Alan Moore is praised and well renowned for his brilliant works of Watchmen, V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. However, the gem that is Batman: The Killing Joke is in fact one of his greatest works. It’s a brutal masterpiece with Moore not pulling any punches in showing the extremeness of the Joker’s madness. It blurs the line on sanity/insanity, right/wrong and heroes and villains.
The original Joker is a fantastic literary creation and although Ledger’s version of the Joker is a perfect contemporary version; the original outright insane Joker always holds a soft spot for me. The pure evil he puts upon Gordon’s daughter and his excessive lunacy is gut-wrenching and makes the reader actively encourage some form of deep punishment to fall upon the Joker. Nevertheless Moore’s novel is not two-dimensional as he attempts to provide to show the psychosis of the Joker whilst balancing in the humanity.
Within this particular novel, it is one of the first times the Joker’s back story is touched upon. A failing comedian with a baby on the way, he wants to be a good father, a good husband and a good man. However, he’s desperate and become corrupted leading to his downward spiral. The Joker simply became the next step of evil and corruption after the guys who corrupted him. Indeed, life as a good man never worked for him; therefore, it is only when he goes insane can he finally become who he wants to be. Moore’s vivid and brutal realisation of the Joker’s life does help provide depth and necessary dimension to Batman’s greatest foe. Nevertheless, like in Moore’s previous works, he is not trying to portray a sob story. He wants us to sympathise and understand the Joker but the distance must remain between him and us. The polar to this comes from Batman himself; indeed, the purpose of The Killing Joke is to show to the consequences of our choices and no matter what we do we can never out run them.
This novel is a classic and the illustrations are vividly realised Brian Bolland providing even greater effect for Moore’s words. If one had any qualms is that it is too short and it would have been great if extended further. Nevertheless it is a great graphic novel and highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment