The Joker Kills It

Watchmen author Alan Moore’s retelling of the Joker origin in his one shot, Batman: The Killing Joke, focuses on the psychological warfare Batman and the Joker have long been engaged in. While the short graphic novel proves in some ways groundbreaking and has enjoyed much influence in the Batman universe and continues to hold an incredible amount of pull with the various Batman films, the story ends up lacking in its character development and is riddled with clichés.

When revisioning how the Joker came to be Batman’s all-time greatest foe, Moore presents his pre-costumed villain days as those of a struggling stand-up comic who joins up with a band of thieves to provide for his wife and the child they are expecting. The crime the group undertakes, shown in flashbacks as the main narrative goes forward, consists of robbing a chemical company where he worked as an engineer before deciding to become Seinfeld.

Things start going wrong on the night of the heist when police show up at the bar where the group makes their plans to inform the comedian that his wife has died in an ironic, “Gift of the Magi”-ish accident involving an electric baby devise. Obviously in no condition to perform his role, which requires him to dress in the mask of a villain known as “Red Hood”, instead of letting him go back to his empty apartment to cry himself to sleep or de-map himself or whatever, the two thugs he sits with strong-arm him into going through with it.

When they end up in the plant, the cops show up immediately and they finger the comic in the red getup as the criminal mastermind Red Hood in hopes of Gotham’s finest focusing their efforts on him. Making things worse, Batman shows up and scares the holy bejesus out of the comedian, forcing him to make the ill-advised decision of jumping into a vat of toxic waste to swim to freedom. After his swim, he drags himself to shore only to discover that the poison has forever dyed his hair green, bleached his skin, and given him a constant Cool-Aid mustache. This telling of the Joker’s myth was clearly a major influence for Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film where in following a shootout with police at a chemical factory, Batman busts in which eventually causes Jack Nicholson’s character to fall into a large vat of some sort of acid and then emerge from a near by reservoir with stained hair and skin.

This is not anyone’s idea of a good day and apparently the events of this really crappy day caused the comedian to go insane and become the Joker. His scheme in Moore’s work is to drive Commissioner Gordon as crazy as he is by giving him his own personalized “one bad day.” After shooting and paralyzing his daughter, the Joker takes Gordon to his newly acquired carnival, strips him naked and taunts his to force him into madness.

This series of events constitutes some of the book’s best work. For instance, the Joker’s “Average Man” speech is particularly chilling, boasting the following in carnie fashion:

Ladies and gentlemen! You’ve read about it in the newspapers! Now shudder as you observe before your very eyes, that most rare and tragic of nature’s mistakes! I give you…THE AVERAGE MAN! Physically unremarkable, it has instead a deformed set of values. Notice the hideously bloated sense of humanity’s importance. The clubfooted social conscience and the withered optimism. It’s certainly not for the squeamish is it? Most repulsive of all are its frail and useless notions of order and sanity. If too much weight is placed upon them…they snap. How does it live, I hear you ask? How does this poor, pathetic specimen survive in today’s harsh and irrational world? The sad answer is ‘Not very well.’ Faced with the inescapable fact that human existence is mad, random and pointless, one in eight of them crack up and go stark slavering buggo! Who can blame them in a world as psychotic as this…any other response would be Crazy!

However, before Gordon completely nuts, Batman arrives to save, hurm, the day. These are issues director Christopher Nolan took up in his exquisite film The Dark Knight. The words above are echoed in the film when the Joker reveals his master scheme to prove that deep down, anyone can be as ugly as him when he states “I took Gotham's white knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn't hard. You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push!”

Even though the book has influenced the two most successful Batman films of all time—with Burton’s telling and Nolan’s transposing the Joker’s scheme of attempting to drive an upstanding citizen insane as well as themes such as the Joker as an unreliable narrator who prefers “multiple choice” when it comes to truth, the blurring of lines between Batman and his nemesis, and their inevitable mutual distruction—there are still a few problems with the work, namely it works too deeply in the archetype which doesn’t allow it address its themes in a powerful way. As Andy Shaw of Grovel points out, “the necessity of playing by the unwritten rules of such a tale round off its spiky edges… Without giving too much away, the ending is a little more traditional than the promise (or at best, ambiguous enough to leave it open to interpretation) and, as a result, a little disappointing… it’s incapable of squeezing out of its own shackles.”

9/11 Comics

Approaching the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, reading the first volume of 9-11: Artists Respond feels a little weird. This comic was published in January 2002 but most of the work there in came just after the Horror and as such is for the most part a lot of shock and holy shit type reactions mixed with all that gushy American patriotism that pretty much everybody experienced in those early months. For this reason, I have ended up thinking a lot about my own life around that time and how strange it all was. It was the strangest period of my life, and not just because of 9/11 but these are things I will get into momentarily since, as usual, I am quasi making this about myself instead of the book I am reviewing.

