You should see some of the on-panel stuff for Cap and Iron Man.
I always read the "more" to be the fact that Conner was the last in a string of him losing loved ones and people close to him in quick order (his dad, Steph, then Conner...maybe someone else I'm missing. I guess Cass turning evil? I forget the timeframe for that).My read on Tim wasn't queer, but his handling of Conner's death and the fallout afterward did feel like there was more there so I see it because of that.
Like you say, I never really get the appeal of incest ships. Be it the Supernatural brothers as the big one, the people who shipped Jon and Sansa on GOT (be they under the impression they were half siblings or cousins, either way), the siblings in the Narnia books, Shinji and Rei (she's a clone of his mom), etc. it's all SUPER weird and uncomfortable. For the characters who never interact, that one is weird by I theorize it may have something to do with a person identifying/seeing themselves in one character and being attracted to another, so they ship it for a vicarious thing even when the characters barely (if ever) interact.
Canonically yeah, Bruce and Clark are pretty much straight and view each other as brother figures and fans "ship" them largely as a laugh at their super intense melodramatic bond. It's a case that if DC would ever pull the trigger we have some examples to fall back on, but we all collectively know they never seriously would.
But with all the inherent camp and bright colors and spandex and muscular pretty people...the genre as a whole is inherently a little bit gay lol. So I can see why it attracts these readings just as much (if not a little more) than other genres.
Oh, there's a lot that's homoerotic about superhero comics.
But my argument is that shipping seldom comes from places that makes sense as opposed to who the person likes seeing together or if someone has a self-insert character (Bruce Timm and Batman) and wanting to live vicariously through them.
The checklist usually feels like "did they talk to each other? I can ship it."
Some ships are very well-thought out and make a lot of sense, but I don't look at the wants of the internet to naturally mean it's supported in the material or that it's a good idea. The internet wants what it wants. There's a reason these books have editors and aren't just crowdsourced using stawpolls, you know?
Forget “did they talk to each other;” it only needs them to exist and be pretty enough. And sometimes not even that. And all too often, it only gets supercharged if you try to make it antagonistic - even violently, loathsomely so.
Trust me; I made the mistake of watching The Last Jedi expecting Rey to still treat Kylo like a Neo-Nazi School Shooter whole tortured her and violated her friends.
With Batman and his associates, the fact they’re supposed to be edgy and angsty means that they can have sexual chemistry with inanimate objects in ‘shippers eyes. Throw in anyone else with a colorful suits, and there’s probably at least a hundred fanfics about it, if not thousands.
The existence of the Batman/Joker ‘ship tells you all you need to know.
Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?
I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP
I think there's a fine line the writers should walk here. I love like the idea that Batman and Joker are these nemesis-soulmates, and that the Joker takes that very seriously. Not in a sexual way in any shape or form, but just that they have this kind of back-and-forth going on like old friends. It's corny and over-melodramatic in a funny way, which is what a Joker story should be. He enjoys the time he spends with Bats, and to him it's a game, and it's all in great fun, while for everyone else it's a tragedy.
This only works because the Joker is the Joker, of course. This doesn't really fit, say, Lex and Supes.
She was actually a new character introduced in Birds of Prey specifically to annoy Barbara by trying to be Batgirl. So Barbara shows Charlie a bunch of pictures of what happens to people named "Batgirl". Charlie nearly pukes then promises to never use the name Batgirl again..... If you were paying attention, you're probably wondering why I haven't said anything about her "Misfit" codename... yeah... well that's what she does after she stops being Batgirl.
The really exceptional modern adaptations of Joker in other media owe little to the comics as it what makes them entertaining is largely due to skill of the actor playing him like Nicolson just playing himself, Ledger, and Phoenix just riffing on early DeNiro roles.
Trying to do a modern accurate to the comics Joker just gets you Leto's Joker.
More like it's not that different a performance from what he usually gives by that point in his career.
And I guess time to gut this sacred cow, but I've never gotten what made DCAU Joker "definitive". Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with the B:TAS so I have no real particular reverence for it.