Sherlock vs. Joker, Batman vs. Moriarty?

I was watching this video about what makes a great villain, and at one point it discussed which villain would be good for which hero. Joker was shown to be terrible for Luke Skywalker or Indiana Jones, but might work for Sherlock.

What do you guys think? Is Moriarty in fact a toned-down Joker? Is Batman a beefy, richer, crazy(-er) Sherlock? Can their roles be exchanged effectively, can their villains be traded?

edited 22nd Dec '16 4:29:02 AM by TheHandle

The thing about the Joker is that while he may be a dangerous and problematic opponent, he's actually not a challenging one. Batman is a detective, his methodology is based on reason and logic - while the Joker, supposedly, lacks any. Pitting them against one another and calling it a tough match is like placing a pigeon on a chess board with Kasparov on the other end. You can't say the pigeon is a great player just because it topples whatever pieces it likes and struts about like it's winning. Even the challenge to Batman's one rule assumes the only choices are killing the Joker or leaving him to the worst justice system this side of the equator - and not, say, putting him in a plastic box and keeping him as a pet in the cave.

Conversely, Moriarty presents a challenge to Holmes not just because of his mind, but also his resources - meaning he would be at a significant disadvantage against Batman's virtually unlimited funds, unless he is similarly empowered. The Owl Court presented a threat of this kind - the nebulous masterminds pulling strings - and it made for a great story, because the antagonists challenged Batman's strengths, rather than simply exploit his weaknesses. For that matter, Batman regularly faces a Moriarty of his own - Ra's al Ghul. So it would indeed be a suitable match-up.

Meanwhile, Holmes would likely just shoot the Joker. The guy may be an abrasive adrenaline junkie, but he's quite pragmatic when the occasion calls for it.

Also, Holmes lives in a universe where the justice system is not hopelessly incomptant. If the Joker were transplanted there, well lets just say that Bedlam was a tad harder to break out of than Arkham.

Never mind Bedlam, if you put the Joker in the midst of Holmes' Victorian Era London and he was caught he'd probably meet the same swift and extremely permanent fate as any convicted murderer of the time.

Never mind convicted either - it'll be a textbook case of tragic suicide by revolver... in the back... with two reloads. Really, the only reason the Joker ever comes off as dangerous is that everyone clutches the idiot ball as soon as he enters the stage... so it was a pretty nice inversion when Deadshot outcrazied him in Assault on Arkham, and then stapled him to an exploding chopper.

In general, it's pretty difficult to imagine superheroics in a setting where cops shoot on sight, while a good deal of private citizens are veterans from some war or other, and still packing their sidearms. Moriarty works because he's a shadowy schemer, not a showy sociopath.

True. It's anyone's guess as to whether "Jack" would actually have made it to trial if the Bobbies had caught sight of him.

And if he did, there's only one sentence the Judge would have handed down.

Makes you wonder whether they really didn't - not much in the way of telling one murderous maniac from another in those days. Still, Jack the Ripper is the closest thing to a Joker in a Sherlock Holmes context... and there was a game to that effect. So, matchup confirmed, I guess.

MATCHUP CONFIRMED!

I'm of the opinion that he would have made it to trial, if only so that the police could show the press that they'd caught Jack the Ripper. The Bobbies didn't really care overmuch that a bunch of prostitutes were getting killed in Whitechapel, but they had to be seen to be doing something about it because it got a ton of press.

And yeah, pretty sure they Joker'd just get hanged. They were hanging murderers in England until the early 1950's.

Still, I doubt Holmes would have been too interested in the Joker. Now, The Riddler on the other hand...

edited 24th Dec '16 2:47:49 PM by Robbery

It all depends on the setting. A manipulative psychopath without any powers works well as a crime lord, but is pretty run-of-the-mill when pitted against someone in a higher tier.

That's the thing - a manipulative psychopath with no superpowers is a challenging opponent, but a random troll with plot armor isn't. There's gotta be a method to the madness, or the whole process of investigation merely devolves into a random events plot.

Seconding the Riddler - to me, he is by far the most interesting and versatile Batman rogue, as he has the Joker-esque quality of wanting to play mind games with the Bat, without being too chaotic or violent to garner genuine dislike from the audience. Most Batman villains can set up a fight, which in turn is won by the magic of prep-time rather than good scene choreography. The Riddler however can set up a genuine mystery, which demands some level of logic to follow.through. The guy's criminally underused if you ask me.

The problem with intelligent characters like the Riddler is because they are limited by their writers intelligence. They can't techno babble their way to make them seem smart, and any mystery the reader can figure out breaks Batman's image as a detective.

To be fair, any mystery where the villain is on the cover breaks the image of the detective. So much for the whodunit bit, and when the why-they-did-it part is almost invariably reduced to insanity or random malice, or at most a generic Freudian excuse that has nothing to do with the particular crime, you can toss proper motivation out the window as well.

Instead, a good way to go about it is postulate certain initial conditions - a poison with certain properties, a mechanism with specific functions etc. - and work out a logical sequence based on their applications. The point is for readers to explore the case at exactly the same pace as the detective, meaning that while Batman can know plenty of useful bits of information, the meaty part is discovered for the first time. He doesn't have to be "smart", he has to be logical - and he can only do that with a similarly logical opponent.

edited 25th Dec '16 9:41:51 AM by indiana404

That's one of the things I seriously miss these days; there's so much emphasis on making Batman a one man army, on amping him up so he can play in the bigger DC Universe, that he hardly gets to be a detective anymore, and to function in his own universe. The shared universe is kept so tight that what made a lot of the characters distinct and unique gets lost. I'd love to see more small-scale stories where Batman just gets to outwit someone, or to solve a mystery.

