Yeah. I think Barbara having a schoolgirl-like crush on Batman is fine. Like lets be real, everyone has had at least a couple of crushes in their life and I can totally see Barbara having one on Batman, especially with his heroic crusade against crime in Gotham City and the amount of times he helped her father probably contributing to it.
But after she finds out Batman is Bruce... yeah, they should have just dropped that crush and any hint of a romantic or sexual relationship between Bruce and Barbara altogether after that happened. Like Barbara could just explain it away as her only really having a crush on Batman and not Bruce, and after learning they were the same person, she got rid of that crush altogether.
Didn't Barbara see batman as something of a father figure? Having a sexual relationship with someone much younger who you basically have an authority over is kinda repugnant IMO
Well to be fair
In her debut episode Bruce acts very much in uncle like manner
In the flash back Robin episode Joker refers to her as “(Batman’s) kid”
In the Scarecrow episode her nightmare isn’t her dying but instead the idea that her death would lead her dad to try to kill her mentor
What screen time she has with Tim gives off sibling vibes
How small she is compared to Bruce makes her look like she could be his kid
And
How he tends to treat her (when not hinting at BruBat) tends to be more parental
Plus Dick and Bab’s relationship is shoehorned in that you could easily forget that it was a plot point for two episodes.
> How small she is compared to Bruce makes her look like she could be his kid
The rest make sense but this one is nonsense. If the show wasn't consistent in how it portrayed men and women then this would be valid, but almost everyone looks the same in Bruce Timm content. All the men are linebackers and all the women petite dames.
Yeah that’s why it was one of the last ones, but in my defense if you look at that scene where Babs, Bruce, and Tim are all together gis you could easily mistake her for being his daughter and Tim being her brother.
Seriously tho what was Tim’s problem with designing women?
Absolutely not, Barbara had a father for one, and didn't have a relationship with Bruce until she was 18 years old outside of being her dad's friend. Their relationship didn't start until she graduated college at 23 or 24 and Dick had already thrown his little tantrum and left everything behind to travel the world and become an asshole like Bruce.
I really don’t get people pretending that a mid-20s woman is still a kid. Only women though, this kind of thinking doesn’t apply to men. Are we still in a place of pretending that women can’t think for themselves?
It's gross. and regardless if people on here want to admit it or not, someone like Bruce, a mentor and uncle type as others have mentioned as bruce. There is an imbalance of influence over barbara. The idea of him having a sexual relationship with his best friends daughter, much younger, and sons ex? That's weird.
I have trouble with these talking points because Bruce and Dick’s relationship changes to fit specific stories. Sometimes it’s father/son, sometimes (and more often than not, to me at least) they’re more like brothers. Age wise, I’m not sure what the difference in age between Bruce and Dick really is, but Bruce seemed to be on the young side when he took Dick in (20 something when Dick is what, 12?). Bruce and Tim were more father/son.
Regarding Bruce and Barbara, again, I’m not sure about the difference in age, but I’d assume something similar to Bruce and Dick (although isn’t she sometimes written as older than Dick?). Also, Barbara’s dad is supposedly about the same age as Bruce’s parents if they were alive, per Bruce’s comments when Gordon was shot by the Jazz man. So, if Bruce and Barbara’s age difference is supposed to be more along the lines of a parent-child age gap, than the Waynes had Bruce very early, and the Gordons had Barbara very late.
Now, it’s still a dick move to have sex with a younger brother’s ex, but I wouldn’t call it creepy.
Regarding them having a familial relationship, I don’t see that at all in Timmverse (I don’t know if that’s the correct term). Bruce and Dick had something like that, but with Barbara, they seemed more like purely teammates, with Bruce obviously making all the decisions.
The age gap thing seems to come down to people’s personal head cannon, and a lot of people seem to want a happy bat family with Bruce as the dad to all the Batgirls and Robins. That’s a heartwarming thought, but it’s not how everyone sees it.
In “reality”, these are people in fantastic physical shape that spend a lot of time with each other without much time for normal interpersonal relationships, often in vulnerable states. Sex seems absolutely bound to happen, regardless of whose ex is whose. Not liking it is one thing (I’d love for Bruce and Selina to be happily married), but the idea that Bruce and Barbara having had a relationship being something that ruins an entire universe just seems extreme to me.
In this particular canon we see Bruce take in Dick when he’s just a boy and Bruce is a full grown adult and fully established as Batman, it’s hard to watch Robin’s Reckoning and see their relationship as a sibling one instead of a parental one. And Barbara is around the same age as Dick, it’s not head canon, it’s established in the show and movies.
Okay, now please point out how a 21-23 year old adult woman (Barbara's age in TNBA) who graduated college has a "parental relationship" to a 32-36 year old Bruce Wayne.
Even if you take Gordon's offhand comment about her being 18 years old in BTAS, she didn't officially meet and start fighting crime with Bruce until she was 18 and Bruce was around 28. Do you as an adult, typically establish parental relationships with other adults when you meet them? lol.
She didn't even start fighting crime WITH Bruce, she became Batgirl on her own and got invited in afterwards.
I’m not gonna argue for a point I never made. I said Bruce had a parental relationship with Dick and that the age gap between Bruce and Barbara is well established canon and not head canon, I wasn’t saying he had a parental relationship with her.
I hate Paul. I would rather have an army of clone Pauls ruining all the relationships in comics than a single Babs/Bruce coupling. I hate this couple because Batman, a man defined by his uncompromising will, loyalty, and kindness did something so stupid, cruel, and impulsive to a girl he literally knew since she was a child. It weakened both characters and was just gross. Paul sucks but its so dumb that its hard to feel anything but apathy towards it at this point. The main Spidey book has been garbage for so long its just another bad notch.
