Why It’s Time to Stop Celebrating The Killing Joke

I’m sick of arguing with men about The Killing Joke. These are nice men, men who treat women with kindness and respect. And they can’t understand why I have any objection to Alan Moore’s 1988 Batman graphic novel in which Batman’s arch-nemesis, the Joker, breaks into the home of police Commissioner Gordon, shooting Gordon’s daughter Barbara, a.k.a. Batgirl, through the spine, and crippling her. He then sexually assaults Barbara and takes pictures of her nude body bleeding out on the floor.

The Joker’s attack on Barbara is a catalyst for the main action of The Killing Joke, which revolves around Batman rescuing Commissioner Gordon from the Joker, who has kidnapped Gordon is attempting to drive him mad. Batman, the Joker, and Gordon are the story’s focus, not Barbara, and The Killing Joke is beloved by many for giving the Joker his first origin story.

Barbara is not attacked while fighting crime as Batgirl, her paralysis isn’t the result of a heroic sacrifice made in the line of battle. Instead, she is attacked as part of the Joker’s plan to drive her father mad, brutalized so that two men, Commissioner Gordon and Batman, can grow as characters.

I’ll admit that I’m predisposed to be upset about The Killing Joke. Barbara Gordon was my window into the male-dominated landscape of Batman comics and remains one of my favorite characters in pop culture to this day.

As a child watching reruns of cartoons like Batman the Animated Series and The Batman, I both identified with and idolized Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl—- a whip-smart nerd who shelved library books by day and fought crime by night. Despite her admittedly problematic codename which implies that she is a mere female derivative of Batman, this Batgirl was not seeking approval or permission from the Dark Knight; she was a heroine in her own right.

When I became interested in superheroes again as a teen, I read any comics featuring Barbara that I could get my hands on. This was when I first learned of The Killing Joke. I was horrified to find out that the character who meant so much to me had been so casually brutalized and discarded.

As a young woman, I had begun to realize that many of the storytelling forms I loved, from fantasy and science-fiction novels to comics, simply did not love me back. They are dominated by male characters and male storytellers; women are as a rule marginalized if not absent altogether.

My intense reaction to Barbara Gordon’s treatment in The Killing Joke is similar to author Catherynne M. Valente’s description of her response to Gwen Stacy’s death in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a plot-pointed adapted from another much-lauded 1973 comic storyline written by men.

Valente “walked out of the theater in actual, real life tears…big sobs like a big baby”. The sources of Valente’s tears was anger, anger that she had been fooled “into believing, just once, that the person I’m meant to identify with in superhero stories could be more than a sassy prop.”

The sad truth in comics and many other forms of storytelling is that women are merely props. Props that are relegated to the one-dimensional roles of girlfriends, wives, and mothers at best, and brutally assaulted for shock value at worst. Characters like Barbara Gordon may defy the odds by becoming independent heroines, but they are inevitably subjected to violence or trauma in order to advance the narrative requirements of their male counterparts.

There is a term for this phenomenon. In 1999, comic book writer Gail Simone coined the term “women in refrigerators” to describe “superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator”. The phrase references a 1994 issue of Green Lantern, in which the titular hero arrives home to find that a supervillain has murdered his girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, and stuffed her corpse inside a refrigerator.

Valente describes comics as modern fairytales—- “repositories of archetypes, of symbols, of lessons fraught with cultural expectations, taught to children without thinking, instrumental in shaping our views of the world while being dismissed as ridiculous kid stuff by the mainstream.” Comic books simultaneously reflect and influence our cultural mores^[e], and the prevalence of the women in refrigerators trope is indicative of just how little we value women.

The idea that Batman would be crippled and raped in his own home is unthinkable. But DC comics had no trouble envisioning such a fate for Batgirl. It is reported that, when Moore asked then-DC Editor Len Wein if he approved of Barbara’s treatment, Wein responded “Yeah, OK, cripple the bitch.” (There is some debate over whether or not Wein actually said this. He passed away recently, and Moore now refuses to speak publicly about The Killing Joke, so it can’t be verified. However, even if Wein didn’t speak those exact words, The Killing Joke’s content is plenty demonstrative of the low regard he and the rest of DC editorial held Barbara’s character in..)

Moore himself has disowned The Killing Joke, describing the graphic novel as “a regrettable misstep on my part”. And yet, The Killing Joke remains one of the most popular and successful comic book storylines of all time. DC comics seems to come out with a new hardcover edition of the graphic novel every year, and fans and critics alike frequently refer to it as one of the greatest stories ever told about Batman and the Joker^[h].

DC released an animated adaptation of The Killing Joke in 2016 which promised to “basically tell a Batgirl story” and attempt to address its source material’s problematic treatment of Barbara Gordon. Instead, the movie depicted Barbara as a childish Batman-fangirl who dons the Batgirl costume solely to attract Batman’s attention and ends up sleeping with the Dark Knight. 28 years after The Killing Joke’s release, the men writing for DC comics appeared to have learned nothing.

