Batman: Dead to Rights - part 3

[espanolbot]

The first trial of the Joker continues, with an increased guard after Mr J lethally poisoned a judge with a severe peanut allergy in the previous issue.

A psychologist has been called on by the defence to try and prove that the Joker isn't mentally competant enough to stand trial for his many, MANY crimes.

The defence lawyer: Doctor, would you characterise my client as either a pyschopath or a sociopath?
The doctor: Truthfully... I don't know what he is.



Defence lawyer: Is my client in any way mentally fit to stand trial?
Doctor: I do not think the defendant is capable of assisting in his own defence.
Defence Lawyer: So your answer is "no", doctor?
Doctor: No.
Judge: Your witness, Mr. Dent...

The interview is intercut with Matches Malone committing some crimes to get locked up in the cell next to the Joker, to try and get an insight into what the Joker wants.





Detective Shancole, the guy whose wife was talked into committing suicide by the Joker within hours of being dumped at the police station, struggles to snatch a pistol from a guard to try and shoot the Joker, but he's stopped by his friend.

Later, the Mayor is yelling at DA Harvey Dent and Lt. Gordon about how incompetant he feels the pair are, and how he wants "that freak in a prison cell. Not in some glorified rest home watching 'the View' between art therapy and nap time." He leaves, with Dent leaving soon afterwards.

The Batman shows up and tells Gordon that he should be more careful with how he treats the Joker, getting the bitter response: "Excuse me for thinking shotguns, leg-irons and a straitjacket would do the trick." He then says that he thinks that Batman is just as in the dark with how to deal with the Joker as everyone else. Batman says that all they need to do is work out what the Joker wants, and they'll be able to use that to control him better.

This leads back to the Matches Malone bit at the beginning of the issue, where he's now in the cell next to the Joker's cell. The pair talk for a while, and its revealled that the Joker spotted that Matches was Batman almost instantly. As Batman just gives up the pretence and changes back into his uniform, the Joker turning his back because "I like-a me the ladies", Mr J decides to finally just say what it is he's after,

"You really didn't need to go to all this trouble. I'm happy to share. All I want for Christmas is... you. You're the wind beneath my winds. And suprise, suprise, sweetie darling. I'm the Wind beneath your's. You complete me.

"Here's the deal. I don't care if I'm in jail or living in a mansion with a cement pond. I'm going to hurt people. AND I'll have my jollies doing it. Until you kill me... or I kill you. So, either way, grow the testes to play by Brooklyn rules..."




After the trial, Gordon goes to Shancole's home, to try and convince him to go to AA again, having stopped since his wife died. He tells him that either he gets help about his drinking, or he'll have to turn in his badge and gun.

Shancole immediate turns in his badge, but just as he says that he'll need his fun for a little while longer, Gordon notices a gurgle coming from behind Shancole's couch. It's Shancole's detective friend, and he's been shot twice in the chest.

The issue ends with Detective Shancole apologising to Jim, and then shooting him as well...

Comments

[atj99]

I'm guessing this came out after "The Dark Knight" right?

[espanolbot]

I think so. If not the use of the "You complete me" line is a massive coincidence, like that Joker graphic novel that was released around the same time but had been in production years before Heath Ledger was announced as being the Joker but he looked like him in the comic anyways.

It's the one where Harley dresses like a gorilla.

[atj99]

It's the one where Harley dresses like a gorilla.

Err...ok

[filthysize]

The Batman Confidential issue it's from came out in 2008, I think about a month or two after TDK came out. So it's hard to say, but it's very possible that Kreisberg saw the film in advance.

[jlbarnett]

I do not understand how writers can write this character and not end it with someone pulling his head off his neck.

[espanolbot]

Well, the story IS partially about a policeman who snaps after the Joker killed his wife, and tries to murder the Joker for revenge, so it's not as if the issue is being danced around in this storyline.

Though it is kinda non-canon.

