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Spoilers ahead for Batman: Killing Time #6
The movies of the DCEU are known for being dark and gritty recreations of the DC Comics’ most iconic characters. That means they are often littered with violence, sexuality, and cursing, but in Batman: Killing Time, readers are introduced to a character that may be even too R-rated for Zack Synder.
When Catwoman, the Riddler, and Penguin join forces to steal a mythical eye from Bruce Wayne, what starts out as a simple heist turns complicated and bloody. The magical artifact is said to have immense powers that could allow the holder to control the world, and with that kind of power at stake the United States government gets involved. To keep the eye from falling into the hands of an enemy nation they dispatch a corrupt agent by the name of Nuri Espinoza. She initially tries buying the artifact, but when that doesn’t work she uses every ruthless method at her disposal to recover it from the team of Gotham villains. In the end, she is thwarted by Batman and shot in the back by the Riddler, but she does not die.
In Batman: Killing Time by Tom King with artwork from David Marquez and Alejandro Sánchez, Agent Nuri Espinoza seems like a one-off government agent, ruthlessly pursuing her target and not seeing a difference between Batman or his rogues’ gallery. However, she has one defining characteristic that makes her stand out. Every third word from her mouth is a curse word. This little detail earns her the nickname: “Agent #%@%,” with the symbols being traditional comic stand-ins for profanity. This is taken to even more extreme limits by the end of issue #6, where Espinoza is recovering from her wounds, and due to the brain damage she is left only able to speak in curse words, and one other word: Batman.
Agent #%@% is sure to make her return, but she is also the type of character that can only exist in the pages of a comic book. Her speech pattern is called “grawlixes,” a term that is attributed to Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey. It is the custom of using random symbols —such as #%@%— to represent spoken swear words. The ambiguity leaves the exact nature of the words being said up to the imagination of the reader. During the 1950s it allowed creators of mainstream comics to get around the Comic Code Authority, which was a voluntary code that prohibited artists and writers from printing anything that was not kid friendly. In Batman: Killing Time, King, Marquez and Sánchez use grawlixes in excess, but Agent Espinoza’s stand out use of them is almost comical, and certainly intentional. By the end of the series she is transformed into a villain who talks exclusively in unintelligible words which makes her one of the most uniquely comic characters ever created, and one that could never truly be translated into any other medium.
Even though the Comics Code is now defunct, the Motion Picture Association still gives ratings for movies, and this unique pattern of speech of Agent #%@% means that fans should not expect to see her on the big screen of the DCEU anytime soon. This is one DC Comics’ villain which will surely return to menace Batman again, but when she does it will be in print form.
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