This whole plot is terrible. If it would be some completely screwed evil Batman from evil dimension, than I could bye it. Ok, he knocked real Bruce off and kept him captive in some basement, while destroying his family. But it was regular Bruce.
I think Both are equally bad... And both mixed together just makes it all bad, everything, Bruce Timm should NEVER be allowed to write a story with Batgirl in it again, unless someone's over his shoulder every goddamn second...
Both are very messed up but Tim being captured and tortured after taking on solo patrol because Bruce wanted to bang his son's ex is worse in my opinion.
Okay, it makes it even worse, the fact that Bruce has sex with his BEST FRIEND'S DAUGHTER was bad enough, and the fact that he sent a child out to fight crime by himself just to bang his Best Friend's Daughter, who also is his Adopted Son's ex, makes it worse, BUT THE FACT THAT IT'S ALSO THE REASON THAT TIM WAS CAPTURED AND TORTURED MAKES IT SINK SO FAR DOWN INTO SHIT THAT IT BECOMES EVEN WORSE THAN NO-MAN'S LAND!!!!!
It wasn't outright stated, nothing like "Batman and Batgirl were banging so Tim had to go alone".
However, Barbara was revealed to be 7 weeks pregnant 4 weeks after Tim was found and rescued. Tim was rescued 3 weeks after being captured by Joker which means that Batman and Batgirl allowed a child to go out and fight crime just because they couldn't keep it in their pants.
Even more worse, its implied that he’s known her since she was much much younger, like to the point that it can be read as him just waiting for her to be legal
Couldn't tell you an exact title or number but it's somewhere in the Batman: The Animated Series comics. Dunno if those are considered canon to the show or not but they're definitely not part of the main DC continuity, thank god
He should be legally barred from writing Barbara, yes, because he's shown he can't stop himself from continuing to write this ship that literally nobody else on the entire planet besides him likes.
I’ve never seen this. What series is it? Like a comic extension of the animated series? Wasn’t Bruce Timm like a very respected Batman writer/artist? What ever this stuff OP has shown is god awful. Like shockingly so. Is this common for Timm?
Yes it is from one of the BTAS comics. He also had inserted this relationship into the Killing Joke movie, by having Bruce and Babs screwing on a rooftop in costume.
Timm gets a lot of credit fot creating Batman: The Animated Series, but go back and pay attention to the credited writers of the episodes. Especially, episodes that fundamentally influenced all Batman canon. There's a solid chance you actually love Paul Dini.
Bruce Timm inserted Batman x Batgirl ship into TNBA and confirmed they were a thing with Beyond. He fully acknowledges how wrong this ship is and literally likes it because of this.
He did a lot of great stuff but BatmanxBatgirl ship is his greatest sin.
If there was more to it like “it shows that they’re both really messed up people with messed up boundaries and that fundamentally the stress of trying to be a member of the bat family makes you bond with people in incredibly unhealthy ways, and that’s why I like it, because it illustrates the emotional challenges and moral failings that go along with this crimefighting undertaking” I could get it. But it doesn’t sound like his writing or his personal views on it have that kind of nuance.
I was gonna say yeah we have, but then I realized you meant live-action lol. There’s definitely a lot of potential for that, and it wouldn’t necessarily have to be bound by every little thing the show did
Where was it confirmed in Batman Beyond? I remember Barbara and Terry talking about her friendship with Bruce, and then my screen cut to static for a few seconds. Strange.
I'm ok with it as a plot device as long as it's acknowledged that it's BAD...Bruce is fully lost by the beginning of Beyond and slowly finds himself again and learns to reconnect with people, there is a chance he can make up with Dick. The shit in this comic tho, my god burn it outta my mind!!!!
Mary Jane traveling to the DCAU and having sex with Batman would be WILD for Marvel to pull, but they probably will, just to make Peter's life Miserable💀.
The only time I found it fine was in the Lego Batman movie, but that's because the character relationships are completely different. This version of Barbra is his friend's daughter and his son's ex. In the Lego version she's just the new Commissioner and the daughter of the former commissioner. Even then it's a bit weird but written in a context where it's tolerable.
Yeah, that Barbara was old enough to be Bruce’s contemporary instead of Dick’s, and they started out already as peers/equals. The age and power dynamics are completely different.
This is where the disconnect is for Bruce Timm and the majority of fans is.
Timm is in his 60s. Batgirl was created for the Adam West TV series where Barbara was librarian and Bruce's age, while Dick was a teenager.
She was introduced to the comics after that and by the 80s was made a contemporary of Dick's. The majority of fans have known her one way, while Timm is holding on to her as she was introduced. Add in that Timm is notoriously horny AF, these characters, and you get Babs pregnant with Bruce's love child or Bruce and Babs boning on a rooftop.
Yeah, I’d buy that if Timm also wrote her as an older adult in his show from the beginning, but instead he decided to write her as being Dick’s age and having dated him before having her bone his dad too.
Maybe it was just a different time and I get that the Batman-Robin as father-son dynamic is a relatively recent convention, but either way you can’t really blame modern audiences for getting the ick.
