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| If this cover is so offensive then why does every article I see bashing it put it in their story? |
This week, DC Comics announced that it was cancelling one of the variant covers for the forthcoming Joker Month. Sometime in June, a variety of titles were going to feature a special variant cover that reflected that featured the title's star and their turbulent history with the Joker. The covers were in honor of the Clown Prince of Crime's 75th Anniversary in comics.
But one title has caused the comics community to lose it's freakin' mind- the cover to Batgirl #41. The cover, which I've included in this post speaks for itself. Doesn't it? The cover shows the Joker with his arm around Batgirl, a bloody smiley face painted on her lips. The villain is holding a gun that's cocked and he's wearing a purple fedora and a Hawaiian shirt.
The cover, crafted by artist Rafael Albuquerque, is meant to be an homage to Alan Moore and Brain Bolland's 'The Killing Joke.' In that seminal work, the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon, paralyzing her. But that's not all the Batman villain does. He also strips her naked, takes photos of her in duress and then forces her father to relive the entire event in chains.
'The Killing Joke' changed the Batman family forever. Barbara was no longer Batgirl. Instead, the wheelchair bound redhead became Oracle- who assisted Batman by using her hi-tech array of computers to tap into CCTV feeds and do research on villains and clue leads. Barbara overcame her trauma and was a valuable asset to the Dark Knight and even ran her own squad of heroes for a while. Then 3 years ago, DC retconned her attack by the Joker by having her still be shot but eventually regaining the use of her legs and being a superhero once again.
Let's jump back to this week. On Monday, the story broke that DC would be cancelling the cover because the artist had received death threats over the image. Comics fans pointed out the hypocrisy of objecting to a cover that depicts violence by threatening to kill the artist who rendered the infuriating picture. DC and Alberquerque 'clarified' that they were not threatened but that fans who had objected to the image were being bullied. I'm not really sure why DC is changing their tune here but it seems to me that the backlash from fans in favor of keeping the cover lead DC to try to look less like a wimpy victim and more like a superhero standing up for the downtrodden.
So, who is to be believed and who is in the right and who is in the wrong? Let's look at some of the pros and cons of this controversy.
Pros- There aren't any.
Cons- Where do I start?
Con #1- Batgirl is considered a title geared more towards teen girls. So choosing to release a cover in which the heroine is being victimized probably wasn't the smartest idea. DC could have easily chosen to put the cover on another Bat-title.
Con #2- the fan base of modern comics is given too much power. It used to be if you hated a comic you don't buy it. If you loved it, you yell "Shut up and take my money." If enough people buy your comic it becomes popular. If nobody buys it, it becomes fodder for the dollar box and
I yell "SCORE!" when I snag it years later on down the road. But our society is too brainwashed thanks to shows like American Idol in which your vote helps to determine the fate of the free world. Thus, if you really hate something you just have to gripe and complain and put a hashtag in front of a snappy phrase and viola corporate America will do you bidding.
The only difference between the old way of comic fandom power and the new is that thanks to information being at your finger tips the threat of withholding money is more powerful than actually not buying something.
Con #3- Thanks to a ton of complaints, the publisher wins. See the Batgirl title isn't due in stores for 4 more months so the issues probably haven't even been printed yet. Because of the extra time comics have to win over readers thanks to information about upcoming releases are given out so far in advance, DC probably won't lose any money on not issuing a variant cover to Batgirl #41. In fact, DC won't suffer at all thanks to the haters saving them money. Without DC losing money on hedging their bets on something offensive, it won't challenge the publishers, writers, and artists to try harder. Plus, it's free advertising.
Con #4- The publishers are going to keep caving in. Marvel did it a few months ago when they decided to pull a highly sexualized Spider-Woman cover. Now DC caved in and won't release a Batgirl in peril cover. That's twice that the 'masses' got their way and it's now not going to stop them anytime soon. In fact, DC and Marvel all you've done is encouraged them to do it again when something else pisses them off.
and finally Con #5- the rift between old school collectors and newcomers to the industry has only gotten bigger. DC claims that the old timers threatened the newbies who were ashamed of the cover. So, in order to protect these fans, the cover was pulled.
I'm in the old school camp. I've been collecting since 1980. I'm into my fourth decade of collecting comic books. When I saw the cover a few weeks ago, I knew there would be some hell over it. I just didn't expect it to be this bad.
The average newcomer to comic books knows only from what they've seen on TV and movies. I'm not just spouting this from off the top of my head. I've seen dozens of reports on CNN, Bloomberg, Fox, CBS, ABC, and other media sites that back this statement up.
The reader of comic books is considered a dinosaur to the survival of the superhero. It's the merchandising, movies, and video games that will rake in the money for DC and Marvel. So when somebody sees an image and it told by social media that it's evil, well the masses are going to grab their torches and pitchforks. (sorry to offend those angry villagers out there.) But when the publishers consistently take the side of the newbie instead of the established fan it's going to anger some folks and even push them away.
Plus what's to keep the media masses from demanding that the 'Killing Joke' be permanently banned or from some poor guy who dresses as the Joker from the KJ from getting pulverized by a bunch of anti-Albuquerque cover advocates at the next ComicCon? I'm in the consensus that these sort of things are going to get worse instead of better any time soon.
I've not given up hope on comics, but I will have to say that this most recent episode has really given me fits. It's also made me think something that I never thought I would in a million years- I want the Comics Code back. It's clear to me that the lunatics are running the asylum and social media in my opinion makes for a lousy warden. We're in the next comic book scare folks. Only this time, the industry is going to have to self-regulate in order to make everyone happy instead of protecting our youth from the evils of comics.
Sadly, the problem isn't so much that comics aren't diverse enough. It very well might be too diverse and now you can't publish anything that doesn't offend somebody some of the time. There's no way around this. But instead of trying to make a comic more diversity friendly let's just exercise some common sense here. If Batgirl really is aimed at teen girls (and believe me when I say I didn't know that it was) then don't put a sex offender on the cover doing some offendering to the hero. It's that simple.
And now, it's time for some Advil. This whole mess is giving me a migraine...
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