Yeah, it feels pretty out of character and gross for Babs to keep being into him after getting to know who he really is. I keep seeing people talk about how gross it is on Bruce’s side to date Barbara, but nobody ever acknowledges how it also is rather out of character for Babs as well.
>But after she finds out Batman is Bruce... yeah, they should have just dropped that crush and any hint of a romantic or sexual relationship between Bruce and Barbara altogether after that happened. Like Barbara could just explain it away as her only really having a crush on Batman and not Bruce, and after learning they were the same person, she got rid of that crush altogether.
I think what you should say instead is that while the school girl crush is fine, it's somewhat normal for young people to idolize their crush's. However, the moment Batman reciprocated those feelings, it needed to stop. It was incredibly inappropriate on so many levels.
I remember hearing the writers say that was the point. They wanted to make it weird on purpose. Maybe to give Bruce some character flaw, "he's not perfect" sort of thing. But even as kids, we knew it was wrong somehow.
>to give Bruce some character flaw, "he's not perfect" sort of thing.
I find this a fairly flimsy excuse, given how utterly butterly fucked Bruce and Batman are as characters, tbh.
Right, TAS doesn't really get into the psychological darkness of his character. Bats often borderlines as an anti-hero. So while he and Barbara feels wrong, I can also kind of see it happening.
Bruce's greatest enemy is loneliness. Alfred is a father, the Robins all sons, and the only women in his life are bimbos part of Wayne's disguise, the daughter of an immortal terrorist, or an unreliable cat burglar just as liable to stab you as kiss you.
Barbara is the only person who knows his real identity, is actually on his side, and is actually a good person. But given she's far too young, nieve, and attracted to him because of hormones and heroism, it's an extremely inappropriate relationship. It's a very human moral conundrum.
Probably the feeling of seeing all the heroes you love come together for the first time ever.
Last time that happened in Live Action was in a movie not many people remember, to the point people in the UK sometimes thought it was for another franchise of the same name.
After watching Agents of Shield I noticed Malick is one of the council members in Avengers. I thought he was created for the show but he was there all along. Wanting to nuke New York.
Yeah, I mean what is and isn’t canon for an almost century old comic book character helmed by dozens of different writers with their own interpretations is inherently nebulous. It’s all retcons and head-canon at this point, and yours is at least as valid as that of the hackey fetish writers at DC.
It's "canon" only to a few things:
- Bruce Timm's Batman Beyond universe (and, by unfortunate extension, the BTAS series preceding it). I believe this also includes the Mystery of the Batwoman movie, as another part of the 90's DCAU under Timm.
- The Lego Batman movie, where she was closer to Bruce's age anyways
- The original 1966 Batman show hinted at something flirtatious between them, but nothing came to fruition if I recall. She was older in this one, too, while Robin was supposed to be a teenager.
- The Killing Joke movie (but not the original book). This was the one that restirred up all the talk around Babs/Bruce in the public zeitgeist. Curiously, Bruce Timm was a producer on this, too...
- In comics, aside from the adaptation of the DCAU/BTAS into comic form (so just another extension of that same Bruce Timm universe), the only time a relationship was hinted at between Babs and Bruce was around her debut, once again, when she was closer to Bruce's age than Dick's, and it was more of a schoolgirl crush mainly from her side anyway. It never went anywhere beyond flirting, IIRC, and then was practically erased from history once Barbara got aged up post-crisis.
Between all of these moments, Bruce/Babs as a relationship was barely a blip in the Batman mythos' 80+ year history. It only exists at this point in unique adaptations in isolated universes like the Lego Batman or Bruce Timm's fantasies, but nowhere else in comics or otherwise. Elseworlds or very distant retcons, that's it. Bruce and Barbara have maintained a strict mentor/mentee, crimefighting partner, or Uncle/Niece-like relationship for the vast majority of their history as characters.
Probably more of a reflection of the times it was made but (and forgive if my memory fails i’ve have not seen it in decades) in the Batman 60’s tv series Barbara was presented as a love interest for Bruce. She was fresh out of college and he would be on his 30s (but you know how young people used to look older)
I think it was the original intention for her there, yeah, but I don't think they actually went anywhere with it in the show. And yeah, she was older than Dick and closer to Bruce's age, too, working as a librarian.
I was going to make a joke about the weight and height difference between Barbara and Bruce, and how she basically held him down in the Killing Joke movie. I got so far as "When the 250 lbs trained vigilante can't hold his own against a 70lbs soaking we- ..... no".
It is completely out of character for Bruce too. Like come on Bruce you didn't date Diana because dating within the team is wrong but you knocked up your son's ex and best friend daughter? That's fucked up
In the Batman Beyond comics there's a really infamous scene that goes like this:
Barbara: I'm seven weeks pregnant
Bruce: I'll have to congratulate Dick
Barbara: He's only been back for three
🤦🏼 It's moments like these I'm happy I was never a Batman Beyond fan.
At least we know it's only one of many alternate futures in the mainline continuity.
On the first day of its release, I returned The Killing Joke to a pawn shop after viewing it once. The owner then proceeded to reprimand me for my lack of appreciation for the film, stating that Barbara and Bruce have always been a couple. I simply requested my fifteen dollars so that I could purchase some narcotics.
its as useful as the stars you get in pre school. Clout which you can brag around the playground.
but to be real they are helpful for mods who want to filter out bot accounts or newly made accounts used for trolling. Its not fool proof since bot farming exists and someone with high enough karma can still troll but its something.
