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The Killing Joke had a weird message. Gordon insists that Batman take the Joker alive "to prove that the system works". Except it doesn't work. The Joker escaped from Arkham Asylum, and nobody saw through his double's pathetic disguise, so the guards are incompetent. Batman himself isn't part of the system, he is a vigilante who didn't wait for police back-up.
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Jul 28, 2016 12:36
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Lurdiak posted:It's not "the system" that Gordon is defending. It's "Our way". The way of trying to do the right thing and not crossing lines. The way of holding oneself to a higher standard, of not doing what your enemy does just to "win".
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Jul 28, 2016 13:04
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I interpreted it as a subtle dig at past Batman conventions. This was a couple of years after Moore wrote, Watchmen, remember. Perhaps Moore was mocking the ridiculousness of a city official having an open relationship with a vigilante and pretending it was all legal.
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Jul 28, 2016 13:21
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Lurdiak posted:You seem determined to read the story against the authorial intent.
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Jul 28, 2016 13:31
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Babies. Why was Baron Bifford banned again?Black Mage Knight posted:I apologize for misreading it then. I just always took the sudden stop to laughter to imply a strangling.
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Jul 28, 2016 14:59
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Equilibrium posted:This is a really stupid post
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Jul 28, 2016 16:05
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The idea that Batman must be a broken person is a bit of an insult to everyone who has gone through a traumatic experience and seeks to do something about that thing that made him sad. He deals with this thing through violence, but honestly violence is a key part of dealing with crime. Why he didn't become a cop is rarely explained in a satisfactory way. In any case, most portrayals of Batman do not show a psychologically unbalanced person. All-Star Batman by Frank Miller did, and we hated it for that. I think this is the argument of many Batman stories, from The Killing Joke to the Dark Knight. In both stories Batman represents the resilience of the human spirit, not its corruptibility. The Joker was weak.
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Jul 28, 2016 18:01
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Franchescanado posted:You rock, dude. Kurzon fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jul 29, 2016 |
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Jul 29, 2016 21:29
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Is this collected in a trade?
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It's sort of something you have to have in a setting where time travel is a thing. That gets me thinking about Hell. Hell is a real place in the DCU and many characters have the ability to visit these places and chat with demons and figure out what will really get them in Hell and where they stand with God. Why do characters like Felix Faust traffic with demons when he knows he will end up there plaything at some point?
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Jul 29, 2016 22:10
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Some fans criticized the original comic of The Killing Joke for sticking Barbara in a fridge. I don't know what they were expecting - a glorification of her crimefighting career and going out in a blaze of glory? She was just another victim like her father, and that's OK. Victimhood is not shameful. But the makers of this movie decided this was a problem and they put in 30 minutes of Batgirl into a story that was never supposed to be about Batgirl. The sex scene - well, Gordon already has enough reason to resent Batman for not telling him that his daughter is Batgirl. How much worse can a sexual relationship make it (should I even ask that question)?
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Aug 1, 2016 16:48
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But there usually is a helpless victim for Batman to rescue. What difference does it make if the victim is a nobody?
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Aug 1, 2016 17:24
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OK. If you want to examine the trend of "fridging" women, you can only do so as a pattern across the whole industry. The Killing Joke is just one data point. This kind of injury is easily reversible in comics - use magic or aliens or cybernetic parts or whatever. The problem therefore is what happened after The Killing Joke (which was never meant to be mainstream continuity anyway). For what it's worth, I thought Oracle was an interesting character. There are not many crippled hackers in comic-book land. That it took so long for Barbara to become Batgirl again is evidence that readers liked Oracle.
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Aug 1, 2016 17:48
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ImpAtom posted:Except even within the confines of The Killing Joke it's bad writing, for exactly the reasons pointed out. Barbara Gordon exists as someone in the story who gets horrifyingly abused and crippled only as a point for someone else's storyline and nothing else. If the issue is that Batgirl fans would no longer get any more Batgirl stories, well, then you should ask why DC editorial decided to integrate TKJ into mainstream continuity and keep Barabara crippled for 23 years.
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Aug 1, 2016 17:58
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He got beaten, kidnapped, stripped naked, and tormented with pictures of his daughter. Sure, he could still walk after that, but gently caress you if you think he's not a victim too.
