That and their 12 inch pianist.

"Formative trauma? Tell me about it. Not only am I driven to chop people up but I still play with superhero action figures."

Shostie: But, wait. With the exception of Killing Joke (I think), Burton's Batman movie and a few varied others aren't we completely lacking in any definitive origin story for the Joker?

SHUT UP YOU'RE RUINING IT FOR ME

Shostie: But, wait. With the exception of Killing Joke (I think), Burton's Batman movie and a few varied others aren't we completely lacking in any definitive origin story for the Joker?

"If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice."
(Or something along those lines.)

Shostie: But, wait. With the exception of Killing Joke (I think), Burton's Batman movie and a few varied others aren't we completely lacking in any definitive origin story for the Joker?

Pretty much. Which is probably why according to TFA, Novy draws on Alan Moore's semi-canonical Batman: The Killing Joke to explain how the Joker's experience mirrors Batman's own.

No shiat?



/Hawt

Am I the only person in the universe not impressed with the new Batman movies? They seem like realistic crime dramas until the dude in tights shows up and starts jumping around. Attention filmmakers: Realistic or comic book. Pick one please.

Cornwell: Shostie: But, wait. With the exception of Killing Joke (I think), Burton's Batman movie and a few varied others aren't we completely lacking in any definitive origin story for the Joker?

"If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice."
(Or something along those lines.)

"Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another; if I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!"

That was from the Killing Joke. I doubt The Joker actually remembers what happened (or really cares). In the animated series, Batman told Harley Quinn that The Joker has a million of these stories. Just a way to manipulate people...and The Joker is amazing at that.

This is what I think they have in common:

They're both insane
They're both insanely obsessed with each other

I can't think of a single other superhero/villain that goes to the type of lengths these two go for each other.

Batman has saved The Joker from being stabbed, shot by the Punisher (he actually told The Joker to run away, knowing that the clown could kill more people), death row.....

On the flip side of the coin, The Joker is hardly ever serious about killing Batman. Oh, he'll kill people Batman cares about...especially if they're a Robin, but...

There was this comic called Emperor Joker, where The Joker tricks Mr. Mxyzptlk into giving The Joker his powers (again, Joker is great with manipulation).

So with his new powers, he tortures and kills Batman each day and resurrects him the next only to do the same thing

However!! When it comes time to finding The Joker's weakness, Superman, the only one who can somewhat fight off The Joker's powers, figures out that The Joker can't erase Batman. The Joker tries and tries to get rid of Batman, but he fails because he defines himself too much by Batman. The Joker completely loses it, even begs to go back to Arkham.


Other than that....well, they both seem to use violence often.

The article is inherently incorrect, as it presumes a long-term motive for the behavior of the Joker.

Anybody who actually has studied the Joker's personality knows there is nothing inherently long-term about any of his goals at all.

Zer0ne: Am I the only person in the universe not impressed with the new Batman movies? They seem like realistic crime dramas until the dude in tights shows up and starts jumping around. Attention filmmakers: Realistic or comic book. Pick one please.

Yes, you are.

Joker suffers from Super Sanity. Everyday he reinvents himself to increase his chances of survival.

Is this news? I thought that was the whole point of their relationship. They feed off of each other. One needs the other to even exist. Not necessarily the other, but what they represent. In order for Batman to be Batman he needs to know there are nearly unstoppable agents of chaos and destruction for him to fight. The Joker is a creature of anarchy, and the stolid, infinitely disciplined and principled Batman is the embodiment of what he's trying to destroy. Without one, there'd be no NEED for the other.

Everybody with more than a passing knowledge of the characters knows that.

Swampthing in Korea: The article is inherently incorrect, as it presumes a long-term motive for the behavior of the Joker.

Anybody who actually has studied the Joker's personality knows there is nothing inherently long-term about any of his goals at all.

Not to double post, but while the Joker has no specific long term goals, a general devotion to sowing chaos and exposing the inherent instability of the orderly illusion everyone lives within most of the time is the central characteristic of his character. Batman is the opposite. He realizes it's an illusion just as well, but he desperately wants to keep others from experiencing the total breakdown of their lives that he was forced to go through. They both looked into the darkness, and the darkness looked back into them. They just decided upon binary opposite ways of dealing with it, the opposite of which, represented by the other, is actually the embodiment of WHY they do what they do.

