One Perfect Moment: The Riddler

[goggle_kid]

One page from 1989's Secret Origins special.

Comments

[skjam]

Which was in fact the first time Joker *had* killed anyone since the mid-forties, when he was executed for his crimes and had his slate cleaned. He naturally was revived, and went back to his criminal ways, but did not kill again for decades.

That was to solve the whole "Joker Immunity" problem that the writers noticed even then--if the Joker kills a bunch of people, Batman puts him away, the Joker gets out and kills people, Batman puts him away, wash rinse repeat, it makes Batman look stupid for not using a more...permanent solution.

So they did the "Joker pays for his crimes" story, and had it be a rule from then on that only one-shot gangsters and monsters would ever succeed at killing anyone in the Batman comics, and get punished at the end of the story.

Problem with *that*, of course, is that the Joker became essentially toothless. He's amusing but not actually a threat if everyone knows he can never follow through on threats of death. So when the Comics Code eased up, and the Batman comics could be grittier, "Five-Way Revenge."

But now we're back to the Joker Immunity problem, and I don't think today's readers will swallow the "he paid for those crimes and is back to being goofy fun!"

[icon_uk]

Problem with *that*, of course, is that the Joker became essentially toothless. He's amusing but not actually a threat if everyone knows he can never follow through on threats of death

Though as BTAS proved, you can still write an insanely creepy Joker without him killing you; Joker's Favour, what he did to Tim Drake in RotJ. etc.

[psychopathicus_rex]

No, but you COULD have him go 'killing so much is becoming such a bore - I think I'll tone it down a bit for a while'. He could still kill, and be a credible threat, but he wouldn't have to knock off people at a rate of at least five per story, like he does now.