A comic arc in which the Joker gets “pregnant” has sparked outraged reactions from conservative media and some fans online.
In a new DC Comics release featuring the Joker, the infamous villain is depicted as being pregnant after he’s hit with a magical spell by superhero Zatanna.
The bizarre spell causes him to give birth to a copy of himself via vomiting mud.
Naturally, the comic has sparked outrage among some who are now accusing DC of making the Joker transgender.
However, the Joker supposedly being trans is never even mentioned in the comic, which is meant to mimic the absurd plots of comics from the Silver Age, which spanned the mid-’50s to 1970.
According to TMZ, the story in the comic explores what happens when the Joker decides he wants an heir. Thanks to a backfired spell from the magical Zatanna, he miserably ends up giving birth to a mutated baby version of himself by vomiting.
But the storyline and context went right over the heads of a certain demographic.
“Yeah definitely sounds like they’re introducing the idea of men being pregnant to youngsters. Normalization of insane ideas starts with stepping stones for the younger generation. Monitor what your kids read and watch,” one person commented on a Fox News story about the comic on Facebook.
“Stupid plot that I will never see,” another person said, seemingly assuming the article was talking about a movie, despite the fact that it’s a non-canonical comic.
“These fruits and nuts ruined EVERYTHING!!!” someone else raged.
Meanwhile, other fans on Twitter have found both the new comic and the subsequent outrage surrounding it completely hilarious.
“These ‘news’ blogs purposefully post this with the intention of starting a homophobic/transphobia mob and the funny thing about this is that joker isn’t even being portrayed as a trans man, he just had a spell put on him that made him pregnant lmao,” one fan pointed out in a tweet.
Someone else also noted the absurdity of it all, tweeting, “Conservatives complaining about comics they don’t read is usually pretty funny in the first place, but today’s fake outrage is about an out of continuity backup story where the Joker swallows a bunch of cursed mud.”
“Are people mad about pregnant joker? Because I have no context for it and I just think it’s kinda funny,” another person added.
Plus, it seems Batman fans are used to this kind of storyline. Many are still pulling for a film or TV adaptation of a Japanese manga where the Joker raises baby Batman as his own.
The story was published in a collaboration between DC Comics and Japanese publisher Kodansha in 2021, according to ScreenRant.
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