There's a school of thought that believes the police did assassinate the ripper, because he was Jewish, and they were afraid a trial would rekindle anti-semetic riots (which were a thing at the time).

edited 26th Dec '16 6:33:07 PM by DeMarquis

Happens in the game too, sort of.

There's still the occasional good Batman mystery, particularly in the Adventures compilations. But otherwise, a lot of writers are either tying into the next crisis crossover, or attempting their own Killing Joke, their own Batman story to end all Batman stories. Imagine if Holmes were fighting Moriarty all the time, that's how overused the Joker's become.

Essentially, what's lacking is that enjoyable and relaxing form of writing, known derisively in elitist circle(jerk)s as "genre fiction". It's not that hard to write a good mystery, and it's certainly a profitable market considering who's the best selling writer in history. It's easy to serialize indefinitely as well, without coming off as a soap. But it follows different rules than what most comic cliques are used to, with the focus being on tight plotting and case-relevant characters, rather than the internal conflicts and personal dramas of the investigator's crew. Shame, really. Now that The Brave and the Bold and Justice League Action have managed to recapture the adventure spirit of superheroes, it would be nice to have regular one-shots rebuilding the mystery aspect of Batman in particular.

edited 26th Dec '16 12:23:45 PM by indiana404

Could not agree more.

It'd be nice to see a year (or two) without events or crossovers of any kind, without status-quo shattering epics, where the editorial mandate is just to write the character within it's specific reality, doing superhero stuff.

edited 26th Dec '16 5:13:44 PM by Robbery

Now, transferring Moriarity to the modern world (so that we can examine the other half of the OP's question), I see no reason why M, given his skills and talents, couldn't eventually rise to the top of organized crime this time as well. I mean, it would require some sort of transition period while he got up to speed on such things as genetic evidence and how telephones work, but after that his organizational skills are just as relevant now as they were back then. People haven't changed that much.

M's schtick was that he controlled the underground without anyone knowing who he was, or that he even existed. Whether Batman could track him down would depend on how good an investigator he is, which I can't speak to because I haven't read the comics or seen any of the movies. Is he depicted as being as good as Holmes?

Moving Holmes to Gotham would be fascinating, because I'm fairly certain that, as an unshakable believer in law and order, and a superbly rational man, he would ignore the super-villains as being the less important target, and dedicate his lifework to cleaning up City Hall. All he needs is one honest Judge, and a sympathetic press, and we all know just how brilliantly Holmes managed his public image. Yes, it was his buddy Watson who wrote all the stories, but it was Holmes who decided to share those stories, and you can't convince me that he didn't know exactly what he was doing. I think he would succeed. And once Gotham has a reasonably competent accountable government, people like the Joker aren't going to last long. Screw Batman, he isn't needed.

Batman did go for the upper crust in the Nolanverse, and it was indeed quite effective. In fact, a lot of unfortunate implications can be made about him usually ignoring the non-costumed high officials that are invariably the heart of corruption in a big city, while taking out his frustrations on the malformed and mentally ill.

I can picture Moriarty as gaining power by being a master of disguise, not unlike Holmes, and essentially acting as his own top henchman - or more likely, henchmen - dealing with other criminals by being his own proxy. Maybe he could even personally commit crimes through a series of assumed identities, a superhero in reverse, so to speak.

As for Holmes, I imagine he would indeed be a lot more effective in cleaning up the place. Unlike the unpopularly popular Batman, Holmes has the public image of an eccentric genius, but still firmly on the side of the law and not just his vision of justice. The psychological effect of someone able to fight crime without resorting to a mask and cape is much more profound. Batman is overall an outcast; Holmes would be a media darling.

And when it should come to fighting supervillains, well, it's likely Holmes would just trade in the Webley for a 357 and shoot to kill when necessary. The thing to remember is that he doesn't define himself by the people he fights, or by the fight itself. He doesn't take cases out of a pathological sense of guilt, he takes them because he's bored. Meaning, whenever a villain would present something as paltry as a physical challenge, he'd most likely use the simplest solution available, with no interest in seeing said villain survive the encounter.

The series Sherlock does a very good job of showing how both Holmes and Moriarty would fit nicely into a modern setting using their own natural abilities. Modern London or modern Gotham, they'd have no problem functioning.

Batman's supposed to be "The World's Greatest Detective" - even if he doesn't get that shown very well all the time. Perhaps he could piece together enough clues to uncover whatever convoluted web Moriarty has spun and locate the true "Napoleon of Crime" behind it all - but he'd have to do it as a detective, not just by beating the snot out of a few henchmen or dangling a corrupt cop or two off the top of a building.

I do rather suspect that if Holmes encountered someone like the Joker who made it clear that he'd just escape and carry on as before, Holmes would deal with him as perfunctorily, plagmatically and permanently as with Magnussen in "His Last Vow" (S 3 E 3 of Sherlock)

edited 27th Dec '16 3:37:20 AM by Wolf1066