The Joker 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular

[cyberghostface]

Joker returns to his cell and discovers Batman has been lobotomized as well.

Comments

[mastermahan]

A pastiche of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Okay, but why?

[tcampbell1000]

I'm guessing the idea started with the fact that Jack Nicholson's played the lead in both this and Batman, they both deal with insanity in very different ways, and McMurphy's a tragic-heroic figure in Cuckoo's Nest, which is more of a clash than if the story used Jack from The Shining. But it's hard to sift out what it's trying to say, especially since McMurphy's not the one who escapes in the original story.

[cyberghostface]

I think Batman not being able to lift the Oscar statue but Joker being able to and escape the asylum is a commentary on how Joker was able to ‘break free’ when his film won an Oscar while Batman is left behind.

[tcampbell1000]

That makes sense. Now that you put it like that, the pose is pretty clear.

[lego_joker]

Never seen Cuckoo's Nest and have no real intention of doing so anytime soon, but outside of that this story does have one gem: pointing out how dumb it is for the Joker to be treated as any kind of countercultural icon. Fawkes masks and Che T-shirts ain't got nuthin' on the kind of bank he's made for big business.

[cyberghostface]

He only became countercutural when the media tried to scare people into thinking that seeing a film with the Joker would somehow trigger a wave of mass shootings.

[mastermahan]

Funny, I could have sworn "We live in a society" memes were mocking Counterculture Joker years before the Joaquin Phoenix film.

[cyberghostface]

Which doesn’t contradict what I said. It was always 99% jokes and silly memes about the Joker being edgy. Everyone loved Heath’s Joker and quoted him/dressed up as him so he was as mainstream culture as it got. Joker being a protest symbol kicked off after the Joaquin film but even then it was largely for countries outside the US.

[tcampbell1000]

I feel like the Phoenix movie itself tried to make him a protest symbol, to the point of creating a movement of protestors in Joker makeup... and that was one of my big problems with it.

[sabertoothlotus]

Never seen Cuckoo's Nest and have no real intention of doing so anytime soon,
It's a good movie, and worth watching, but I'm not gonna give you grief for not wanting to see it. I would, however, highly recommend the book that it's based on. The story takes on a whole different context when it's a first-person narrative.

[arilou_skiff]

I am just happy that comics can still acll things "Super Spectacular"

[kurenai_tenka]

I really didn't get the ending to this one. Maybe because I never saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

[cyberghostface]

It is based off a scene in the original story but I think the context is different. In the original story it's a control panel and while McMurphy is unable to lift it that he tries inspires the other inmates to stop being compliant.

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/one-flew-over-the-cuckoo-s-nest/symbols/the-control-panel

In this story it's clearly modeled after an Academy Award trophy so I think it's a reference to how Joker was able to win an Oscar and rise above the commercialistic 'branding' while Batman is unable to and is subsequently left behind. (I guess you could point out 'The Dark Knight's but that award also went to the Joker.)

[bradygirl_12]

In the DCU, Oscar looking like Superman makes sense. :)