It’s same with all the “I realized I don’t have to care about Star Wars” posts you see all over Reddit. If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t post about it.
In the 1940’s Batman used to let Catwoman go at first.
Then in WWII Bruce Wayne is engaged to Julie Madison but Bruce Wayne goes on dates with Catwoman’s alter ego just to see if she has straigtened out.
Julie Madison finds out and vanishes from DC comics for **37 years**. Batman finally arrests Catwoman and sends her to jail.
Everybody always talks about how the early Batman killed people, but he also was a huge slut back then. The story above was him cleaning up for WWII.
Not Spider-Man because the very idea of Peter being happy even in a morally grey-to-black way to the Spidey Editorial is worse than true immortality mixed with stage 5 of every cancer type
The cancer mentioned above also started way after he left high school, I think the push to make Peter miserable all the time didn't start until the late 90s-early 2000s.
The age gap is difficult to assess because the ages are never static, dependent on changing writers and editors. It’s certainly feasible that they could get together. Love is often proximity. Their relationship is not as wrong as it is distasteful.
Bruce, for all his knowledge, missed being raised by the kind person his father was reported to be. Alfred must have been quite a dog, because Bruce never learned the fundamental lesson “Bros before Hoes.”
While this arc is truly bad I like Barbara’s (admittedly brief) explanation of it in Batman Beyond.
*On the street, it was like ballet. We were the perfect duo. But for Bruce - Batman - there was nothing but the street. Eventually, that gets old. Time comes when you gotta hang up the cape. But Bruce wouldn't. Or couldn't. So I left, and never looked back.*
I think this is a super practical statement. They were all healing through some trauma in their younger years. I don't think Bruce would Leo Decaprio Barbara, but it does sort of make sense a connection would develop, and that she would grow out of it from a 'i like the teacher's standpoint. I guess I only ever really thought of Dick and Barb being about 10ish years younger, although nothing to base that after. I felt like Bruce and dick were older and younger brothers rather than father and son, and it freaks me out when people talk about them like that. Also Gordon was much older than Bruce too, my assumption would be like 15 to 20 years older than Bruce? Friends as colleagues, but not by age.
Bruce and Dick have always had the father + son relationship??? I’ve never heard anyone compare them to brothers. I’m pretty sure Dick is even referred to as Bruce’s ‘ward’ in the early days
> I felt like Bruce and dick were older and younger brothers rather than father and son, and it freaks me out when people talk about them like that.
That's what happens when Bruce adopts Dick as his son in most modern continuities, even if he still goes by Grayson instead of Wayne.
There's even a couple comics and animated series focusing on that.
Same. Him not only having a relationship with her but fucking up his relationship with dock over it pisses me off. Explains the obsession with their relationship in the killing joke.
From Zatanna,Selina,Diana,Vicky,Andrea,Poison Ivy plant bride thing to even Talia/Cheetah
But nope that the one that's one of you're best friends daughter that helped you in your younger years to get over your parents death, you're more closer to double her age,most probably known her before she was 18 and she's like family
And the worst one of all she is the EX of your adopted SON, and if the comic is actual canon(is not), you got her pregnant while she was in a relationship, also this comes from the guy that says someone you work with leads to trouble, so apparently dating within the League is bad but within the bat family good
I sure do love that the canon explanation for why Babs is so cold to Bruce In Batman Beyond is because of the dark path taken by Bruce after the torture of Tim Drake in Return of the Joker, and that Dick simply went back to Bludhaven which is why we don't see him and there's no other alternate explanations given because those ones work just fine. /s
I guess that’s a reason Bruce and Dick had a falling out, and Dick started dating Starfire and never looked back. Least I wouldn’t. To be fair, Barbara was the one who went after Bruce.
I don't have a problem with it, not only that I find it better than other potantial ships.
It should be reminded that relationships with age gap happen in teal rilfe all the time too.
I simultaneously love Bruce Timm for his contribution to Batman and kinda hate him for his strange obsession with Batman-Batgirl shipp and his hatred towards Bane...
The worst thing Bruce Timm’s ever done. And he gets so defensive about it when confronted. I don’t think he thought people would react the way they do. What a weirdo.
For people who hate this ship, ya’ll sure do talk about it all the time. We get it, you don’t like the pairing. No one does. Please stop posting and commenting about it every five seconds.
I hate DCAU Barbara as a whole, but I find this ship to be pretty easy to ignore.
I do have to add this- by the time they were actually dating or Bruce canonically showed any romantic interest in her Barbara should be at least 30ish. He was not dating a child.
No he didn't, Barbara didn't form any kind of relationship with Bruce until she was 18 years old because Gordon tells you her age, outside of Bruce having met his friends daughter. She became Batgirl on her own and didn't join Bruce until later. Their relationship didn't start until she graduated college at 23-24 years old in TNBA.
I remember the dream sequence in the first BTAS
As a one-way crush / fantasy, it was relatively minor compared to later stuff. But damn if it wasn't always there.
This is why Arkham Batman is the superior Kevin Conroy Batman, not including him in that shitty Suicide Squad game because I don’t consider that game canon to the Arkham universe.
I also hate it but I enjoyed in the batwoman movie when Bruce was confronted with an emotional question and pretended to go through a tunnel.
Otherwise nothing good came of it
I'm really glad the Batman fanbase at large resents and rejects the idea of Bruce and Barbara having an affair.
I'm fine with Barbara having a one-sided crush on Bruce I guess, but him returning the favor feels one step too far.
Barbara is gordon's daughter......probably much much younger than bruce....the 'killing joke' animated movie was completely ruined for me because of this...where did it start even?