The Killing Joke’s rampant misogyny and its own author’s insistence that “it was far too violent and sexualized” is reason enough to stop celebrating the graphic novel. However, there’s another problem with praising The Killing Joke as the best story ever told about Batman and the Joker: the story doesn’t alter either of their characters in any significant way. Batman is still grim and determined, the Joker is still gleeful and sadistic. But Barbara Gordon has never been the same. To this day, it is rare that a comic featuring Barbara does not reference The Killing Joke.

Despite DC’s apparent intention to discard her character altogether after The Killing Joke, Barbara Gordon eventually returned to comics as Oracle, a wheelchair-bound hacker who served as an information broker for other superheroes. As Oracle, Barbara became one of the most important characters in the DC comics universe; leading her own team of superheroines, the Birds of Prey, and regularly appearing as the “woman in the chair” who assisted Batman and the Justice League. Oracle was a mainstay of DC comics for almost three decades and was beloved by disabled comic book readers who had never seen themselves in the role of superhero.

Then, in 2011, DC comics rebooted their entire comics universe as part of the New52, a rebranding which hoped to bring in new audiences. (Reboots are a fairly common occurrence in superhero comics, particularly at DC, which usually revamps itself every few years.) In the New52, Barbara returned to the mantle of Batgirl, her paralysis cured by an experimental surgery. The decision to turn one of the most popular disabled characters in comics able-bodied again is problematic on its face, but it would be one thing if DC chose to erase the events of The Killing Joke from their continuity. If that had been the case, then it would appear that DC wished to answer fans’ critiques of Barbara’s sexist treatment. Instead, they have attempted to have it both ways by making Barbara Batgirl again while keeping The Killing Joke—including her paralysis and assault—as canon.

Although there is still an ongoing Batgirl title at DC comics, Barbara’s relevance to broader pop culture appears to have faded. Joss Whedon was at one time attached to direct a live-action Batgirl movie, but he quit and little has been said about the project since. (Whedon claimed he “didn’t have an idea”, an excuse I find puzzling given Batgirl’s 50-plus years of comic book history). Oracle is nowhere to be found in DC’s upcoming live-action Birds of Prey movie; she has been pushed out of the role of team leader to make room for Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn.

The #MeToo movement has prompted a cultural reckoning over the disturbing degree to which violence against women is normalized and accepted in entertainment. I believe The Killing Joke should be included in this conversation. We need to reevaluate this supposedly seminal graphic novel through the lens of its horrifically sexist treatment of women.

Instead of praising the The Killing Joke, I want comics that celebrate Barbara Gordon’s brilliance and strength to be uplifted, stories like Batgirl Year One by Scotty Beatty and Chuck Dixon and Birds of Prey by Gail Simone. Instead of arguing with men over The Killing Joke, I want them to nod in understanding when I say I hate the graphic novel.

The number of female creators in comics has increased significantly in the decades since Simone first coined the phrase women in refrigerators, and the treatment of female characters has improved as a result. A new generation of fans has been introduced to Gwen Stacy as the heroic Spider-Gwen rather than Spider-Man’s girlfriend who dies. Captain Marvel, who was sexually assaulted and impregnated in a 1980s comic storyline, is now perhaps the most visible supheroine in Marvel comics, thanks in large part to the work of writer Kelly Sue DeConnick. Harley Quinn has transformed from the Joker’s abused sidekick into an antiheroine with her own comic series, animated TV show, and starring role in the Birds of Prey movie.

And yet, for all the progress that has been made, superhero comics remain a male-dominated space. The woman in the refrigerator trope is less prevalent than it was in the 1980s and 1990s, but it’s still alive and well. To name a few examples, DC has created an entire Injustice universe of comics and games premised on Superman’s reaction to Lois Lane’s death, Marvel gave Black Widow a backstory involving forced sterilization in 2015’s Avengers Age of Ultron movie, and JJ Abrams’ new Spider-Man comic has killed off Mary Jane in its first issue. Barbara Gordon is just one name on a depressingly long list of female characters who remain sidelined and defined by unnecessary trauma in the modern age of comics.

However, I do believe there’s reason to hope for the future. The Killing Joke could easily have been the end of Barbara Gordon; instead her character has endured and maintains a cult following, particularly amongst female comic book fans. Her story, in both fictional narratives and the real world of publishing, is one of determination and resilience despite being underestimated and undervalued. Recently, Gail Simone, the original articulator of the woman in the refrigerator and one of the writers who helped bring Barbara back to prominence after The Killing Joke, tweeted “I think it is inevitable that Oracle will return.” Much like Barbara, female comic book readers and creators are not going anywhere, and we’re going to keep pressuring publishers like DC to represent their female characters more often and more carefully.

To put it simply, I want to live in a world that values women like Barbara Gordon more than it values men like the Joker. Though if the persistence of the women in the refrigerator trope and enduring popularity of The Killing Joke is any indication, that world is a long time coming.