First of all, as mentioned, the majority of the pieces found in the book are just full of gooey American goodness. For example, Marc Rosenthal’s strip asserts that the terrorists didn’t change the world on Sept. 11, 2001, no the world changed when “in the end, the criminal terrorists lost what popular support they had, and became increasingly isolated as the world saw the clear moral choice,” (p. 174). Hmm. With hindsight we see that that is a load of shit that we all believed back then. Iraq, “the game changer,” blew that opportunity to all hell and once again we are fucked. More than ever now probably. And in 20 years, when the orphaned Iraqi children are old enough to get their revenge, then “Holy Terror, Batman!”

Looking back on this time, I remember watching Bush’s big speech on the 20^th and thinking “Wow, I can’t believe I am actually agreeing with things Bush is saying.” That didn’t last long however. The next day, when I went home for the first time after starting my first year of college, my dad, who like me voted for Nader in 2000, expressed his disbelief at the president’s audacity. He also correctly predicted we would go to war with Iraq because of this. I was confused, “What do you mean go to war with Iraq? That doesn’t even make any sense. Why would we go to war with Iraq?”

“Just watch,” he told me. “He snuck Iraq into that speech, didn’t he? Just wait and see.”

The majority of the reactions featured here, however, come even before that infamous time in the weeks following the Horror. That is, most of the strips are initial reactions that record the shock and terror of that single day in history. For example, one Mark Crilley’s reaction focused on that gorgeous day, a day when I talked with people outside, not many days are like that in an Ohio fall where I went to school, when he writes out one of my thoughts from that day, which was “What a beautiful… horrible day,” (181). On that beautiful/horrible day, I myself was sort of going through a meltdown of my own. Just after I watched the second tower fall, I had to trek over to the athletic complex for an 11 a.m. meeting with the football team, after which I was so screwed up I tried to quit but the coach basically wouldn’t let me. I was clearly out of my mind.

But then again, I still am. Not that that has anything to do with 9/11 or anything, just thought I would share.

So, anyway, there were two types of reactions I really liked: (1) the cynical, nihilistic viewpoint that greatly resembles my own, and (2) the over-grown kid who hasn’t progressed with his/her peers into adulthood—which I can also identify with since I am basically just an overgrown kid myself.

In regards to the overgrown kid theme, one by an artist named Scott Morse stood out. In his story titled “3 Second Impact,” we see a goofy, awkward yet endearing little kid, with a Stewie Griffin lemon-head, coming out of his little shell and doing superhero moves throughout his living room. Halfway through his routine though, we are allowed to see the fully grown Morse, sitting and watching his TV on the day of horror, saying that “I still act ten half the time,” (23). What an excellent image here that nicely captures the way I for one felt at the time—wanting to go out there and do something only having no idea what the hell to do and ending up just reading some comfort material by himself.

Of the latter grouping, standing in a class of darkness all by himself, go figure, is Frank Miller. Who in minimalist style among black and white images of a star, a cross, and finally a negative of a tower’s skeleton, writes “I’m sick of flags. I’m sick of God. I’ve seen the power of faith,” (64-65). This bleak little ditty here is sort of what you would have to expect from Miller. But even though it is sort of twisted and nihilistic and self-absorbed and what have you, it is one of my favorite pieces in the collection, for it is understated and rightly depicts the shit I for one remember going through at the time.

And then there is Alan Moore’s piece, the final and longest in the collection., in which he compares al-Qaeda to the typical villain of the comic book genre. In the strip, titled “This is Information,” Moore claims writing super-villains is “embarrassingly easy” (189). With that in mind, in his genius, long before anyone knew anything about the Muslim world, he tells us that only for the truly evil—i.e. those in comic books—“no motive is required,” (190). But there is more to them than that and to defeat them or what have you you have to look at like the heroes in Watchmen or something—no one is all good nor is anyone all evil. Things aren’t always so simple as he eloquently states: “we are all supposedly with the crusaders or the terrorists.” But how can we even make that decision, especially then before anything was known. Even now, after all the shit that has hit the fan, and to quote a ridiculous movie, The Big Lebowski, for a super serious subject, just using “the parlance of our times, man,” so to speak “the goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain,” it seems even harder to choose after all of the evil the crusading has generated all for nothing.

Its depressing looking back over this and seeing all the missed opportunities. Christ, how things got so fucked and the Right used it all to take control. Jesus, fuck. But then again, Moore left it on the note that we all felt and what was really important and what stuck and what really made us feel and what mattered. We weren’t with the crusaders. We weren’t with the terrorists. We were with you. Whoever you are.

Watchmen: Mother Forgive Me

Reading Alan Moore’s Watchmen for the second time in the last couple of months, I have to say it got better with the second reading—and I still think that I can become Rorschach if I wanted to—but even more than that, I have grown to love the movie—dare I say—at least as much as I do the graphic novel. 

My initial reaction was annoyance that they changed the ending to a seemingly Dr. Manhattan meltdown instead of the awesomeness that would have been an extraterrestrial creature who just showed up on our planet and who’s like brain exploded and also by the fact that they

 turned Rorschach into a quasi-superhero instead of the bum he really was.  For example, I was really pissed when they needed the whole police force to take down the ink-blot-faced badass instead of him just twisting his ankle after failing to clear a garbage can.  I was (and sort of still am) irritated by that development. 

But what can you do?  The movie was still awesome in so many ways and they got some of the best things about the comic book right to a T. 

