Whether or not Commissioner Jim Gordon knows the secret identities of Batman and the Bat-Family history is a detail that has changed various times. It is generally assumed that the Commissioner knows who Batman and at least the first Robins are and keeps the knowledge to himself, but he’s also been shown to be completely in the dark at times. The secret identity of his daughter Barbara, who operates as both Batgirl and Oracle, is treated differently, and there are times when Jim is shown to know who Barbara is but not the rest of the Bat-Family.
The latest issue of The Joker implies that that is the case in the current continuity and this idea changes elements of other recent comics, particularly another event in which Barbara and the Joker played central roles.
Bat-Family History
Barbara “Barb/Babs” Gordon is a fictional character appearing in comic books published by DC Comics and in related media, created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino. From 1967 to 1988, she was the superheroine Batgirl; from 1989 to November, 2011, she had been known as Oracle. In Batgirl Vol 4 #1, she recovered from her injuries and hit the streets as Batgirl once again. Introduced as the daughter of Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon, Barbara Gordon made her first comic book appearance in a story published in Detective Comics #359 titled “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl” (January 1967).
Whether or not to accept Cressida’s offer
In The Joker #2, Jim is arguing with Batman and Oracle about whether or not to accept Cressida’s offer to track down the Joker, when he calls Oracle “Barbara”, surprising both crime fighters with his knowledge of her secret identity. Barbara and her father later have a tense discussion about their respective secrets, at the end of which she reluctantly agrees to help him on his mission, although she hopes to convince her father to apprehend Joker rather than kill him. Jim revealing that he knows about Barbara’s secret adds new tension to their relationship but it also clarifies their interactions in another recent Joker story.
Evolution of three jokers
Batman: Three Jokers was a three-issue limited series by Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson, and Rob Leigh, released by DC Black Label in 2020. The series followed up on revelations from “Darkseid War” in Justice League, wherein Batman discovered that the Joker might actually be three separate people. Batman, Batgirl, and the Red Hood, the three heroes the Joker has hurt the most, teamed up to find the villain and their subsequent battles with him revealed the truth behind the idea of there being multiple Jokers.
The series also sees Bruce, Jason Todd, and Barbara attempting to deal with the trauma of their past conflicts with the demented clown, and Barbara shares a couple of scenes with the Commissioner that make more sense if Jim knew her secret identity prior to the start of the series.
Easiest way for the jokers continuity
Three Jokers was always said to take place in a loose continuity, with its status as canon being up to the creators of later stories. The easiest way for it to take place in the same continuity as The Joker is for the new series to actually be set before Three Jokers chronologically, and the scenes about the Gordons mostly make sense if this is assumed to be the case.
Three Jokers seemed to imply that Jim’s knowledge of Barbara’s identity might have been a badly kept secret between the two of them, with their final scene being a rare instance of her directly addressing him as her father while in costume, but it’s still plausible that they previously had the honest discussion about it in The Joker and that they simply hide the revelation from others. Of course, Barbara telling Batman that Jim doesn’t know who she complicates the matter. There does exist the possibility that Batgirl was not being truthful, and the two series being connected could confirm this to be the case.