I have a question for any Batman historians out there? How/when did Batman become cool? In the beginning, he was a creepy millionaire playboy who chose to share a bedroom with a little boy instead of hot chicks. When did he start to move away from masked Michael Jackson, to the grim-dark detective?

Baldanders: Swampthing in Korea: The article is inherently incorrect, as it presumes a long-term motive for the behavior of the Joker.

Anybody who actually has studied the Joker's personality knows there is nothing inherently long-term about any of his goals at all.

Not to double post, but while the Joker has no specific long term goals, a general devotion to sowing chaos and exposing the inherent instability of the orderly illusion everyone lives within most of the time is the central characteristic of his character. Batman is the opposite. He realizes it's an illusion just as well, but he desperately wants to keep others from experiencing the total breakdown of their lives that he was forced to go through. They both looked into the darkness, and the darkness looked back into them. They just decided upon binary opposite ways of dealing with it, the opposite of which, represented by the other, is actually the embodiment of WHY they do what they do.

I disagree with that.

The Joker does what amuses him at the time. His goals are always immediate. Chaos is the how, not the why.

Nemo's Brother: I have a question for any Batman historians out there? How/when did Batman become cool? In the beginning, he was a creepy millionaire playboy who chose to share a bedroom with a little boy instead of hot chicks. When did he start to move away from masked Michael Jackson, to the grim-dark detective?

There was a different attitude then. The comic-book genre was still young and people had yet to make such.......associations.

Zer0ne: Am I the only person in the universe not impressed with the new Batman movies? They seem like realistic crime dramas until the dude in tights shows up and starts jumping around. Attention filmmakers: Realistic or comic book. Pick one please.

Nope, you're not alone, although I had no problem with that. Hell, I could even get past the water-vaporizing machine that didn't affect humans and the cellphone system. My biggest gripes were how terrible the action scenes were (yes, I can't stand that close-up camera angle crap) and the big letdown with the Scarecrow after a great buildup. The Scarecrow was even more pathetic in the Dark Knight. It was better than most summer blockbusters, but it was still a standard summer blockbuster.

/How does Batman sneak into the middle of the party crowd with no one noticing and everyone staring at the Joker in the middle?

Nemo's Brother: I have a question for any Batman historians out there? How/when did Batman become cool? In the beginning, he was a creepy millionaire playboy who chose to share a bedroom with a little boy instead of hot chicks. When did he start to move away from masked Michael Jackson, to the grim-dark detective?

Short answer: The Dark Knight Returns

Long answer: That's a pretty complicated question. The kooky version of Batman you're thinking of existed largely in the 60s when the Adam West Batman show was on TV. Like the X-Men and Spiderman (and to a certain sad extent, Daredevil), Batman the comic was influenced by other Batman media. So the 60s were a pretty silly time for Batman.

Earlier Batman, however, could be quite serious. His 40s storylines were written in the pulp style, and he would just straight up merc dudes. He had a gun, and he'd use it. Robin, introduced quite early (1940) was created largely as a counterpoint, someone for Bats to talk to, and himself mostly said stuff like "gee-whiz" and "But what're we gonna do, Batman?"

During the comic crackdowns of the 50s, when the Comic Code Authority was established, Batman was one of the main characters focused on. He was tamed quite and bit and his earlier predeliction towards killing guys was curbed. He, like all the other super heroes of the time, just wouldn't kill people. They replaced the darkness with camp and humor, with both the TV show and comic feeding off the other.

In the late 60s, writers began to try to distance themselves from the camp and Batman became a lot more serious. The Authority was still in power, however, and so despite the darkness he needed to have a strict moral code to keep him from killing people. Thus the juggernaut of will idea came into being.

This went on for a while until Alan Moore wrote The Dark Knight Returns in 1986, which was pretty much the apotheosis of the Batman idea. Despite the fact that DKR was non-canon, and in fact set in the future at the end of Batman's life, it seriously influenced the in-continuity writing of his day and up until now.

Swampthing in Korea: Baldanders: Swampthing in Korea: The article is inherently incorrect, as it presumes a long-term motive for the behavior of the Joker.

Anybody who actually has studied the Joker's personality knows there is nothing inherently long-term about any of his goals at all.