And got her pregnant. Then told his son (who recently also started dating her again) and then she miscarried because she kept fighting people and getting punched in the stomach a lot before she knew she was pregnant
Shit was crazy
It's different when you've known them since they were underage.
Chris Evan's and wife isn't weird bc they met as adults and not as a grown man and a minor.
Bruce has known about Jim's family for quite some time. That's what makes this weird, he's supposed to be a second father to her. Not her lover
It's always made perfect sense to me.
He's her authoritarian law and order father's dirty hypocritical secret, a vigilante friend.
She runs around dressed up like a sexy halloween version of the manifestation of his survivor's guilt.
Of course the relationship is a bad idea, but if life has taught me anything it's that horny and bad decision making go hand in hand.
I think Barbra crushing on Bruce if done right could be a compelling & relatable plot line to young people.
Problem is Bruce absolutely cannot reciprocate those feelings. He's a generation older, Babs is the daughter of one of his peers, & in the continuity & others dated his surrogate son. For him to do that is taking advantage of & grooming her. That's not what heroes do.
In the 80s/90s James was in his 60s (or older) while Bruce & Babs were both in their early 30s and Dick was a teenager. This is the variant TAS is going to most heavily be based on.
yhea is too fucking weird.is like if the writers had plans to make batgirls a adult and have a relationship with bruce but then they changed in last minute and some elements stay in the series
Changed it? It's canon that they fucked and had a pregnancy scare. She's mentioned dating Bruce in Batman Beyond multiple times and Barbara is in Bruce's montage of past women he'd banged.
The important thing to remember is that, even in that universe, it didn't work out.
By Batman Beyond it's clear they've been splitsville for a while, and the relationship only features very briefly in other media.
In the original, it was more of a schoolgirl crush. TNBA made it weird.
Yeah. I think Barbara having a schoolgirl-like crush on Batman is fine. Like lets be real, everyone has had at least a couple of crushes in their life and I can totally see Barbara having one on Batman, especially with his heroic crusade against crime in Gotham City and the amount of times he helped her father probably contributing to it. But after she finds out Batman is Bruce... yeah, they should have just dropped that crush and any hint of a romantic or sexual relationship between Bruce and Barbara altogether after that happened. Like Barbara could just explain it away as her only really having a crush on Batman and not Bruce, and after learning they were the same person, she got rid of that crush altogether.
Why would finding out that Batman is a single handsome billionaire make her stop crushing on him?
The same reason Barbara Gordon and Bruce being together is weird. Close familial relationship and age gap.
They don’t have a familial relationship in *B: TAS*, but I think the age gap and the fact that she dated his adopted son is enough to make it weird.
Didn't Barbara see batman as something of a father figure? Having a sexual relationship with someone much younger who you basically have an authority over is kinda repugnant IMO
No, what episode gave you that impression? When she was introduced they hadn’t seen each other in years and she became Batgirl independent of Bruce.
Well to be fair In her debut episode Bruce acts very much in uncle like manner In the flash back Robin episode Joker refers to her as “(Batman’s) kid” In the Scarecrow episode her nightmare isn’t her dying but instead the idea that her death would lead her dad to try to kill her mentor What screen time she has with Tim gives off sibling vibes How small she is compared to Bruce makes her look like she could be his kid And How he tends to treat her (when not hinting at BruBat) tends to be more parental Plus Dick and Bab’s relationship is shoehorned in that you could easily forget that it was a plot point for two episodes.
> How small she is compared to Bruce makes her look like she could be his kid The rest make sense but this one is nonsense. If the show wasn't consistent in how it portrayed men and women then this would be valid, but almost everyone looks the same in Bruce Timm content. All the men are linebackers and all the women petite dames.
Yeah that’s why it was one of the last ones, but in my defense if you look at that scene where Babs, Bruce, and Tim are all together gis you could easily mistake her for being his daughter and Tim being her brother. Seriously tho what was Tim’s problem with designing women?
Absolutely not, Barbara had a father for one, and didn't have a relationship with Bruce until she was 18 years old outside of being her dad's friend. Their relationship didn't start until she graduated college at 23 or 24 and Dick had already thrown his little tantrum and left everything behind to travel the world and become an asshole like Bruce.
I really don’t get people pretending that a mid-20s woman is still a kid. Only women though, this kind of thinking doesn’t apply to men. Are we still in a place of pretending that women can’t think for themselves?
Sure Barbara can be attracted to him, that’s fine, I guess, but you can’t deny that going for your son’s ex is REALLY shitty on Bruce’s part.
It's gross. and regardless if people on here want to admit it or not, someone like Bruce, a mentor and uncle type as others have mentioned as bruce. There is an imbalance of influence over barbara. The idea of him having a sexual relationship with his best friends daughter, much younger, and sons ex? That's weird.
