The Brave and the Bold #31

[cyberghostface]

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

I hate stories which attempt to flesh out the Joker's early life.
As far as I'm concerned, he came into being when the Batman did. He was born when he fell into the vat of chemicals which turned him into the Joker. He has no other origin, true name, or history... save what he himself creates and recreates on a regular basis. The Joker is forever changing and indefinable. He doesn't have a family, was never a child or a teenager, and was never a person as we know it.

Why? Because the Joker is a literary construct more so than almost any other comic book antagonist, and has had 80 years to calcify without a definitive origin and it's too damned late to fix it at this point. You can explore Norman Osborn or Lex Luthor or Loki all you want, and explain their backstories and origins, but the Joker... well, the Joker is impossible to pin down. He reinvents himself daily, and constructs these mental realities so strongly that even he believes them... until the next one takes hold. So a story like this is only real as far as the Joker's history goes for this one specific instance, before the next one comes along to explain how he was a normal family man and failed comedian until he was pressured into becoming the Red Hood... or until we learn he's always been a sociopath... or until we learn he's Batman's long-lost illegitimate brother...

[beyondthefringe]

And furthermore, I hate every single time they go out of their way to save the Joker's life when it would be SO FUCKING EASY to let him die once and for all. Do nothing, and his eternal reign of murder and chaos finally ends. One life in exchange for dozens or hundreds.

Except of course the Joker, as a literary construct, always comes back even when he does die. Because in a fundamentally insane world like a comic book universe, you need those literal manifestations of insanity to keep everyone else from going nuts.

[coldfury]

Yeah, I hate this thing for multiple reasons.

First, Atom is always traipsing around people's brains and never gets this 'shared experience' thing, which makes no sense to begin with.

Secondly, does this mean Atom is constantly going around saving peoples lives from odd diseases that can only be fixed when you have a super small intelligent scalpel? Why is it only when it's a dramatic case (like the Joker) that this happens?

And all the things you said about the Joker, and how this stuff will never stick. It works if it's him playing a gag, feeding someone a story about his origins, because you know he's an unreliable narrator. But with a setup like this? Meh.

[strejdaking]

If he really reinvented himself daily, how would he carry out any of his many long-term plans?

[icon_uk]

The same way the Doctor does in Doctor Who, their outward personality alters, but their deepest core nature stays the same.

[wizardru]

The problem here is that the story should end right there on that first page, with the Atom's comment. I assume there's some sort of macguffin to make the Atom do it, anyhow, but I'm not feeling it.

Honestly, I hate every time they try to give the Joker a history. The only time I ever feel like it worked was in the Killing Joke, and that's because it wasn't actually meant to be canon, it could have all been lies and it sold the idea that Joker was and believes everyone IS one bad day away from being a monster. Even Frank Miller doesn't believe that, despite his many takes on Batman; one of the main things about DKR was Batman DOESN'T kill the Joker, for example. Of course, the Joke as written by the time of the DKR was not the horrific mass murdere he is today...he was dangerous and crazy (or rather had become so over the previous 10 years), but was not counter to the Bat-God that he now is.

[lego_joker]

Actually, I think a good argument can be made that DKR was the genesis of Mass-Murdering Godlike Joke. During the talk show they casually sling around triple-digit body counts for him (it's implied the real number is much, MUCH higher), and without Superman's intervention he would've straight-up triggered World War III. The carnival scene alone (where he kills a whole troop of cub scouts with poisoned cotton candy) is something I'm pretty sure *no* pre-Miller writer would've even imagined.

[nyadnar17]

I knew this would be dumb, but fuck this is dumb.

[goattoucher]

"I'll hate this moment for the rest of my life... but it's better than hating myself...

...I hope that is a comfort to the next few dozen people he kills."

[bradygirl_12]

Yeah, hate yourself, Ray! Your first response was the best one. *sighs*

[sindra]

Seriously. How selfish do you have to be that not hating yourself trumps the dozens upon dozens if not more lives you'd be saving from horrible deaths if you just let him die?

It's just lazy writing.

[goattoucher]

You need stakes for drama, but when you have established the
Joker as the Hitler of DC comics (in reference to the universal loathing everyone has for him) you can't casually put him in danger and have him saved by a superhero without exploring the consequences.

But hell: they don't explore this very much in Batman comics, so why expect it here?

[dc2houseofmystery]

The fact that half the art is by Justiniano, a man who pleaded guilty to second-degree possession of child pornography after he gave the wrong USB stick to a funeral home worker who was expecting images for a memorial, should put this into a league of it's own.

What are the community rules on this kind of thing?

[cyberghostface]

I wasn’t aware of that but I don’t think there are any rules pertaining to that.

[dc2houseofmystery]

Apologies, I wasn't insinuating you posted them in spite of knowing.

I just understandably despise the guy.

[lordultimus]

Just once, I want to see a Joker backstory that actually involves clowns.

[zylly]

I don't mind giving the Joker a bit of a backstory... but I generally prefer the backstory where he was already a terrible person, like the Animated Series or the Keaton movie. By the same token, I also think he's gone without one for so long as this point that anything you could give him would never live up to what people have imagined, so it's better not too.

That said? They should have let him die here.

[an_idol_mind]

I think this story could have worked better if the Atom came across some legitimately sympathetic memories that humanized the Joker a little. It could have at least tried to make the point that every life is worth saving, even the Joker's.

Instead, we just find out that the Joker is bad and has always been bad. He's not crazy - he's just evil. Moreover, the Atom openly admits that the Joker escaping Arkham is inevitable (which I wish superheroes would stop doing in-story). I'm sure the next 100 people the stupid clown kills is worth it as long as the Joker stays "trapped in a prison of [his] own brain."

I feel like DC has become too meta with the Joker. If every superhero knows he's going to escape Arkham, and a triple-digit body count is inevitable whenever he does, there is no reason not to kill him. Arguments against the death penalty stop working if there is literally no other way to hold the criminal and he's a walking act of mass destruction that hits the streets every few months.