You’ve heard of Barbara Whitmore, the mother of Stargirl and Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Commissioner James Gordon. But what about Barbara Kean? In DC Comics, there are a ton of characters who share the same name. In this post, we’ll dive into the mother of Babs Gordon, who happens to share the same name as her.
If you’re familiar with the television series Gotham, you’ll know that early in the show’s run, Barbara Kean was engaged to Jim Gordon before they broke up, slept together when she became an anti-hero or villain and they conceived their daughter, Barbara Lee Gordon towards the end of the series. Young Babs was raised by her father Jim and stepmother Lee Thompkins.
So, outside of Barbara Junior, Kean also had a son James Junior. James Jr’s existence varies between appearances. The relationship between Barbara Kean and her husband is very on-off as she doesn’t have that many major appearances. In some stories, she is and Jim are divorced while in others she is dead and Babs is raised by her father.
Barbara Kean Appearances
Kean’s most famous appearance, as we mentioned earlier, was in Gotham where she ended up becoming a version of Harley Quinn before Ecco was introduced to be a precursor to the Clown Princess of Crime. At one point, Barbara Kean was going to be introduced as a a version of Magpie, before the real character bought in.
Barbara appears in cameo appearances in the animated adult series, Harley Quinn, where she ends up divorcing Jim as he is too whiny.
Finally, Barbara Kean also appeared in Batwoman Season 3. Howver, the this version of the character only has a son, J.J and no daughter.
