Just assume this story happens "some time". Don't try to place this anywhere specific in the continuity, because there are no concrete pointers to anything in particular. For example:
- Bruce's body is all scared. That'd mean it has to be placed before Superheavy, where he "reset" his body. Or very late after that, with enough time for Bruce to pick up all his scars again.
- There's also a panel with Bane breaking his back, and Bruce is wearing his classic yellow oval suit.
- Batman's uniform is very similar to that of
the Batman Inc. era, sans penile armor.
- Batgirl's uniform is very similar to
her first New 52 uniform.
- Red Hood's uniform is completely new, as far as I can tell. He's not using the "face mask" design, so it points at this taking place before Heroes in Crisis and his "Red Hood: Outlaw" phase. I love this costume, though!
- Alfred is alive, so the story has to be set in the past of current events (or in 2022, let's be honest...).
- The Joker... The Jokers all have their faces, so this must be either before Batman #1 (New 52) or after Superheavy, when he gets his face back. But before Metal, because he doesn't have that millenial haircut.
- In the second page we can see three classic costumes: Batgirl's original Silver Age blue uniform, Robin's original Golden Age costume and (what I think is) Batman's TKJ costume (based on the belt and the bat logo). Whether these uniforms exist in the current continuity is... nebulous, at best. Robin's is the most problematic, since Dick has been shown to have used his New 52 Robin uniform since the beginning, though lately the OG uniform has been appearing more and more.
- And more...
So, taken individually, these clues could point to different moments of the continuity... but together they are a clusterfuck. So just assume this story "happened" somewhere between Jason coming back to life and Barbara being able to walk again and "today".
Fun fact:
Gaggy's latest appearence had been in Gotham City Sirens, whose place in continuity is tenous. Catwoman, Harley and Ivy have some sort of shared history (the three together, I mean), but nothing as deep as GSC.
She wasn't Batgirl at the time. Barbara had retired more than a year before Killing Joke.
Was it actually more than a year?
Batgirl Special #1 was published just a couple days before
The Killing Joke and was meant to be "the last Batgirl story". It has a mishmash of Silver and Bronze Age elements to it, but it tries to give the character a new status quo that facilitates her, eh, fate in TKJ.
I thought this was already known, I don't have a lot of comics but I remember this being a thing around Death of the Family
What do you mean by "this"? The idea has been around since Darkseid War, and it was briefly mentioned in The Button, but nothing else.