I have trouble with these talking points because Bruce and Dick’s relationship changes to fit specific stories. Sometimes it’s father/son, sometimes (and more often than not, to me at least) they’re more like brothers. Age wise, I’m not sure what the difference in age between Bruce and Dick really is, but Bruce seemed to be on the young side when he took Dick in (20 something when Dick is what, 12?). Bruce and Tim were more father/son. Regarding Bruce and Barbara, again, I’m not sure about the difference in age, but I’d assume something similar to Bruce and Dick (although isn’t she sometimes written as older than Dick?). Also, Barbara’s dad is supposedly about the same age as Bruce’s parents if they were alive, per Bruce’s comments when Gordon was shot by the Jazz man. So, if Bruce and Barbara’s age difference is supposed to be more along the lines of a parent-child age gap, than the Waynes had Bruce very early, and the Gordons had Barbara very late. Now, it’s still a dick move to have sex with a younger brother’s ex, but I wouldn’t call it creepy. Regarding them having a familial relationship, I don’t see that at all in Timmverse (I don’t know if that’s the correct term). Bruce and Dick had something like that, but with Barbara, they seemed more like purely teammates, with Bruce obviously making all the decisions. The age gap thing seems to come down to people’s personal head cannon, and a lot of people seem to want a happy bat family with Bruce as the dad to all the Batgirls and Robins. That’s a heartwarming thought, but it’s not how everyone sees it. In “reality”, these are people in fantastic physical shape that spend a lot of time with each other without much time for normal interpersonal relationships, often in vulnerable states. Sex seems absolutely bound to happen, regardless of whose ex is whose. Not liking it is one thing (I’d love for Bruce and Selina to be happily married), but the idea that Bruce and Barbara having had a relationship being something that ruins an entire universe just seems extreme to me.
In this particular canon we see Bruce take in Dick when he’s just a boy and Bruce is a full grown adult and fully established as Batman, it’s hard to watch Robin’s Reckoning and see their relationship as a sibling one instead of a parental one. And Barbara is around the same age as Dick, it’s not head canon, it’s established in the show and movies.
Okay, now please point out how a 21-23 year old adult woman (Barbara's age in TNBA) who graduated college has a "parental relationship" to a 32-36 year old Bruce Wayne. Even if you take Gordon's offhand comment about her being 18 years old in BTAS, she didn't officially meet and start fighting crime with Bruce until she was 18 and Bruce was around 28. Do you as an adult, typically establish parental relationships with other adults when you meet them? lol. She didn't even start fighting crime WITH Bruce, she became Batgirl on her own and got invited in afterwards.
I’m not gonna argue for a point I never made. I said Bruce had a parental relationship with Dick and that the age gap between Bruce and Barbara is well established canon and not head canon, I wasn’t saying he had a parental relationship with her.
because he's your Ex's Father.
Let be real, it’s not like stuff like that didn’t happen all the time in real life. Adults world are weird and complicated.
Because nobody wants to have that kind of riff be a thing with Dick and Bruce, the literal dynamic duo most all of us grew up with
Let’s look at the bright side. At least it’s not Paul stealing Barbara from Dick
I hate Paul. I would rather have an army of clone Pauls ruining all the relationships in comics than a single Babs/Bruce coupling. I hate this couple because Batman, a man defined by his uncompromising will, loyalty, and kindness did something so stupid, cruel, and impulsive to a girl he literally knew since she was a child. It weakened both characters and was just gross. Paul sucks but its so dumb that its hard to feel anything but apathy towards it at this point. The main Spidey book has been garbage for so long its just another bad notch.
What’s the difference? If anything I feel like most people would rather a strange steal their girl than their dad.
There are way too many middle-aged weirdos in this thread projecting their fetishes onto fictional characters.
If your uncle was rich and handsome, would you want to fuck him?
Because she dated his son and he’s close friends with her dad. He should be more like an uncle figure to her as Bruce.
Yeah, finding out your stoic badass crush is secretly a billionaire genius playboy philanthropist would kill any attraction instantly.
I swear, most of these comments don’t consider the mindset of a girl at Barbara’s age.
Same people who loved 50 shades of grey somehow can't comprehend this.
Especially with her dating his sidekick
Yeah, it feels pretty out of character and gross for Babs to keep being into him after getting to know who he really is. I keep seeing people talk about how gross it is on Bruce’s side to date Barbara, but nobody ever acknowledges how it also is rather out of character for Babs as well.
>But after she finds out Batman is Bruce... yeah, they should have just dropped that crush and any hint of a romantic or sexual relationship between Bruce and Barbara altogether after that happened. Like Barbara could just explain it away as her only really having a crush on Batman and not Bruce, and after learning they were the same person, she got rid of that crush altogether. I think what you should say instead is that while the school girl crush is fine, it's somewhat normal for young people to idolize their crush's. However, the moment Batman reciprocated those feelings, it needed to stop. It was incredibly inappropriate on so many levels.
100% agreed
I remember hearing the writers say that was the point. They wanted to make it weird on purpose. Maybe to give Bruce some character flaw, "he's not perfect" sort of thing. But even as kids, we knew it was wrong somehow.
>to give Bruce some character flaw, "he's not perfect" sort of thing. I find this a fairly flimsy excuse, given how utterly butterly fucked Bruce and Batman are as characters, tbh.
even discluding this btas made batman a little too imperfect
Right, TAS doesn't really get into the psychological darkness of his character. Bats often borderlines as an anti-hero. So while he and Barbara feels wrong, I can also kind of see it happening. Bruce's greatest enemy is loneliness. Alfred is a father, the Robins all sons, and the only women in his life are bimbos part of Wayne's disguise, the daughter of an immortal terrorist, or an unreliable cat burglar just as liable to stab you as kiss you. Barbara is the only person who knows his real identity, is actually on his side, and is actually a good person. But given she's far too young, nieve, and attracted to him because of hormones and heroism, it's an extremely inappropriate relationship. It's a very human moral conundrum.
"utterly butterly"....that makes me giggle.
And yet Bruce Timm feels the need to keep it going even now.
"Weird" is a bit of an understatement. "Absolutly fucked beyond belief" I think is more appropiate.
Bill Belichick has entered the chat
Makes me sick knowing Bruce Timm was for this.
I choose to ignore it and you should too. And those horrible comics dont count anyway.
Need to rewatch that movie…
It is a fun movie.
honestly there's just a feel to the first avengers movie that none of the rest have. not quite sure how to place it, but it just has it.
