Despite reports to the contrary, Batman: White Knight’s trade release will include an unedited sex scene between the Joker and Harley Quinn. The news comes straight from series writer and artist Sean Murphy, who previously confirmed that the book would be censored to fit with DC Comics’ teen rating designation. It sounds like that’s no longer a problem now that the series has been absorbed into DC’s Black Label imprint.
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When the panel was originally released in print and digital formats, word balloons covered the post-coital nudity. The upcoming Black Label release isn’t the first time the unedited art has been glimpsed. Murphy originally posted the unedited page to Instagram prior to the issue’s release.
Nevermind this earlier tweet–this scene will now be published unedited for the BLACK LABEL trade of Batman: White Knight. https://t.co/3rmBt4uF1f
— Sean Gordon Murphy (@Sean_G_Murphy) June 13, 2018
At the time, Murphy wrote that he had been pushing for an adult rating to get the page through uncensored. That never came to be, but the Black Label trade will allow for readers to get their hands on an unedited, collected version of the story.
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The sex scene was a big deal back when it was initially announced, as it was the first time the Joker and Harley Quinn had been depicted in such an intimate way. The scene is in keeping with the world envisioned by Murphy, in which the Joker turns sane and Batman, who cannot believe his nemesis’ reformation, is the hounded vigilante.