Not to double post, but while the Joker has no specific long term goals, a general devotion to sowing chaos and exposing the inherent instability of the orderly illusion everyone lives within most of the time is the central characteristic of his character. Batman is the opposite. He realizes it's an illusion just as well, but he desperately wants to keep others from experiencing the total breakdown of their lives that he was forced to go through. They both looked into the darkness, and the darkness looked back into them. They just decided upon binary opposite ways of dealing with it, the opposite of which, represented by the other, is actually the embodiment of WHY they do what they do.

I disagree with that.

The Joker does what amuses him at the time. His goals are always immediate. Chaos is the how, not the why.

Eh, perhaps at inception, but I really believe he's been retconned and recently written into falling more in line with what I was saying. Anyway, I find that a lot more interesting. Not to say a guy blowing up stuff just cause isn't interesting in and off itself, but a deep, philosophical reasoning behind his actions just makes me like the character more.

But really, you can read, or write, it either way.

Nemo's Brother: I have a question for any Batman historians out there? How/when did Batman become cool? In the beginning, he was a creepy millionaire playboy who chose to share a bedroom with a little boy instead of hot chicks. When did he start to move away from masked Michael Jackson, to the grim-dark detective?

Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" in 1986

One last one: and if you wanna talk about dark, probably the darkest moment in Batman's history, and one of the most messed up things to ever happen in comics, is when in 1988 DC set up a 900 number to allow fans to call in and determine whether or not Jason Todd, the second Robin, would be killed by a Joker. Jason lost that one and, at the behest of the comic readers at the time, was beaten to death with a wrench by the Joker.

Baldanders: Swampthing in Korea: Baldanders: Swampthing in Korea: The article is inherently incorrect, as it presumes a long-term motive for the behavior of the Joker.

Anybody who actually has studied the Joker's personality knows there is nothing inherently long-term about any of his goals at all.

Not to double post, but while the Joker has no specific long term goals, a general devotion to sowing chaos and exposing the inherent instability of the orderly illusion everyone lives within most of the time is the central characteristic of his character. Batman is the opposite. He realizes it's an illusion just as well, but he desperately wants to keep others from experiencing the total breakdown of their lives that he was forced to go through. They both looked into the darkness, and the darkness looked back into them. They just decided upon binary opposite ways of dealing with it, the opposite of which, represented by the other, is actually the embodiment of WHY they do what they do.

I disagree with that.

The Joker does what amuses him at the time. His goals are always immediate. Chaos is the how, not the why.

Eh, perhaps at inception, but I really believe he's been retconned and recently written into falling more in line with what I was saying. Anyway, I find that a lot more interesting. Not to say a guy blowing up stuff just cause isn't interesting in and off itself, but a deep, philosophical reasoning behind his actions just makes me like the character more.

But really, you can read, or write, it either way.

But a villain who does things for how own amusement is more terrifying, because of the possibility he may turn on his allies and offers more plot hooks.

FirstNationalBastard: Baldanders:
This went on for a while until Alan Moore wrote The Dark Knight Returns in 1986,

Part of me wants to mock you for getting the writer of Dark Knight Returns wrong.

However, I will just state that it was Frank Miller, not the other writer whose work after 1996 is waaaaaay overrated, Alan Moore, who wrote DKR.

Anyway...


Shostie: But, wait. With the exception of Killing Joke (I think), Burton's Batman movie and a few varied others aren't we completely lacking in any definitive origin story for the Joker?


With the exception of the Red Hood story (which Killing Joke was based on) there is no definitive background for the Joker. The Movies don't count for shiat.

I like that. I prefer it that way. The Joker doesn't need a real name or a concrete backstory. I prefer the line of thinking that the Joker could be any one of us after a bad day. If you go layering onto him crap like real names and sob stories about his mommy hitting him and daddy not loving him enough, the Joker just becomes another lame-ass villain.

As he is right now, The Joker is a nutcase who lives to destroy things and fark with the Batman. That's good enough.

...good call, man. I can't believe I said Alan Moore. I guess it's because everyone was talking about The Killing Joke. Believe me, I knew it was Frank Miller...dang. Just dang. I lost many geek points.

FirstNationalBastard: Baldanders: One last one: and if you wanna talk about dark, probably the darkest moment in Batman's history, and one of the most messed up things to ever happen in comics, is when in 1988 DC set up a 900 number to allow fans to call in and determine whether or not Jason Todd, the second Robin, would be killed by a Joker. Jason lost that one and, at the behest of the comic readers at the time, was beaten to death with a wrench by the Joker.