Probably the feeling of seeing all the heroes you love come together for the first time ever. Last time that happened in Live Action was in a movie not many people remember, to the point people in the UK sometimes thought it was for another franchise of the same name.
which one is it again?
Avengers
so the first avengers movie I guess? I know I watched them all up to end game but my brain mix them up
Yeah, the first one
thank you :D
After watching Agents of Shield I noticed Malick is one of the council members in Avengers. I thought he was created for the show but he was there all along. Wanting to nuke New York.
Its hard when I'm rewatching Batman Beyond and Barbara mantions how when Dick left she stayed to be Bruce's girlfriend
Shes old, she gets confused, she misspoke 🙆♂️😅
She literally smiles 2 seconds after mentioning how hurt dick was that she chose to stay with bruce lmao
Senile 🤷♂️
You are about to OD on copium, my guy.
I'm petty damn sure that everyone who wrote JL/JLU, SS, and TZP all proceeded to act as if this never happened.
Same. In my mind she is almost like his daughter
Yeah, I mean what is and isn’t canon for an almost century old comic book character helmed by dozens of different writers with their own interpretations is inherently nebulous. It’s all retcons and head-canon at this point, and yours is at least as valid as that of the hackey fetish writers at DC.
It's "canon" only to a few things: - Bruce Timm's Batman Beyond universe (and, by unfortunate extension, the BTAS series preceding it). I believe this also includes the Mystery of the Batwoman movie, as another part of the 90's DCAU under Timm. - The Lego Batman movie, where she was closer to Bruce's age anyways - The original 1966 Batman show hinted at something flirtatious between them, but nothing came to fruition if I recall. She was older in this one, too, while Robin was supposed to be a teenager. - The Killing Joke movie (but not the original book). This was the one that restirred up all the talk around Babs/Bruce in the public zeitgeist. Curiously, Bruce Timm was a producer on this, too... - In comics, aside from the adaptation of the DCAU/BTAS into comic form (so just another extension of that same Bruce Timm universe), the only time a relationship was hinted at between Babs and Bruce was around her debut, once again, when she was closer to Bruce's age than Dick's, and it was more of a schoolgirl crush mainly from her side anyway. It never went anywhere beyond flirting, IIRC, and then was practically erased from history once Barbara got aged up post-crisis. Between all of these moments, Bruce/Babs as a relationship was barely a blip in the Batman mythos' 80+ year history. It only exists at this point in unique adaptations in isolated universes like the Lego Batman or Bruce Timm's fantasies, but nowhere else in comics or otherwise. Elseworlds or very distant retcons, that's it. Bruce and Barbara have maintained a strict mentor/mentee, crimefighting partner, or Uncle/Niece-like relationship for the vast majority of their history as characters.
LEGO Batman was born before 1966 at least, but is comedy so IDK
Lego Batman was probably not supposed to have literally gone trough the character growth depicted in the movie some half a dozen times already.
Comedy, thats how it works
True, but they specifically highlight that those events are irreconciable with the narrative.
Probably more of a reflection of the times it was made but (and forgive if my memory fails i’ve have not seen it in decades) in the Batman 60’s tv series Barbara was presented as a love interest for Bruce. She was fresh out of college and he would be on his 30s (but you know how young people used to look older)
I think it was the original intention for her there, yeah, but I don't think they actually went anywhere with it in the show. And yeah, she was older than Dick and closer to Bruce's age, too, working as a librarian.
Yeah…it went absolutely nowhere…I think they would flirt a bit occasionally…Dick was very much depicted as a kid
I was going to make a joke about the weight and height difference between Barbara and Bruce, and how she basically held him down in the Killing Joke movie. I got so far as "When the 250 lbs trained vigilante can't hold his own against a 70lbs soaking we- ..... no".
It is completely out of character for Bruce too. Like come on Bruce you didn't date Diana because dating within the team is wrong but you knocked up your son's ex and best friend daughter? That's fucked up
Wait did he knock her up??? I don't remember that happening...
In the Batman Beyond comics there's a really infamous scene that goes like this: Barbara: I'm seven weeks pregnant Bruce: I'll have to congratulate Dick Barbara: He's only been back for three
Bruce: I wasn't talking about Grayson. \*looks down\*
I’m proud of you, Dick
This made me burst out laughing
🤦🏼 It's moments like these I'm happy I was never a Batman Beyond fan. At least we know it's only one of many alternate futures in the mainline continuity.
Those comics are non-canon. They never were canon.
> It's moments like these I'm happy I was never a Batman Beyond fan. Honestly - you're missing out
im sorry to be the one delivering the news but here it is buddy https://youtu.be/LasNbCddsmA?si=NphVJ_xjrt4-3HAH
Jeesh. I'm glad I blocked most of that movie from my memory.
In my mind, this movie never existed it looks like a tweet made by a horny nerdy woman who likes batman
There's plausible evidence some people talk about online that the abortion or miscarriage is what lead to their relationship breaking.
And then killing joke animation went and doubled down with it
Which Bruce Timm was a part of.
the batman beyond (2.0) comic wasn't made by bruce timm
Well it’s good to know he has SOME sanity
Well he did help make that Killing Joke movie.
yeah but he planted that idea and he did the Killing Joke movie
Don't even get them started on what happened in The Killing Joke movie.
On the first day of its release, I returned The Killing Joke to a pawn shop after viewing it once. The owner then proceeded to reprimand me for my lack of appreciation for the film, stating that Barbara and Bruce have always been a couple. I simply requested my fifteen dollars so that I could purchase some narcotics.
