Women in Comics: DC, Batgirl Controversy, and Nothing Nice To Say
DC was my first comic book love, starting with Catwoman Year One on a grocery store spinning rack when I was about 9 years old. The women of the “Bat Family” have continued to enthrall me over the years, but around 2012, I stopped and dropped many of my formerly favorite titles due to changes in tone, direction and creative teams. Feminist dynamo was fired, then re-hired, then voluntarily left the Batgirl title, and things haven’t been the same since. I made no secret of the fact that I’m no fan of Dan DiDio’s practices as head of creative at DC or of the New 52.
Batgirl Flying shirt from out Batman Hoodie and T-Shirt collection.
I wanted to have something nice to say about DC and feminism—I met Babs Tarr, the current artist on Batgirl, and San Francisco resident, and she seemed really cool. But I don’t like the book any more than I did before and I don’t buy it, or any other DC titles anymore. They’re boring retreads of continuity with constant re-branding instead of hiring actually diverse creative teams. And anytime I’ve seen Batgirl in the news, it’s because of some new, unfortunate decision.
I read the Killing Joke a few years ago, and it’s a great book, but 2 things it is not: It was never meant to be in main Batman continuity, and it was never about Barbara Gordon. This is why making it the focus of the “Batgirl #41: Joker Variant Cover” was a bad idea to begin with. The cover showed a terrified Batgirl with blood-like makeup smeared over her face as the Joker threatened her in a sexual manner with phallic handgun. The sexual assault overtones are enough to make this inappropriate for a cover in a Teen or Family aimed female-led comic, but the fact that it isn’t about Barbera or the batsuit at all made it way over the top, making her an object, de-powered. Girls and women are not props to be used to evoke feelings in men, and especially should not be depicted that way in their own books.
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