[auggie18]

Yep. Feels like this conversation rolls around every few months, but it's pretty massively true. When you have a character running around blowing up school buses, forcing fathers to eat their own babies, and kidnapping the goddamn President, there should be some freaking consequences. There are people who can kill in the DCU and unlike us, they don't know it won't stick. Just have a cop blast him, leave him dead for a year or two, then bring him back.


I mean, geez...

[jlbarnett]

hell, just have him randomly go back to be a humorous guy

[drmcninja]

Victoria Hand's quote comes to mind when I think of this. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was along the lines of, When a hero constantly catches a criminal, but he always breaks out and kills more people, always to be brought back in and break out again, at what point does it become the hero's fault for not having him killed?

Courts apply all the same. Just give him the death penalty or something, for real. You'd think eventually someone would realize, "Oh, hey, he IS crazy, but all he really does with it is kill dozens and dozens of people. Maybe he DOES know what he's doing!"

[starwolf_oakley]

It was Maria Hill, actually. She said how another SHIELD agent wondered when Norman Osborn killing people became Spider-Man's fault for not killing Norman. While it isn't Spider-Man's fault Norman is crazy, it is his fault he's still alive. (Also, Spider-Man may be the ONLY good guy in the Marvel universe who doesn't want to kill the bad guys.)

http://pics.livejournal.com/starwolf_oakley/pic/005a7wyk
http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/2705302.html

Nightwing and Oracle had a similar conversation about the Joker during LAST LAUGH, as they never did anything "permanent" to stop the Joker.

http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1002706.html

[an_idol_mind]

I would say that Maria Hill's argument is bunk, but considering that the Joker's life has been directly saved by superheroes at least three times that I know of, his case would be an exception. Batman has tried harder to save the Joker's life than he does for some innocent civilians.

[blunderbuss]

Yeah, why not give him ACTUAL death immunity so he can come back from the dead? Then he could at least DIE every once in a while.

[an_idol_mind]

Or stop having him get caught all the time. When the Joker got uncertain death scenes or managed to escape while Batman saved some innocent lives, the Gotham legal system didn't look as wall-bangingly stupid.

[venatosapiens]

This doesn't work. Period. Stop.

[blunderbuss]

Yep. Joker is a character that needs a steady hand to make sure he doesn't make the suspension of disbelief, but they fail every single time.

[retro_nouveau]

I see. I myself cannot. You use Evian skin cream, and sometimes you wear L'Air du Temps, ... but not today.

[nezchan]

Wow, every post about this, it gets worse. That takes some skill.

this always drives me crazy

[glockblob.livejournal.com]

I get this conceit--the whole restraint-in-the-face-of-madness thing is a Batman staple-- but I would agree with whoever said earlier that the Joker doesn't make sense in a court context. It's well-known among defense attorneys that "successfully" pleading insanity usually gets you an open-ended, much longer imprisonment with (often, and definitely in Joker's case) a huge loss of rights. I like Joker stories a lot, but I really hate it when writers act like a locked ward is going to be a nice little rest home and it's a victory for Joker when he ends up there. It's a cheap shortcut to a black-and-white scenario when it'd be more fun (well, fun for me) to get into the complexities of a broken system.
Thanks for posting! I'm always fascinated by how many ways there are to tell these characters.

Re: this always drives me crazy

[mcity]

To be fair, that's a common misconception of the insanity defense.

[mas]

Did the witness from the trial survive the fall or did the Joker manage to murder another person in a courtroom?

[starwolf_oakley]

Maybe stories like these show just how ineffective Gotham City is in terms of law and order, which is why it needs Batman. And why certain characters say "Batman attracts these nutjobs."

It could be some sort of bizarre commentary on the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984, which is about how the public was outraged that John Hinkley Jr. "got away with" shooting Ronald Reagan. And even before that, "not guilty by reason of insanity" was used very, VERY rarely. It is still very rarely used.

