Welcome to Fear Coded, a podcast where we talk about media from the horror genre and take a queer reading of a single book, video game, film, podcast or TV show to explore just how queer horror can be.

This month we are wearing our best trick flowers for August, our ongoing exploration of clowns in horror.

This time we are heading to the land of comics for the first time to discuss Batman The Killing Joke, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Ballard.

I'm Merrily.

I'm Tyler.

And I'm David.

Now before we start scrapbooking, which is an important part of this this comic that I forgot about entirely, I want to check in with my Co hosts to see how things are going for them in a landscape of horrors that our real world has to offer.

What's making y'all feel scared or what is making you feel prepared?

I am prepared.

Why am I prepared?

Because I've spent the last week dating everything.

Yes.

That's right, I have.

I have played the Sassy Chap game Date Everything where you a character that you sort of create but doesn't have any substance or form told from a first person perspective.

Date household items in your house.

I dated all 102 items which is the base games 100 items and the DLC two additional items and I realized 97 of them.

Oh my God.

Wow, David.

You're a.

Star.

I am a star.

I did not date a star, sadly, but I dated pretty much everything else.

Incredible.

Yes, our friends Katie and Doug have covered this on our fellow glitter Shop program Novel Gaming, but this is a This is a deep dating mechanics game and I am not a dating game gamer.

Usually this is not my usual cup of tea, but I found this to be really, really enjoyable and I think written very well for people who are arrow ace.

I think that if you are asexual or a romantic, there is a very enjoyable game to play through here, even though there is dating mechanics are at the base of it.

But date you understand is just an acronym it stands for.

That's what it is.

It's digitally acknowledging things existence, DATE and so.

Yeah I forgot about that.

I I do also have the game.

I have not dated or realized that I've only realized 1 character and it was Lucinda loving my.

Lucinda Lavish, one of my favorite characters.

She was so stupid.

I really, I found out later that you had she could end up as different characters with different names if you you go through different date paths, which is incredible.

I, I need to play that game more.

I just, I, I got it, I started playing it, I got sucked back into Bilatro and haven't picked you back.

Up Bilatro.

If I could date Milatro I would do that.

No Tyler.

Tyler, have you messed with date everything?

I haven't actually.

I'm familiar with a lot of the cast because it's a very star-studded voice acting cast of very prominent voice actors that many of us know and love.

If you're into Critical Role, basically the entire cast is is in the game.

I think it was even produced by one of the cast members, which is incredible.

But no, I haven't played it yet.

It's definitely on my list.

Hearing you guys talk about it, it's like definitely being reprioritized higher now because that sounds so fun.

And I've been playing a lot of like darker grim games recently.

It would be nice to play something where I could just date like the concept of game board rules which I know is a thing.

Yes, you will like Parker Bradley, I promise.

It's it's Brennan Mulligan, right?

Brennan Lee Mulligan, Yes, Yeah.

Yes.

Unfortunately he ended up hating me because it comes down to the roll of the dice at the end of it and I had not set myself up my odds correctly.

And so he just goes, well, the dice says I hate you, so I hate you.

And I was like, Oh no, no.

Supposedly you can try and like redo things later, but.

I got you.

I got I, I fed him a little candy.

I shoved a candy in his mouth and I was like you will be my friend.

That's how I get my.

Boyfriends, truly.

And here's the deal, Tyler, is that you can have objects hate you.

Like, for example, the concept of board gaming.

You can have them love you like the couch.

Or I feel like the ultimate expression of the game is to just become friends with everything in your house.

Don't you want the fridge to be your friend?

I do, and it's a Yeti.

It's a Yeti, man.

Yeah.

Love that he's great.

He's great.

I love any big hairy man that can give me a warm hug and give me food.

While that you're.

Set.

Please set this game to #1 on your wish list.

Because.

Large men and women well represented in this game.

I will just offer.

I found a lot of the female characters to be very well designed and very attractive.

I found a lot of the male characters to be very well designed and very attractive.

I would say 20% of the cast was not for me and 80% of the cast was.

I'm shocked by that because I remember early in this game's development.

I will, I will actually like reveal this.

I remember early on people were criticizing the game because they said, well, it looks like a lot of the art representing the objects in your house is mostly thin people.

And then the more I've seen of it as it's come out and the press is talking about it more, I see that's not the case.

And it makes me very, very happy to see lots of body size representation in this game.

