Batman: The Killing Joke

Just finished reading Batman: The Killing Joke, it’s Alan Moore’s take on the origin of the Joker and reveals a new aspect in the relationship between Batman and Joker.

Batman arrives at Arcum and wants to talk to Joker in his holding cell. He wants to try to stop the inevitable, in the end, one of them will die, either Joker is going to push himself to find a way to kill Batman or either Batman is going to lose control and kill Joker. Joker understands that if he can get Batman to kill him, then the Joker wins. Batman knows this as well, the only difference between Batman and Joker is that Batman will not kill anyone, he wants to save Gotham and the only way to do that is to catch criminals and let the justice system work it out.

Batman is talking to Joker only to find out that the person he’s talking to in the cell is really a fake Joker! Joker has escaped again! Joker schemes up a plan to drive Commissioner Gordon insane, to prove a point. He shoots Commissioner Gordon’s daughter in the spine, paralyzing her and takes crude pictures of her, he also kidnapping Commissioner Gordon. Joker then reveals these pictures of Commissioner Gordon’s daughter hoping to drive Commissioner Gordon insane.

Joker decides to do this because of what happened to him in the past. In the past, Joker was a former lab assistant turned struggling comedian with a beautiful pregnant wife. Joker has self-esteem issues because he can’t provide for his family as a comedian. Joker gets caught up with some gangster who promise him money in exchange for some help. They want to break into this chemical plant where Joker was a former lab assistant at.

The night of the crime, Joker finds out that his wife was electrocuted while testing a bottle warmer. The gangsters refuse to let him get out of this crime job and Joker is forced into this job still, even though he originally wanted to do it so that his wife and future son would have a better life. The crime job goes horribly wrong and Batman corners him, the Joker then jumps into a stream where the chemical company dumps its waste. Joker escapes Batman but emerges from the stream as bloody white skinned, green haired freak!

He wants to drive Commissioner Gordon insane because that’s what happened to him. The Joker had a horrible day where he lost his wife, unborn child, and himself. He wants to drive Commissioner Gordon insane as well to prove the point that this world is a cruel world. That all Commissioner Gordon has to do is to choose to be blame this world for everything and let madness settle in. But in the end, Commissioner Gordon tells Batman that he wants the Joker to be brought in by the book.

Joker tells his story and perspective of the world to Batman, but you see, like Joker, Batman has gone through his own traumatic experiences but chooses to accept the results and make the world a better place, not add to the crime or the insanity.

In the end, Batman tells Joker that he want to help rehabilitate him or else the inevitable will happen where one of them will kill the other. Joker, knowing that he’s finally caught again, tells the Batman a joke. Joker starts laughing happily and slowly Batman joins in, revealing a new aspect of their relationship; a co-dependant type of relationship where they in a weird way need each other and feed off each other.