Crowbar. And he wasn't beaten to death. He was nearly beaten to death. Jason Todd still had the energy to try to escape after the beating. It was the bomb the Joker left in the building he locked Jason Todd and his mother in that really killed Robin II.

God damn it.

This'll teach me to write stuff like this from memory. Hell, I'm 25, I've never even read those comics, just read about them and heard the events mentioned in other comics.

FirstNationalBastard: the original is still easily found in single issue form, and in the Alan Moore in the DC Universe collection.


I really... really don't want to think about what is in the Alan Moore.

GreenAdder: FirstNationalBastard: Besides, if it hadn't been recolored, the book would have looked like shiat when DC increased the size of the art for the oversized format they reprinted Killing Joke in. They re-did Bolland's Camelot 3000 in oversized format without recoloring, and the art wound up pixellated and shiatty looking.

Well, yeah. But the original color kind of played into the Joker's odd sense of "reality." The new one, while it looks all clean and sharp, just kind of feels like a modern-day comic. It doesn't have the same disjointed feel to it.

It's like when they do digital remastering of old movies. It's really hit or miss. A lot of the times the sharper lines take a lot of the warmth out of the shots (I'm thinking about the Indiana Jones movies). On the other hand, the recoloring they did for the Absolute editions of The Sandman is just stunning, and makes an amazing comic look even better.

FirstNationalBastard: Baldanders:
This went on for a while until Alan Moore wrote The Dark Knight Returns in 1986,

Part of me wants to mock you for getting the writer of Dark Knight Returns wrong.

However, I will just state that it was Frank Miller, not the other writer whose work after 1996 is waaaaaay overrated, Alan Moore, who wrote DKR.

Anyway...


Shostie: But, wait. With the exception of Killing Joke (I think), Burton's Batman movie and a few varied others aren't we completely lacking in any definitive origin story for the Joker?


With the exception of the Red Hood story (which Killing Joke was based on) there is no definitive background for the Joker. The Movies don't count for shiat.

I like that. I prefer it that way. The Joker doesn't need a real name or a concrete backstory. I prefer the line of thinking that the Joker could be any one of us after a bad day. If you go layering onto him crap like real names and sob stories about his mommy hitting him and daddy not loving him enough, the Joker just becomes another lame-ass villain.

As he is right now, The Joker is a nutcase who lives to destroy things and fark with the Batman. That's good enough.

Recently, Kevin Smith wrote a mini with Batman, Joker and Onomonopeia (a villain he created for his run in Green Arrow back in 2000). At the end, Joker had been put in the hospital, and shot full of neurochemicals and antidepressants that it allowed him lucid thought. Batman sneaks in under his Matches personality to discuss things with Joker. Bats hints to Joker about his origins, and Joker actually says he feels sympathy for Batman, but in the end, the Joker exists just to kill Batman. He'll do other things, but in the end, his goal is for Batman to die "by my hand preferably but I'll take it how I can get it" i think was the line. If he ever did this, then he would sit in a padded cell, stop escaping, and just live out his life.

Now, this book doesn't have a specific time in continuity I could find, though I think it was before Infinite Crisis, given a few hints, but I think it's an interesting look. They recently put a hardcover TPB of it so if you have some time at BN sometime, it might be a worthy read to see a good author and comic book guy's take on the Batman/Joker relationship.

Gyrfalcon: This is nearly as scary as the D&D/WoW thread on the main tab a couple of weeks back.

I can't believe ANY of you guys have ever screwed an actual person.

For every nerdy guy there is a nerdy girl who enjoys such things. Just because you have an interest that may be male/female centric doesn't mean that the opposite sex can't enjoy it as well.

I'm still trying to convince my graduate professors to do a case formulation for Joker and Batman.

So far no takers.

Zer0ne: Am I the only person in the universe not impressed with the new Batman movies? They seem like realistic crime dramas until the dude in tights shows up and starts jumping around. Attention filmmakers: Realistic or comic book. Pick one please.

Batman Begins was epic. The other one, the massive dark turd that I can't remember the title, was like a 3 hour long Law and Order episode, without the best part: the commercials.