[turtlefu]

It doesn't really help that the first person to successfully use it probably wasn't insane anyways.

But, yeah, there is still this huge stigma. I have a friend that wants to be a prosecutor in part because he friend was killed by a man who successfully plead the insanity defense.

[blunderbuss]

Oh for fuck's sake.

This is ridiculous. This isn't some dangerous, clever madman screwing with everyone around him, this is God!Joker warping all probability so he can kill people at his whim when he shouldn't have any opportunity to do so. And it just makes everyone in the DC universe look like shmucks.

Really, you can have a guy like the Joker. You can! You just need very careful writing to make sure he doesn't tip over into ... well this. But we all know how badly DC has screwed up in that regard.

[silicondream]

Yeah, I could deal with the Joker being a Death God. Him and Bats both go into god mode for Justice League stories and stuff, and that's fine--they need the powerup if they're going to play with Green Lanterns and Kryptonians. And while I don't really see why you'd want to write a Gotham-focused story where the Joker's on that level, hey, if it works for you.

What I don't get is putting the Joker on that level and making everybody else act like regular schlubs. Straitjacketed Joker can kill people with a banana peel and a wish, fine. Why is he in a straitjacket instead of a S.T.A.R. Labs stasis field? Why is the court sending him to an ordinary psychiatric hospital instead of the Slab or the Phantom Zone or something? Where are all the resources DC Earth uses to protect itself from people a thousand times deadlier than even God!Joker?

And, okay, that's all unavailable right now, whatever. What about Batman? Even if this was a "Joker: Year One" story, why at this point is he still farting around being Matches Malone and stuff? Why isn't he in the courtroom, disguised as a bailiff or a little old lady or a chair or a whateverthefuckhewantshe'sBatman, using his Bat-Ninja-Magic to thwart the Joker's murder attempts? Dude just murdered a guy from twenty feet away with a peanut! It's time for serious!

Either this Batman isn't nearly as competent as the Joker or he just doesn't care, and either way, it makes it look like he should focus on mugger-beating and let Alan Scott or somebody handle the supervillains.

[q99]

I know!

JokerGod akin to Batgod, where Joker's a brilliant genius who instinctively knows *just* the right thing to do to mess up a plan and throw everything into chaos I can buy. Or who does rube-goldbergian plans that somehow work despite being seemingly unrelated elements until they come together.

Joker does minor stuff that just happens to kill people personally every time in this manner isn't remotely believable.


I also think Joker works better when he does more than just kill. He *can* kill but it's rarely his purpose or aim. If he kept doing little pranks like this that didn't magically kill everyone, just to keep people offguard and paranoid about him, making his opposition look foolish and all that, it'd be like fifty times better.

[mcity]

>JokerGod akin to Batgod, where Joker's a brilliant genius who instinctively knows *just* the right thing to do to mess up a plan and throw everything into chaos I can buy. Or who does rube-goldbergian plans that somehow work despite being seemingly unrelated elements until they come together.

Or the film's version, where he had several redundant plans going on, and lied to everyone about what he actually wanted and how he was doing it.

Given Nolan-Joker's level of just-in-case, I don't think putting a banana peel up his shoe would be past him. Nolan shows him eating a banana at some point in the courthouse, and then we get this scene. What wouldn't be shown would be the hours of working out how fresh the peel needs to be, what direction provides the most slipperyness, sneaking into the witness's apartment to figure out how much she weighs, what shoes she's likely to wear, which foot would slip on the peel, etc.

And then there's this guy, who seemed to have just taken a shot that paid off.

[icon_uk]

There's a fine line between suspending one's disbelief and lynching it, this one has crossed far into the latter territory. This doesn't work, so stop trying to convince us it would.

[fifthie]

This is a fucking looney toons episode, jesus christ.

[fifthie]

Like seriously just literally give Joker a death note and make all of this at least explicably ridiculous.