Was the crippling of Batgirl ever meant to be permanent?

[Heroine Addict]

Grant Morrison neatly sums up exactly what I thought happened in the final moments of Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke. This may contain spoilers for those who haven't read the book.

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So, The Killing Joke takes place in an alternate universe where Barabara Gordon is crippled and Batman kills the Joker. in which case, why did DC Comics need to give us 23 years of Barbara in a wheelchair?

DC was in a strange position in 1988. Production on Tim Burton's Batman movie was creating a buzz around the character, but sales of the monthly comic books were still low. Meanwhile, trade paperbacks of The Killing Joke and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns were flying off the shelves. (And these books have remained in print continuously for over a quarter of a century.)

I guess DC could have felt under pressure to "canonize" TKJ and TDKR, seeing as these were undoubtedly the most popular versions of the comic strip Batman in the late 80s. So the "Jason was a good soldier" stuff from TDKR was fulfilled with Jason Todd's "death" and the crippling of Barbara Gordon from TKJ led to the creation of the wheelchair-bound Oracle.

Let's face it, if explicit deaths can be undone later, DC didn't even need to address the ambiguous death of the Joker. Also, for the brief period when the mainstream comics hinted at TDKR being the ultimate conclusion, the Joker's death in that book would have been the "true" one.

There may also have been an aspect of "clearing the decks" of the Batman Family, so the sidekick-free Batman in the comics would reflect the solo hero in the Tim Burton movie.

What are your thoughts on this? If Alan Moore really did intend TKJ to be final (non-canon) showdown between Batman and the Joker, did we need to miss out on so much Batgirl over the years?

[unmasked05]

Thanks for sharing that. I never caught on to that, but now it just makes the story that much better.

[Camvoy Productions]

Alan Moore was bursting with ideas during that time. This one didn't make the cut, but it got leaked out online eventually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_o ... uperheroes

[Heroine Addict]

Moore was certainly ahead of his time. In these days when we all take reboots, alternate universes, What Ifs and Elseworlds in our stride, the idea of Twilight of the Superheroes seems pretty do-able. Back in the 80s, however, DC wouldn't even allow Moore to use Charlton Comics characters in The Watchmen.

It's a shame DC had to incorporate Barbara's crippling and Jason's death into the ongoing series. It would have been better to just treat The Killing Joke and The Dark Knight Returns as possible outcomes of Batman and the Joker's war. I guess they were scared of confusing newbies who discovered Batman through those titles.

[cdrei]

Given the way things were going at DC and Marvel at the time, I think Batgirl's days were numbered anyway. No one could have stopped the "Darker 'n' Edgier" train. A look at Batgirl's later stories before TKJ seems to show pretty clearly that DC was not really trying to take the character anywhere. Denny O'Neil apparently didn't like the extended Batman family in any of its incarnations. He was proud of having killed off Batwoman. The killing of Barry Allen's Flash and of Supergirl in Crisis on Infinite Earths had indicated DC's transition away from its own Silver Age history. They were cleaning house during this period, and all the bits of SA continuity that might be hard to regard with that tedious seriousness of the adolescent comics fan had to go. Batgirl's link to the 1966 TV show and her status as one of the last big-name, iconic characters to originate before the Silver Age transitioned into the Bronze Age (in part with Denny's help in his role as the sort-of Frank Miller of those days) marked her as a part of DC's history with exactly the wrong kind of baggage for the dawning D&E era. Her days were numbered.

Consider Batgirl's encounters with Cormorant, in her later stories. Previously Batgirl's primary foe had been Killer Moth. Cormorant might be Killer Moth crossed with Rambo, or the Punisher. He existed to make Batgirl look out of place and incapable in the then-modern world of superheroes. She was being pushed out. Aside from the Cormorant story in the Batgirl one-shot, her final backup story in Detective Comics had her turn into a snake (?!?). The ridiculousness of that story was subsequently commented upon in one of the stray Batgirl appearances during those long, dark years when her character was absent from the continuity. (Maybe it was her Secret Origins appearance? ) Her solo stories had fizzled out and it was stated in interviews (Denny again) that she was a "weak character" about whom compelling stories could not be told. Batgirl was in trouble.

