@AlexanderKnox Hey, phrasing!
I get Babs having a kind of schoolgirl crush on him (even Cass had one in the comics, briefly), but I think where the line gets crossed is Bruce acting on it, rather than rebuking any advances.
I guess I like my heroes to be stronger in a number of ways.
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Barbara Gordon is one of the toughest, smartest, worldly, emotionally and psychologically mature women in the entire DC pantheon.
Batgirl, in comics, is nobody’s side kick. Maybe folks just view her or best know her from animated series. This is woman who canonically won an election and was a member of Congress.
She’s more emotionally and psychologically mature than either Selina or Talia and people ship those two with Batman all the time.
Hell, she’s a HELL of a lot more psychologically and emotionally stable than Bruce.
These are consenting adults. (Sigh…) for all the inclusion that has been brought to comics, it seems we still have quite a way to go.
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^ Yes, and she’s usually also his (basically) son’s ex girlfriend and the daughter of one of his best friends. We’re saying, there’s a line.
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We’re not talking about an example from the comics; as far as I know, they never hooked up or showed romantic interest in one another. This has been more about the animated rendition, where Babs did not run for Congress, and while a young adult with a myriad of talents, can still be immature. Believe it or not, there are times, oodles of them, where porking is not the best option, nor is necessary.
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@Aneras713
The word “ex” comes into it. As in no longer together and don’t want to be together.
While Jim might not like it, he’s got more baggage with Babs going out risking her life. Batman isn’t going to disclose that it happened to Jim, but, if Jim asked, Batman would tell him. Jim might not like it but he has enough respect to honor his daughter’s choices.
To me this reeks of the same stench of those opposed to the LBGTQ characters in comics. These are consenting adults and what they do is their business and if people feel “ill at ease” with it, that’s on them, not the characters.
I think both of them are of the opinion of “Ok, yeah we did X, but it probably wasn’t the best choice we ever made. But we made that choice and now we deal with it.” They aren’t shipping themselves.
This happens in the real world all the time. If comics are going to reflect our times, this comes with the territory too.
Ms. Martian is decades older than Conner. Who’s complaining about that?
It’s just a double standard. Pure and simple.
The worst thing that Timm did with his animated universe was introduce that angle. The age gap doesn’t really bother me, it’s more the professor/student thing. So wrong. It’s wrong when it happens in the real world, and it’s wrong when it happens is a fantasy world.
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They do hook up once in the comics but it was rather brief and i dont think they get it on in there but im most likely wrong, though they didnt hook up in the actual killing joke comic, the first half is made up filler to make you “care about barbara” like i dont think anyone needed to grow an attachment to her because almost all of us already have one, and her banging batman is certainly not gonna make us like her more
It also serves as an extra carrot for Batman to really mess up the Joker bad, as in give him paralysis as well. Which makes Jim’s “I want this done by the book.” slightly more poignant.
I don’t really think of Babs & Bruce in that student/teacher dynamic. Sure, there’s stuff she can learn from him, but he has ZERO control over her. If Batman to her, you need more training and you’re not going out in the field until I say so. Babs would tell him to pound sand with extreme prejudice. I don’t see her as ever being or been beholden to Bruce.
She appeared on the scene as a fully formed crime fighter. One of the points in the early years of Babs career was she didn’t need Batman. She was empowered and capable on her own.
We really need to kill off this whole “Bat-Family” concept. Bruce is now a real parent with someone to raise and mentor. Let the others just exist on their own as equals. Like Nightwing does. Hell, even kick Batman out of the JL and replace him with Nightwing.
DeSade-acolyte wrote “To me this reeks of the same stench of those opposed to the LBGTQ characters in comics.”
In my opinion there is a great deal of difference between the prejudicial views of some people who are opposed to LBGTQ characters in comics and people who simply feel Timm’s obsession with Bruce/Babs is over the top, particularly in the Killing Joke movie. Personally I hated that scene because it came off to me as less two consenting adults engaging in sex and more like Babs was taking advantage of the situation simply to getting in the pants of someone she’d been obsessing over. That to me is NOT in any way, shape or form a good look for her character nor is it a particularly good look for Bruce. You obviously don’t agree with that assessment and I’m not asking you too but just because they disagree with you doesn’t necessarily mean that they are intolerant people who are against sex or what-have-you. It just means they don’t care for the pairing or how Timm handles it.
Also quoted from DeSade-acolyte “It also serves as an extra carrot for Batman to really mess up the Joker bad, as in give him paralysis as well. Which makes Jim’s “I want this done by the book.” slightly more poignant.”
For myself that line already carries the necessary poignancy because of Jason Todd’s death so I didn’t really need to see Bruce and Babs going at it for that line to have the necessary relevancy. Personally, I feel that Timm only put that in there for the controversy it would cause and the shock value. It little better than the shock value death of a character in my opinion.
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It sounds like people are opposed to the Bruce and Barbara relationship for more reasons than just the awkward Killing Joke sex scene.
