Profile: Sarah Essen Gordon

Sarah Essen Gordon
First appearance: Batman #405, March 1987

History: first introduced in the Batman: Year One story told in 1987, she was a detective partnered with Commisioner James Gordon who'd had an affair with him that led to the breakup of his first marriage. She later returned and revived her relationship with James Gordon, becoming his second wife.

Current status: dead since Detective Comics #741.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in the No Man's Land story of the late 90s, while trying to rescue a group of infants from the Joker, who was holding them hostage in the GCPD basement, the Clown Prince of Crime forced her to have to catch one of the infants, and following that, gunned her to death in the head. James Gordon, who'd caught up with them, could only react by shooting the Joker in the leg.

What's wrong with how this was done? A grave result of overusing the Joker because he signals sales spikes, this was particularly atrocious, not just because of how only so many minor characters or even unnamed civilians were being turned into sacrifices, but also because of how neither Jim nor anyone else was written as having what it took to deal the Joker the death blow he was asking for. How many more people have to be slaughtered in cold blood by the Clown Prince of Crime before this particular supervillain is finally put to death for his obscenities and abominations?

In the time since this terrible story was written, the Joker's use has been downplayed, but if you're familiar with how things are going under the reign of Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns in the past decade, you'll know they haven't improved, thus, no credit can be given.