Would You Leave Batman Comics If DC Killed Off The Joker?

[Randumbz]

Batman kills anyone and I'm dropping the books and never looking back.

http://www.newsarama.com/19848-world...r-enemies.html

[ABH]

http://www.newsarama.com/19848-world...r-enemies.html

Yeah, there's this, too:

[phonogram12]

Morrison may think the Joker-thing happened, but he also thought that Talia drugged Bruce to have sex with her. Speaking of, there's really very little Morrison that goes into my personal Bat-continuity, anyway (god, I hated his run). I don't really count Golden Age. As for the KGBeast, I actually really liked that story (read it when it first came out). I think it can go either way there. Sure, he could've intentionally locked the Beast in there to die, but at the same time, considering how equal they were and how many ridiculous jams Bruce has gotten out of himself, it really wouldn't surprise me if he kinda figured Beast would find a way out (which he did).

[phonogram12]

Yeah, there's this, too:

Ha! I prefer the Timm version:

[ABH]

Ha, yeah, you notice that ammo drum he uses is clearly marked "tear gas"... so he doesn't accidentally grab the live ammo.

(But yeah, I love that short, too)

[Beige Lantern]

As crazy as it might sound, the Batman who killed in those early stories wasn’t really Batman — or at least, not Batman as he’d become, and certainly not Batman as we think of him today. Keep in mind that when these stories were told, Batman wasn’t just a new character, he was a new character in an entirely new medium. The Golden Age is full of comics by people that were driven as much by the desire to create stories as they were by the sudden and extremely lucrative popularity that medium was enjoying after Superman became such a massive success. These were guys who were literally just making it up as they went along, and as a result, the stories and their internal continuity took a few years to settle down and become a coherent whole.

To give you an idea of just how mutable these stories were, consider this: The single most important thing about Batman as a character, the fact that his parents were murdered and his decision to become a vigilante to avenge their deaths, did not exist until six months after he was created. The murder, the vow, the bat crashing through the window, everything that we think of as the core of his character didn’t appear until Detective Comics #33, and that’s only the start of the idea of “Batman” becoming a cohesive, unique entity. Before that, he’s definitely recognizable as a prototype, but he’s not Batman just yet.

Of course, if the guy running around in a Batman costume fighting crime in those early stories isn’t Batman, that raises the question of who he actually is, and that’s an easy one to answer. He’s The Shadow.

I’ve mentioned before that Batman was influenced by a variety of sources including the brand-new super-hero and Sherlock Holmes, but there was nothing Finger and Kane drew from in those early issues more than the Shadow. The millionaire playboy alter-ego, the spooky presence, even the fact that he flies around in an autogyro and battles against mad scientists and Yellow Peril caricatures, those were all things lifted from the Shadow — and so were the guns and the killing.


Read More: Ask Chris (About Batman) #54: Why Doesn’t Batman Kill? | http://comicsalliance.com/batman-kil...ckback=tsmclip

[Alan2099]

The thing about supervillians, especially popular supervillians like the Joker or Red Skull or Dr Doom, is that there's a fine line you have to balance between them evil enough that the audience can be delightfully disgusted by them, but not so evil that the audience is repulsed by them and wants them to go away. Galactus must never actually consume the entire world killing billions, Dr Doom must be more Dr. Kinda-Intimidating, the Red Skull can not start up enough Holocaust. Once you got Dr. Light raping people cuz Identity Crisis is terrible/comicz are teh mature, then you got to get rid of them cuz of your distasteful tacky storytelling.

Another important thing, at the end of the story, villains need to feel like their being suitably punished for what they did.

You don't slap handcuffs on Red Skull and take him to a minimum security prison after his attempts to rule the world nor should Riddler be brutally tortured and have all his limbs broken after a normal bank robbery.

That's the problem with Joker. He massacres and tortures people and gets a slap on the wrist. Actually having him killed (even if it's just "Nobody could have survived that!") would be a refreshing change of pace.

[Beige Lantern]

Another important thing, at the end of the story, villains need to feel like their being suitably punished for what they did.

You don't slap handcuffs on Red Skull and take him to a minimum security prison after his attempts to rule the world nor should Riddler be brutally tortured and have all his limbs broken after a normal bank robbery.

That's the problem with Joker. He massacres and tortures people and gets a slap on the wrist. Actually having him killed (even if it's just "Nobody could have survived that!") would be a refreshing change of pace.

What if the Joker brutally tortured and broke all the limbs of the Riddler? I find that fascinating on a number of levels.

[Vil_Dee]

The cool thing about the Joker is that, with a completely ambiguous origin, you could kill him off, have a completely different man replace him, and the differences may well be near undetectable.

