Batman General Discussion

Wont' comment much on the cliffhanger of Batman#77 as it may be a fake-out, but I loved Bat/Cat's little stroll through Paris after Bruce recovers and Selina's little french outfit. Selina still thinks of Gotham as "her city", which is more of King throwing Jones' book under the bus

Ehh Writers between books do that all the time

So I was posting this on the Joker (2019) thread in Live Action Films, but I think I should do it here as well:

The Joker is just not funny any more. He's just an inhuman monster as commonly depicted nowadays.

That's why I still think DCAU Joker is still the best Joker. DCAU Joker is a monster, but he is still human. DCAU Joker can be beaten. He can be humiliated.

DCAU Joker can be tricked and threatened by a regular schmuck.

He's caught with his pants down and can't take it when other people are laughing at him.

He is afraid of the IRS.

Terry McGinnis can heckle the hell out of him.

DCAU Joker is a fun character. He's a competent and threating villain but he's not a Boring Invincible Villain like Modern Comic Joker. You can't do anything to win a victory against Modern Comic Joker, because Modern Comic Joker is just a monster who gets off on murder and causing misery who doesn't care about anything else.

Edited by Nightwire on Aug 23rd 2019 at 5:37:14 AM

half agreed, i love DCAU Joker, but he's missing key traits i look for in the Joker, namely the fact the he doesn't have secret identity apathy, he actually begged Batman to save him during the last laugh ( though that could be early installment weirdness) i liked the straw nihilist aspect of the Joker that DCAU is missing, and he has an actual identity which is quite underwhelming and too Jack Nicholson( who i find the most overrated Joker)

Honestly, the Arkham version is my favorite, he's the perfect mixture of all the Jokers without the villain sue aspects of Modern DC Joker.

How is Arkham Joker not a Villain Sue? He takes over Arkham Asylum, takes over Arkham City with ridiculous ease and Arkham Origin has him becoming an overwhelming threat even as an unestablished nobody.

Edited by windleopard on Aug 23rd 2019 at 6:47:11 AM

I myself don't care for nihilist Joker. I think the Joker would be more fun if he went back to, you know, being an actual criminal who can have things that are not Batman in his life.

Asylum was the result of a lot of planning before the game, and as a end result of using Titan he starts dying. In city he does very little, Hugo Strange is the main driver of the plot with Joker being inconsequential to the Arkham City situation, his contribution is putting a time limit on Batman by poisoning him and ultimately fails completely, permanently dying at the end of the game. And in Origins he shares the role as biggest threat with Bane, effectively only being apart of the plot in the middle and climax of the game. In all three games he is very soundly defeated in the end, he's defeated twice in Origins, and spends the bulk of Asylum being as far away from Batman as possible.

Plus did you not see the ending of Arkham Knight? The perfect way to end the Joker in any medium, begging for his life, and Batman totally deconstructing him and his entire character.

So like every other Batman villain? I'm not opposed to the Joker commiting crimes for the heck of it and not doing it just for Batman's attention, case in point Joker's asylum 1. But Joker's obsession with Bats is an integral part of his modern charm, and sets him apart from the rest of the villains. Plus he can be funny when he's torturing Batman, like Christmas with the Joker, where he causes city wide mayhem just to pie Bats in the face. Classic.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Aug 23rd 2019 at 7:49:13 AM

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen what I would call the perfect depiction of Joker.

I’m in the camp that thinks he should be genuinely funny, which is why I enjoy him in older comics, TAS, The Batman, the 89 movie, and the 66 tv series. More recent versions do absolutely nothing for me.

That said, I’m hoping I can enjoy the Joker movie, however it ends up. And besides all that, I honestly wish Two Face was Batman’s arch enemy, not Joker. I always felt like Harvey was a more natural foil for Bruce. Someone who abandoned justice after tragedy, someone who has two sides to himself, someone who was once Bruce’s close friend, who Bruce feels he can still reach out to and save, etc.

DCAU is my perfect Joker.

I'm tired of Agent of Chaos Force of Nature blahdeblahdebloo nonsense.

Kinda fitting after Joker, Two Face is Batman's 2nd worst villain in Gotham ehh? I must say the Tell Tale version was the best version in my opinion.

I'm also very fond of Telltale!Joker, for being the only version that is believeable as a person who is actually mentally ill and as such turns out to be a very sympathetic character.