Whether Alan Moore was out to get Batgirl or not seems to be a bit of a puzzle. I've read conflicting accounts of the development of TKJ, over the years, and Moore has since regretted what he did to Barbara's character. I tend to think that Denny wanted Batgirl out of the picture anyway and he had risen to a position where he could help bring about that outcome. TKJ was the perfect vehicle for such a move. There may or may not be any truth to that interpretation. Once it was done and Barbara Gordon came back as Oracle, she was quite a popular character. There was no backtracking, at that point. No backsies, at least until the total refurbishment of the DC Universe in The New 52 permitted it. And/or Denny no longer had the same level of influence over the Bat-continuity. (Honestly, I don't hate Denny O'Neil, even if it sounds like I do....)

I'm not sure how to take the TKJ interpretation presented in the video. It's kind of "out there". Moore does like to write on several levels, but did he intend that one? Moore seems to have an almost dismissive tone in some interviews when he comments on TKJ. He has suggested that it was a comparatively superficial effort, which borrowed its tone and visual stylings from Watchmen without having the depth of that project. I think a more obvious reading of TKJ is that Batgirl was the butt of the Joke, and what was done to Batgirl was a comment on the damsel-in-distress role that Batgirl played in the '66 series. Rather than tie up the heroine and let her struggle while the camera or the panel-view lingers on her dilemma, the story gets to the core of what the supposed death traps were all about. It may also play to that old trope about "Why doesn't Joker just shoot Batman?". Batgirl was sacrificed, in part, to make a statement about the handling of themes of violence in entertainment, as well as about the treatment of female characters as objects to be rescued or ogled. Perhaps the same sort of interpretation could be imposed on Justice League: The Nail, by Alan Davis, which similarly treats Batgirl (and Robin) to a horrific fate at the hands of Joker.

I don't know what attitudes or philosophies Davis may hold, but Moore in the 80's had very "right on" progressive beliefs about gender roles, and I think this interpretation fits in well with what we know about his stated beliefs. (If you really want to boggle at some of his ideas, look into the proposal he submitted to DC for a follow-up project to Watchmen, particularly the stuff about Billy Batson. ) Using something horrible like that to make a comparatively progressive statement might also fit well with the sort of edgy, post-punk attitude which was big at the time and which Moore seems to have held. Do something shocking to make a point. Moore seems to have been unhappy that people liked the tonal shock tactics more than the more serious underlying points he was trying to make. Rorschach was supposed to illustrate how dysfunctional and unappealing a hard-assed vigilante character would be, yet readers didn't get that and Rorschach was a well-liked and popular character, to Moore's apparent dismay.

But there's a lot going on there in TKJ, and part of what makes it compelling is that different readers, with different perspectives, can all come up with slightly different interpretations.

I should issue my standard TL:DR apology, here. Sorry for the long, babbling post. I always seem to do that, on this forum.

[madamemystery]

I do remember a UK radio broadcast where Alan Moore talked about his regret about what he did to Batgirl, as he really did think that The Killing Joke was going to be out of continuity. I was under the impression that Alan Moore only finished the Killing Joke out of respect for Brian Bolland, as by that point Moore was at complete loggerheads with DC, leading to the hate/hate relationship he still has with them now, and thus explaining his apparent negativity towards TKJ over the years. I'm surprised Grant Morrison didn't make more of the Batgirl issue in the video posted at the top. He's been critical of Alan Moore in the past (the two seem to have some kind of rivalry going on) and whilst he's noted outright that Moore "isn't a misogynist" he has said quite a bit about Moore's treatment of female characters: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... s-20110822

DC seemed to really hate it's own past in the late 1980s, one of he reasons I eventually gave up on them. The fun had gone from their books, but whereas Marvel got the gritty character balance right, DC just made their heroes bland. I'm one of the few pleased that DC now has it's multiverse back!

