Monday, April 4, 2016

Barbara Gordon's gruesome fate in The Killing Joke is getting the full-blown animated treatment this summer.

I'm kind of excited that this summer we are getting an adaptation of Alan Moore's The Killing Joke starring Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill (as the voice of the Joker of course). Whether or not you've actually read and either hated or loved the comic book (it's one that is very controversial), if you collect comics then you know that The Killing Joke is one of the most famous comic books of all time. It has dozens of alternate covers (the one with the green writing on it is the first printing but probably not worth that much money). As people have pointed out before, comic book companies produce such huge print runs of gimicky stories that even several decades later, none of them are worth anything.

The most important thing that you should know about The Killing Joke (if you haven't read it) is that it sets up Barbara Gordon becoming a paraplegic at the hands of the Joker. Basically, the Joker knocks on the door of the Gordon residence, and when Barbara answers the door he shoots her in front of her father, Jim Gordon. Because Barbara Gordon is Batgirl, that ends her escapades and sets her up to become Oracle. Oh and it's implied in the same comic book that she's later sexually assaulted by the Joker's goons because what Batgirl went through wasn't bad enough.

Maybe now that The Killing Joke is being made, it will open the door for other Batman-esque stories: Knightfall, the Long Halloween, and Hush. Also, it'd be nice if an animation studio adapted some of the Swamp Thing stories, because (for a while) Swamp Thing was pretty darn good. Any of you have any opinions on whether or not The Killing Joke should have been animated? I'd love to read your comments on the subject.

7 comments:

  1. Definitely animated. Sorry but live action sometimes falls short and animated batman movies or series rarely ever disappoint. I have heard of this story but never read it. Love the teaser and have already been thinking of buying The Killing Joke this year when I have cash to spare. Thanks for sharing Mike. Funny that it's the animation that goes to the furthest places and not the live action movies.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's such a complex and disturbing story, it deserves a live action, big screen treatment, not an animated feature.

    ReplyDelete
  3. They already did a Dark Knight Returns animated movie (2 technically) so this seems like common sense. Maybe they'll do Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum next while they're doing famous Batman stories from the 80s. Though recent Batman animated features have been mixing together bits of the Batman comics of the last 10 years or so.

    I'd love a trilogy for Knightfall, Knightquest, and Knightsend from the 90s but that's probably asking for too much.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This sounds really dark, but that seems to be what this genre is all about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Especially true for DC Comics. I think that comic books used to be aimed at children, but now there's been a shift in the audience to one that's adult. So for adults who read comic books, "darker is better" appears to be the stuff that sells.

      Delete
  5. Yikes. That's a harrowing story. But for fans of the comic, this would be a good thing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. If there's an element of sexual assault, then this comic really is for adults. But there's only so much darkness I can handle before I run screaming toward anything lighter.

    ReplyDelete