DC Comics is planning a series of 25 Joker-themed variant covers planned for their June comic lineup, and while artist Rafael Albuquerque’s Batgirl #41 cover pays homage to the heroine’s shared history with the iconic Clown Prince of Crime, it inspired readers who dislike the variant’s sexual overtones to launch a #ChangeTheCover campaign. A large number of DC Comics fans tried to argue that the cover is an excellent throwback to Alan Moore’s popular 1988 Batman arc The Killing Joke, but DC announced on Tuesday that they won’t be publishing the controversial variant issue.

In Albuquerque’s Batgirl cover, the Joker is terrorizing Barbara Gordon with a gun, and the heroine has smeared lipstick across her crying face. The image is a reference to Moore’s The Killing Joke, in which Barbara gets shot and paralyzed by the Joker. Some readers also believe the story suggested the Joker sexually assaulted Batgirl, and those readers took issue with the variant cover’s reminder of that traumatic encounter.

Albuquerque recently told fans in a statement that the cover was his attempt to pay homage “to a comic that I really admire, and I know is a favorite of many readers,” and that he hopes people understand that his “intention was never to hurt or upset anyone.” The backlash he received after the cover’s reveal and the #ChangeTheCover campaign caused him to recommend to DC that the variant be pulled.

When DC Entertainment announced that they won’t be releasing the cover, they explained that since writers Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher and artist Babs Tarr have been trying to give Batgirl a lighter and more optimistic feel, Albuquerque’s art was “inconsistent with the current tonality of the Batgirl books.”

“The cover was not seen or approved by anyone on Team Batgirl and was completely at odds with what we are doing with the comic,” added Stewart on Twitter.

DC Entertainment also stated on Tuesday that even though the cover was an homage to their graphic novel The Killing Joke, “threats of violence and harassment are wrong and have no place in comics or society.”