges, looking and acting like feminized betas (for example, the current Hawkeye, or Amadeus Cho the Go-gurt Hulk). People get hired to write books because of their identity, and not because of their talent. Heterosexuality is almost never the answer. In the rare cases that it still is portrayed (such as the X-Men Wedding Special where Kitty and Colossus get married, or the Rogue and Gambit book which is a sexy romance), the #movetheneedle folks are still supporting it. But yes, comic book stores are closing and the industry has been contracting for quite a while. This is not due to politics - it's actually due to competing media, and the failure to capture the new audience of millennials - but as the industry contracts, the professionals within it treat it more and more like an exclusive club where you have to adhere to ideological standards to gain entry, rather than the thriving business it once was. Anything outside that domain, the gatekeepers try to harass and
kill and denigrate into oblivion.
This is sad, and I don't know what can be done about it, other than of course continuing to try and #movetheneedle, which seems to be working in specific cases like the support for the Jawbreakers book. It's just a sea change in the culture I suppose - the Internet in general causes people to flee to their echo chamber and embrace strident political extremes. I personally prefer the days when everyone (regardless of gender) was allowed to look hot, and the chips could simply fall wherever they may.
I'll have to see if the rest of Simone's latest iteration is like this - despite occasional feminist ranting on Twitter, her books rarely let me down. 
