The Killing Joke; what matters is the punchline

Next month will see the release of the animated adaptation of Alan Moore's milestone graphic novel "The Killing Joke". In order to flesh out the story, and provide the movie with more length than the story would otherwise provide DC are adding a whole new section into the story before the events of the comic. I think that this is a good thing. There are elements of the story that need to be worked on. However I do think that by focusing on the beginning of the story the writer and animators are putting their attention in the wrong place. If you are looking at the Killing Joke with a view to improving it the beginning isn't what matters, what matters is how it ends.

This is because the chief problem with the Killing Joke isn't that Barbara Gordon is attacked and paralysed. The chief problem is that she is attacked, paralysed and then promptly ignored by the story. We see little of how Barbara feels about what has happened to her and the attack is purely motivated as a way to affect male characters (in this case James Gordon and Batman). This is something that is very important to remember when discussing this type of story (dubbed women in refrigerators by Gail Simone). The attack on Barbara kick starts the events of the Killing Joke but this story is not about Barbara. The story is about Batman and the Joker, Barbara is used as little more than collateral damage by the story.

 But how does this tie in with how someone would go about adapting the Killing Joke? Simple. If you want to flesh out the Killing Joke you need to transform it from a story in which Barbara is paralysed into a story about Barbara being paralysed.

You might be wondering how I would suggest that could be done. Firstly more attention needs to be put on how Barbara reacts to the news that she will no longer be able to walk. A proper scene in which the character was given the news and began to process it would go a long way towards making Barbara more involved in what should be her story, and it would provide a quieter scene in between the assault and Batman's visit to the amusement park.

The second thing that the adaptation would need is to have Barbara involved in taking down the Joker in some capacity. Now I will admit that this could be tricky to pull off. The whole point of anything the Joker does is that he wants Batman to know that he did it. In the Killing Joke he also wants Batman to know exactly where to find him. Batman doesn't discover the Joke in the Killing Joke, he is invited. The writers would also have to consider the fact that Barbara would be physically and emotionally devastated by the attack and also be undergoing pretty heavy duty medical care.

The way to get around this would be to have the confrontation between the Batman and the Joker take place as the middle of the story rather than the end and to expand the scale of the Joker's plan. Doing so would enable Barbara to recover somewhat to the point from which she could affect the story and expanding the Joker's plan would give her something to thwart without changing the original intent behind the story.

In the Killing Joke the Joker sets out to prove that anyone can be driven mad by one bad day and plans to use James Gordon as an example. One route that the adaptation could go down would be to have Jim Gordon be the first example rather than the only example. The movie could depict this as something that the Joker intended all along or as a plan B for him to fall back on.Either way it would be resolved by Barbara figuring out that there was more to the Joker's plan and using the skills that she would go on to employ as Oracle and to point Batman in the right direction.

Finally we need to see what will come next for Barbara. When Barbara Gordon was originally payalysed in the Killing Joke there was no plan for the character. If it hadn't been for the efforts of writers Kim Yale and Jim Ostrander the character would have been discarded. Since the Killing Joke many stories have dived into how the experience shaped Barbara and how she grew into the role of Oracle. The best way for the adaptation to end would not be with Batman and the Joker laughing on the roof (as great as that ending is) but with Barbara vowing to apply herself in a new direction rather than give up on the fight against evil. If they did that then it would truly become her story.

One issue stories: Green Lantern #48

One of the biggest annoyances comic book fans can face is when a story is stretched out across many issues. This can leave readers frustrated by having to wait another month for the conclusion to a cliffhanger, having to buy so many issues to finish a story, or by pacing issues that can arise if a story is stretched out to last too long.

The one issue stories segment of this blog aim to look at stories that are neatly wrapped into one issue, so that anyone reading this blog can see where they can find a good story without having to buy too many comics.

Naturally I chose to start this segment with a comic that serves as the opening chapter in a three issue story, wait what?

Now I know I am probably losing but please allow me to explain before you comment or stop reading. Yes Green Lantern #48 is only part one of the three part "Emerald Twilight" story, but in my opinion #48 is not only much better than either #49 or #50 it actually works as its own story. In my opinion you can still enjoy a more or less complete story if you only read #50 (plus you get to avoid seeing Hal Jordan turn evil).

See? There is method to my seemingly complete lack of regard for my own segment topics.

Firstly I will start with some background.

As many people know Superman was killed off and brought back to life in the 92. What less people know however is that during the story arc that dealt with this series of events the hometown of Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) was destroyed by two of Superman's villains.

Green Lantern 48# picks up in the wake of this destruction. We open the comic to find Hal Jordan kneeling in the crater of what was once his home. Since Hal's ring gives him the power to create anything that he imagines he uses it in an attempt to restore his city and all of its former inhabitants. The majority of the issue focuses on Hal Jordan exploring the projection of the city that he has created and interacting with ghost like projections of people from his past.