So why do I still want more from the movie even after the Directors Cut (DC) was released last week and made the movie even better? 

Weeeellll, after seeing the 3 hour and six minute DC version, I was ready to watch another 2 hours of Watchmen.  And they could do this—and still may—too. 

For starters, I want to see “The Black Freighter” stuff spliced into the film.  This was probably the thing I liked the most as far as the asides go from the graphic novel, and this was made into a straight to DVD animated short that came out just after the movie did in theaters.  It wouldn’t be too hard to just throw it in, especially since the newspaper vendor was actually in the movie and all.  Even though, as far as I can tell, the writer of the story within the story was cut completely, it still wouldn’t be shit to put this tale of peg-leg irony into the film. 

Another thing I was sort of peeved about was the fact that they downplayed Nite Owl’s impotency issues.  In short, he couldn’t get it up unless he was kicking ass.  In the film, this was not all that explicit—but then again, the character was cast (greatly so) a little young.  So I am not too upset by this one but still maybe a little.

But I guess I can be a purest when it comes to adapting novels on the big screen.  So, on that note, one thing I really dug and got into after another reading and several more viewings, was the whole Comedian as a crazed Vietnam Vet thing, which I didn’t immediately pick up on. 

At first the Comedian seemed liked a crazed asshole, but then, upon further examination, you become the first Silk Spectre forgiving his past deeds and loving the cynical bastard. 

And so, after reading Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which was published the same year, it is clear that these two pieces end up looking like the appearances of Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias—a.k.a. Adrian Veidt—as seen when they appeared in the novel Watchmen.  We are left to look on in awe as the old is replaced with the new and everything has changed but in our shock we can’t say how.  But we know.  God help us all.  We know.

That 80's Movie: How Hollywood Ruined the Ending to Watchmen

I read Watchmen the other day, preparing to go into the film with the graphic novel fresh in my mind. I was pretty excited seeing how ridiculously awesome the trailers were and how great the book was--on Time's 100 Greatest Novels of the Twentieth Century--and I did think most of it was pretty great; however, the things that did not make it to the big screen from Alan Moore's book severely damaged my perception of the film.  

First off, the director did a grave disservice to Rorschach's character in three ways: (1) Rorschach was shown to have too much emotion when the mask was off while he was in prison getting interviewed or what have you by the prison shrink, this was one of the creepier parts of the book, how deadpan he was in the blot test; (2) Rorschach wasn't the dirty homeless bum he was supposed to be which was part of the anybody can become a super-hero type thing that is also part of the last thing; (3) Rorschach had borderline superhuman abilities when it came to speed and agility which he did not have in the book, all he had was his will, post-read I thought that if I walked out of the theater and I didn't think that I could walk out on the street and become Rorschach then the film did not do him justice.

And here are a few other problems I had with the movie, these being way more minor than the Rorschach bit and the stuff that would qualify as "spoilers," in case you care, which are: Night Owl looks just like Batman, or rather isn't so much of a sort of old broke down Batman (as I got the impression from the book he was supposed to be) and is a wienier version of the post Tim Burton Batman except a little more human (again which may have been sort of the point but its pretty safe to say that the studio wanted him to look as Batmanish as possible to bank off The Dark Knight's popularity), the first Night Owl's book--Behind the Mask (or something to that effect)--was left out entirely except for a quick reference at the beginning of the film; Silk Specter can't act; Dr. Manhattan 

has an 8-inch cock.

Those things out of the way, here is the MAJOR SPOILER WARNING for both the book and the film; so if you don't want to learn the endings of either version, then I guess you and I are done until my next post--which haven't been too frequent since my computer crashed.  Anyway, here goes: in the book, New York was destroyed by a giant squid genetically altered by Ozimandius to be huge, which everyone thinks is an alien, and that is what starts all the stuff that we see happen in both versions at the really real ending of the film.  (Well more like the second to last ending really since it suffers from Lord of Rings type excessive endings syndrome.)  This was the most 80's thing ever if you are old enough to remember Reagan's big space-based anti-missile Star Wars bullshit where lasers on satellites would blow up any nuclear threat from the USSR, which was horse shit, and then later his equally insane ramblings that he and Gorbachev had where he said "just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet.  [We'd] find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together."  Yep, he was insane, but that also pretty much sums up why the ending to Watchmen worked and was awesome and why Alan Moore is a genius.  

The film's ending, however, dumbs the whole thing down.  In it, Ozymandius still fakes it, but instead of a giant squid that everyone thinks is an alien, he makes it look like Dr. Manhattan did it.  This makes it pretty unnecessary for Dr. Manhattan to lose his humanity so that does away with that whole aspect of the book, sort of, in explaining why he leaves earth, which makes things easier I guess.  But they also villanize Ozymandius since no one likes a faker.  Well more like the studio figured the movie needed someone to blame and wouldn't be able to wrap its head around the whole Ozymandius was doing this for the good of the world thing so they made him look like the Riddler or something.  Point being, this is a movie that would have made a lot more since to make in the 80's.  Today much of its relevance has passed and its too bad that there was the technology to create this film then.  But then again, maybe it should have just remained a book.  That would have been fine.