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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 10, 2024 22:13:26 GMT -5
I'd argue that no one in The Killing Joke is more out of character than The Joker himself. Tying his enemies to giant birthday cakes and setting them ablaze? Creating his own Joker Utility Belt? Carving his face into the side of Mount Gotham? These are Joker crimes - shooting a woman in the spine and then sexually assaulting her and her father to "prove a point"? Not so much. Since when does The Joker give "Woe is me" monologues about his place in the world while reflecting upon the tragedy of his past? Yes, yes - "Bruce, he's different - he's worse than ever this time!" is Moore's way of trying to explain this away (see also; "His old enemies were returning, but they were worse than ever" in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and Marvelman) but it's really just Moore trying to shoehorn The Joker into his story about somebody else. Oh, and since we're talking about The Killing Joke, I'll be the one to say it: the real Batman wouldn't share a laugh with The Joker as he's arresting him for crippling and sexually assaulting a woman and her father either. And yet it's still mistaken as a classic. It’s just a bunch of extravagant contrivances. With very nice art! |
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Post by berkley on Nov 10, 2024 23:22:00 GMT -5
I think Alan Moore is probably the best comics writer there's ever been, all things considered, but I've never felt any interest in reading The Killing Joke and thus have no opinion on the subject myself. But didn't someone here once post a brief analysis Grant Morrison made of the book and some of its more controversial elements, e.g. the shared laugh at the end? I remember finding his take convincing, based on what I've heard in discussions like this of what takes place in the story.
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 11, 2024 6:58:55 GMT -5
I'd argue that no one in The Killing Joke is more out of character than The Joker himself. Tying his enemies to giant birthday cakes and setting them ablaze? Creating his own Joker Utility Belt? Carving his face into the side of Mount Gotham? These are Joker crimes - shooting a woman in the spine and then sexually assaulting her and her father to "prove a point"? Not so much. Since when does The Joker give "Woe is me" monologues about his place in the world while reflecting upon the tragedy of his past? Yes, yes - "Bruce, he's different - he's worse than ever this time!" is Moore's way of trying to explain this away (see also; "His old enemies were returning, but they were worse than ever" in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and Marvelman) but it's really just Moore trying to shoehorn The Joker into his story about somebody else. Oh, and since we're talking about The Killing Joke, I'll be the one to say it: the real Batman wouldn't share a laugh with The Joker as he's arresting him for crippling and sexually assaulting a woman and her father either. And yet it's still mistaken as a classic. It’s just a bunch of extravagant contrivances. With very nice art! This story and ID Crisis is no worse than any Elseworlds/What if ? story. |
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Post by supercat on Nov 11, 2024 7:46:27 GMT -5
I'd argue that no one in The Killing Joke is more out of character than The Joker himself. Tying his enemies to giant birthday cakes and setting them ablaze? Creating his own Joker Utility Belt? Carving his face into the side of Mount Gotham? These are Joker crimes - shooting a woman in the spine and then sexually assaulting her and her father to "prove a point"? Not so much. Since when does The Joker give "Woe is me" monologues about his place in the world while reflecting upon the tragedy of his past? Yes, yes - "Bruce, he's different - he's worse than ever this time!" is Moore's way of trying to explain this away (see also; "His old enemies were returning, but they were worse than ever" in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and Marvelman) but it's really just Moore trying to shoehorn The Joker into his story about somebody else. Oh, and since we're talking about The Killing Joke, I'll be the one to say it: the real Batman wouldn't share a laugh with The Joker as he's arresting him for crippling and sexually assaulting a woman and her father either. And yet it's still mistaken as a classic. I've never read the Killing Joke, just aware that Barbara was paralyzed in it. Hearing this, I can't understand why anybody would be into it. Is that really "entertainment"? Damn, that's messed up. And sadly I do know what Identity Crisis is about, one of the stupidest books ever written. It's not "mature" writing, it's just depraved. |
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Post by driver1980 on Nov 11, 2024 7:58:51 GMT -5
I don’t like The Killing Joke. Never have. Don’t get it at all.
As for the topic, I really don’t know what Frank Miller was doing with All-Star Batman. WTF?! Robin being asked (or forced) to eat rats?! Blasphemous statements? Dialogue that didn’t make sense? There didn’t appear to be any real narrative. And some defended Batman’s actions as being akin to a drill sergeant.
I honestly wonder, was this a gag on the part of DC and/or Miller?
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Post by commond on Nov 11, 2024 9:52:07 GMT -5
Some of these descriptions of A Killing Joke make it sound more graphic than it really is.
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Post by DubipR on Nov 11, 2024 11:52:18 GMT -5
Brad Meltzer... ah yes. I remember his "love letter to the Silver Age" with Identity Crisis. Funny, I don't remember forced rape a part of the Silver Age. It was a total middle finger to what the Justice League was and were with piss poor writing. Geoff Johns gave me an answer that still haunts me to this day about Infinite Crisis. Another editorial mandate to make things even darker before a reboot, the first issue of this mini-series starts off with the brutal murder of The Freedom Fighters. It's brutal; impaling, decapitations. Seriously a WTF moment and not talked about. Freedom Fighters are a favorite team of mine. When I asked him about this, he said 'I did it because I could. Who cares about that team?' When I told him that I was, he looked me dumbfounded. He shouldn’t have answered you that way but he was right. The Freedom Fighters could never sustain a series. The way DC has rebooted their characters , it doesn’t matter. They are all alive now. Its not about maintaining a monthly series. Its that he more of less nonchalantly said it. Just because they're not A or B lister, more like a D-lister (which are lot of my favorite characters), aren't important to the big picture, but they fill out the mosaic of the universe. Yes, I know there's a new version but like how DC became, they're not as cool as the original take. |
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Post by driver1980 on Nov 11, 2024 13:00:54 GMT -5
“They fill out the mosaic of the universe” is a really good way of putting things (may I borrow that phrase?). I mean, I think the same way about the likes of Catman, Crazy Quilt and Firebug (three favourite Batman villains of mine). I mean, not every Batman story can be a Joker story. We’d soon get bored if Joker was in 12 issues of Detective Comics a year. Which is why the mosaic, to use your word, is important because maybe that Crazy Quilt or Firebug story is something different - and such characters have their fans.
