There Shouldn’t Be Any Batgirl Cover Controversy

Much as I have tried not to, it is time I weighed in on the foment surging around the now-cancelled variant cover to Batgirl #41 by Brazilian artist Rafael Albuquerque, because I think people are making arguments that just aren’t valid. And to be clear, this is just the opinion of Rodney Brown, not as Editor in Chief of Nerd Caliber, nor the opinion of the site itself.

When I first saw the variant cover, pictured below (the similar cover above, cropped to fit our requirements, is from Batgirl: Endgame #1 — Thanks to Facebook fan Nathaniel Ferris Rimmer for catching that), I thought it was a beautiful piece of art that was very evocative of what had been the defining moment of Barbara Gordon’s comic book life, prior to DC’s New52 initiative. As a fan of the new run of the Batgirl comic, I also immediately thought that, if this was a scene inside the comic, it would quickly be followed by Babs kicking the snot out of the Joker. After all, as frightened as she appears in that instant, she is a trained member of the Bat family, and Joker is doing everything wrong. He is too close to a trained, deadly infighter. He has his arm casually draped over her shoulder. Even though he has a gun, he isn’t pointing it at Batgirl, but casually pointing it toward the ground. Most importantly, he does not have the drop on her as he did in the graphic novel it evokes, The Killing Joke, in which the Joker started shooting at her the second she opened her apartment door.

But that is me projecting what I see as happening next, and it turns out that isn’t even a scene in the book. It isn’t an objective view of just the cover itself, and it isn’t what the majority of the people buying the book would necessarily think of. Why can I say that with confidence? Because, despite the fact that I buy the book, I am not its target demographic, which is girls and young women.

So I decided to employ a tool that all humans can use — allegedly — something called “empathy.” Since this is being posted on the Internet, I realize that many of you might not know what that word means based on its lack therein, and since I don’t want to wait for you to look it up I will define it here. Empathy is the ability to see something from someone else’s point of view. Simple to define, apparently very hard to do, at least on the Internet.

Putting aside my viewpoint as a strong, fat, bald, hairy, martial arts-trained male in his 50s, I tried to see this from the standpoint of the target demographic, who may or may not be familiar with the work it evokes. And thinking as a woman or girl, I see a terrified hero that I identify with strongly, being assaulted in a manner as casual as men sometimes do to my friends (or, God forbid, me) all the time, even at conventions.

Let’s break this down: Inappropriate close touching — yep, a con problem. Forced smile — yep, con problem. Active disregard for clear dislike of both of the above — yep, a con problem. Frankly, aside from the fact that he is forcing her to smile by painting a smile on her face with blood (seriously, lipstick doesn’t run like that), this could be almost any horribly inappropriate convention picture from any con.

Worse, this evokes a sexual assault that happened to Batgirl in The Killing Joke, (no it wasn’t rape, but yes, it was sexual assault — being stripped naked and having pictures taken of you is sexual assault) and I honestly can’t put my mind into the viewpoint of a victim of sexual assault seeing this, because I have never been that victim — unlike nearly 20 percent of all women or girls you know. That’s right, roughly one out of every five people in the target demographic has been or will be sexually assaulted. Now try to tell me how this is an appropriate image to put in front of them.

“Oh, well, at least keep it a variant cover because I want to buy it.” Right, so now your desire to own this on the cover of the comic is more important than making sure the target demo isn’t either terribly uncomfortable, or at worst, curled up in a corner shaking because they were reminded of their own assault. One. In. Five. Way to make it about you, spanky.

“But it is about freedom of expression!” Right, and the only ones who have a say in that freedom are the ones doing the expressing — the artist and the publisher. Both of them have decided that the cover isn’t right for Batgirl. According to an interview yesterday with a media outlet in his native Brazil, Albuquerque said he realized it was not right after seeing the comments and concerns on the Internet, and asked DC to pull it. DC did so, and even if the only reason they did so was because it might hurt sales in the target demographic, that is absolutely a valid reason for a business.

You can express your own opinion about whether or not the cover should have been published, but the only ones whose “freedom” of expression are affected are DC and Albuquerque alone. Your “freedom” of expression has in no way been impinged upon by them deciding not to publish the cover. Only your “desire” to own it, if you are arguing for its publication.

I love the art. I would love to see a comic in which the next few pages are Babs beating Joker like a drum, as I believe she would. But I also agree that it is the wrong cover for that title as it stands today, and if even a minority of the target demographic has a problem with it, I understand why it was pulled.

Try a little empathy, people. It’s good for you.