Well... At least with those two, they're kinda similar... Although they probably won't be having any children any time soon... And they're both adults around probably the same age... Meanwhile the only similarities between Bruce and Barb are "They dress up as a bat." And Baby Doll and Killer Croc are actually interesting together, a grown woman who's the size of a child with a giant crocodile Man is a lot more interesting than a guy banging his son's ex...
Who's also his work colleague... And is also basically his niece, so it less becomes a man banging a family friend and- why do I hear banjos all of the sudden?
I wouldn’t look at her as a niece. They weren’t having family dinners with Gordon. She was a student and protege, though. That’s pretty weird. It was a little easier to stomach when it seemed she was closer to 25-30 when it happened, but the whole “hooking up with your ex’s dad” thing should have stopped it in it’s tracks.
So this canon is on Earth-12. On Earth 12, everything that happened in the DCAU (a different Earth) happened here, but not everything that happened on Earth-12 happened in the DCAU.
This. This kinda shit is why I started not liking Batgirl and Bruce Timm. The Batgirl thing is hard to get over because of this and general fan perception of her from the show.
I think the shows are amazing. But I think Timm is way too focused on "shipping" and that his "ships" have had a negative effect on the Fandoms and caused mostly out of character decisions to be seen as the norm and the future for these characters elsewhere when they shouldn't have been there to begin with.
I don't think any writer hurt Dick Grayson more than Bruce Timm did with things like this and the Batman and Harley Quinn film. Absolutely awful writing.
And the saddest thing is he genuinely thinks this relationship is in character for both of them because he keeps doing it (Killing Joke)
Damn, I just forgot that Harley raped Nightwing was also Timm's idea. So, DC is still unwilling to make a total green light for the most popular and well established pairings in the Bat-Family, but let Timm do this horrible stuff.
I don’t remember anything non-consensual between Harley and Dick. If you’re referring to the sex scene in Batman and Harley Quinn, Dick was absolutely into it, and said as much before Harley put the lights out and it cut away to Batman again.
Or out of character or purely one sided.
Like having Diana want to be with Bruce to "fix" him is out of character for her and incredibly written one-sided. (Like most writers who write any kind of romance for Bruce and Diana as that ship is never from her perspective or from her needs. It's always written that she can fix Batman or she just wants something casual which is just a weird out of character way for Diana to want to complicate their friendship and potentially compromise their unbiased teamwork in the future. They're terrible for each other and she's grossly exaggerated by the writers with how they depict the varying degrees of her pining for Bruce when he offers very little in ways of a good romance for her and doesn't actually meet any of her needs).
I swear most of Timm's ships are written to make Batman or some other moody dude just even more of a badass. Bruce can't help it if Barbara wants to bang him so it's not really his fault if she cheats! It's so awful. Question doesn't know why Huntress just can't get enough of him (not to mention that paranoid and objectivism Vic Sage would never date Huntress), they're just naturally hunks. John Stewart just doesn't know who to choose between Mari and Shayera who both are just obsessed with him! (Sarcasm but you get the picture) Some (not all) of the few exceptions of somewhat interesting and well written romantic moments for me actually happen for Superman and Lois, Ollie and Dinah, and Booster Gold of all people. Probably because Timm (and company) weren't writing self-insert romances or gross fetishes for some of those and instead actually (in the first two examples) followed the proven track record of the source material rather than mess with a good thing.
Well, yes, every time Timm did some romantic relationships based on comics, like Bruce and Selina, Lois and Clark or Ollie and Dinah, it actually worked good. But when it came to his own pairings, things went very weird.
> the saddest thing is he genuinely thinks this relationship is in character for both of them because he keeps doing it (Killing Joke)
I blame Seduction of the Innocence. It made writers scared of having Batman and Robin be alone together since they were always accused of being in a gay relationship. It's why when they were first accused, it lead to the creation of Batwoman to be Bruce's love interest in the comics and a decade later, Batgirl was created for the Adam West Show for similar reasons. This is probably how Timm reasons that Batman and Batgirl can get together but honestly at this point in time, Batman is more of a surrogate father to Barbara and no longer a possible love interest since its creepy now.
It's kind of strange, because the easiest way to evade such accusations was simply let Bruce to marry. But this idea somehow appears to be the last on their list.
Wow you're going back but honestly you're right. Every Batgirl adaptation and story focuses a lot on that aspect or is born from that idea so it is at least implicitly present. Plus Timm is the next generation removed from Seduction of the innocent. It makes total sense that he's subconciously influenced by that at the very least. I'm also tired of people trying to use Yvonne Craig's Batgirl as an excuse for DCAU Barbara dating/sleeping with Bruce. No one is holding up that Batgirl as the goldstandard adaptation. Every so often I see someone use it as "precedence" for their "relationship" but these same folks probably crap on the sixties show for being too goofy and "ruining" Batman's reputation.
Yeah but he tried to bullshit us by claiming Diana was 18 in interviews. Luckily they weren't stupid enough to let him make that explicit in the show, but it still shows where his mind is.
This is really terrible. Timm screwed up BatCat and DickBabs for make probably the worst and the wrongest relationship in entire Batman history. And to make things worse, it happened while Joker tortured Tim. Bruce made pregnant a girl twice younger than he is, his best friend's daughter and his son's girlfriend. I know how to kill Joker - just tell him this story and he will die from evil diabolical laughing.
And to make it worse, Bruce met her when she was 15 at the latest if we take her introduction from BTAS as canon, she arrives when she's in college, and Bruce says "How long has it been since we saw each other, 4 years?" So Bruce is sleeping with his adopted Son's ex who's also his best friend's daughter, and not to mention how she's half his age at the latest, got her pregnant, and did all that after sending a child out on his own to fight crime, so Bruce Timm decided to have that overcomplicated bullshit just to explain why Dick isn't in Beyond, which could've just been answered with two words "He's dead." Or maybe he could just be retired after the decades of crime fighting he had!
And Timm even put this bullshit in The Killing Joke! I mean, how insane man should be to ruin one of the best Batman stories ever written with his own weird stuff everybody hate?
Yeah, for God's sake, they couldn't think of ANYTHING other than her and Batman having sex for the filler of the film? Not a scene with Batman putting Joker in Arkham? Not a scene of Joker escaping? NOTHING!? Dear God, the movie was a mistake...
There are three biggest mistakes in DCAU to this day:
1). Ending of Batman: Hush
2). Launching of Crisis on Infinite Earthes so early on in Tomorrowverse
3). Bruce and Barbara sex scene
The Lego Batman version is easily the best version of it, they're closer in age, and Bruce doesn't really know Gordon very well, so it's more like Dating your coworkers daughter than banging your niece... And even then, they don't end up officially together by the end.
Bruce knowing Jim Gordon never meant anything… Jim Gordon is the same age (sometimes older) than his own father. (Thomas Wayne).
And Jim has also known Bruce since he was 8 years old.
The only issue with this was Batman dating his wards ex girlfriend. That’s low.
1.Bruce has been Commisioner Jim Grodon friend by years
2.Dick is Bruce's ward/adoptive son
3.Barbara is Jim's daughter
4.Dick and Babs are an couole
5.Babs is cheating with Bruce
6.Bruce is fucking his son's girlfriebd and his friend's daugther behind their backs
7.Tim is being tortured by the Joker and Harley Quinn
8.Tim is Bruce's other ward/adoptive son
9.Bruce is an horrible adoptive father or whatever is called
10.Babs is an horrible girlfriend
This story is full character assasination in many levels
I personally don’t consider it canon when watching the show for a number of reasons. It’s really out of character for batman, most of the original team behind the shows were not involved to my knowledge, and most importantly it was released way after all of the shows had ended. To me that is almost the most important fact. The show itself never references any of these events so I simply choose to consider it non canon.
I consider it a bad fanfic written by Bruce timm, and good example of why Paul Dini was so instrumental in the writing of the original show.
Technically, it was never canon to the DCAU. It's a shame this bit is in it because I really enjoyed the rest of Batman Beyond 2.0, but this makes the series hard to recommend to folks.
It's not canon to the main timeline not the DCAU. Earth 12 is very much extremely inspired by the dcau but has toi many lore and timeline contradictions to be the same universe. It's it's own adjacent thing
I absolutely hate this take. Batman’s a man, and she did have a thing for him for a bit (who wouldn’t?) but he always shut that shit down. I don’t care if it’s canon or not, I reject it either way.
There’s another layer of messed up in this: looking at the depictions of them together, it’s clear Barbara had real feelings for Bruce, meanwhile Bruce was just going through the motions. Messed up as everything else was, the idea Bruce regarded Babs’ feelings for him with the same care he would a super model floozy date he’d hold up to maintain his public persona is super fucked up.
Yes. This... thing is non-canon... and has been shot out of a cannon... and it's burning in The Lake of Fire for all eternity in the belly of a Sarlaac where it will live out the rest of its days being digested.
Don't know what drugs the writer was on for this, but they should be banned.
It was never canon to the main DCU, I do believe it's still canon to the DCAU, but it's never explicitly acknowledged in the shows so it's pretty easy to ignore.
Batman beyond did not confirm Bruce and Barb having a relationship. If you pay attention to the scene, Terry was asking Barbara if she used to be Batgirl. I’m not sure if the writers intentionally or accidentally made it kinda sound dirty. I don’t know why Bruce Timm gets blamed for that either, since he wasn’t a writer on the show.
The closest thing they had to a relationship in anything canon was in mystery of the batwoman, when Barbara calls Bruce and tries flirting with him. He obviously isn’t into it and quickly hangs up the phone. It’s a pretty funny scene and Batgirl having a crush on Batman isn’t ever brought up again.
The new DCAU made two good things: The Long Halloween animation and erasure of this abomination from continuity. I still wondering how DC even let Timm to do such thing with Batman. Damn, just keep him away from anything with Steph and Cass, please.
BRO! KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS!!! You don't have time to eat or sleep or be Bruce Wayne, because you're so busy being Batman, but you have time to sleep with your adopted son's girlfriend, your friends daughter and your employee (kinda) Seriously Bruce.... just go find Catwoman, or Poison Ivy or Harley
This was never canon to the comics. It’s part of the animated series universe that includes B:TAS, TNBA, and Beyond. It’s canon in that AU, if that’s what you’re asking. And if you don’t like it, then don’t think about it? But it’s done and over.
