Superheroes Revisited: Caped Crusaders and psychological terror. (10 pts)

 This week we read the killing joke, a batman story with a lot of hype surrounding it. I got some questions to answer so here goes:

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

I think it's a rather interesting take on the batman and joker rivalry but not as interesting as I would have hoped considering how much people talk about it. For one it seems mostly like any other batman story with a few exceptions here and there. The joker does some bad stuff and tries to push batman to his breaking point, the point where he’ll resort to murder over proper justice. This time however we get an interpretation of joker’s backstory, and the joker assaults people he knows are close to batman. He shoots and paralyses Barbara Gordon, and psychologically tortures commissioner Gordon with nude pictures of his daughter shortly after getting shot. I really liked the backstory segment and feel that it's a pretty way of establishing the joker character. A man simply trying to make ends meet for his family gets put into worse and worse situations leaving him without anyone to turn to. Both the criminals who he trusted and the law have turned against him. His wife is now dead so even the universe is against him. And to chalk it all up his face is permanently deformed by chemicals. Pushed to this extreme, alone and afraid, the joker goes insane. Running parallel to this is attempts to do the same to Batman years later. Two men with unfair events happening to them in their past, each thinking they can push the other to their specific side of justice. However joker’s plan is kind of dumb. Its clear that the joker is the one orchestrating the brutality - he even draws attention to it. This just reinforces Batman's ideals: Criminals need to be stopped. If he was trying to drive batman insane or get him to see his way, wouldn’t it be better to show that the universe is cruel even to those who act on the side of justice for no good reason? If he had secretly manipulated the mutilation of Barbara and the kidnapping of Gordon from the asylum it might push Batman's heart and mind. Instead we end up with a plan that not only has no clear way of completing the joker’s plan, but also objectifies Barbara for no good reason and is ineffective in breaking Commissioner Gordon. He even reminds batman to NOT kill the joker despite the experience! So yeah, some ideas work, others don’t and while I like the joker’s backstory alot I think that The killing joke is better in concept than execution.  

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect?

As I said in the last section I thought the whole “life’s unfair” backstory for the joker is a pretty compelling one. I connected with his desire for insanity after losing everything. Heck even when something as small as overworking myself only to end up with a bad result is enough to drive me a little crazy. I can only imagine how bad things would get if I was really poor, lost my family, forced to go along with a dangerous plan I don’t even have a reason to do anymore, then got chased down by batman I doubt I’d be able to hold it together. I also connected with Batman's struggle to get through to the far gone joker. I get frustrated when I can’t get others to see my point of view and find it hard to explain a lot of social issues to people who grew up in eras that were ignorant to the lives and struggles of marginalized groups. It's hard because you know that deep down we’re all just trying to get through life and are more similar than different, but It's a lot harder to change your thinking than it is to justify it instead. 

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you choose; what changes would you make?

I think the killing joke might work well as a video game where you play as batman and joker. The story could be told through conversions with branching paths and multiple options and swapping between present day batman and past joker would make the final confrontation between the two at the end really powerful. Plus the Batman segment could be a lot of detective work in tracking down Joker, and it would be a great opportunity to flesh out the Commissioner and Barbara’s characters a bit, while Batman can learn more and more about Joker over the course of the story. In the end the player would be presented with a choice: kill or spare Joker, each choice leading to a different ending.  

4. In what ways does this story differ from the typical expectations the reader might have for a superhero story?

The story pushes the hero into a dark place of (probably) killing their villain out of hate and frustration. After reading other works available this week like the watchmen, it's safe to say that while this certainly isn’t the most kid friendly batman story, superhero comics can certainly get a lot darker and a lot more violent. Explicit violence, protagonists placed in far more compromised situations, more focus on story, overall Watchmen is a much bigger departure from the typical superhero story than the killing joke is. The killing joke does however make a clean break from the old Kirby era comics where stories were far more simple and black and white. I’d almost put TKJ on a similar level of Captain America civil war: Heroes pushed to do things they wouldn’t do without their emotions getting in the way. Civil War was made into a big blockbuster film, so while TKJ might be a radical shift for the time it was written, now it fits into the public’s perception of what a superhero story can be.