I promised to try and get back to you after reading The Dark Knight Returns, the comics classic that was to be the next chapter in my ongoing study of the Joker.
I just finished it tonight and here I am...
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS TO THE COMICS MASTERPIECE "THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS"!!!
First, let me start out by saying that The Dark Knight Returns was not such a chapter in the Joker's history as it was Batman's. Technically, The Dark Knight Returns really isn't a page out of anyone's history. It didn't really happen... Let me explain...
When looking through the graphic novels at your local book seller or comic shop, you're going to notice some, published by DC Comics, that are labelled Elseworlds... I don't really know if The Dark Knight Returns IS an Elseworlds story (my copy isn't labelled as such), but really, it is...
You see, Elseworlds books are stories that don't really take place in the "real world". They take place out of the normal continuity of what's really going on in the DC Universe. They're kind of like Marvel's What If? series of books... It's like, "What if this or that happened?"
Get it? Okay...
That being said, The Dark Knight Returns is the story of Batman when he's an old man. Memories of his parents' murder and an ever-growing gang of young, malicious criminals called "The Mutants" prompt him out of his retirement... He wages a one man war on crime again... His age shows, though, and he enlists the help of a young girl who comes to be Robin... As the duo fight crime mercilessly, questions of Batman's morality arise in the media. Is he any better than the criminals he batters, breaks, and tortures?
In the midst of all of this, the fellow who we're studying (THE JOKER) comes due to be released from prison after serving years for heinous crimes... His first appearance in the story is dishearteningly un-crazy and not the least bit menacing as he simply peers from behind the bars of his prison...
The next time we see the Joker, he becomes a little more disturbing and a bit strange... His smile perks as he asks someone planning a mass bombing, "What kind of bombs?" Shortly thereafter, the Joker's sexuality (I've even read articles studying this very aspect of the Joker in this work) comes into question as he sees Batman on the TV and mutters "Batman... Darling..." (Scene included below)
Is the Joker in love with Batman? Or does he fancy Batman so much because the Bat gives him a contest and outlet for his insane deeds? I prefer to think the latter. The Joker looks undisputedly crazy in these scenes. He seems to hunger for a battle with the Batman...
The Joker next makes a play for the sympathies of the powers that be, sobbing to a psychogist, "I don't deserve this charity... ...Just lock me away from human memory..." A brilliant maneuver by the Clown Prince... This is the first part of his plan to utterly destroy Batman upon his release...
The next time we see the Joker is the real evolution of the character if any is seen in The Dark Knight Returns. The Joker is released from prison and is a guest on a late-night talk show... He nonchalantly says that he's going to kill everyone in the room. In the span of the Joker's appperances in this book (just under twenty pages of a two-hundred page epic) he kills something like 227 people... These scenes are mostly comprised of his talk-show appearance and a day at an amusement park... Maniacally killing with gun and deadly laughing gas, he says that he doesn't count the deaths. They fill him with glee. He loves it. I have a feeling that this is the merciless Joker that I'll come to see in my further readings and the crazed lunatic that Mr. Heath Ledger has brought to life in the upcoming film The Dark Knight...
The Joker's final strategy in The Dark Knight Returns is one that heaps a load of trouble on Batman. Bringing fight to the Joker in the Tunnel of Love at the amusement park (another hint at the Joker's deviated sexuality?), Batman beats the Clown Prince within an inch of his life... This demented Joker, the craziest, most demonic, most unhinged Joker we've seen thus far in our readings is almost totally incapacitated. This insane, brilliant character then heaps the straw upon the proverbial camel's back. With the last of his disturbed, demented strength, he twists his own neck around and breaks it, framing Batman for killing him to gain even further outcry against The Dark Knight... Oh yeah, he even rigged his own body to explode and burst into flame to take out those who would come to investigate his death...
Truly disturbed and brialliant...
Though The Dark Knight Returns is SO much more a Batman story than it is a Joker one, this tale was one that definitely advanced the Joker into the manaic that we're used to seeing today...
The Dark Knight Returns is DEFINITELY worth the read and I've enjoyed it SO much more this time around. According to many, it takes its place as a tie with the book Watchmen as the greatest comics story of all time... It's easy to see why. This is the most bad-ass I've ever seen Batman be and the most dementedly brilliant I've ever seen the Joker... With this, the whole atmosphere, and re-imaginings of all our favorite DC characters, it deserves all the hype... Pick it up, if you're so inclined... I've only scratched the surface in this post... Writer (and artist, with help) Frank Miller has crafted THE Batman story...
For the sake of our study... The final word... The Joker has never been this well-written... or this utterly, fascinatingly sick...
Until next time...
Art in this post by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley
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