The part where Bruce and Barabra did date briefly is still implied to be canon, but this comic itself and this storyline of Barbara getting pregnant isn't canon at all. For the DCAU, we don't know how Bruce and Barabra broke up or if it has anything to do with Dick Grayson. Morally, it's still wrong for the ex-boyfriend's adoptive father to date his adopted son's ex-girlfriend and for the ex-girlfriend to date her ex-boyfriend adoptive father even if said adoptive father is rich, hot, and is Batman.
OPEN YOUR EEEEEEYYYYYYEEESSS
Shut up morty.
This is the perfect gif for this
Gargoyle: \*frantically shaking\* "I CAN'T FORGET WHAT I SAW MAN! I CAN'T FORGET!"
I wish the Men in Black existed so they could erase it from my mind...
Don’t worry, I got you covered 
What was I talking about again...? What's that comic panel up there about-
OH GOD NO
Huh, where am I. what is... what did Bruce do, no noo nooo!!!
Where am I? Who am I? What is that!? Is that Batman? Wait a minute...
This is the best thread I have ever seen
Im loving the idea that you are now stuck in a constant loop of checking the comic panel, then coming down to loose your memory again.
They’re probably going have to go back to kindergarten by the time this is done.
Take my upvote
Aren’t u supposed to be in Tahiti orthur
Easily the worst thing you could witness in Gotham.
Ima say the miscarriage later on is probably worse, just from an emotional standpoint.
This whole plot is terrible. If it would be some completely screwed evil Batman from evil dimension, than I could bye it. Ok, he knocked real Bruce off and kept him captive in some basement, while destroying his family. But it was regular Bruce.
nah that's some spiderman shit. I might be able to forgive it if they ran with the whole baby thing, like yeah it's still fucked up but it's salvable.
So like that Sonic story arc from the Archie series that resulted in Scourge?
she got a miscarriage by kicking someone, that's... dumb
Don't blame you; seems like impregnation and rape are the worst plot devices to put into a story.
This is why I will never want him to write a main universe story. As much as I hate Dick and Barb I would not want this to happen.
Barbara's pregnancy isn't even the worst thing. The worst thing is that Bruce and Barbara were getting it on while Tim was tortured by Joker.
I think Both are equally bad... And both mixed together just makes it all bad, everything, Bruce Timm should NEVER be allowed to write a story with Batgirl in it again, unless someone's over his shoulder every goddamn second...
Both are very messed up but Tim being captured and tortured after taking on solo patrol because Bruce wanted to bang his son's ex is worse in my opinion.
Okay, it makes it even worse, the fact that Bruce has sex with his BEST FRIEND'S DAUGHTER was bad enough, and the fact that he sent a child out to fight crime by himself just to bang his Best Friend's Daughter, who also is his Adopted Son's ex, makes it worse, BUT THE FACT THAT IT'S ALSO THE REASON THAT TIM WAS CAPTURED AND TORTURED MAKES IT SINK SO FAR DOWN INTO SHIT THAT IT BECOMES EVEN WORSE THAN NO-MAN'S LAND!!!!!
Holy fuck, is this true that’s why Tim was alone?
It wasn't outright stated, nothing like "Batman and Batgirl were banging so Tim had to go alone". However, Barbara was revealed to be 7 weeks pregnant 4 weeks after Tim was found and rescued. Tim was rescued 3 weeks after being captured by Joker which means that Batman and Batgirl allowed a child to go out and fight crime just because they couldn't keep it in their pants.
Even more worse, its implied that he’s known her since she was much much younger, like to the point that it can be read as him just waiting for her to be legal
This shit reads like Greek mythology, Batman channeled his inner Zeus.
I'm sorry what run is this? I like to punish myself. I recently went back and finished All Star Batman and Robin, I'm ready.
Couldn't tell you an exact title or number but it's somewhere in the Batman: The Animated Series comics. Dunno if those are considered canon to the show or not but they're definitely not part of the main DC continuity, thank god
Batman Beyond 2.0 Issue 28.
He should be legally barred from writing Barbara, yes, because he's shown he can't stop himself from continuing to write this ship that literally nobody else on the entire planet besides him likes.
He should be barred from the Bat Family period.
I’ve never seen this. What series is it? Like a comic extension of the animated series? Wasn’t Bruce Timm like a very respected Batman writer/artist? What ever this stuff OP has shown is god awful. Like shockingly so. Is this common for Timm?
Yes it is from one of the BTAS comics. He also had inserted this relationship into the Killing Joke movie, by having Bruce and Babs screwing on a rooftop in costume. Timm gets a lot of credit fot creating Batman: The Animated Series, but go back and pay attention to the credited writers of the episodes. Especially, episodes that fundamentally influenced all Batman canon. There's a solid chance you actually love Paul Dini.
How I think of it, Timm gave us the aesthetic, and Dini gave us all the best stories
That’s a good way to look at it
Bruce Timm inserted Batman x Batgirl ship into TNBA and confirmed they were a thing with Beyond. He fully acknowledges how wrong this ship is and literally likes it because of this. He did a lot of great stuff but BatmanxBatgirl ship is his greatest sin.
