That Girl with the Curls – Episode 42 – DC Comics All Access Ramblings

James Rowe of Roman on the Rocks joins Sam for a session mostly dedicated to all things DC Comics and their properties including Batman: Arkham Knight, Batman v Superman, Arrow, The Flash, and Batgirl.

 

Dear Bruce Timm, Please Leave Barbara Out of The Killing Joke

Dear Bruce Timm,

You probably don’t remember me, but we met briefly at this year’s Emerald City Comicon. Susan Eisenberg actually introduced me to you but since you’re not much of a talker and I was nervous/shy it was a very short “Hi” “Hello” kinda thing.

Anyway Bruce – can I call you Bruce? – I’m writing this because you and your teams on Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Justice League: Unlimited, and Batman Beyond are the reason I’ve been a long time DC Comics viewer and reader. I live and breathe the DC Universe more than anything (I have Big Barda tattooed on my arm for crying out loud!), so when I saw that you were returning to WB Animation for more DC Animated Movies, I was stoked. And then it was announced that the next movie you’re working on after Justice League: Gods and Monsters will be an animated version of The Killing Joke.

 

Bruce, if I could make one request of you before this movie has its script locked down, it’s this: Please leave Barbara Gordon out of the movie.

 

I don’t say this lightly. I’ve thought about this a lot and I even had a lot of reservations writing it down, but my brain won’t shut up about the subject so I feel compelled to let you know why. Mostly it’s that I’m so tired of having this conversation because it really seems to confound some people as to why myself and a great deal of female comic book readers have a problem with The Killing Joke. To be fair, there are some aspects to Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s work that I enjoy, especially the philosophical dilemma of what turns men like Batman and the Joker into Batman and the Joker. But there are parts of the book that are problematic and you know exactly what I’m talking about because, should you decide to go all the way with this movie, you’re going to have to address it within the story. Namely the shooting, torture, and sexual assault of Barbara Gordon by the Joker. If you could please just do me the solid of taking this out of the movie, along with Barbara, I’d appreciate it. And if you’re worried about the integrity of the story without Babs in it, let me assure you…

Nothing would change.

Just hear me out for a second and bear with me because I’ll most likely be covering story elements that you’re well aware of but are important to point out nonetheless. Within The Killing Joke, Joker, as a means of torturing Jim Gordon and getting at Batman, shoots Barbara, paralyzing her, strips her naked, photographs her, and it is HEAVILY implied that she’s raped. And this is just to torture her father and Batman. The only times we see Barbara are when she’s shot, when Jim is shown the photographs, and when Batman goes to her in the hospital. At no point in this story does Barbara make any decisions or take any actions that effect the course of the story. She is a PAWN, a piece of the story that is actually about Batman, Joker, and her father. This is the definition of both “fridging” and the “sexy lamp” tropes. Barbara serves no narrative function except as an example of the Joker’s sadism in order to provide motivation for other characters.

Quite frankly, I could do without it. Preserving the integrity of the story doesn’t have to include the maiming and humiliation of a character who currently has one of the top-selling books at DC Comics, one that has attracted more young women and new readers than DC could have hoped for. I can only imagine what will happen when those girls and their parents decide to pick up the new animated feature that includes Barbara and the horror that would result from watching such intense scenes of violence committed against a woman. Yes, Jim Gordon is tortured as well, but he gets resolution at the end as well as a moment to assert how his moral compass hasn’t changed despite the machinations of the Joker. Barbara gets no such moment.

And please, if we could avoid the “but she becomes Oracle” part of the justification for including Babs in the story should you choose to do so. She doesn’t become Oracle in the book and it’s a logical fallacy to assert that The Killing Joke is directly responsible for her new identity. There was no plan in place for Babs to move on as a superhero post-Killing Joke and she was all but written out of the comics until Kim Yale and John Ostrander laid the foundations for her second life in Suicide Squad and Manhunter. The Killing Joke is only responsible for showing just how much regard for Barbara DC Comics had when Len Wein gave Alan Moore permission to “cripple the bitch.” The Oracle argument is further invalidated when one considers that amidst the New 52 reboot DC editorial could have easily erased The Killing Joke from Babs’ backstory, putting her in the position of starting from scratch as Batgirl without the story hanging over her like the Sword of Damocles. Instead, editorial kept The Killing Joke as canon but eliminated her time as Oracle due to the truncated timeline. It was more important to keep her paralysis and assault then it was to show her character growth as a hero operating out of a wheelchair. I mean, are you planning on doing another animated movie where we get to see the rise of Oracle? Anything including Batgirl? I see the next movies after Killing Joke are Batman: Bad Blood (featuring Batwoman) and Justice League vs Titans slated for release next year but wouldn’t an animated movie celebrating Batgirl or Oracle make more sense as a followup?

I ask only because the current Batgirl book from the creative team of Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher, and Babs Tarr is ridiculously popular and directly responsible for bringing in new readers to DC Comics, many of them young women and little girls. The tone and the style of the book is lighter and brighter with an explicitly feminist mindset. The team has gone above and beyond to ensure the integrity of Barbara Gordon/Batgirl while keeping her accessible to all readers regardless of gender or age. The kicker being we’ve already gone through a Batgirl/Killing Joke controversy, one where the team asked that the Joker variant cover be removed from their book because it was the antithesis of the women-positive message the team had cultivated in actively distancing the book from the Killing Joke as much as possible.

