gordan's son question

[sir_snikt'alot]

in the long halloween jim gordan had a son (and a different wife i believe) what ever happened to the son?

[mattx110]

james gordon jr. is hush! sorry to ruin your big reveal jeph.:)

[sir_snikt'alot]

james gordon jr. is hush! sorry to ruin your big reveal jeph.:)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

seriously though (although that ddi make me wet myself ever so slightly) wher eis the little brat?

[mattx110]

i think barbara got him in the divorce and any interaction must be offpanel or something. maybe tons of stuff happened with him and i haven't bought enough comics. someone should have the answer.

[Brack360]

After Jim got divorced, his ex-wife and son moved back to Chicago and have rarely been seen or mentioned since. In fact, their only "present day" appearance was in Legends of the Annual #2, the issue where Jim married Sarah Essen. I personally suspect that Superboy Prime's retcon punch has retconned Jim Jr. out of existence and returned Barbara/ Oracle to being Jim's biological daughter, but this has yet to be revealed.

[Sean Whitmore]

I personally suspect that Superboy Prime's retcon punch has retconned Jim Jr. out of existence and returned Barbara/ Oracle to being Jim's biological daughter, but this has yet to be revealed.


You're likely right about Jimmy Jr. Nobody's had any use for Gordon's son in the twenty years since he was introduced, and keeping him in continuity just serves to make the Commish look like a deadbeat dad.

As for Barbara, she's already been revealed as Gordon's biological daughter before IC.


SEAN

[Alpha to Omega]

You're likely right about Jimmy Jr. Nobody's had any use for Gordon's son in the twenty years since he was introduced, and keeping him in continuity just serves to make the Commish look like a deadbeat dad.

As for Barbara, she's already been revealed as Gordon's biological daughter before IC.


SEAN

Was it with his wife or his brother's wife?

[Corrina]

Yeah, the writers don't want to deal with Gordon's son.

I don't see Gordon as a deadbeat dad, so I like to assume that:

1. The son is no longer in continuity.

Or

2. Gordon has all kinds of off-panel contact and a steady relationship with the kid.

[protege]

After Jim got divorced, his ex-wife and son moved back to Chicago and have rarely been seen or mentioned since. In fact, their only "present day" appearance was in Legends of the Annual #2, the issue where Jim married Sarah Essen. I personally suspect that Superboy Prime's retcon punch has retconned Jim Jr. out of existence and returned Barbara/ Oracle to being Jim's biological daughter, but this has yet to be revealed.
Wait- Barbara Gordon ISN'T Jim's natural daughter?

[Sean Whitmore]

Was it with his wife or his brother's wife?


Brother's wife. I forget if they got together before she married Gordon's brother, or during one of their separations (he was a drunk).


SEAN

[Karl J. Barnes]

Brother's wife. I forget if they got together before she married Gordon's brother, or during one of their separations (he was a drunk).


SEAN

That's a little icky on Gordon's part, sleeping with your brother's wife is just not how I see Jim Gordon. Where did this appear?

[Sean Whitmore]

That's a little icky on Gordon's part, sleeping with your brother's wife is just not how I see Jim Gordon. Where did this appear?


This was in Gotham Knights #5, and now that I think of it, I might have the details wrong. James and his brother's wife dated before she married Roger Gordon, so it's possible Barbara might have been conceived then.


SEAN

[Lorendiac]

About Barbara's ancestry: here's a story I've heard online. It may, by some miracle, bear a passing resemblance to the truth! Anything's possible! But I don't claim to know for sure. :)

The story goes: In the late 80s, Frank Miller was offered the chance to write "Batman: Year One," to redo his origin story with a bit more grim-and-grittiness to it for the Post-Crisis era. Miller (the rumor alleges) hated Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, so when he wrote scripts for a story arc set "roughly ten years ago" before the "modern, Post-Crisis" events in the Batman titles, he simply "wrote Batgirl out." In that story, Jim and his wife (the senior Barbara) have what is obviously their firstborn child; a boy. No teenage girl named Barbara (or Babs) running around their apartment cluttering up the continuity. Therefore, a Babs who was at least twentysomething years old "ten years later -- right now!" couldn't possibly exist as their grown child in the late 80s.