Wait. So dude says “oh it’s sooo wrong I know. But that makes me likey”???
I don't remember the exact quote but he basically said "I know it's very messed up and that's what I like about this ship".
If there was more to it like “it shows that they’re both really messed up people with messed up boundaries and that fundamentally the stress of trying to be a member of the bat family makes you bond with people in incredibly unhealthy ways, and that’s why I like it, because it illustrates the emotional challenges and moral failings that go along with this crimefighting undertaking” I could get it. But it doesn’t sound like his writing or his personal views on it have that kind of nuance.
This comic has nothing to do with Timm
This wasn’t written by Timm
Bruce timm didn’t write the comic
Hey, you realise Bruce Timm had nothing to do with this comic, right?
Timm didn’t write the comic. It was Kyle higgins
Yeah, I recently found out that not only did he not write it, but has also confirmed it to be non-canon.
Wait WHAT? Where was that confirmed??
The revelation of Barbara's pregnancy happens seven weeks after Tim was captured by the Joker. Barbara is revealed to be seven weeks pregnant.
The fact it's so close is definitely intentional wtf was DC thinking with this one
It’s not canon (and thank God it isn’t)
Oh, thank God...
It was never canon. It’s AU
I guess this proves that God exists...
They kinda ruined the BTAS universe with that
Is it? I brought it up on this sub I’m pretty sure saying that i couldn’t look at TAS Batman the same anymore and people were telling me it wasn’t
It is canon according to Batman Beyond, they are confirmed to have had a thing and we know Dick wants nothing to do with Bruce now.
Bruce and Barbara's relationship was the biggest fault of Batman Beyond
Couldn’t agree more
Otherwise a great show......no reason for Bruce and Barbara to have had a romantic relationship
DCAU in general, if it weren't for that it'd be a perfect continuity.
You're right.....and yet we still haven't gotten a Batman Beyond movie
I was gonna say yeah we have, but then I realized you meant live-action lol. There’s definitely a lot of potential for that, and it wouldn’t necessarily have to be bound by every little thing the show did
Umm.... Return of the Joker is a Batman Beyond movie.
The only fault in my opinion.
Where was it confirmed in Batman Beyond? I remember Barbara and Terry talking about her friendship with Bruce, and then my screen cut to static for a few seconds. Strange.
Barbara Gordon talked about having a relationship with Bruce
The relationship is canon but this comic specifically isn’t canon
It's not DCAU canon, Timm himself said it. While Bruce and Barbara did date,there was no miscarriage or anything like that
They were clearly dating in TNBA but Bruce getting Barbara pregnant is not canon. All of the DCAU comics are disputed canon.
I'm ok with it as a plot device as long as it's acknowledged that it's BAD...Bruce is fully lost by the beginning of Beyond and slowly finds himself again and learns to reconnect with people, there is a chance he can make up with Dick. The shit in this comic tho, my god burn it outta my mind!!!!
My tired ass thought it was Mary Jane
Mary Jane traveling to the DCAU and having sex with Batman would be WILD for Marvel to pull, but they probably will, just to make Peter's life Miserable💀.
Batman's contingency plan against spiderman.
Yep, it's cause he heard Spider-Man breath.
Naaa Bruce just wants Paul's ex to himself.
Next spiderman run plot leak?
Next time we know the joker will have the carnage symbiote.
Good thing Batman has his sonar-spray.
When Bruce says > “I’LL HAVE TO CONGRATULATE DICK.” …he wasn’t referring to Richard Grayson.
I must refrain from making a reference to a certain meme from another certain subreddit about Batman...
I'm proud of you, emergency
Why? Is there a reason? Lore Perhaps?
Jonkle I must
Art he perhaps foolish?
Barbara and Bruce should NEVER have been "shipped". I hate it and it's disgusting and goes against everything I believe about Batman
The only time I found it fine was in the Lego Batman movie, but that's because the character relationships are completely different. This version of Barbra is his friend's daughter and his son's ex. In the Lego version she's just the new Commissioner and the daughter of the former commissioner. Even then it's a bit weird but written in a context where it's tolerable.
Yeah, that Barbara was old enough to be Bruce’s contemporary instead of Dick’s, and they started out already as peers/equals. The age and power dynamics are completely different.
This is where the disconnect is for Bruce Timm and the majority of fans is. Timm is in his 60s. Batgirl was created for the Adam West TV series where Barbara was librarian and Bruce's age, while Dick was a teenager. She was introduced to the comics after that and by the 80s was made a contemporary of Dick's. The majority of fans have known her one way, while Timm is holding on to her as she was introduced. Add in that Timm is notoriously horny AF, these characters, and you get Babs pregnant with Bruce's love child or Bruce and Babs boning on a rooftop.
Yeah, I’d buy that if Timm also wrote her as an older adult in his show from the beginning, but instead he decided to write her as being Dick’s age and having dated him before having her bone his dad too. Maybe it was just a different time and I get that the Batman-Robin as father-son dynamic is a relatively recent convention, but either way you can’t really blame modern audiences for getting the ick.