There isn't any action in this issue, rather the issue is used to explore the thoughts and feelings of its central protagonist. I know that action is one of the main draws of superhero comics but sometimes it is nice to read a comic that serves as a breather between issues. Hal's feelings are made all the more relevant by the fact that his ring is powered and directed by his emotion (namely his willpower). It is in my opinion, an excellent study in the nature of grief and revisiting the past. In trying to bring back the home that he lost Hal is attempting something that we wish have wished we could do at one point or another. Hal finally says what he always wanted to say to his first love, he gets to have one more talk with his late father and get some answers on what his father would have thought of the man that Hal became.

In my opinion this issue could have been the foundation of a truly great story, and everything that is wrong Emerald Twilight is down to the two issues that follow.

Now it is true that Hal spends the last part of the issue already intending his infamous assault on the Green Lantern Corp, but I believe this would have been fine if #49 had gone a different way. When his ring runs out of juice Hal is brought painfully back into reality. He is immediately desperate to return to the world that he has created and he sees the Guardians as getting in the way of that. I believe that it is only fitting for the story that he would be a bit hostile at this point because he is essentially a wounded animal, trapped in his own pain. Had the following issues had him lose to the corps and be forced to come to terms with his loss the story would have been all the better for it.

Green Lantern #48 uses the abilities of its titular hero to explore upon feelings that will affect us all at some point or another throughout our lives. Hal struggles with his loss and tries in his own way to reconnect with the past. While his actions in the issues are not heroic they are certainly sympathetic.

All of this explains why Green Lantern #48 is good, but not quite why it deserves to be thought of as a single issue story. In order for that to be true it would have to have a beginning, a middle, and an end all in that issue and tell a complete story. So if we were to remove #49 and #50 what are we left with?

We have a story that starts with Hal's loss and his reaction to that loss. We move on to his attempts to process his grief and the story concludes when the he is interrupted by the outside world and finds that he is unable to cope. It isn't a happy ending but I maintain that that it has all the basic ingredients for a complete story. Admittedly it ends on a cliffhanger but I do not believe that fact is enough to disqualify it own its own.

Green Lantern #48 not only does justice to the universal themes that it explores, it does so in only one issue. That is why it is the first comic that I am recommending as a one shot story.

Why it's ok that Ben Parker, and the Waynes are perfect

One thing that long time comic book readers have probably noticed is how often the parents of superheroes are depicted as being perfect. This isn't always the case but often when a comic does focus on a superhero's parent(s) their flaws are ignored or not portrayed to the extent that you would be forgiven for thinking that they lacked any. 

You might think that I should be writing why this is a problem. Generally speaking characters who exist to be perfect are less interesting than their flawed counterparts. It is through a character's flaws that we see their struggles and their journey as characters. Character flaws also allow us to better relate to a character as we can see our flaws in them. 

So why am I in favour of a certain group of characters being without flaws? To answer that question I need to examine the roll that these characters play in the stories in which they appear. 

First I will look at the example of deceased 

I'm not saying that deceased characters should be perfect, in Harry Potter we only really start to see Dumbledore's flaws after his death and the reveals give us a greater appreciation of his character. The fact that these characters die as part of a backstory is key to my argument. 

Because the parents of superheroes often die in their offspring's backstory what we see of them is almost always through flashbacks or expanded backstory. This means that from a certain point on wards we are only experiencing these characters through the interpretation of their children. 

Take Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne for example. Bruce Wayne's age is depicted as being anywhere from eight to twelve/thirteen when Thomas and Martha Wayne are killed in front of him. Because of this Bruce sees them the way he did when he was a child. Not only that but because he was only a child when it happened he would be getting a lot of his information on the type of people his parents were from stories about their actions or people who knew them personally. In the case of the former they will be stories deigned with certain angles in mind, and therefore not likely to give a fair and balanced fair of who the Waynes were. In the case of the latter he is unlikely to hear the negative aspects because the teller (say Alfred for argument's sake) aren't going to want to dwell on mistakes that the Waynes may have made because they were very dear to them, and they miss them. 

This aspect also explains why figures like Ben Parker are portrayed as perfect even though Parker is older than Bruce was when they wen't through their similar losses. In Parker's case he is going to want to focus on the positives of his uncle because that is naturally would he would focus on, and not just because of his feelings of guilt over the circumstances of his uncle's death. 

 "Everyday the future grows a little bit darker, but the past even the grimy bits, just keeps getting brighter" ~ Sally Jupiter, Watchmen

But what about living parental figures? The best character to use as an example for this is May Parker. In an event with Kevin Smith, Stan Lee said that he came up with the character of May to give Spider-Man someone to worry about. As readers we see May through the eyes of Spider-Man and this view is tinted by his worry and concern for her. This view of May is as complete as Bruce Wayne's view of his parents and isn't a full picture of who she is.

Spider-Man often worries about what would happen if May were to find out both the full circumstances of her late husband's death and his identity as Spider-Man. Yet in one comic she finds out both of those things and she is able to deal with them. Because she is much stronger than Spider-Man's fears allow him to give her credit for. This highlights the imperfect nature of the lens through which we perceive her character.

In Superhero comics parents and parental figures are often depicted as perfect. This is not however because their writers are lazy, or because the characters themselves are two dimensional. They are seen this way because we are witnessing these characters through the minds of their loved ones. In this capacity they serve as reflections of the hero's mental state. They show us what example the hero is trying to live up to, and also what they have lost or still fear to lose.