So Miller was allegedly trying to sneak in a little "Post-Crisis Retcon" of his own: "Babs Gordon, the red-headed Batgirl, never existed!"

Either nobody in DC's editorial offices noticed what Miller was up to, or else nobody cared one way or the other. But eventually someone came along who liked the old Pre-Crisis Batgirl enough that he wanted her back in continuity -- not necessarily as "Batgirl" anymore, but at least in continuity as "Commissioner Gordon's daughter." So someone -- I don't know who -- wrote a story to "establish" that she was his adopted daughter; his niece who had been tragically orphaned sometime after the events of "Year One" and ended up living with her next of kin, Jim Gordon and his wife, who by sheer coincidence was named Barbara, just like the red-headed teenager they took into their home.

Also in the late 80s, Alan Moore wrote "The Killing Joke" and put Babs in a wheelchair. I don't know, offhand, if "The Killing Joke" was written before or after some other story had established that Babs was not the biological daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Gordon.

Eventually, someone decided to try to restore Barbara's status as Jim's "real, biological" daughter by dropping hints that he once had an affair with the woman who married his brother.

I don't know if it's true that Miller deliberately tried to "write Babs out of continuity," or if he just plain didn't care about her one way or the other and figured he'd write the story he wanted to write and let somebody else sweep up the mess later, or what. I do feel that DC could have saved itself some trouble by just saying, a year or two later, "Oops, we made a mistake! Young Babs should have already been alive and living with her Mom and Dad at the time of 'Year One.' Everybody please assume that she's been retconned into the background in scenes set at the Gordon Family's apartment!"

[OverMaster]

The story goes: In the late 80s, Frank Miller was offered the chance to write "Batman: Year One," to redo his origin story with a bit more grim-and-grittiness to it for the Post-Crisis era. Miller (the rumor alleges) hated Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, so when he wrote scripts for a story arc set "roughly ten years ago" before the "modern, Post-Crisis" events in the Batman titles, he simply "wrote Batgirl out." In that story, Jim and his wife (the senior Barbara) have what is obviously their firstborn child; a boy. No teenage girl named Barbara (or Babs) running around their apartment cluttering up the continuity. Therefore, a Babs who was at least twentysomething years old "ten years later -- right now!" couldn't possibly exist as their grown child in the late 80s.

So Miller was allegedly trying to sneak in a little "Post-Crisis Retcon" of his own: "Babs Gordon, the red-headed Batgirl, never existed!"

Hoo boy. If this is true, I wonder what will the Barbara/Batgirl portrayal in All Star Bats & Robin be like...

[Karl J. Barnes]

Hoo boy. If this is true, I wonder what will the Barbara/Batgirl portrayal in All Star Bats & Robin be like...

A rough trick teenager with turette's syndrome, possibly?

[Corrina]

Also in the late 80s, Alan Moore wrote "The Killing Joke" and put Babs in a wheelchair. I don't know, offhand, if "The Killing Joke" was written before or after some other story had established that Babs was not the biological daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Gordon.

Eventually, someone decided to try to restore Barbara's status as Jim's "real, biological" daughter by dropping hints that he once had an affair with the woman who married his brother.

Moore, btw, disowns Killing Joke. He apparently never meant it to be in continuity. However, there is a famous Len Wein quote regarding KJ: "Let's cripple the bitch."

It was Devin Grayson who dropped hints in a Gotham Knights story that Babs is Jim's biological daughter, due to an affair with the woman who later married his brother. Personally, it doesn't make a difference to me, adopted or biological. What matters is they have a background as father and daughter and behave accordingly.

Pre-Crisis Barbara was always Jim's daughter. She even had an older brother, Tony, who disappeared on a secret spy mission to China. Tony's not in continuity any more, though, any more than Babs' history as a U.S. congresswoman.

[Sean Whitmore]

A rough trick teenager with turette's syndrome, possibly?


But with an Irish accent and a heart of gold.


SEAN