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Batman: The Killing Joke Vol 1 1

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"The Killing Joke"

Batman - The Killing Joke.jpg



Image:Quote1.png I'm not exactly sure what happened. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Image:Quote2.png
-- The Joker


Appearing in "The Killing Joke"

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Synopsis for "The Killing Joke"

The plot revolves around a largely psychological battle between Batman and his longtime foe the Joker, who has escaped from Arkham Asylum. The Joker intends to drive James Gordon, the Police Commissioner of Gotham City, insane, in order to prove that the most upstanding citizen is capable of going mad after having "one bad day." Along the way, the Joker has flashbacks to his early life, gradually explaining his origin.

The man who will become the Joker is an unnamed engineer who quits his job at a chemical company to become a stand-up comedian, only to fail miserably. Desperate to support his pregnant wife, he agrees to guide two criminals into the plant for a robbery. During the planning, the police come and inform him that his wife has died in a household accident involving an electric baby bottle heater. Grief-stricken, the engineer tries to withdraw from the plan, but the criminals strong-arm him into keeping his commitment to them.

At the plant, the criminals make him don a special mask to become the infamous Red Hood. Unknown to the engineer, this disguise is simply the criminals' scheme to implicate any accomplice as the mastermind to divert attention from themselves. Once inside, they almost immediately blunder into security personnel, and a violent shootout and chase ensues. The criminals are gunned down and the engineer finds himself confronted by Batman, who is investigating the disturbance.

Panicked, the engineer deliberately jumps into the chemical plant's toxic waste catch-basin vat to escape Batman and is swept through a pipe leading to the outside. Once outside, he discovers, to his horror, that the chemicals have permanently bleached his skin chalk white, stained his lips ruby red and dyed his hair bright green. This turn of events, compounding the man's misfortunes of that one day, drives him completely insane and results in the birth of the Joker.

In the present day, the Joker kidnaps Gordon, shoots and paralyzes his daughter Barbara, and imprisons him in a run-down amusement park. His henchmen then strip Gordon naked and cage him in the park's freak show. He chains Gordon to one of the park's rides and cruelly forces him to view giant pictures of his wounded daughter in various states of undress. Once Gordon completes the maddening gauntlet, the Joker ridicules him as an example of "the average man," a naïve weakling doomed to insanity.

Batman arrives to save Gordon, and the Joker retreats into the funhouse. Gordon's sanity is intact despite the ordeal and he insists that Batman capture the Joker "by the book" in order to "show him that our way works". Batman enters the funhouse and faces the Joker's traps while the Joker tries to persuade his old foe that the world is inherently insane and thus not worth fighting for. Eventually, Batman tracks down the Joker and subdues him. Batman then attempts to reach out to him to give up crime and put a stop to their years-long war. The Joker declines, however, ruefully saying "It's too late for that... far too late". He then tells Batman a joke that was started earlier in the comic. The joke is funny enough to make the normally stone-faced Batman laugh. While they are laughing, Batman reaches across to Joker. The picture moves away from the two foes, and Joker's laugh stops abruptly while Batman continues laughing, leaving the reader wondering what happened to the Joker.

Joke

The joke told by the Joker is a common one:

See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum... and one night... one night they decide they don’t like living in an asylum any more. They decide they’re going to escape! So like they get up on to the roof, and there, just across the narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in moon light... stretching away to freedom.

Now the first guy he jumps right across with no problem. But his friend, his friend daren't make the leap. Y'see he's afraid of falling... So then the first guy has an idea. He says "Hey! I have my flash light with me. I will shine it across the gap between the buildings. You can walk across the beam and join me." But the second guy just shakes his head. He says... he says "What do you think I am, crazy? You would turn it off when I was half way across." </blockquote>

Themes

The exploration of the Joker's origin and the hopelessness that belies his "evil clown" persona is effected toward adding more depth to the character.

Another theme explores the possibility that Batman is just as insane as the criminals he faces ("You had a bad day too, once, didn't you?" The Joker asks him), but manifests insanity in a different way. For the decade or so following publication, this theme became central to Batman's character in mainstream stories, but following Infinite Crisis in 2006 has been downplayed in favor of a more heroic motivation.

The Joker's underlying motive is to illustrate the inherent insanity of Batman's mission: dressing up as a bat to fight criminals. It is only when Batman renders the Joker helpless and his extended assistance is rejected that the Dark Knight comes to appreciate the madman's aim, reacting just as the Joker would: laughing hysterically.

Notes

  • Batman: The Killing Joke is a one-shot squarebound graphic novel published under DC's Prestige format.
  • This issue was published with a second, third and fourth printing. Reprint editions are easily distinguishable by the varying colors of the cover logo. A first printing edition of Batman: The Killing Joke has a green logo.
  • With this story, the Joker's origin is revamped for modern readers. While maintaining many elements of the Silver Age mythos, new material is added which may or may not be considered part of the canonical Joker origin. As all additional material is supplied by the Joker himself, the information itself cannot be considered reliable.
  • As of this printing, Barbara Gordon had already retired from super-heroing as Batgirl, but this issue is often regarded as the final Batgirl appearance of Barbara Gordon. Shortly after this story, she adopts a new covert identity - Oracle.
  • Director Christopher Nolan has mentioned that The Killing Joke will serve as an influence for the version of the Joker that will appear in The Dark Knight. The late Heath Ledger, who will appear in the film as the Joker, stated in an interview that he was given a copy of The Killing Joke as reference for the role.
  • Several different other Joker origin stories have been published since The Killing Joke's debut:
  • In the story arc "Pushback," running through Gotham Knights #50-55, a different version of the Joker's origin story is told, which borrows themes from "The Killing Joke," but strays notably in some places, for example it had the Joker's wife be murdered by a corrupt cop. It has been guessed that such divergences were partially Moore's intention in writing such an ambiguous story, so that other writers would be able to continue freely adopting the Joker's origin to the needs of their story instead of only being tied down to one concrete story.
  • Another version of the Joker's origin is presented in the "Lovers & Madmen" story-arc running through issues #7-12 of Batman Confidential. However, the events from that storyline completely contradict with the events chronicled in "The Killing Joke," setting the Joker up as a depressed hitman.
  • The second compiled edition of "Batman: Black and White" provides yet another origin story titled "Case Study," this time written by Paul Dini and illustrated by Alex Ross. Naturally, it contradicts all the others as well.
  • In 2007, as a backup feature for "Countdown" DC began writing new two-page origin comics for Super-villains to define their chronology, similar to the Heroes' origin stories in the back of 52. The Joker's can be found here.


Trivia

  • When first conceived by writer Alan Moore, "The Killing Joke" was intended to take place outside of mainstream continuity.
  • This is one of the few projects where artist Brian Bolland provides interior artwork as well as cover design. Typically Bolland only produces cover artwork.
  • A version of Batman: The Killing Joke was reprinted in the Netherlands in 1989.
  • During Zero Hour, a Batgirl of an alternate timeline appears who was never shot by the Joker. In her timeline, Commissioner Gordon was murdered that night and she grew on to a healthy older career, and even a romantic relationship with Batman himself. Also, Harvey Dent became Commissioner, but who cares.[1]
  • In Booster Gold (Volume 2) #5, Booster Gold is sent back in time by Rip Hunter in an effort to prevent the Joker's attack against Barbara Gordon. According to Hunter however, most historical events are immutable despite however many times one might attempt to manipulate the timestream, and the crippling of Barbara Gordon is one such event. He had been trying to teach Booster a lesson in temporal mechanics.

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Links and References

  1. ↑ Batman #511
Batman Family Storyline
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