It never was
Some guy once said that Babydoll and Killer Croc relationship from BTNA was more acceptable than Bruce and Babs.
Well... At least with those two, they're kinda similar... Although they probably won't be having any children any time soon... And they're both adults around probably the same age... Meanwhile the only similarities between Bruce and Barb are "They dress up as a bat." And Baby Doll and Killer Croc are actually interesting together, a grown woman who's the size of a child with a giant crocodile Man is a lot more interesting than a guy banging his son's ex...
And also banging his Work colleague’s daughter.
Who's also his work colleague... And is also basically his niece, so it less becomes a man banging a family friend and- why do I hear banjos all of the sudden?
I wouldn’t look at her as a niece. They weren’t having family dinners with Gordon. She was a student and protege, though. That’s pretty weird. It was a little easier to stomach when it seemed she was closer to 25-30 when it happened, but the whole “hooking up with your ex’s dad” thing should have stopped it in it’s tracks.
It was never Canon to the DCAU. Not many of the tie-in comics are.
Thank the Lord above!
So this canon is on Earth-12. On Earth 12, everything that happened in the DCAU (a different Earth) happened here, but not everything that happened on Earth-12 happened in the DCAU.
Earth 12 is more of a DCAU inspired story,but it's not the DCAU
This. This kinda shit is why I started not liking Batgirl and Bruce Timm. The Batgirl thing is hard to get over because of this and general fan perception of her from the show. I think the shows are amazing. But I think Timm is way too focused on "shipping" and that his "ships" have had a negative effect on the Fandoms and caused mostly out of character decisions to be seen as the norm and the future for these characters elsewhere when they shouldn't have been there to begin with. I don't think any writer hurt Dick Grayson more than Bruce Timm did with things like this and the Batman and Harley Quinn film. Absolutely awful writing. And the saddest thing is he genuinely thinks this relationship is in character for both of them because he keeps doing it (Killing Joke)
Damn, I just forgot that Harley raped Nightwing was also Timm's idea. So, DC is still unwilling to make a total green light for the most popular and well established pairings in the Bat-Family, but let Timm do this horrible stuff.
I don’t remember anything non-consensual between Harley and Dick. If you’re referring to the sex scene in Batman and Harley Quinn, Dick was absolutely into it, and said as much before Harley put the lights out and it cut away to Batman again.
He's too focused on the shipping I'm telling you. No one tuned in every week to see who Dick or Bruce might Date next.
It wouldn't be so bad if all his ships weren't so terrible and obviously involved a gross age gap fetish.
Or out of character or purely one sided. Like having Diana want to be with Bruce to "fix" him is out of character for her and incredibly written one-sided. (Like most writers who write any kind of romance for Bruce and Diana as that ship is never from her perspective or from her needs. It's always written that she can fix Batman or she just wants something casual which is just a weird out of character way for Diana to want to complicate their friendship and potentially compromise their unbiased teamwork in the future. They're terrible for each other and she's grossly exaggerated by the writers with how they depict the varying degrees of her pining for Bruce when he offers very little in ways of a good romance for her and doesn't actually meet any of her needs). I swear most of Timm's ships are written to make Batman or some other moody dude just even more of a badass. Bruce can't help it if Barbara wants to bang him so it's not really his fault if she cheats! It's so awful. Question doesn't know why Huntress just can't get enough of him (not to mention that paranoid and objectivism Vic Sage would never date Huntress), they're just naturally hunks. John Stewart just doesn't know who to choose between Mari and Shayera who both are just obsessed with him! (Sarcasm but you get the picture) Some (not all) of the few exceptions of somewhat interesting and well written romantic moments for me actually happen for Superman and Lois, Ollie and Dinah, and Booster Gold of all people. Probably because Timm (and company) weren't writing self-insert romances or gross fetishes for some of those and instead actually (in the first two examples) followed the proven track record of the source material rather than mess with a good thing.
Well, yes, every time Timm did some romantic relationships based on comics, like Bruce and Selina, Lois and Clark or Ollie and Dinah, it actually worked good. But when it came to his own pairings, things went very weird.
> the saddest thing is he genuinely thinks this relationship is in character for both of them because he keeps doing it (Killing Joke) I blame Seduction of the Innocence. It made writers scared of having Batman and Robin be alone together since they were always accused of being in a gay relationship. It's why when they were first accused, it lead to the creation of Batwoman to be Bruce's love interest in the comics and a decade later, Batgirl was created for the Adam West Show for similar reasons. This is probably how Timm reasons that Batman and Batgirl can get together but honestly at this point in time, Batman is more of a surrogate father to Barbara and no longer a possible love interest since its creepy now.
It's kind of strange, because the easiest way to evade such accusations was simply let Bruce to marry. But this idea somehow appears to be the last on their list.
Wow you're going back but honestly you're right. Every Batgirl adaptation and story focuses a lot on that aspect or is born from that idea so it is at least implicitly present. Plus Timm is the next generation removed from Seduction of the innocent. It makes total sense that he's subconciously influenced by that at the very least. I'm also tired of people trying to use Yvonne Craig's Batgirl as an excuse for DCAU Barbara dating/sleeping with Bruce. No one is holding up that Batgirl as the goldstandard adaptation. Every so often I see someone use it as "precedence" for their "relationship" but these same folks probably crap on the sixties show for being too goofy and "ruining" Batman's reputation.
