The Killing Joke

1. I thought The Killing Joke was really interesting. I admit, I’ve seen more Batman movies than read comics, but I get the gist of it. For one, this graphic narrative was really dark, like something you’d expect from a more modern Batman installment. The story was very serious and morbid, and didn’t have any silly or non-serious moments that one would expect from an older Batman. Heck, even the visuals were really morbid and twisted-looking. I enjoy the establishment of the Joker in this, and liked that the story was centered more on him and his motivation rather than what Batman was doing; I like seeing villains have their backstory fleshed out such as what happened in this, it brings a whole new side to their character that one might not necessarily have seen before. I, for one, like seeing darker tones, so the story in this had a lot of appeal to me. I thought the transitions between the present and what happened in the Joker’s past were awesome; the panels even matched! Say, something happened in the present, but then the next panel would be the same action/composition/content of the present panel, but it would be the beginning to a flashback from the Joker’s horrible past with a desaturated tone over it. This was a very strong way to present a character’s past, and seemed very cinematic and clever to me. I also really liked the ending, where the Joker finally got Batman to laugh at a stupid joke, and ends up getting strangled. It was a satisfying way for a Batman comic to end.
   
   
2. It’s hard to connect with any aspect of this comic, really. There’s too little content of Batman himself to connect with, and he’s doing his same old masked vigilante crime-stopping, but also trying to understand his enemy. Since the story is centered on the Joker, it’d be more likely to try and connect with him, but I still feel it hard to, since he’s portrayed as a total psychopath. Everyone can relate to something traumatic happening in his/her life, but it’s probably not something as horrible as a spouse and child dying. Also, it’s difficult to relate to resorting to crime and becoming disfigured. So, i guess the emotion that the Joker is feeling is the most realistic thing to connect with. I’ve definitely felt like a failure before when the odds are against you, and the world sees you as a failure (i.e. the part where he explains to his wife that he couldn’t get a job can’t support the family). I’ve also felt what Batman feels when he contemplates the worth of his constant feud with the Joker, it’s a little like evaluating the pettiness of a rivalry, but on a much, much larger scale.
   
   
3. If I were to adapt this story into a different medium, I would want to do something completely fresh and original. We have seen plenty of variants of Batman comics, films, and animation. So, I would like to see The Killing Joke as a live-action musical. It would be hard to capture the seriousness of the story in musical form, since many musicals are happy and fun. This would go the darker route with a lot of visual storytelling, like an opera (but the music wouldn’t be opera, it’d be something that relates to this Batman time period). Musical format would be fitting to the story, especially during the scenes of the Joker’s past when he experiences deep sorrow and trauma. It’d also be really cool to see the Joker and Batman sing a powerful duet when they encounter each other at the end, like two enemies coming together to sing about how different they are, yet so similar. It’d be such a epic, meaningful moment between the classic villain/hero duo!
   The biggest changes I would make to the story to have it fit the musical medium better, is the acting. I would want the characters to be portrayed in an overdramatic way, which is typical to that of how plays are performed, but I don’t want it to be over-performed to a point where it becomes silly and ridiculous, because I want to keep the dark theme. I just really want to capture the sorrowful tones of the Joker’s past and how Batman and the congressman feel through song form, and I think a huge musical number of very visually interesting scenes like when the Joker puts the congressman on the Ghost Train and mentally tortures him, or the end when Batman and the Joker are fighting each other, and the Joker makes his joke at the end to Batman…that’d be really cool with big musical hits!