Comics Fondle

Moore’s greatest achievement with The Killing Joke is the humanization of the Joker throughout and the dehumanization of Batman. Batman discounts the Joker’s insanity theory, that a person can snap one way or another, but snap nonetheless. Moore’s got some problems with Batman’s motivation here–he starts trying to help the Joker, then he goes after the Joker, then he’s trying to help the Joker again. Something happens after the first stage, but nothing brings Batman back around… except, supposedly, Commissioner Gordon’s plea for the vigilante to take the Joker “by the book.” It’s a silly, anti-Dirty Harry moment and it doesn’t belong. But then, not much in The Killing Joke really does.

Commissioner Gordon, Barbara, Batman’s summary search for the Joker, all of those are wasted scenes. They’re filler. The comic’s success is the Joker’s story, the possibility of humanizing the character. Bolland’s Batman isn’t good-looking. The shoulders are padded and the cowl looks bad, but his Joker is magnificent. At the end, Moore finally gets the characters to the right place, where the Joker and the Batman are tragic equals. But it seems like he missed the boat. I’ve never figured out, for instance, if Batman’s supposed to be shoving the Joker in laughter at the end or in anger.

Moore’s declared the story empty of “human importance” because he’s dealing with comic book characters, not “symbols of anything” real. While Moore’s need for symbolism discounts his abilities to write good characters and stories and all, he also misses the point he came real close to making the two characters real. For one brief moment on the last page, it almost works–and making Batman real, even for six panels, is a success most writers never attain. Either they go on too far and embarrass themselves or they only get glimpses in, as Batman dangles, Adam West-like, over a killer shark. But Moore got close, at the end of the story instead of the beginning, and in a concrete way.

It’s only Batman, I suppose, which doesn’t make it a particular achievement to Moore… but it furthers the idea the “only” shouldn’t be a pejorative.

Sadly, Moore’s not up for another shot and The Killing Joke is a half-broken comic book, gliding on his excellent writing–I was just saying how influential the book is to Morrison’s current Batman run, in terms of incorporating and acknowledging the older Batman comics–except when it’s great (the Joker humanization) or approaching great… the Joker and Batman alter egos. It’s a ballsy idea, to go Heat on Batman and the Joker and Moore’s not mainstream enough to do it (now or then), but I don’t think anyone else is feminist enough to do it.

B

Recommend on Mahalo