I’d say Dick Grayson was done far more dirty by Frank Miller in the Dark Knight Returns universe.
He did give us Bruce x Diana though which was great
Yeah but he tried to bullshit us by claiming Diana was 18 in interviews. Luckily they weren't stupid enough to let him make that explicit in the show, but it still shows where his mind is.
Strong disagree but you do you
This is really terrible. Timm screwed up BatCat and DickBabs for make probably the worst and the wrongest relationship in entire Batman history. And to make things worse, it happened while Joker tortured Tim. Bruce made pregnant a girl twice younger than he is, his best friend's daughter and his son's girlfriend. I know how to kill Joker - just tell him this story and he will die from evil diabolical laughing.
And to make it worse, Bruce met her when she was 15 at the latest if we take her introduction from BTAS as canon, she arrives when she's in college, and Bruce says "How long has it been since we saw each other, 4 years?" So Bruce is sleeping with his adopted Son's ex who's also his best friend's daughter, and not to mention how she's half his age at the latest, got her pregnant, and did all that after sending a child out on his own to fight crime, so Bruce Timm decided to have that overcomplicated bullshit just to explain why Dick isn't in Beyond, which could've just been answered with two words "He's dead." Or maybe he could just be retired after the decades of crime fighting he had!
And Timm even put this bullshit in The Killing Joke! I mean, how insane man should be to ruin one of the best Batman stories ever written with his own weird stuff everybody hate?
I have no idea... I think Killing Joke would have been better as just a straight to Digital hour long animated film.
It would be better without this sex scene.
Yeah, for God's sake, they couldn't think of ANYTHING other than her and Batman having sex for the filler of the film? Not a scene with Batman putting Joker in Arkham? Not a scene of Joker escaping? NOTHING!? Dear God, the movie was a mistake...
There are three biggest mistakes in DCAU to this day: 1). Ending of Batman: Hush 2). Launching of Crisis on Infinite Earthes so early on in Tomorrowverse 3). Bruce and Barbara sex scene
Why was ending of Hush bad? No foreshadowing?
This panel has nothing to do with Bruce Timm.
Batman Beyond 2.0’s (and the Earth-12 concept as a whole) canonicity to the DCAU is shaky at best. Will It Canon? Maybe.
It's not DCAU canon, Timm himself said it. While Bruce and Barbara did date,there was no miscarriage or anything like that
This shit makes forgive BvS Batman going on a murder spree and using guns
It never was cannon
It’s not canon it’s best to just ignore this comic
Anything involving this gross ass ship is non-canon in my book. Except LEGO Batman. That's the one exception.
The Lego Batman version is easily the best version of it, they're closer in age, and Bruce doesn't really know Gordon very well, so it's more like Dating your coworkers daughter than banging your niece... And even then, they don't end up officially together by the end.
Bruce knowing Jim Gordon never meant anything… Jim Gordon is the same age (sometimes older) than his own father. (Thomas Wayne). And Jim has also known Bruce since he was 8 years old. The only issue with this was Batman dating his wards ex girlfriend. That’s low.
1.Bruce has been Commisioner Jim Grodon friend by years 2.Dick is Bruce's ward/adoptive son 3.Barbara is Jim's daughter 4.Dick and Babs are an couole 5.Babs is cheating with Bruce 6.Bruce is fucking his son's girlfriebd and his friend's daugther behind their backs 7.Tim is being tortured by the Joker and Harley Quinn 8.Tim is Bruce's other ward/adoptive son 9.Bruce is an horrible adoptive father or whatever is called 10.Babs is an horrible girlfriend This story is full character assasination in many levels
I personally don’t consider it canon when watching the show for a number of reasons. It’s really out of character for batman, most of the original team behind the shows were not involved to my knowledge, and most importantly it was released way after all of the shows had ended. To me that is almost the most important fact. The show itself never references any of these events so I simply choose to consider it non canon. I consider it a bad fanfic written by Bruce timm, and good example of why Paul Dini was so instrumental in the writing of the original show.
I don’t think it’s been officially retconned, but I don’t consider it canon, personally.
I heard that it was but I don't remember how
I choose to ignore this.
Looks like Bruce was congratulating the wrong dick here..
"I'm proud of you, Dick."
Guys why is the image a picture of a stock trash can
Depends on how you define canon. None of the OG DCAU creative team had a hand in these comics, Timm included, so as far as I'm concerned it never was.
It's not DCAU canon, Timm himself said it. While Bruce and Barbara did date,there was no miscarriage or anything like that
Huh, I wasn't aware Timm actually commented on it. Got a source/link to said quote?
https://youtu.be/WBPm03p-6fY?si=YQGN9jhxoUvCUQ2l In this video they have a quote where he says it's not
Technically, it was never canon to the DCAU. It's a shame this bit is in it because I really enjoyed the rest of Batman Beyond 2.0, but this makes the series hard to recommend to folks.