So yes, that has definitely been moved up to my #1.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I merely, I hope you get to spend some more time.

Not not that I would ever try to ask you not to play Bilantro.

I'm not a monster.

I'm, I'm trying so hard to get to the 12th auntie because there's like the there's the thing where if you get all up to 12 Auntie's, you can get a new card.

And I want that card, but it's so hard to get it and I've been trying to grind for that all week.

I'm also trying to get the the the card that you can only get if you have 5 cards in your hand, which is also making trying to do both of those at the same time.

It's kind of impossible.

I don't know why I keep doing this, but I'm trying for both of them.

If I could get one of them, that'd be incredible.

Well, what?

When one of those goals is achieved, then I think it's time to date some stuff.

I I want to go back and just I, I stopped at a point because it was like, Oh no, I think I fucked up this character romance.

And so I was like, I will go, I'll give myself a minute and go back.

And now I'm just like kind of dreading.

So what if I?

What if I did mess it up and and what?

What can I do?

Can always play again.

I will say, and I wish someone had told me this, there is a new game plus and so if you get to the end of it, you can start again with all of your all of your progress is saved and goes on to your next play through.

OK, great 'cause like that's that's the thing.

As a also collector I want to get all of the stickers and stuff and so I I think I fucked up a sticker route.

I think you should.

I think you should just keep going and then do a second run.

Done.

Love that.

Yeah.

Don't be afraid of make believe potential romantic partners.

Instead, be afraid like me.

Because this week I am afraid Tyler.

Why I am afraid of fandoms?

Well, OK.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Fair.

That's fair.

No more particular.

Yeah, that's a good, good follow up question, Marilee.

So I realized the other day while I was talking to a friend of mine that in this past year I have gotten sucked into two fandoms or two games or whatever that are not very queer friendly for some reason lured me in.

Tell me.

Tell us.

So the first one this past winter, Marshall and I got sucked into playing Ubisoft's The Division Two, which is a fun sort of like third person like shooter.

You're what you're running around like a post apocalyptic Washington DC trying to stop loot.

Not well, I guess they're kind of looters, but there's no more society, so there's nothing really to loot.

Everything is fair game, but either way, you're playing like, like a sleeper agent for the American government, and you're just trying to save people.

And I thought, OK, well, I can see how this would be like really much pretty much aimed at straight people because it's a Tom Clancy game from Ubisoft.

But on the other hand, I was like, the idea of, like, trying to recreate community is something that I really enjoy in stories like this.

So maybe there is like a burgeoning queer community in here.

And I looked and there isn't really one.

There's one like alleyway that has a pride flag up and that's it.

In that game as well.

There's nothing really that's like you can't get free like pride emotes or something like that.

Like you can in like Destiny 2, which is another game I used to play and I don't anymore.

Marshall ended up getting like pretty nasty messages from homophobic people.

And that really just kind of killed the whole desire to play the game for me because it was like, well, Boobysoft doesn't give a shit.

The there is no community really to be had.

I don't want to play this anymore.

It's left a bad taste in my mouth.

So that happened if it's if it happens to be a game, people are being homophobic.

You know, the the sun is yellow and hot, you know, like these are obvious things.

But I also recently got into Warhammer 40K specifically like for the lore and Warhammer 40K for people who aren't aware, is like very much like the far distant sci-fi future like imagined by British people like Terry Gilliam.

Like there's, there's a lot of like gothicness to it, a lot of like grim darkness to it, but there's also humor, there's satire, the human, there's no like good faction.

Everyone is some degree of evil or morally fucked up in some way.

But it's kind of like a fun playground to be in because everything is so larger than life that you really can't take it seriously.

In Games Workshop, the company, which is huge, apparently.

I did not realize they actually have an effect on like the GDP of Great Britain in the UK, which is insane to me.

But they are very much of the mind, like we welcome all queer people in our community, we love queer people, we're here for you.

We abhor the thought of people being homophobic and we will stop that wherever we see it.

You will not be welcomed at events or something like that.

You'll receive a lifetime ban, etcetera.

Unfortunately, a like universe like 40K, which is so grim dark draws in a lot of the bad elements of people who are unable to see kind of like how it's really kind of silly at its core because it's just so ridiculous and over the top.

And honestly, like could be campy if it was put in the right hands.

