stingermck

Once again fans get upset about something. I thought it was a very striking cover and planned on picking it up. Starting to get tired of twitter campaigns.



http://www.comicbookresources.com/ar...rtists-request

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/03/...angedthecover/

majorjoe23

I think it's a good cover, but it doesn't seem to fit so well with the current run of the book. I don't think it would have been an issue with the Gail Simone run.

dfmaverick2

Variant covers rarely do fit with the actual comic.

I see it as just art and don't believe it needs to fit with the current concept of the book.

The variant covers for the month is to celebrate the Joker's 75th anniversary across DC's books whether Joker is in the actual comic or not.

I would think that doing a cover in homage of the Killing Joke is the best way to commemorate Joker in correlation to Batgirl.

As a special variant, people would not have to buy it. Disappointed in the decision.

Undeadcow

I really like the cover. It's disappointing that people seem to find it "too dark" or less "optimistic" because it could just as likely affirm that qualities by suggesting how established Batgirl is in DC canon and how much she's rolled with the punches from being a victim to a hero. Thumbs down to the cancellation.

fujishig

I've been collecting it since the direction shift, but I haven't read it yet, have they explained why Barbara seems de-aged now, or is it just that they draw her much much younger? I mean, in continuity Killing Joke absolutely still happened, right?

stingermck

Nope no explanation. She acts and drawn like a teenager, but KJ still happened. Black Canary seems to have been de-aged as well.

When I was a kid reading back issues, Babs was old enough to be in Congress. Then they de-aged her to be closer to Dick's age, and now a further slide.

stingermck

At this point DC should just ret-con Killing Joke out. It's more trouble than its worth, and is irrelevant without Oracle.

fujishig

If they wanted a teenaged Batgirl, well, they had one pre new-52, the only problem being that she was blonde and not a redhead. *sigh* I know they reintroduced Steph anyway, right?

madcougar

#BanStingerMckForBeingAgainstTwitterBans

Bob_Bobbson

They want to have their cake and eat it too.
They want to have a teenaged, able-bodied Babs as Batgirl, but at the same time they try to keep The Killing Joke and her time as Oracle in continuity.

See how you said that TKJ is irrelevant without Oracle? I guarantee someone at DC would say "But she still was Oracle."

It's just annoying and slightly confusing how they want to erase things (Like undoing her paralysis and de-aging her), but keep them at the same time.

brayzie

If it's a variant cover, how would it affect the the lighter tone of the series if readers don't have to buy that particular cover? I remember at one point variants were like 1:50 or something like that, and the comic shop had them behind the counter at a marked up price. These comic readers don't have a problem with supporting a publisher that produces mostly violent comic book stories but a variant cover like this is something that has to be changed??

...

After thinking about it some more, I can imagine why Batgirl fans would be pissed. First off, despite TKJ being a great Batman story, it was the perfect example of "Women in Refrigerators," and the recurring theme of violence against women in Alan Moore's stories.

More so though, Batgirl is a superhero. Why have her look like a scared child in the clutches of the Joker? I don't think they would have do this with a regular issue of Batman, so why do it for Batgirl? I'm not saying they have to go the opposite direction and have her be super tough in some attempt at being PC, but just because their female heroes doesn't mean they have to always be treated like children or damsels in distress.

Solid Snake

The bolded part is right. I haven't read the comic but I understand where it went and how it is. Now if it was just put in there as the it's tradition release cover. I could understand but... it's a variant. Those don't hold control over the presentation of the material in it a lot of the time.

Pretty cool cover though. Really disturbing and for fans who know the history is very important for them as well, if they hold the character or the history dear to them.

stingermck

Zero controversy with this variant cover a few months back. Todd getting his head split open before death is OK I guess.



And Joker just has that affect on Babs because of their history. From batgirl's crossover with Death of the Family. Scared, crying, and angry:

Josh-da-man

DC needs to drop their "continuity" bullshit. If they're going reboot their fucking universe, then do a cold reboot. No more of this we're rebooting our universe, but we're still going to keep all of the old baggage so nothing makes any sense.

At least Marvel just sort of ignores all of their bad decisions, so it's like, yeah, the clone saga still happened, but we're just going move forward and never really reference it again.

Preterite

The cover was pulled at the artist's request, mostly because people who expressed their dislike of the cover were getting death threats. So yeah, the cover was changed because some fans became upset over something, but it's not the segment of fans you seem to think it is.

And the Batman cover is not an apt comparison. Batman is still the protagonist, the hero on that cover, crashing through the window and ready to stop the villain. The Batgirl cover reduces her to a simpering wreck, not a hero but a victim. Sure, the Joker has done terrible things to Babs, but he has also done terrible things to Bruce and I doubt we'd ever see him represented on a cover this way.