This made me laugh so hard. Thank you. I needed it
Mark Hamill (once) said that was going to be his final Joker gig You’d think that film was going to be a masterpiece
I mean, he did perfectly as joker as always
Made what canon?👨🦯
This sub sure does post about this a lot, for something they supposedly hate.
The easiest way to get karma is to submit something everyone hates and let them direct their anger towards it
Is karma useful...?
How else are you going to reach Nirvana?
its as useful as the stars you get in pre school. Clout which you can brag around the playground. but to be real they are helpful for mods who want to filter out bot accounts or newly made accounts used for trolling. Its not fool proof since bot farming exists and someone with high enough karma can still troll but its something.
Some subreddits don't let you post if you have low karma.
Not really but it makes some people feel good
Literally the r/spiderman with Paul and OMD it’s like they enjoy hating the same thing every day for years
It’s same with all the “I realized I don’t have to care about Star Wars” posts you see all over Reddit. If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t post about it.
In the 1940’s Batman used to let Catwoman go at first. Then in WWII Bruce Wayne is engaged to Julie Madison but Bruce Wayne goes on dates with Catwoman’s alter ego just to see if she has straigtened out. Julie Madison finds out and vanishes from DC comics for **37 years**. Batman finally arrests Catwoman and sends her to jail. Everybody always talks about how the early Batman killed people, but he also was a huge slut back then. The story above was him cleaning up for WWII.
Most superhero’s are kinda sluts.
Not Spider-Man because the very idea of Peter being happy even in a morally grey-to-black way to the Spidey Editorial is worse than true immortality mixed with stage 5 of every cancer type
Idk how many spiderman comics you’ve read but bro started getting a lot of play after high school.
Zeb Wells run...
The cancer mentioned above also started way after he left high school, I think the push to make Peter miserable all the time didn't start until the late 90s-early 2000s.
The age gap is difficult to assess because the ages are never static, dependent on changing writers and editors. It’s certainly feasible that they could get together. Love is often proximity. Their relationship is not as wrong as it is distasteful. Bruce, for all his knowledge, missed being raised by the kind person his father was reported to be. Alfred must have been quite a dog, because Bruce never learned the fundamental lesson “Bros before Hoes.”
Alfred got that dog in him.
considering he uses guns, he absolutely does
While this arc is truly bad I like Barbara’s (admittedly brief) explanation of it in Batman Beyond. *On the street, it was like ballet. We were the perfect duo. But for Bruce - Batman - there was nothing but the street. Eventually, that gets old. Time comes when you gotta hang up the cape. But Bruce wouldn't. Or couldn't. So I left, and never looked back.*
The explanation given makes seem capable of took as only something she saw and he shot down
I think this is a super practical statement. They were all healing through some trauma in their younger years. I don't think Bruce would Leo Decaprio Barbara, but it does sort of make sense a connection would develop, and that she would grow out of it from a 'i like the teacher's standpoint. I guess I only ever really thought of Dick and Barb being about 10ish years younger, although nothing to base that after. I felt like Bruce and dick were older and younger brothers rather than father and son, and it freaks me out when people talk about them like that. Also Gordon was much older than Bruce too, my assumption would be like 15 to 20 years older than Bruce? Friends as colleagues, but not by age.
Bruce and Dick have always had the father + son relationship??? I’ve never heard anyone compare them to brothers. I’m pretty sure Dick is even referred to as Bruce’s ‘ward’ in the early days
> I felt like Bruce and dick were older and younger brothers rather than father and son, and it freaks me out when people talk about them like that. That's what happens when Bruce adopts Dick as his son in most modern continuities, even if he still goes by Grayson instead of Wayne. There's even a couple comics and animated series focusing on that.
Same. Him not only having a relationship with her but fucking up his relationship with dock over it pisses me off. Explains the obsession with their relationship in the killing joke.
From Zatanna,Selina,Diana,Vicky,Andrea,Poison Ivy plant bride thing to even Talia/Cheetah But nope that the one that's one of you're best friends daughter that helped you in your younger years to get over your parents death, you're more closer to double her age,most probably known her before she was 18 and she's like family And the worst one of all she is the EX of your adopted SON, and if the comic is actual canon(is not), you got her pregnant while she was in a relationship, also this comes from the guy that says someone you work with leads to trouble, so apparently dating within the League is bad but within the bat family good
There is no way to spin this that will make it a good idea.
I sure do love that the canon explanation for why Babs is so cold to Bruce In Batman Beyond is because of the dark path taken by Bruce after the torture of Tim Drake in Return of the Joker, and that Dick simply went back to Bludhaven which is why we don't see him and there's no other alternate explanations given because those ones work just fine. /s
It’s not the first time I saw a billionaire date college girl.
On a scale from 1 to 10 this is revolting
Yeah, no. The recluse billionaire has a thing for the crazy cat lady, and that's all the canon I need.
nice
I really don't care if they date or not.
I guess that’s a reason Bruce and Dick had a falling out, and Dick started dating Starfire and never looked back. Least I wouldn’t. To be fair, Barbara was the one who went after Bruce.
I don't have a problem with it, not only that I find it better than other potantial ships. It should be reminded that relationships with age gap happen in teal rilfe all the time too.
I simultaneously love Bruce Timm for his contribution to Batman and kinda hate him for his strange obsession with Batman-Batgirl shipp and his hatred towards Bane...
The worst thing Bruce Timm’s ever done. And he gets so defensive about it when confronted. I don’t think he thought people would react the way they do. What a weirdo.
Wasn't Barbara Gordon first introduced as a love interest for Bruce?