[Heroine Addict]

Yes, it seems likely that Batgirl's fate in 1988 was due to Denny O'Neil wanting rid of the character. Even if The Killing Joke had been presented as a separate continuity, O'Neil could easily have found another way to ditch Batgirl. Maybe we should be grateful that Barbara Gordon remained active as Oracle in the ongoing series?

[cdrei]

There are, or were, plenty who were glad to see Barbara as Oracle. Many people seem (or perhaps that's "seemed" now, and things have changed...?) to think Barbara as Batgirl was an awful character, but Barbara as Oracle developed a worthwhile complexity. Myself, I like anything Barbara Gordon at least a little bit, but... I also hate almost anything in mainstream comics since about 1986 or so. I've been buying the new Batgirl series when it comes out as trade paperback, but I have a hard time reading modern comics. The writers and artists seem to be telling different stories, the art is distracting and confusing, and I can't follow the storytelling on a panel-by-panel basis. The pages seem as garbled and wandering as my forum posts. It's like Scott McCloud never happened. Also, all of the characters seem like mean jerks to me.

So I would say "yes and no" to the question of whether we should simply be satisfied that we got Barbara as Oracle. The character of Batgirl, in some sense, ended up being outside of the worst excesses of the Darker-n-Edgier era, so there's that, at least. And Barbara Gordon developed a certain cachet (if "cachet" is the word I want), during that period, while the memory of Batgirl gradually became better-regarded as time went by.

I sort of like Batgirl in her "weak character" form. Uncomplicated, without any tragic origin story or deeply compelling motive. Maybe she's doing it for kicks, or to prove that she can, or to be able to play detective and follow in her father's footsteps without joining the police force. I like all the ambiguities and open spaces in Batgirl's background, which fans, readers, or viewers can fill in with their own ideas. I like Batgirl's sort of Everyman quality as a character who suggests that anyone could jump into the superhero game, without any significant qualifications. I could babble on and on about such things. I've done it before on this forum.

I'm sure Denny could have found some other way to drop Batgirl. She was already more or less retired when TKJ happened. He could have kept her in the background and let her be forgotten. The way he did it with TKJ though (if indeed he engineered Batgirl's demise via that project) was Lex Luthor brilliant. No one was going to undermine TKJ. I was sure at one point that Moore had a special contract when writing TKJ, stating that no one could undo what he did in the story, but I suspect I imagined that. By allowing Killing Joke and Alan Moore to be the vehicles for Batgirl's destruction, the reset button for the character was disabled. Even more so, once Oracle gave DC a high-profile handicapped character. If Denny engineered the conditions that led to Batgirl's death in TKJ, then he really found the best possible way to wipe out her character, from his own (presumed) perspective as one who wanted the character dead.

At one point I sort of saw TKJ as the endpoint of a progression of confrontations Batgirl had with foes and their guns. The puzzling ending of a (really quite dreadful) Batgirl story I made way back in 1996 tries to piece things together, as the attached scans show. (It's like Scott McCloud never happened.... )

[tallyho]

The writers and artists seem to be telling different stories, the art is distracting and confusing, and I can't follow the storytelling on a panel-by-panel basis. The pages seem as garbled and wandering as my forum posts. It's like Scott McCloud never happened. Also, all of the characters seem like mean jerks to me

Ahhh, cdrei my friend , you're getting old...

Just wanna say to all who have posted this is a brilliant thread.
Fascinating discussions, loving it. (and shame on me, my only contribution is a weak joke.)

[cdrei]

Hopefully it's not the joke that kills the thread. A Killing Joke, of sorts. Umm.

(I think Alan Moore derived his work's title from the band name, and the band got it from Monty Python, so I'm kind of misapplying the concept and adding a second weak joke to the first. Oh, man. I'm going to be the thread killer again, aren't I? )

At any rate, it's an interesting topic.