The Joker is, perhaps, the Batman’s most twisted and insane villain. It’s easy to understand the motives of the Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, Two-Face and the rest of the lot as they always follow some sort of pattern in their methods towards crime. The Joker goes beyond the conventional. He doesn’t play by any rules but his own, and only he only understands what that entails.
But the Joker wasn’t always this homicidal maniac. Once he was known as the thief called the Red Hood before his transformation into the Clown Prince of Crime. However, no one knows anything else about him before his stint as the Red Hood. That is, until now.
British writer Alan Moore, who has penned such hits as
Watchmen, V for Vendetta and
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and artist Brian Bolland explore the Joker’s psychosis in
Batman: The Killing Joke, a 1988 one-shot graphic novel by DC Comics. For the first time since his appearance in
Batman #1 in 1940, an in-depth case study into the Joker's origin is finally revealed, and the result isn't pretty at all.
Hanging by a Thread
The Joker came into existence because of one very bad day, and he recalls this through a series of flashbacks.
Believe it or not, once upon a time, the Joker was actually a normal person with a wife ready to give birth to his child. He was an engineer at a chemical plant who decided to quit his job and pursue his dream of becoming a stand-up comedian. Needless to say, he wasn’t very good at all and failed miserably. With no income and no way to support his wife, he decided to help two criminals break into the chemical plant where he used to work. But during the discussions, the police informed him that his wife was electrocuted and died in a household accident.
Obviously filled with grief, he tried to back out in robbing the plant, but the criminals convinced him to continue and to take on the guise of the Red Hood. However, at the plant, they met with resistance in the form of the Batman. The Red Hood jumped into a toxic waste tank to escape him and was swept through a pipe leading to the river. But his toxic bath terribly changed his appearance. With everything that happened to him that day, his mind snapped and caused him to go completely insane.
Now in the present day, the Joker wants to prove that a completely normal person can snap after having a very bad day similar to him, and who better to try this experiment on than Gotham’s most respected citizen, Commissioner James Gordon.
He kidnaps Gordon, then shoots and paralyzes his daughter Barbara (the former Batgirl). The Joker then takes the imprisoned Gordon on a freak show in an amusement park where he shows giant photos of his daughter, wounded and completely naked. His hope that this will prove his point that an average person is doomed to insanity.
Batman eventually rescues Gordon and goes after the Joker, but is it too late? Does Gordon completely lose it, and does Batman as well after what has transpired? The psychological game has been taken up another notch and this time the results are extremely deadly.
The Joke’s Over
Moore does something incredible to the Joker that hasn’t been done before… he makes him into a more three-dimensional person. Granted, this person is still sick and twisted with every action he displays but he’s more than just a one-note, homicidal maniac. His “bad day” had a profound effect on his life and shaped the path towards madness. Incidentally, Batman also had a very bad day as well when his parents were murdered, but he chose to fight injustice instead. What Moore points out is the yin/yang relationship the Joker and Batman have with each other; they are literally two sides of the same coin.
In the end, the Joker was trying to prove to Batman that he is as insane as he is. After all, who in their right mind would dress up as a bat to fight against crime? The whole idea is just insanity in its own right, especially believing that one man can make a difference. It’s a futile mission that will never get accomplished, and Batman is just as insane as the Joker for trying to change society.
The biggest impact coming from this book is the crippling of Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl. Even though she was just a means to an end, the outcome of what happened became a hot topic, and it still is to this very day. Barbara Gordon is still paralyzed but has assumed a new role in the DC Universe as the information broker known as Oracle. She has done more in this role than she has ever done as Batgirl, yet at the same time marking the end of a more innocent age.
Brian Bolland’s artwork is fantastically superb in every way on this book. Every line is meticulously drawn and inked to perfection and it’s evident to see why it took him two years to complete it. He presents the definitive look for the Joker, something that has been emulated by many other artists since this book first came out. He makes shadows come alive to great effect.
Batman: The Killing Joke defined the Joker’s insane methods and brought his plight into a new light. He went from a goofy thief with a gimmick to a violent psychopath who gets his kicks from murders with a punch line. The joke? Only he knows.
Product Details
ISBN: 0930289455
Format: Paperback, 48 pages
Pub. Date: Mar. 1988 (first edition)
Publisher: DC Comics
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