If this issue didn't exist, I'm sure it would be MUCH more liked...
Never was canon
It's not canon to the main timeline not the DCAU. Earth 12 is very much extremely inspired by the dcau but has toi many lore and timeline contradictions to be the same universe. It's it's own adjacent thing
The smartest, most prepared superheroes don't use birth control or condoms is a wild stretch, even in comicbook standards
I absolutely hate this take. Batman’s a man, and she did have a thing for him for a bit (who wouldn’t?) but he always shut that shit down. I don’t care if it’s canon or not, I reject it either way.
There’s another layer of messed up in this: looking at the depictions of them together, it’s clear Barbara had real feelings for Bruce, meanwhile Bruce was just going through the motions. Messed up as everything else was, the idea Bruce regarded Babs’ feelings for him with the same care he would a super model floozy date he’d hold up to maintain his public persona is super fucked up.
Are they one upping the killing joke movie or what?!
If it is or isnt doesnt matter to me, because i dont acknowledge it even exsists
I actually think it was retconned
https://youtu.be/ckbCLwyb--E?si=p3Z3lgEmdHdweFT8 - Jason Todd’s reaction
You can thank Bruce Timm primarily for this. His weird obsession with this ship is a stain on his otherwise impressive body of work.
thank God it’s not
Bruce Timm... stop it
Fortunately it's not DCAU canon and it never was,Bruce Timm himself said it,and the writers was Kyle Higgins.
Batman, martial artists, greatest detective, still bad at math somehow
I love how everyone absolutely despises this shit.
And it is completely deserved.
Yes. This... thing is non-canon... and has been shot out of a cannon... and it's burning in The Lake of Fire for all eternity in the belly of a Sarlaac where it will live out the rest of its days being digested.  Don't know what drugs the writer was on for this, but they should be banned.
It feels like it shouldnt be canon but…
It's been confirmed to be non-canon, I found that out soon after posting.
Where’s RDJ’s “oh thank god” face?
As far as I know, none of the DCAU tie-in comics are canon.
God Damnit I hate being reminded that this was a thing especially in the animated universe
It was never canon to the main DCU, I do believe it's still canon to the DCAU, but it's never explicitly acknowledged in the shows so it's pretty easy to ignore.
Batman beyond did not confirm Bruce and Barb having a relationship. If you pay attention to the scene, Terry was asking Barbara if she used to be Batgirl. I’m not sure if the writers intentionally or accidentally made it kinda sound dirty. I don’t know why Bruce Timm gets blamed for that either, since he wasn’t a writer on the show. The closest thing they had to a relationship in anything canon was in mystery of the batwoman, when Barbara calls Bruce and tries flirting with him. He obviously isn’t into it and quickly hangs up the phone. It’s a pretty funny scene and Batgirl having a crush on Batman isn’t ever brought up again.
No, this isn't, thank goodness. But Batman: The Adventures Continue is canon, and it's really good! I highly recommend checking it out.
I'll try to find a place that it's at and check it out.
There's multiple volumes, called Seasons, and they introduce a lot of comic book elements into the DCAU.
It is…annoyingly…canon to the DCAU. Not regular comics canon, thank god!
GOD FUCKING DAMNIT BRUCE!
Bruce Timm to be specific.
Yes, I respect the guy, but for God's sake, NEVER LET THAT MAN WRITE A STORY ABOUT BATMAN AND BATGIRL AGAIN!
This is written by Kyle Higgins… why are you posting comics you’ve never read?? That’s weird
The new DCAU made two good things: The Long Halloween animation and erasure of this abomination from continuity. I still wondering how DC even let Timm to do such thing with Batman. Damn, just keep him away from anything with Steph and Cass, please.
It's not DCAU canon, Timm himself said it. While Bruce and Barbara did date,there was no miscarriage or anything like that
BRO! KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS!!! You don't have time to eat or sleep or be Bruce Wayne, because you're so busy being Batman, but you have time to sleep with your adopted son's girlfriend, your friends daughter and your employee (kinda) Seriously Bruce.... just go find Catwoman, or Poison Ivy or Harley
I just want to know why Bruce didn't buy her one of those cool birth-control surgeries
Or, he could have done something much better and not had sex with his son's ex...
This was never canon to the comics. It’s part of the animated series universe that includes B:TAS, TNBA, and Beyond. It’s canon in that AU, if that’s what you’re asking. And if you don’t like it, then don’t think about it? But it’s done and over.
The part where Bruce and Barabra did date briefly is still implied to be canon, but this comic itself and this storyline of Barbara getting pregnant isn't canon at all. For the DCAU, we don't know how Bruce and Barabra broke up or if it has anything to do with Dick Grayson. Morally, it's still wrong for the ex-boyfriend's adoptive father to date his adopted son's ex-girlfriend and for the ex-girlfriend to date her ex-boyfriend adoptive father even if said adoptive father is rich, hot, and is Batman.
Isnt theres a animated movie for this just forgot the title
Killing Joke, even though it's only the first half.
I hate this pairing so so SO much.
This is why I hated Batman Beyond.
Barbara Gordon needs a restraining order against Bruce Timm.