Knightfall, Joker target Batgirl in comic series

• Barbara Gordon has a climactic showdown with Knightfall in new issue of 'Batgirl'
• The Joker, who paralyzed the heroine, returns for a four-issue crossover story line
• "The Joker is really the Elvis of comic-book villains," says writer Gail Simone

Batgirl gears up for a climactic square-off with her newest arch enemy, while another confrontation looms in the cards, as well.

A Joker card, that is.

Available Wednesday digitally and in comic shops, Batgirl issue 13 wraps up a current story line that has introduced the Gotham City socialite-turned-menace Knightfall and guest-starred Batwoman, and also acts as a prologue to DC Comics' "Death of the Family" crossover arc beginning in Batman this week that brings the Clown Prince of Crime back in a big way.

And seeing as how the Joker paralyzed the heroine also known as Barbara Gordon with a bullet through the spine (see: Alan Moore's 1988 one-shot Batman: The Killing Joke), their confrontation promises to be full of emotion, drama and anger.

"Her payback is long, long overdue," says Batgirl writer Gail Simone. "It was immensely cathartic. It's a brutal story: The Joker is the guy who haunts your nightmares, and he nearly destroyed Barbara once already."

Knightfall has also been trying to take out Batgirl permanently in her twisted actions to rid Gotham of its criminal element, and she and her henchmen (and henchwomen) have proven a formidable bunch against the team-up of Batgirl and Batwoman.

"Batgirl needs an enemy who can stand against her fist to fist. But Knightfall is immeasurably more wealthy and connected, and indescribably more ruthless," says Simone of the young woman with a dark secret plus money and influence on par with Bruce Wayne.

"She's Gotham's first princess, in a way. And she reflects the increasingly tough mind-set a lot of people have toward criminals: no mercy, no compassion, no rehabilitation. She serves as the judge, jury and executioner, and that puts her at odds with Batgirl, one of the most compassionate heroes going."

Simone promises a "knock-down, drag-out brawl" between the women, who each think they're doing the right thing for Gotham and are dead certain the other is wrong.

Upcoming issues, drawn by Batgirl artist Ed Benes, will feature "whoever is in the Batgirl suit" getting a job and going on a date — "It can't be all fighting on Gotham rooftops, right?" Simone quips — as well as possible appearances from Supergirl and Robin and more about Barbara's roommate, Alysia Yeoh ("That girl has historic secrets!").

But before all that will be the first real meeting between Barbara and the Joker since he shot her during a home invasion with a couple of his thugs.

The writer promises a "memorable" moment when they're in the same room together in the story line, which runs four Batgirl issues and will have future repercussions in the book.

However, since she's been seeing a trauma therapist and suffering from PTSD symptoms since the assault, Barbara has thought about evening the score but there will be some nerves, according to Simone.

Writing villains has long been a specialty of Simone's — a group of them was at the core of her Secret Six series — but her first time writing the Joker has been so disturbing, she's had to keep all the lights on while typing her scripts, "which I never do," Simone says. "This is not a headspace you really want to carry around with you forever.

"The Joker is really the Elvis of comic-book villains. There's no one with his primal star power, there's no one else anywhere who has sent more chills up the spines of readers, because there genuinely is something terrifying about him."

Batgirl, however, and her alter ego — Simone wrote Barbara as the tech genius Oracle in Birds of Prey — continue to be bright highlights in her career.

"When I was a kid watching the (1960s) Batman TV show in syndication, Batgirl was an absolute revelation: a smart, red-haired girl who could outfight and outthink her enemies," the writer says. "I'm always trying to recapture that joy, hopefully to pass it on to young girls today just discovering the character."