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Post by tingramretro on Mar 11, 2019 6:08:23 GMT -5
Well, needless to say I don't see it that way. It was 1980's Alan Moore who wrote Skizz, which I still consider one of the most uplifting, life affirming series' ever published in 2000 AD, and The Ballad of Halo Jones, which is wonderful. I think you're viewing him just from the perspective of his superhero stuff, which is a mistake. Also, while I've heard many people interpret what Joker did to Babs and her dad in The Killing Joke, it's an assumption that's always baffled me; it's not even implied in the story, let alone shown, and Moore himself has in the past seemed bemused by the assumption; as far as he's concerned, it seems, Joker simply shot Babs and humiliated Jim. Moore has said in the past that he doesn't consider Joker to be a sexual being at all.
Of course, it may well be that your views are being coloured by your love for the Silver Age stuff, which admittedly Moore seems at times to delight in showing up as absurd. As a child of the 70's, and not an American, I don't have that emotional connection to the Silver Age Superman mythos. I just always found it a bit daft.
Not sure what I'm missing here - what's not implied/shown in the story? The sexual assault? He shoots her, takes off her clothes, and takes photos of her naked, bloody body (I can't believe I'm talking about a Batman comic book here) and then shows those photos to her father who he's also stripped naked. There's no reading between the lines - it's right there. Moore doesn't have to treat the Silver Age as sacrosanct or serious or not point out its flaws or its stupidity - much as I love a lot of that period, there's much I have to struggle to get through if I read it at all (Batman and Robin making stupid jokes while fighting The Eraser, for example) or simply hate about it myself (that period's treatment of women - see; Lois Lane) - it's just that he doesn't move beyond doing anything else. I can't blame anyone for thinking its "a bit daft" (I'm certainly not going to defend Superman dancing The Krypton Crawl or putting a disguise on a fish to protect his secret identity from Lois Lane for the thousandth time) but if you're writing an homage to The Silver Age Superman, it helps to not equate 'homage' with 'mocking'. I'm not familiar with most of his 2000AD stuff so you may be 100% right about it being what it is. I suppose I should have said "I'm no fan of most of Alan Moore's American superhero work" instead. Taking someone's clothes off is not, in itself, sexual assault. There's no indication that Joker actually sexually molests anyone. And I don't think Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow was intended as an actual homage.
Most of Moore's early work was done for three separate British based publishers (IPC, Quality and Marvel UK) between 1981 and 1984, and as far as I'm concerned, that (along with Swamp Thing and Watchmen, and the later continuations of Marvelman/Miracleman at Eclipse and V for Vendetta at DC) was his golden period. I get the impression Moore himself is no fan of most of the mainstream superhero stuff he did; he certainly has little fondness for The Killing Joke, which he did only because he was asked to, and which only endd up being as extreme as it was because he assumed it would not be considered to be in continuity. He simply wasn't interested in writing traditional superhero stories. A lot of the more prominent British wriers aren't, which is probably why people lie Pat Mills and John Wagner, despite being big names over here, have never really cracked the US market, or even tried to. Superheroes are really more of an American thing.
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Post by rberman on Mar 11, 2019 8:32:49 GMT -5
I'm not quite sure why you consider his mainstream DC stuff "mean spirited", but I did enjoy his work on DC characters in the Egmont annuals. Not all of it - I quite like his Clayface IV tale in Batman Annual 11, for instance - but "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" Ugh. Bizarro going on a killing spree? Toyman and Prankster torturing Pete Ross to death? Mxyzptlk promising 3000 years (or whatever it was) of sadism? Jimmy Olsen - DEAD! Lana Lang - DEAD! Krypto - DEAD! Superman's little coda at the end renouncing who he used to be? Really brings a tear to the eye. And this was supposed to be Superman's big send off? I guess the wink at the end was meant to cancel out the whole "Superman was nothing but a big blowhard who thought the world couldn't get along without him" bit but bringing all this wonderful Silver Age magic back just to soak it in blood isn't really bringing it back... EDITED TO ADD:I should say "1980's/90s Moore would be completely out of his element even if..." since his work on Top Ten proved that Moore can write inspiring and touching heroes. That Alan Moore I love - it's the earlier Alan Moore that I take issue with. As it happens, I just started a thread covering Alan Moore's early DC work here; reviews of the Clayface and Action/Superman stories will be coming soon: classiccomics.org/thread/6018/alan-moore-potpourri |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,220 
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Post by Confessor on Mar 12, 2019 4:35:21 GMT -5
Not sure what I'm missing here - what's not implied/shown in the story? The sexual assault? He shoots her, takes off her clothes, and takes photos of her naked, bloody body (I can't believe I'm talking about a Batman comic book here) and then shows those photos to her father who he's also stripped naked. There's no reading between the lines - it's right there. Taking someone's clothes off is not, in itself, sexual assault. There's no indication that Joker actually sexually molests anyone. Not wanting to derail this thread any further, but I'm pretty sure that a British court would find someone guilty of sexual assault if they had removed a woman's clothes against her will and then taken photos of her body. While it might not involve actual molestation, under British law, forcing someone to undress against their will or undressing them yourself is counted as sexual assault (there have been convictions in this country of pedophiles who forced children to undress, and for men who have stripped women while they were unconcious). I'm no lawyer, but I believe this is because the "assault" part of the phrase "sexual assault" can pertain to actions that cause the victim mental trauma and not just actual touching/molestation (and I would assume that it's much the same under U.S. law). Anyway, having said that, I agree with tingramretro that there is absolutely no evidence that the Joker molested or raped Barbara Gordon. The Joker shot her, undressed her and took photos of her naked body in order to use those images to mentally torture Commissioner Gordon later on in the story, with the intention of breaking him. It was the Joker's desire to show that even someone as noble as the Police Commissioner was only one hellish experience away from going insane and/or killing due to that insanity. Whether you personally liked that level of violence in a Batman story is a matter of taste, but the Joker shooting Barbara in such an unprovoked manner was perfectly in keeping with the story's assertion that the Joker was going further and to more extreme lengths this time than he ever had done before. |
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