But unfortunately, a lot of people are like, oh, I'm going to buy into like the Imperium of Man, which is a horrible fascist organization where like the average person is fodder for God knows what and says like, that's cool, actually.

And that's absolutely insane to me.

That's insane to me.

But unfortunately, those people exist and they're quite prevalent in the community.

I decided to just look up like LGBTQ Warhammer 40K.

And of course, they'll let me to read it because that's what Google does now.

And someone was just like, hey, is there any like good representation in here?

And a couple of people said like, there was one woman who is totally a gender.

Well, she's not a woman.

In that case, this person is a gender, but they transitioned from being a woman or identifying as a woman.

And then it was just all sorts of horrible comments from people being like, I don't know why you have to make this such like part of your identity.

If you didn't make it like your whole your whole thing, then this wouldn't be a problem.

And it's just like, brother, come on.

And like I'll say this to us.

Mod for the subreddit came in there and said we are actively deleting homophobic comments as we go and we strive to do that all the time because it's a never ending battle.

And then underneath it were more like homophobic comments that were like, I don't know why it has to be like such a big deal to you.

You just don't have to be like open about it.

You just be like a normal person and it's like God fuck you man, fuck you, fuck you.

So that sucks.

Yeah, I, I just realized I went on quite a tangent about that.

But it does really suck that it feels like there's cool fandoms out there on the Internet for stuff that I'm like interested in.

And I don't even want to play the fucking like war game because it costs like $1,000,000 to do anything in it.

But like the, the, the lore is, is cool.

So I I wanted to to play with it and I can't.

That fucking sucks.

That sucks.

I hate that I feel like Reddit is a cesspool of garbage that the mods need to wield a ban hammer instead of just deleting things for for a better time for you.

I hate that I again I I I fully agree and support you not getting into the actual game because it is a soul sucking amount of money for pieces of plastic.

But I do think that going to your local gaming store might get you a better result for people to you could talk about Warhammer lore with.

OK, I'll keep that in mind.

We do have a lot of game stores here, which makes me very happy.

I.

Love that.

Yeah, maybe, maybe you can just find like a reading club and it just happens to be Warhammer adjacent.

There are a lot of.

I like that idea.

Books.

So I fully think that if you went to your local gaming store was like, hey, do you guys have like a book club for Warhammer books?

If they say no, I think you could start one and get a lot of friends that way.

OK, that's a great idea.

I love you guys.

We love you.

I am.

I am now less afraid.

And now I am prepared.

Yeah.

So my fear turned, my afraid turned into prepared.

Merrily, did that have an impact on how you're feeling this week?

Are you scared?

Or prepared.

I wish that I could say that I was scared and then go to prepared because I love that.

And and then I would love for us to be a triple whammy like that.

But the fact of the matter is that I'm going to go with scared because that's what our format is, but I'm really sad.

Because sad this week.

My dad's birthday is in two days and he is still dead, as it turns out, and that is still a bummer.

And so I'm just like deep in my feels about that.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, merrily.

I hope that we can help you out with that a bit today.

You guys always lift my spirits.

So I have no, I I know that I'm going to be in a better mood when I started.

It's just, it's still when I look at the calendar and I see that and it's just, it's a bummer, ha.

Don't have your parents die if you love them.

That's a real it sucks.

Just don't do it.

It's good advice.

It's good advice.

Well, we are going to do our best to make sure that you've got something else to think about today, Marilyn.

Oh baby, I got lots of other things to say in this one so.

But today we are talking about the 1989 graphic novel Batman, The Killing Joke by Moore and Bolland, using characters created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger.

It's also a partial adaptation of an earlier Batman story, The Man Behind the Red Hood, which was written by Bill Finger and illustrated by Lou Sare Schwartz and George Russos.

The comic is about the Jokers attempt to drive Commissioner Gordon to insanity and prove his thesis that anyone can go mad if they too have one bad day.

While reminiscing on a potential version of his past.

Batman, of course, tries to stop him.

Batman The Killing Joke was instantly lauded by critics and considered as one of the greatest Batman stories of all time and has influenced countless let me try and has influenced countless Batman and other DC Comics stories ever since.

That's a pretty huge legacy.

We are going to try and I know that I'm personally going to be the worst at this.

So like, feel free to spray with some water.

We're going to try to limit our conversation to just this story and not like like the broader Batman universe of it all so we don't discuss every Batman iteration under the sun.

