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DC Women Kicking Ass

Thoughts, pictures, reviews and other stuff about the women in comics who kick ass. This is a feminist site. Deal with it.
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Oct 8 '12

A Look at the History of Barbara Gordon and the Joker

DC’s newest Batbook crossover, Death of the Family, kicks off this week and the event has one premise - the Joker and his face, not necessarily together, come back to screw with all the Batfamily. 

The Joker is Batman’s most famous and long running villain and through the years he caused quite a bit of pain for Batman and his family. Given the reboot we don’t quite know all of what he’s done but there is one of clear piece of Joker mayhem that is definitely still in continuity …

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… the shooting of Barbara Gordon by the Joker in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. The panels above are the original. Here’s the replication (one of many, many, many that have appeared in DC Comics since then) from the current New 52 run of Batgirl.

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That moment has tied the two characters together for two and half decades.

Prior to The Killing Joke the interaction between the Joker and Batgirl was fairly minimal despite their prophetical appearance in the infamous Super Dictionary from 1978:

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Enemies indeed! Since the publication of the Killing Joke (TKJ) in 1988, DC has made confrontations between Barbara Gordon and the Joker fodder for many comics. In Death of the Family the two have their first post TKJ meeting in the new 52, and according to Gail Simone it will be “memorable.”

In USA Today today, Simone said "Her payback is long, long overdue …It was immensely cathartic. It’s a brutal story: The Joker is the guy who haunts your nightmares, and he nearly destroyed Barbara once already.“

Here’s a look back at some of the previous interactions of the Joker and Barbara Gordon.

Following the shooting of Barbara Gordon in TKJ, the future of the character was in limbo. She found a home in the Suicide Squad where writers, John Ostrander and Kim Yale, created a new persona for Barbara, a hacker name Oracle. And in issue #48 they teased a meeting between Barbara and the Joker:

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But this was a tease as there wasn’t a meeting. It was flashback to the shooting narrated by Barbara as she visited a therapist.

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In  1990's Suicide Squad #49, Barbara trains herself with a gun to protect herself against a stalker. He shows up and attacks Barbara. Amanda Waller steps in and Barbara again flashes to the Joker.

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That’s Amanda rushing in from the right. The guy never stood a chance.

DC would repeatedly have Barbara flashback to Joker. Here in the little known 1993 mini-series The Hacker Files, Barbara has a nightmare about the Joker:

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In 1997 in conjunction with the Batman movie whose name will not be spoken, DC published a one-shot that had Barbara Gordon as Batgirl confronting, who else, the Joker!

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A bondage deathtrap!

When Barbara Gordon was given her own title, Birds of Prey, the Joker showed up in issues # 15-17. And in issue #16, he and Barbara meet over a close circuit television line. The Joker has plans to bomb New York. Oracle has plans to stop him (helped by Power Girl and Black Canary). One thing to note here is that the Joker at this point had done more than just take away Barbara Gordon’s mobility. He had also just murdered her step-mother, Sarah Essen, in No Man’s Land.

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Note the question the Joker asks about whether he was the one who put her in the chair. It’s an interesting dynamic; Barbara has all this anger at a man who barely recognizes her. That dynamic will be further explored 8 years later in Birds of Prey. I’ll discuss that futher down.

The idea of a multi-title cross-over starring the Joker is not a new idea for DC. In 2001, DC had "Joker’s Last Laugh” which had the Joker, believing he is about to die, shows up practically everywhere in the DCU. In one of the many, many comics devoted to Joker, there is a stor that touches upon the obsession that Barbara has with the Joker post TKJ:

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I’m not a Dick/Babs shipper but they are pretty cute here.

In 2002 DC capitalized on the connection between Barabara and the Joker with a standalone issue set both pre and post TKJ.

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The story actually had two Batgirls meeting the Joker. In the past Barbara confronted in him as Batgirl while Cassandra Cain, after hearing Barbara’s story, sets up to confront him the present.

In her part of the issue, Barbara realizes a weakness of the Joker:

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Through the years you had Barbara seeing the Joker on camera and having new/old Joker adventures but never a face to face confrontation. Finally in 2008, twenty years after The Killing Joke, DC put the two in the same room for the first time in Birds of Prey.

Gail Simone had left the book by then and writer Tony Bedard had the honors. DC was hyped the confrontation to the max. The story began with issue 121 with, what else?,  a call-back to The Killing Joke:

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The Joker wouldn’t show up at Oracle’s door for another issue:

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And finally in Birds of Prey #123, the two go FACE to FACE !

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But in order to get another issue out of the story, the Joker takes off and comes back in issue #124.

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Here in this issue is finally the confrontation between the two characters that many readers had waited for. Oracle is now longer afraid of him; he acknowledges that he knows who she is and what he did to her.

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The confrontation ends in a fierce physical battle. The two beat the shit out of each other with the Joker even throwing Barbara and her wheelchair down a flight of stairs. But Barbara wins because she takes something from the Joker:

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And that’s it for the DCU.

In the new 52 it appears these past interactions have been eradicated. I hope we still see some of the obsessiveness Babs had with him that we saw pre 52. I also hope that Simone explores the theme of whether the Joker knew about Barbara’s life as Batgirl when he shot her. Historically he only knew that she was the commissioner's daughter. Will Simone change that?

Whatever the Joker knew about her, it seems like there’s another angle in the relationship that Simone is exploring given the solicited covers for 14 and 15

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Hmm, this time he seems to be a gangster who speaks of the pompitous of love.

What would you like to see out of confrontation between Barbara and the Joker? Are you looking forward to it or are you tired of the Killing Joke as fodder?

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