gaston26

So I read several Batman stories lately and that include the (in)famous 'The Killing Joke' that writer Alan Moore now partially dislikes.

I have mixed feelings about the story. I love Batman and Joker confrontation and the dialogue between them is very interesting. I likes the idea Batman want help Joker and Joker himself doesn't want help because he think that's too late for him. Also that seems to be one of the really rare occasion where I can sees Joker having a part of him who know what he does his horrible and try to deny that his fault because 'everyone who had my life would have turn insane so that not my fault I kill people for fun guys!''

However, everything before that confrontation isn't that great. If you don't know comics very well, know that in this story Joker want proof that he is insane because he has a bad day and that everyone who get a bad day while end like him. So he try to broke Commissionnar James Gordon and part of his plan is to...shoot Barbara Gordon and now she is paralize. She is the character who suffer the most and she is barely in the story and people barely cares about what happen to her. Worst, Joker takes pictures of her NAKED BODY. Not only that's gross, but that feel like something even Joker wouldn't do. So Barbara is another example of a woman who suffers and this has no focus on her at all.

And the act (and what happen in Joker's next appearance in the crappy Death of the family story) open the door to the edgy funny Joker you sees so often in comics this days.

In fact, the real problem is the story is about Batman-Joker so the Gordon shouldn't have been here at all. IMO, the story should has been about Joker trapping Batman in the amusement park and playing a mind game with him so he ends up as broken as Joker and so Joker wins and proof is point everyone who get a bad day while end like him.

Ironically, Alan Moore wanted to humanize the Joker and he does this in a story where Joker shoot a woman and takes picture of her body naked. Worst, he does that to an etablished characters who appeared during 2 decades at this point and have fans. Compare this to classic Joker's story from the 1970-1980s where he kills characters that only were created so they can be kill by him and he doesn't do sexual gross stuff on them.

The Killing joke? More like Killing Joker's character!