Bottom line: The Killing Joke is toxic when it comes to attracting female readers and I doubt the animated movie would fare much better considering the most recent batch of animated movies have been all but gleeful celebrations of the PG-13 rating with plenty of violence and coarse language that makes it impossible for me to show them to my five-year-old nephew who loves Batman. It just doesn’t make sense, from a business perspective, to develop an entire line of superheroine products and merchandise for girls aged 6-12, one of those heroes being Batgirl, and then put out an animated product that features said character being horrifically injured and abused. I doubt whoever ends up writing the copy for the DVD/Blu-Ray is going to mention what happens to Babs in the description, so won’t that be a fun family moment when mom and dad buy their young daughter the newest animated movie that features her favorite hero only to watch the awful events that occur.

As a female reader, as a person who loves the animated movies and DC Comics, please write Barbara Gordon out of The Killing Joke. I would prefer she not be featured rather than sit through a movie that’s just going to be uncomfortable on all counts. And this isn’t a case where “then don’t watch it” matters. What matters is the continual validation of The Killing Joke and the insistence from DC Comics and some fans that it’s an essential story regardless of how it treats Barbara. There are others ways to torture Jim Gordon and I’m sure you have plenty of talented writers who could think of a million ways to push him without using his daughter.

Thank you for your time,

Sam

P.S. That Batman short was awesome!

Joker Variant for Batgirl #41 Brings Back Uncomfortable Memories

You were doing so well, DC Comics. So well. And then y’all had to go and screw it up again.

For the June mini-relaunch of DC Comics’ titles post-Convergence each book will feature Batman’s arch-nemesis, the Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker on a variant cover. As is the case with most themed variants, the cover art is released ahead of time to get readers excited and get them thinking about which titles they want to spend their money on for the cover alone.

So when DC released the variant art for Batgirl #41…

There were some understandable feelings of “WTF, DC!” coming from fans. This author included. Drawn by Rafael Albuquerque, the variant uncomfortably invokes Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke (1988) where Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, was shot and tortured by the Joker leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Oddly enough, The Killing Joke isn’t about Barbara at all, it’s about her father, Commissioner Jim Gordon, and Batman with Barbara’s pain and suffering used to taunt and torture the two men. No wonder it’s one of the primary examples of the Women in Refrigerators trope, or fridging, where the death, injury, or torture of a woman is used to further a male character’s story. The book may have its fans, but it has plenty of naysayers, among them the book’s author. Alan Moore has since shown his regrets over the story, chief among them being the crippling of Barbara Gordon, which Moore states he was surprised went through at DC. By his own account, Moore was told by editor Len Wein that it was okay to “cripple the bitch.”

The silver lining to The Killing Joke is we eventually got Barbara as the computer hacking badass that is Oracle. Leader of the Birds of Prey and one of the most trusted heroes within the DC Universe, Babs became the poster child for the disabled community. In overcoming her disability by continuing to fight crime, Barbara proved her resilience to adversity, becoming a stronger character in the long run. After twenty years in the chair, however, DC decided to put Barbara back in uniform with the launch of the New 52. Unfortunately, the rebooted universe didn’t include erasing The Killing Joke from the current canon. Instead, Barbara had been disabled for about three years prior to the events of the relaunch with her #1 issue serving as her first outing in uniform since the surgery that gave her back the use of her legs.

What became obvious was The Killing Joke’s legacy as a defining moment in Barbara’s history, at least according to DC Comics. Luckily writer Gail Simone tried to make good on the aftermath of such a traumatic event, exploring Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and moving Babs’ story beyond being a victim. The current creative team of Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher, and Babs Tarr have taken a similar approach. By changing her uniform and moving her out of Gotham City proper and into the Greenwich Village-esque Burnside, Batgirl has become the bright spot amongst the grimdark Bat-books. Colorful, fun, and unabashedly pro-feminist, Babs’ time in the wheelchair is a sore spot, but doesn’t define her. It’s certainly a plot point worth exploring, as the creative team continues to do in the current arc, but The Killing Joke does not a Batgirl make. Babs is presented as a confident, smart, and resourceful young woman trying to be both superhero and college student. Her problems come in the form of anime-inspired motorcyclists and social media, not dwelling on the Joker.

So why then did whoever is in charge of commissioning the variant covers decide that Batgirl as Victim was appropriate? Every book has its own tone and style and Albuquerque’s work couldn’t be more tone deaf in regards to Batgirl as a book. Look at the picture again. Babs is frightened and crying while the Joker draws a bloody smile across her face. It’s grotesque, but also another display of how DC Comics sees one of their most popular female characters. None of the other variants have shown the heroes as victims in such an uncomfortable manner and it’s disheartening that whoever is in charge of approving this cover thought it was okay. What’s more surprising is the cover Albuquerque did for Batgirl: Endgame #1, which feeds into the Endgame storyline in Batman.

It’s a much more appropriate cover and conveys the same information without diminishing Batgirl as a hero. Why this for Endgame but not for the book proper?

It’s just mind-boggling when one looks at other variants for Batgirl that have come out over the course of the New 52 that all have one thing in common: Batgirl is a goddam hero. In fact, here’s a gallery of those covers. Check out for yourself how previous variants have emphasized the fun and heroism of Batgirl.

Batgirl ’66 Variant by Michael and Laura Allred

Scribblenauts Variant

Bombshell Variant by Ant Lucia

Monster Month variant by Kevin Nowlan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robin Requiem variant by Mikel Janin

Batman 75th Anniversary variant by Cliff Chiang

Steampunk Variant by JG Jones

The Flash Variant by Aaron Lopresti

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harley Quinn Variant by Cliff Chiang

Selfie Variant by Dave Johnson

Movie Poster Variant by Cliff Chiang