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Aug 1, 2016 18:00
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ImpAtom posted:This is because 'nameless victim who dies before the story starts' isn't the same as a long-established character. People do however complain when it happens to those established characters for exactly that reason.
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Aug 1, 2016 18:11
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The Killing Joke was released at a point when writers in the comic industry wanted to move away from the light-hearted silliness of the 60s and 70s and do more gritty and serious drama. It shows in the dialogue. At his home, Jim express his hopes that the Joker won't escape yet again - he escapes so frequently in the Silver Age, but in real life American prisons are rather secure. Detective Bullock gets an invitation from the Joker that basically tells him he's at the amusement park, and instead of heading there immediately with three SWAT divisions, he summons the Batman with that stupid spotlight and sends him there alone - the cops exist only to pick up the villains Batman captures.ImpAtom posted:Yes it was. That's the point people are making. Barbara Gordon's trauma is almost entirely glossed over. She gets nothing in the story except one scene after she's shot which isn't really even about her. It is the definition of Glossed Over. Kurzon fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Aug 1, 2016 |
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Aug 1, 2016 18:19
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So the debate is what a writer owes to readers who happen to care a lot about a supporting character he uses.
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Aug 1, 2016 18:38
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A Gnarlacious Bro posted:stop being so dense dude
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Aug 1, 2016 18:47
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But is this a bad thing?
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Aug 1, 2016 21:40
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ToastyPotato posted:In a vacuum where there are no sexist attitudes toward women in the industry or in society in general, no. But in the context of the real world, yes it is bad because it is dumb that it keeps happening and is accepted as the norm. It is a pretty unhealthy way to treat 50% of the population of the planet. I wonder how viewers treated RR Martin after they watched Sansa Stark getting raped by Ramsey Bolton. It's gruesome but that's how women, even noblewomen, were treated in the Middle Ages. At least Martin gave Sansa an opportunity to take revenge personally.
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Aug 2, 2016 11:20
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Mods, please close this thread, it's a disgrace. I've seen YouTube threads with more civility and insightful debate.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:43
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Mods, please hand out some loving bans or probations because this revolting behavior should not go unpunished. Even YouTube feels more comfortable than this thread. I paid $10 to get an account on this forum because I was promised a community that was more civil than that of 4chan and YouTube but this thread is just the worst. You know that Reddit site that SA loves to piss on? It's a far more civil and enlightening place to be on, because its communal voting system is far more efficient than moderators at filtering out offensive and useless posts.
Kurzon fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Aug 3, 2016 |
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Aug 3, 2016 00:49
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James Woods playing Lex Luthor, Brent Spiner as the Riddler and Michael Dorn as Atrocitus. Whee!
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Aug 3, 2016 00:55
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When I read The Killing Joke, I didn't care much about Batgirl. I didn't hate, I was just indifferent, and this in part hampers my efforts to empathize with Batgirl fans. My reaction was "well, yeah, this poo poo happens." The Joker kills people all the time. This time it was Barabara's turn. Using a character that was liked by readers was a good way of driving home just how serious the stakes are in Batman's fight against crime. Every time the Joker murders somebody, he is ruining a family and perhaps a whole community, because one person's death has a ripple effect. Did readers care about that nameless fairground owner whom the Joker murders halfway through the book? No, but that poor fool may have kids he can no longer feed. Batgirl fans also complained that there was no exploration of Barabara's feelings. In the hospital scene, when she wakes up, she expresses worry for her father. A woman whose past life was defined by self-sacrifice for others, and the first thing she thinks of when she wakes up is her father's well-being. Perhaps there could have been something more. Batman and the Gordons now have something in common - their lives were ruined by an evil man with a gun for no reason at all. Just one line mentioning that would have been awesome. But Batman had a fugitive criminal to hunt, so perhaps it made sense he did't waste time commiserating with her on that. There's a time and place for everything and a one-shot doesn't have the same room for character drama as an on-going series. The final scene, where the Joker and Batman share a laugh, is probably misinterpreted by readers. Batman and the Joker and not bonding emotionally. It's more like a release of tension, a chatharsis achieved through a joke. The fight is over, the Joker is defeated and resigned to his fate, the adrenaline subsides. People have been known to joke with their executioners on their way to the gallows.