Yeah, i'm surprised at how realistic that version of the Joker was, shame compared to the others, he's kinda obscure. John really was our best enemy.

I suspect the upcoming movie will be very similar to Telltale Joker.

It's funny that The Joker is often declared to be an insane person... when the only Joker actually fits the official description so far is Joe Dee (and he's the most sympathetic and likable of the bunch). I'm surprised they haven't done a scenario where the Joker thinks he bringing happiness and joy to Gotham, and not realizing he's causing mayhem and destruction. That would be both hilarious and frightening at the same time.

Honestly, the best kind of Joker would be a Joker who could reasonably stay as Batman's arch-enemy for a very long time, and not beg the question "Why doesn't Batman or the Gotham Police just kill the clown?"

Having him being just a nihilistic mass murderer who basically win if Batman either kills him or spares him is a Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy that makes the Joker feel invincible and boring. There's no fun in a villain that Batman cannot beat.

So I purpose the return of gangster Joker. The Joker who wants to be the kingpin of the criminal underworld and have grand, insane plans that don't involve just killing people. Like robbing banks with an underground train that is powered by steam (and laughing gas), challenging Batman to disable the bombs (some of which are only filled by pudding) in Gotham before they blow or reenacting the plot of Bernie just to make fun of the justice system. To him, crime is an art performance and shouldn't be replicated by anyone else.

I also think that the Joker should have two or three plausible backstories that fit within Batman's perspective of the Ace Chemical Plant incident. Like say, Arthur Fleck is the struggling comedian with the pregnant wife and he gets recruited by a cold-blooded gangster named Jack Napier into the Red Hood gang to do a hit job at the Ace Chemical Plant for Alfred Stryker. After all, how could the World's Greatest Detective not already deduced the identity of the Joker if the Red Hood origin story is the canonical one that did happen regardless of what came before?

but that would require DC to learn that Depravity =/= Depth

DC has gone so overboard with making their villains all sorts of fucked up cause they think people won't take them seriously as threats if they are just common criminals with funny gimmicks

I mean even Flash's rouges IE the guys who were built on the idea they were 'honest' thieves not heartless killers have slowly descended into the same depravity that affects the Gotham scum

So we might be getting a black Batman next year.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/09/02/dc-comics-black-batman/

I’ve been talking to friends about this, and my guess is that it’s going to be Black Lightning filling in for Bruce due to some reason or another.

Mostly because Black Lightning is pretty much the main character of Batman & The Outsiders, and in that book Bruce has been urging Jefferson to step up and aspire to more than being a local neighborhood superhero.

More information...seems Bruce will go underground to mentor the new Batman, the world thinks him dead

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/09/03/meet-your-new-batman-luke-fox-death-bruce-wayne/

Funny how popular the idea of killing the Bruce Wayne identity is. Well, Bats acts as mentor to so many people that pretty much anyone could take the cowl. Although the idea of depowering Jefferson doesn't sound too attractive, really.

In Batman, insanity is just being eccentric. Well OK, it's less that and more "they have some sort of mental disorder". Most would realistically fail the insanity defense, but they would need some psychiatric visits and analysis. Nowadays, Batman doesn't even pretend that the Joker is actually insane and just considers him evil. There's definite Unfortunate Implications that so many DC villains have a mental disorder or are called insane, as if to imply the ugly believe that insanity is just a form of evil/evil is just a form of insanity that horrible people throughout history have justified their abuse of actual insane people

I heard the rumor was it was Luke Fox

Speaking of insanity, has anyone read Batman Vs Ras Al Guhl? It’s from Neal Adams.

Batman Odyssey Neal Adams. Which means it will probably be entertaining for all the wrong reasons, while being very nicely drawn.

So it appears they have retconned 2017's Batman Annual#2 as something Selina dreamt of in today's issue.

Not much else happens, it's basically a "Postcards" issue with Bruce and Selina chilling out, training and bantering before successfully reconciling.

Young Justice#8

The team encounter the Stephanie Brown of Earth-3, she's Batwoman, and she's still a hero! Tim opens his heart up to her as he misses his own Stephanie and wants to see her again, which touches the alternate Steph, but before she can say anything, Impulse knocks her out thinking she was going to hurt Robin. Turns out Earth-3 Tim is simply known as 'Drake' and Impulse wants that to be Tim's new codename. Tim isn't impressed

Impulse:but you'd be dragon!

Tim: I'd be a fucking Duck dumbass!