The Lego Batman movie also made Bruce and Barbara a couple, yet it seemed like people didn’t have issues with it in that movie. Why is this? Discuss.
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JasonTodd248 hit the nail on the head. I’d like to add that the idea of Batman being more motivated over Babs’ attack because he slept with her just cheapens their relationship. He’s never needed a pointless sexual encounter to stop Joker or motivate him in any other situation. It just adds to the cheapening of Barbara’s character, which that prelude did in spades. They weren’t in love, it was yet another unnecessary sex scene that’s just become commonplace in media. Pure lust for the sake of titillation, borne of, I imagine, a personal fantasy; “imagine you’re Batman, the guy everyone wants to be, and you get to do it with a hot, young college girl!”
As for why the LEGO Batman movie didn’t court this kind of controversy, it was a comedy with a very childlike POV. Batman was more infatuated with Barb and it never really went any further than that (I don’t recall Barbara reciprocating those feelings). I thought it was peculiar at first, but as I said, it was done more for laughs.
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@Mr_Morbach: I agree that Batman didn’t need this type of encounter to motivate him to stop the Joker after he’d shot Babs. The whole scene was completely unnecessary toward that end and it was done merely for the controversy it would generate and its titillating nature nothing more. There are lots of other ways to get audiences to come to care for Babs before Joker attacks her that don’t cheapen her character or Bruce’s for that matter but instead they went with the shock value treatment. Like I said this is no better than shock value deaths in comics are.
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I didn’t like that aspect of Lego Batman either (or how Dick was portrayed) . However, showing Batman in awe of Batgirl as they’re introduced and playing his reaction for laughs is not the same as throwing the characters into a rooftop sex scene.
My issues with this pairing include:
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Barbara was introduced in the comics specifically not as Batman’s love interest - unlike many/most female characters of the time and the previous female Bat. She even says as much to Catwoman, and Batman backs up the assertion. This is from Batman #197 and is discussed in Gail Simone’s forward of the Batgirl Bronze Age Omnibus.
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I like the relationship these characters have in the comics. Both regard each other highly, but both can be/are control freaks that clash.
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I like comic canon ships better for each of them. Specifically, Dick and Babs are my favorite DC couple, and I think Batman and Catwoman have a fun dynamic (when done ‘right’). I’m not inherently opposed to these characters exploring different relationships (I think Babs/Jason or Bruce/Diana can be interesting), just not with each other.
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I don’t like the power imbalance between the characters for a romantic relationship. Batman has the mentor role. He is the defacto leader of the Bat family and Bat books. He’s 80 years old and going strong.
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I look at it this way:
With the way Barbara was raised – her mother leaving them, having to take care of her bother and, to some extent, her father – I can see her growing up quickly and finding others in her age range to be too immature for her. So when Bruce comes along and starts training, something that she wants to do as a cop but her father won’t allow, it makes her feel like he sees her as more than a kid. Then you factor in his good looks and a perfect blend of good man/bad boy mystique, it only makes sense that she would at least initially have a crush on him.
On Bruce’s side, I could see him finding aspects of her that he would want in a partner. She’s beautiful, insanely smart, equally brave and driven, has a strong sense of right and wrong. But ultimately, even more so than the age gap, her being his friend’s daughter or even his adopted son’s love interest, at that early point he would say no because of his commitment to the mission. He knows he could never be the full, dedicated partner she would need and deserve.
So yeah, I could see where they could work in theory as a couple, I think with time both would recognize it would never work out.
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Also, regardless of how we feel about this pairing, we can all agree the pairing of Barbara and Tim Drake in the Arkham Knight game/comic is ten times weirder/nonsensical.
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c02goddess.16092 and Jay_Kay hit the nail on the head. There’s an underlying personality disconnect that I think is a lot more fatal to this pairing than the age difference.
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Has nobody here ever just had that moment of raging hormones and banged someone, even if somewhere in your brain, you know this is not going to be a relationship?
I certainly don’t “ship” them, but I can see in a moment of hormonal intensity, the one bang happens. One bang does not a ship make.
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I, for one, have not. Frankly, I find lustful, random sexual encounters pointless and exaggerated, and lines like “it’s just sex”, like Babs said in the animated Killing Joke, juvenile. While in that movie they didn’t have a relationship, they did in New Batman Adventures.
Besides, even if I was the type, that doesn’t mean I’d necessarily root for any kind of random pairing between characters. I do/have done a lot of things that are silly or that I’m not proud of. Neither Batman nor Batgirl need follow suit.
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They have already paired up before in the comics. In fact, Bruce got Barbara pregnant just before Dick decided to come back to Gotham. He was told of this relationship by Bruce moments before Dick was going to propose to Barbara. The stress, and fighting some criminals in an alley, caused Barb to miscarriage. The dynamic trio was never the same. (Ref. Batman Beyond 2.0 Vol. 3: Mark of the Phantasm.) The concept isn’t an old one, but it is still unsettling. Bruce is the perfect match for Selena, and Dick should have been matched up with Barbara.