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Aug 3, 2016 01:18
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Android Blues posted:Sadly though, I think season two overreaches in a big way. The timeskip is the least of its problems: it uses that timeskip to introduce like six or seven new characters, most of whom are never developed at all beyond "here's their name and their powers", and it's a tragic shame because you get excited about like, "oh cool, Batgirl is in the show now!" but then it turns out she has no personality, motivation, or character arc. Same goes for characters like Nightwing, Wonder Girl, Tim Drake, etc. It's a very stark contrast from the attentive character writing of the first season.
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Aug 14, 2016 21:09
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Dark_Tzitzimine posted:The general consensus is that both YJ and GL:TAS were victim of the failure of the GL movie since it took a toll on merchandising partners (YJ having some notoriously lovely toys didn't help either)
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Aug 16, 2016 00:36
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ArmyOfMidgets posted:edit: blah, just posted some salt.
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Nov 19, 2016 14:35
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An interesting aspect of the Green Lantern show was that the Green Lanterns did not patrol the whole Universe. One thing that always bugged me about the Green Lantern comics is that the Universe is a bit too vast for 7,000 or so Lanterns to patrol. Astronomers now estimate that there could be as many as 2 trillion galaxies in the Universe, which means Hal has over 500 million galaxies in his own sector (but all the Universe-shaking poo poo seems to center on Earth anyway). So either the Corps should be expanded to trillions of GLs or the Guardians just rule our own galaxy.
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Nov 19, 2016 18:11
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I've just finished watching Hell to Pay. I don't get DC's idea of how Heaven and Hell work. Why do villains do villainy if they know Hell is a real place? And wouldn't it just be simpler to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior than to fight over a magic card?
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Mar 30, 2018 20:46
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AlternateNu posted:But there's a whole lot of racial text and subtext with the different colored Martians.
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Nov 1, 2021 16:19
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Skwirl posted:It's a caste system. Different colors makes it easier for viewers. I know that's not how it started but it's a happy coincidence.
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Nov 11, 2021 09:36
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I know I shouldn't let myself be annoyed by issues of realism in superhero shows, but (in the latest episode of Young Justice), I was a little put off by how Artemis and her friends went cave-diving without any flashlights. You also need specialized equipment to go cave-diving.
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Nov 22, 2021 23:20
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So there's a scene in the latest Young Justice where Orphan is preparing to behead Lady Shiva but Batgirl convinces her not to because she would drat her soul or something. I hate this stupid trope, I thought superhero comics had grown out it. If Orphan had executed Shiva, Shiva wouldn't have won anything other than some sort of vindication and Orphan would certainly have not lost anything. And if you're a vigilante superhero who operate outside the law, you would probably need to kill your enemies sometimes just to survive. poo poo, the Avengers kill enemies all the time and think nothing of it, but we still got DC Comics pushing this rubbish.
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Nov 28, 2021 00:29
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drrockso20 posted:Gargoyles actually addressed this in a very mature way for a Disney cartoon from the mid 90's by having Goliath point out in an early episode that it's one thing when it happens in the heat of battle but an entirely different matter when the enemy is unable to put up a fight
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Nov 28, 2021 14:42
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SlothfulCobra posted:I think it's a good principle to just be against summary executions in general. I think a lot of the ways that stories come down to heroes struggling over the use of lethal force can be incredibly artificial, often "nonlethal" fighting styles can get incredibly brutal, but nobody loses sleep over making it so a man can never walk again or leaving somebody with injuries they could easily die of. There's also a weird way that fighting to the death is somehow much more acceptable when the killing stroke is pushing them down a bottomless pit.
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Nov 28, 2021 18:16
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There was a DC Elseworlds story some time ago where a black cloud takes away all the superheroes and supervillains powers. Only human superheroes like Batman and tech superheroes like Blue Beetle still operate. But Green Lantern loses his powers -- isn't he a tech hero? I hated that comic, it was too nonsensical, even by superhero standards.
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Nov 28, 2021 18:36
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