The Joker is one of my favorite villains in all of pop culture history; growing up with Batman: The Animated Series, Joker’s wild antics and erratic personality struck me as unnerving and unique. At first I was a little skeptical about the idea of a standalone Joker film; however, given all the recent buzz surrounding the picture, it sounds as if Joker is more than your average comic book flick.
Off the bat, I was curious as to how director Todd Phillips would handle the villain’s origin; considering what we’ve seen of the character in both Scott Snyder’s run on Batman and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, the Joker origin story is all over the place. As Joker has mentioned in the past, he prefers his origin to be a multiple choice situation.
With all the different origin takes, there is one that has stood out among the others:
Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke.
Much in the way Phillips’ Joker is grounded in realism, Moore’s narrative also grounds the villain in realism. Along with kicking off the Joker’s origin mythos, The Killing Joke cemented him as a horror based in psychology. However, while the story has its fair share of intrigue, the psychology portion lacks in-depth context. With the release of Joker, I thought it might be worth reflecting on this classic graphic novel and observing its portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime.
Along with the story’s present day events, the reader is provided flashbacks into Joker’s past. During the present time, the Joker has escaped Arkham Asylum, kidnapping Commissioner Gordon and mortally wounding his daughter Barbara. After the Joker tortures Gordon for awhile, Batman arrives just in time to face off against his arch-rival.
Through the flashbacks, Moore’s story paints the Joker as a sympathetic person; as a failed comedian striving to support his pregnant wife, “the man” who is to become the Joker, does his best to pursue his dream of making people laugh. In an effort to support his family, the man takes on a job to aid gangsters in a robbery, guiding them through a nearby chemical factory. Before the plan can kick off, however, the man learns that his wife and unborn child have died in an accident; on top of this, the gangsters won’t allow him to abandon the job. During their time in the chemical plant, the gangsters are killed by security guards and the man is confronted by Batman. It is here where the man attempts to escape, jumping into a waste pound lock and being swept away through pipes.
Once he is outside, the chemicals he sat in begin to change him physically; his skin turns white, his lips red, his hair now green. This physical transformation, along with the psychological pain from losing his family, results in the man becoming the Joker.
While we witness Joker committing atrocities to Barbara and torturing Gordon, we also see his early innocence and efforts to do right by his family; he isn’t a bad man at this time, but someone trying to get by while striving to make his dreams come true.
As the reader continues through The Killing Joke, it is the mentioning of “one bad day” that sticks out as a unique element in this Joker origin story. During the present day events, Joker tortures Barbara; after these events, he shows photos to Gordon that depict her suffering (as unnerving as the imagery is, much is left to the reader’s imagination). It is by showing these photos to Gordon, and attempting to push him to his limits, that Joker strives to make his “one bad day” point.
In just one day, Joker lost his family and suffered horrible physical injuries. If none of that happened, would he have ever become the Joker? Or was he destined to become the iconic criminal? Joker wants to break Gordon down, to prove how anyone is capable of turning insane if they suffer “one bad day,” just like how he did.
Joker’s “one bad day” broke him, causing him to turn into a maniacal madman; but while this “insanity” approach allows for an engaging story, “one bad day” doesn’t explain all that pushes someone to commit horrible crimes. There are other elements that go into creating a criminal; living through hard times and suffering with grief are certainly not appropriate indicators that someone is capable of going mad. Perhaps if more moments in his life were shown in greater detail, then we could have gotten a grander psychological understanding of the Joker.
Outside of the book’s psychological focus, though, The Killing Joke has since inspired other writers in their portrayal of the character. Looking at Nolan’s film and Snyder’s comics, we can see touches of Moore’s Joker in their versions. Regarding the former, Nolan really hones in on his Joker as the unreliable narrator (something touched upon in The Killing Joke). And while different writers have had their various takes on the character, we see Moore’s Joker, and in particular the events of The Killing Joke, appear in other comic runs; this means that of all the Joker origins, Moore’s could be considered the closest to cannon.
If you somehow have not read it yet, I encourage folks to read the book. The Killing Joke is not only one of the most iconic Batman stories ever written, but one of the most fascinating graphic novels of our time. What Moore did with the Joker was lay out a groundwork of lore and psychology that has gone on to inspire debate around the character, as well as add to his mythos. With the release of Phillips’ Joker, I am interested in seeing how much his Clown Prince of Crime pays homage to Moore’s work.