There is also a distinct sexual undertone to the cover, which serves as a reminder of the sexual nature of the Joker's violation of Barbara Gordon. Getting the shit kicked out of you is an occupational hazard for superheroes, but being rendered helpless, stripped naked, and posed for nude photographs is not something that the DC's male headliners have to worry about.

The parody below is a much better point of comparison:

stingermck

I showed the cover to my GF (who is new to comics) and she said "Whats the big deal? Its the Joker, he does bad things. Or did they change that too?"

majorjoe23

The creative team, Cameron Stewart and the artist whose name I'm forgetting were also in talks with DC about getting it pulled because they didn't think it fit the tone of their book.

kgrogers1979

This is not true. Kaine has been back recently and even got his own comic as the new Scarlet Spider. Jackal was also back in that Spider-Island storyarc.

Marvel does like to rub controversial stuff in the fans' faces. One More Day was bad enough, but then they followed it up with One Moment in Time, which was even worse. OMIT explained why Peter and MJ never got married. They never got married because a fat guy fell on top of Peter and knocked him out and made him miss his wedding. Seriously. Spider-Man regularly trades punches with supervillains like Doc Ock and Green Goblin, but yet a fat guy fell on top of Spider-Man and knocks him out.

Now Marvel is rubbing the marriage in the fans' faces again with the upcoming "Renew Your Vows" thing in Secret Wars.

stingermck

Oh yeah. Marvel loves trolling their fans. Especially Spidey fans. Not sure why they are still so loved.

kgrogers1979

I love Marvel primarily because the cinematic universe they are building is awesome. I am really more into the movies and TV shows that Marvel and DC produce nowadays than the actual comic books. I used to buy 25-30 monthly comics in my prime during the 80s/90s, but now I'm down to about 5 that I still buy regularly. I just hope the Marvel Cinematic Universe never becomes the steaming pile of dog poop that the modern comic industry has become.

Hokeyboy

I despise continuity as a rule. Are they telling good stories with a de-aged, able-bodied Barbara Gordon? Good for them! I agree that ignoring TKJ is probably the best course of action, but Babs could still have been Oracle for a host of other reasons.

rocket1312

Yeah, at a certain point continuity just gets to be too much. I like continuity when a series (or multiple series) kind of exist in their own little world and have a definitive endpoint, but many of the Marvel and DC characters have been going strong for 50+ years now. There's just no way to make sense of it. I tend to just pick and choose the things in any given character's history that I like to remember and don't worry about how everything fits together.

For example, Grant Morrison's X-Men run (which I loved) ended with Magneto having infiltrated the X-Men in disguise. After taking over the school and laying waste to New York, he kills Jean Grey and is promptly decapitated by Wolverine. Naturally, 6 months later he's alive and well and some crazy ret-con is laid out there to explain that it wasn't really Magneto, blah, blah, blah, but as far as I'm concerned it was Magneto and that's how the story will still read if I revisit it. However, at the same time it's cool that Magneto is back so that someone else can use him in a great story. I don't really care if it makes sense or not.

As for the Batgirl cover, it is a pretty disturbing image and while I can't ever imagine getting too worked up about something like that and going to war on twitter, I at least get why someone might be upset. Of course this whole social media culture is pretty repulsive. I wish there was some way for people to be held accountable for the crap that they say.

stingermck

I agree with this:

And that's my biggest problem. It's the twitter rage thats getting to me. The 'I'm so offended!' crowd. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

rocket1312

But it wasn't the "I'm so offended!" crowd that was the issue, was it? Wasn't it the threats directed towards the people upset with the cover that ultimately tipped the scales in DC deciding to cancel? Maybe they would have cancelled the cover either way. I don't know, but I don't think any one group has been particularly empowered by the situation.

As to Zircher's statements about the Killing Joke not being publishable now and whether or not that is actually progress is kind of a tricky thing. In a vacuum I don't have a problem with any writer telling the story they want to write. We live in a violent word and inevitably we are going to tell stories that reflect that violence. Unfortunately, the Killing Joke doesn't exist in such a vacuum. The mainstream comic culture is overwhelmingly male dominated and has been accused more than once of being somewhat misogynistic. The Joker is also one of the most popular characters ever and there's a segment of the audience who think Joker is pretty 'awesome' no matter what horrifying things he has done. While I wasn't reading comics when the Killing Joke first came out and am not familiar with the reaction at the time, I know that today there's a viewpoint that sees Joker doing awful things to Batgirl as being a part of his cool factor. While the writers and artists can't really be blamed for how people react to the stories they tell, I can see why DC, or any other publisher, would want to tread carefully with certain subjects.

stingermck

Lets be honest. People will forget about all this next week. DC will save the cover for a more appropriate story and make $$$

Cameron Stewart has his twitter blocked now. It was fun reading yesterday with him going back and forth with fans.