I don’t have any strong feelings about the Freedom Fighters, I’ve probably read fewer than 5 stories featuring them. But if they have their fans, well that makes Geoff Johns’ comment nonchalant.
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Post by DubipR on Nov 11, 2024 14:53:30 GMT -5
“They fill out the mosaic of the universe” is a really good way of putting things (may I borrow that phrase?). I mean, I think the same way about the likes of Catman, Crazy Quilt and Firebug (three favourite Batman villains of mine). I mean, not every Batman story can be a Joker story. We’d soon get bored if Joker was in 12 issues of Detective Comics a year. Which is why the mosaic, to use your word, is important because maybe that Crazy Quilt or Firebug story is something different - and such characters have their fans. I don’t have any strong feelings about the Freedom Fighters, I’ve probably read fewer than 5 stories featuring them. But if they have their fans, well that makes Geoff Johns’ comment nonchalant. Thank you. I thought it as I was typing but it fits both Marvel and DC. How stagnant would it be if Batman fought his main gallery of baddies every issue, instead of having a dust up every now and then with a lower tier person. Its the same way of having supporting characters in a comic. Batman would be boring if it was just Batman, Robin, Alfred and all the regulars, when you can throw in a Summer Gleason or a Bullock. Just because the writer doesn't give a hang about them, it makes the world more interesting than cookie cutter. Okay, if he wanted to kill off characters, it least make it have meaning instead of a slaughter to show that the bad guys can do so. To me it was just senseless storytelling. That's my 2 cents on IC. |
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Post by Batflunkie on Nov 11, 2024 20:52:51 GMT -5
You know, I'll say this much, Killing Joke might not have been perfect, but it did later give us Barbara as Oracle, which I've always enjoyed
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Post by spoon on Nov 11, 2024 21:11:01 GMT -5
I'd argue that no one in The Killing Joke is more out of character than The Joker himself. Tying his enemies to giant birthday cakes and setting them ablaze? Creating his own Joker Utility Belt? Carving his face into the side of Mount Gotham? These are Joker crimes - shooting a woman in the spine and then sexually assaulting her and her father to "prove a point"? Not so much. Since when does The Joker give "Woe is me" monologues about his place in the world while reflecting upon the tragedy of his past? Yes, yes - "Bruce, he's different - he's worse than ever this time!" is Moore's way of trying to explain this away (see also; "His old enemies were returning, but they were worse than ever" in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and Marvelman) but it's really just Moore trying to shoehorn The Joker into his story about somebody else. Oh, and since we're talking about The Killing Joke, I'll be the one to say it: the real Batman wouldn't share a laugh with The Joker as he's arresting him for crippling and sexually assaulting a woman and her father either. And yet it's still mistaken as a classic. The ending of The Killing Joke is a Rohrschach Test. I've always seen it clearly as Batman strangled and/or shaking the Joker. Batman and the Joker are together, but their laughing at completely different things. The Joker is laughing at his joke. The Batman is joking in disbelief that this guy thinks it's a game and dark joy that he's about to beat the crap out of him. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 11, 2024 21:46:25 GMT -5
You know, I'll say this much, Killing Joke might not have been perfect, but it did later give us Barbara as Oracle, which I've always enjoyed That is down to Kim Yale being ticked off about how Barbara was treated within The Killing Joke. DC had no plans for her and didn't seem to care that she had been an important figure in the Bat stories and was still alive after. She was just a sacrifice to the story. Yale was royally pissed and she decided that Barbara wasn't going down like that and then she and John Ostrander created Oracle, in the pages of the Suicide Squad, which then carried beyond, into Birds of Prey and appearances in other books. So, give thanks to Kim Yale for demonstrating to DC editorial what Barbara Gordon was all about and making her an even richer character...and an even more inspirational one. Yale was like that, in her own life and I wish I still had John's column, in CBG, after Kim's passing. It was such a wonderful picture of a bright and shining human being, who fought cancer like a superhero and left the world a better place than she found it. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Nov 12, 2024 8:53:30 GMT -5
Well Ron Marz pissed off a whole lot of people in 1999. Why pick on just Alan Moore?
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,836
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Post by shaxper on Nov 12, 2024 9:07:55 GMT -5
Warren Ellis
Neil Gaiman
...oh, you mean with their writing.
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Post by driver1980 on Nov 12, 2024 9:39:42 GMT -5
Byrne ticks me off with his nonsense opposition to the phrase, “I have always…”
He is so literal. If I use that phrase in any context (e.g. “I have always liked heavy metal…”), I am not arguing that I had an existence prior to entering this world, and that I listened to heavy metal shortly after the Big Bang. I am merely speaking in a non-literal sense. In other words, “I have liked heavy metal for a long time.” But Byrne was often aggressive and pedantic about that. Goodness knows what he thinks if someone (e.g. a medical professional) says, “I’ve been on night shifts forever…”
You’d think a writer would understand language and metaphor and hyperbole.
Incidentally, he pissed me off when he used the phrase “fanboys” about those producing the Batman ‘89 comic (a universe many of us were keen to see revisited). Got to love that from from a guy who published photo-comics (or whatever the term is) featuring scenes from Star Trek: TOS.
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