Cartoon Corner- Batman: The Killing Joke

Originally posted at the DL August 2016



I put this one off for a bit.  Because... well, we live in an age you can get several hundred internet reviews of a new comic book-adjacent item within two hours of the thing going public, and honestly they all said very similar things and... yeah, they were pretty much right.  They add a half hour or so of prequel about Batgirl's last case.  It's a reasonable idea that quickly goes off the rails stupid.  Just about everything goes wrong here aside from the raw action bits.  These are some pretty cool fight scenes that highlight nicely how Barbara's fighting style contrasts with Bats'.  But the new villain being a sexist creep doesn't play right all with Batman being a condescending shit and Barbara almost... seeming like she's kinda into it?  And the batsex.  Which again, I get in the abstract (It's just kinda Bruce Timm's ship and hey, I thought it was neat enough the first time he did it) but doesn't work at all with the story they do here.

And the rest of it's a pretty faithful adaptation of a comic that's widely held as the definitive story about the Joker.  So what's even to add?

I will say that in some ways the translation to motion actually hurt the comic a bit.  I didn't actually read Killing Joke until last year, and I distinctly remember getting to the bit where Barbara gets shot and having to just stop at every one of the Joker's lines.  They're sufficiently horrible that you almost laugh, then go to the next one which is even worse and just have to stop for a "and it goes on like this" moment.  Something about the lines being spoken aloud lost the visceral feel of that sequence.

Which isn't a knock on the VA.  I mean, it's fucking Mark Hamill and... you can tell he's been wanting to do this for years.  He probably tried out for the Joker with this comic book in his hand.  If you told me he used lines from Killing Joke to practice in the booth before every recording session I'd believe you.  Actually if you told me that's not what he did I'd call you a liar.  The point at which he breaks into song was inspired but hey, they had to do something right.

I dunno.  I think the original story benefited a lot from its brevity and focus, and the expansion and necessary fill-in material lose something to it.  There's something to enjoy here, but definitely some slog too.

Rating- 5/10.