But the episode is interesting anyway for what it reveals about fan and consumer culture, about activist communications, and the ways that big companies are becoming more responsive to public conversations about their products, largely thanks to the Internet.

First, some backstory: The cover, which would have shipped on some issues of Batgirl 41, was part of a collection of Joker-themed variants set to be released across DC’s lineup in June. Instead of a direct teaser for the content of the issue itself, Albuquerque’s image was designed as an explicit callback to The Killing Joke, a famous 1988 Batman story by superstar comics author Alan Moore that features as its centerpiece a brutal assault on Barbara Gordon (Batgirl’s alter ego) by the Joker: Not only does Joker shoot her in the spine and cripple her, he takes photos and forces her captive father, Police Commissioner Jim Gordon, to look at them.

DC has taken the character in a less grisly direction since then, but the events of The Killing Joke still linger in the background, in part because the story is one of the most famous Bat-stories of all time, and considered a classic by more than a few comic fans. Yet it’s also stuck around because it has been held up as a prime example of the cavalier way that superhero comics have treated female characters—and, in particular, the way that they have often relied on sadistic, grisly violence toward women as cheap mechanisms for teaching their male characters life lessons. Editor Len Wein’s infamous response when Moore asked permission to write the story—“yeah, okay, cripple the bitch”—hasn’t exactly helped its reputation on this front.