3. Booster Gold Tried To Stop The Events Of The Killing Joke
That Batgirl cover isn't the first time DC have riffed on that infamous scene from The Killing Joke. Despite the general reaction being that it was a total waste of a character and an act of violence perpetrated against a female character as a plot device something Alan Moore is worryingly fond of doing it's most often been depicted in-universe as an unavoidable inevitability. J Michael Straczynski and Cliff Chiang's story Ladies' Night from anthology series The Brave And The Bold was set just before The Killing Joke and dealt with the magician Zatanna having a vision of Barbara being crippled, with her and Wonder Woman agonising over the fact they weren't able to change the course of history. That was made explicit with No Joke, an issue of Geoff Johns' Booster Gold run that saw the time-travelling hero make multiple attempts to stop The Joker's attack on Barbara during the events of The Killing Joke. He fails every time, with the implication being that it was something that supposed to happen. Which is kinda messed up, huh.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