What would be the point of killing the Joker off if you're only going to replace him with another Joker who is virtually the same as the original. Does Batman need multiple Jokers like Spiderman has Green Goblins?

no, because 1) you can start counting down the days for him to come back and 2) everyone besides the protagonist Bruce Wayne is essentially replaceable. You can have great Batman stories WITHOUT Joker, Two-Face, Gordon, Alfred, Dick, Babs, Harley, Matches Malone, etc. Joker isn't a critically important character the line couldn't live without.

Tell that to everyone who wanted Dick Grayson to stay Batman. Evidentally, the only thing that matters is a bat suit. But the Joker is the second most important character in the Batman mythos next to Bruce Wayne.

I might be reading between the lines too much, but the original post seems to suggest that the reason DC doesn't kill off the Joker is because they're afraid this will damage sales on the Batman books.

I guess this arises out of another ongoing discussion--given so many readers say that the Joker ought to be killed for all his crimes. If you follow that logic, then there has to be a reason why that doesn't happen. And the original post seems to be implying that the only reason the Joker keeps on living is because DC values the character so much--maybe even more than Batman.

I'm sure it's also creative reasons. Practically everyone wants to write him.

I'm not so sure that the Joker is that valuable alive. The Clown Prince of Crime fell off the radar for awhile between 1969 and 1973. I think because they wanted to avoid as many "camp" elements as they could. When he returned, the Joker was restored to his old murdering persona (which had been dormant for more than thirty years by then)--and that gave him new life. Just as the Joker had previously been re-invented from murderer into jester, probably for the same though contrary reason--murderer Joker didn't fit with the tone of Batman by then (the early '40s).

He fell off the radar because the editor at the time hated him. Batman sales were also at the time sucking by the way and it didn't rebound fully until TDKR came out and they adapted a much more dark tone to the Batbooks (and restoring Joker to his original bad self)

I guess it's too late for DC to do another personality change on the Joker and make him not so serial killery. The fact that readers question his right to exist (in a fictional world) signals to me that the character has gone over the top and can't be rescued. You don't see as many readers questioning why Riddler, Penguin or Catwoman are still around.

no it signals that he's a popular character. The more popular a character is the more a certain segment of people get off saying how much they hate him. Bruce gets this crap too. And it's not to late to do another personality change. It's in the nature of the character. They can have him being silly in his next appearance if they wanted to. But they won't because the dark one is more popular.

The problem in the DC world is that the Joker routinely ends up at Arkham. That's where the problem rests in the fiction. What should happen is that the Joker stands trial, is convicted and is sent to prison. Assuming Gotham is in a state that has the death penalty, Joker is put on death row. There are numerous appeals--maybe the Joker escapes a few times--but in the end he is kiled by the state. That is the best outcome for Batman, because it proves his faith in the justice system is correct.

Better yet he just shouldn't be caught in the first place.

At this point, you really have to consider the entire system to be a failure. Governors and mayors are corrupt, the police are incompetent or unable to do their damn jobs, they apparently only have one jail where they throw criminally insane people in with zero sense of of social responsibility between the dirt-poor security and the soul-dead inhumanity of these places.

The real question isn't why doesn't anybody kill the Joker, is why the HELL do they lock guys like him in counter-productive, impossibly stupid, absurdly irrational and incompetent environments in the first damn place?

The real question is why doesn't Superman just vaporize Ras Al Ghul after his upteenth global genocide plot? Why hasn't the U.S government not fired everything they have at this global terrorist who's an existential threat? I don't know, maybe because it's just a comic?

[Alan2099]

What if the Joker brutally tortured and broke all the limbs of the Riddler? I find that fascinating on a number of levels.

Depends. Was Riddler just going his typical Riddler things or was this a situation where two equally unplesant people were trying to outdo each other?

[phonogram12]

...or was this a situation where two equally unplesant people were trying to outdo each other?

I would absolutely love to read this story, personally.

[Batzarro]

Actually having him killed (even if it's just "Nobody could have survived that!") would be a refreshing change of pace.

I agree. It would be a good example of risk-taking on DC's part actually.

[phonogram12]

I'd like to see the ramifications if it was one of the Gordons who killed him. That could lead to a lot of interesting stories down the line.

[scary harpy]

No, I'd never abandon DC for making such a great creative decision. I've always seen Joker as a tired character device to simply parallel Bruce/Batman (which is too glaringly obvious) and he's a bit overrated in terms of actual development to the project or plot. It's like he's simply there to play a gaudy fool and the fans eat it up. I'd party in the streets the day Joker's death was revealed.

Agreed. Losing the Joker is no loss. His character has been mishandled.

[Beige Lantern]

Depends. Was Riddler just going his typical Riddler things or was this a situation where two equally unplesant people were trying to outdo each other?

The former. The point is you would have a character you WANT to see punished in some regard, but the manner of punishment would make you viscerally go "Whoa... that's not cool." It creates cognitive dissonance in the reader and I think that's often really good for story.

And honestly, I think many people would even have a problem with that happening to the Joker. Torture is bad, even to torturers.