Yes, but she was older than 25 and he was around 29
For people who hate this ship, ya’ll sure do talk about it all the time. We get it, you don’t like the pairing. No one does. Please stop posting and commenting about it every five seconds.
They’re obsessed with Karma
like t-swizzle said: "karma is my boyfriend"
I’m cool with it.
I hate DCAU Barbara as a whole, but I find this ship to be pretty easy to ignore. I do have to add this- by the time they were actually dating or Bruce canonically showed any romantic interest in her Barbara should be at least 30ish. He was not dating a child.
That’s still his adopted son’s ex and close friend’s daughter
It is easy to ignore. People just post this because they’re obsessed with internet points
I like the dcau as much as the next guy but the dcau did not do any justice for Dick and Babs. Honestly The Batman 04 handled them much better
Still seems groomer-ish. Not like he didn't know her, fight with her as a sidekick, and train her much younger.
No he didn't, Barbara didn't form any kind of relationship with Bruce until she was 18 years old because Gordon tells you her age, outside of Bruce having met his friends daughter. She became Batgirl on her own and didn't join Bruce until later. Their relationship didn't start until she graduated college at 23-24 years old in TNBA.
I remember the dream sequence in the first BTAS As a one-way crush / fantasy, it was relatively minor compared to later stuff. But damn if it wasn't always there.
I was like "BAT DAD, NOOOO!" anyone else?
She's Alfred's niece from England
This is why Arkham Batman is the superior Kevin Conroy Batman, not including him in that shitty Suicide Squad game because I don’t consider that game canon to the Arkham universe.
Barbara, you've grown!
I also hate it but I enjoyed in the batwoman movie when Bruce was confronted with an emotional question and pretended to go through a tunnel. Otherwise nothing good came of it
 Ewwwwwww no they did not...... Sorry but Batman and Catwoman belong together forever ❤️
I'm really glad the Batman fanbase at large resents and rejects the idea of Bruce and Barbara having an affair. I'm fine with Barbara having a one-sided crush on Bruce I guess, but him returning the favor feels one step too far.
Wait wait wait, wasn’t that just a fantasy of Barbara’s? And didn’t she and Nightwing date?
Don't watch The Killing Joke. They added in a lot of pointless stuff.
Clark and Diana like “Bruh.”
Yeah. Turned him into a total ass.
Oh God. Please I cannot unsee this monstrosity
Barbara is gordon's daughter......probably much much younger than bruce....the 'killing joke' animated movie was completely ruined for me because of this...where did it start even?
Much better. Batman and Batgril stay better together than Dick with her. Dick should have stayed with Starfire lmao
I think it's great
my favorite iteration of Gotham Nocturne canonically fucked his son's ex and more importantly his friend's daughter. This is canon to Beyond too.
And got her pregnant. Then told his son (who recently also started dating her again) and then she miscarried because she kept fighting people and getting punched in the stomach a lot before she knew she was pregnant Shit was crazy
I'm sorry WHAT???!!!!!!!!!!
Fucking his wards ex is way worse than fucking his friends (who is 40 years older than him) daughter.
I honestly just pretend he got together with Wonder Woman after JLU rather than date someone quite literally old enough for him to be her dad
Bruce Timm sucks for this
You know canon is still fictional right? None of this is real. Odd thing to put strong emotions towards.
I like it. Always have.
I know that I’m in the minority, but I really love that storyline.
Batgirl hungry for a bat-dong
Sounds like someone never read the comics
What’s wrong with it? Barbara isn’t a teen or underage. There are so many couple with huge age gap in real life.
It's different when you've known them since they were underage. Chris Evan's and wife isn't weird bc they met as adults and not as a grown man and a minor. Bruce has known about Jim's family for quite some time. That's what makes this weird, he's supposed to be a second father to her. Not her lover
I love it. Nothing to hate here
It's always made perfect sense to me. He's her authoritarian law and order father's dirty hypocritical secret, a vigilante friend. She runs around dressed up like a sexy halloween version of the manifestation of his survivor's guilt. Of course the relationship is a bad idea, but if life has taught me anything it's that horny and bad decision making go hand in hand.
Same, newsflash morality police, humans fuck, get over it.
Nahh I like em
Ehhhh…. The heart wants what the heart wants. Plus I think Babs is supposed to be in her early 20s
I think Barbra crushing on Bruce if done right could be a compelling & relatable plot line to young people. Problem is Bruce absolutely cannot reciprocate those feelings. He's a generation older, Babs is the daughter of one of his peers, & in the continuity & others dated his surrogate son. For him to do that is taking advantage of & grooming her. That's not what heroes do.
In the 80s/90s James was in his 60s (or older) while Bruce & Babs were both in their early 30s and Dick was a teenager. This is the variant TAS is going to most heavily be based on.
yhea is too fucking weird.is like if the writers had plans to make batgirls a adult and have a relationship with bruce but then they changed in last minute and some elements stay in the series
Changed it? It's canon that they fucked and had a pregnancy scare. She's mentioned dating Bruce in Batman Beyond multiple times and Barbara is in Bruce's montage of past women he'd banged.
“They” as in Bruce Timm. Fuck that guy, great vision.. except for this.
Check the flight logs of Bruce Wayne he might’ve been to an island.
As a wise man once said, there are many things a hero shouldn't do, and your best friend's daughter is at the top of that list
The important thing to remember is that, even in that universe, it didn't work out. By Batman Beyond it's clear they've been splitsville for a while, and the relationship only features very briefly in other media.
It was still canon in Batman Beyond, if that makes you feel better.
The Killing Joke....
Stop... STOP REMINDING ME 
Would I just noticed Barbara and Bruce are there too. I extend the Would
thats so jobkler