And again, I know that I'm the one saying this and I'm going to break the rules for sure later, so good luck everybody.

Anyway, with that said, what's everyone's experience with Batman The Killing Joke?

Well let me let me make this nice and easy.

This is the first comic I've ever read this.

Is the first one.

This is the first one outside of the better.

One sorry gang.

Okay, listen, outside of the Super Mario Brothers comic that ran in Nintendo Power almost the same years as this came out, which I also owned in paperback, but that's it.

And then mouse.

I read mouse, but that feels very different than a comic.

Yeah, to me, comics were things that came in the Sunday paper.

I, I, I, I don't really have a world with comics in this type of storytelling.

And so I was excited for us to jump into one on the podcast.

I don't think this was a terrible introduction, truly and honestly.

I don't think it's it's bad, I I personally didn't end up enjoying it, but I do think that it is a good story with great art and it is worthy of our conversation.

I just would have preferred if this was your first ever superhero comic, you could have some fun with it.

Yeah, I guess I read some of the Krakoa when the X-Men made their own little gay planet or gay island or whatever.

Gay country, yeah.

Gay country island, Sure.

Yeah, I read some of that cuz there was some free app on the iPad, but then I didn't keep going.

Anyway, I didn't have fun with it.

Of course, familiar with The Batman.

I have seen Batman the Animated series, I have seen major motion pictures, and I have a fair bit of familiarity with the live action television show starring Adam West and Victor Bono.

As we discussed in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, not starring Victor, I wish starring Victor Bono, but.

Like.

Featuring occasionally.

What about you both?

I I think you're both a lot more versed in the comics world than I am.

Yeah, I was a fairly pretentious comic geek for a little while in high in high school.

I was much more of a Marvel girlie than DC.

But I I did read a lot of DC Comics, so I might have read this one.

I was shocked as I was going through it, it was like, I do not remember this.

So it's possible that I just missed this one.

And I just read the the Frank Miller pretentious Batman famous one, which is way worse by the way.

OK.

Oh, it's worse.

Good God.

Oh yeah?

Well, everything having to do with Frank Miller is way worse than whatever Alan Moore is doing, so oof.

Well, my bestie, Maureen.

Hi, Maureen.

Hi.

Maureen.

Was really into the Joker in high school.

Her cat was named Joker and I love him.

Oh.

That's so cute.

Oh, he's so cute.

I'll see maybe if I can get Maureen to send me a picture and then maybe we can include it on our socials.

But she really got into the Joker around the same time that The Dark Knight came out in movie theaters, which I'm pretty sure that's how she introduced me to it, 'cause I think she was the one to like, actually get me first.

And the Joker.

But you know, the The Dark Knight was also heavily inspired by this story.

And I remember at the time, because everyone was raving about The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's performance.

They were like, what comics helped inspire this?

And Nolan talked about how The Killing Joke had an impact.

And there's the whole scene from this comic, a couple scenes really, but one in particular that's just wholesale lifted and then put into the movie.

Yeah, he, Nolan really liked this comic.

And and I, I'm going to be honest, I think that this is the thing I say a lot to my comics friends, particularly my DC comic friends, is like, I love DC characters.

Wish they could write a good comic someday, like, or, or or could use them well someday because they have they have an incredible stable of characters from like, an incredible world and like, lots and lots of really cool ideas and concepts that they always seem to fumble at the last moment.

So like, I think that there are a lot of cool things that start cooking here that Nolan really explores more in his movie and like, expresses his point a little clearer.

But yeah, like this is, this is an influential comic for sure.

Yeah, I, I will have to go back and watch The Dark Knight because I, I have seen it, but I, I didn't, I, I saw Tyler's note about what, what got referenced and I was like, I don't remember that just because it's probably been eight or nine years since I've seen The Dark Knight.

Yeah, we should all watch The Dark Knight again.

That was that was a good movie.

I haven't.

I also have not seen it for like a decade.

It's almost 20 years old, like in a couple years it's gonna be two years old and that blows my mind.

Yeah, time moves so fast.

Yeah, I didn't.

Watch that.

I did watch that Batman versus Superman movie.

Why?

Why is a great question.

We also watched the extended cut which I genuinely cannot believe that there was more movie.

Well, yeah, I also watched the extended cut version.

And like, that genuinely hurt my soul, my faith in humanity, like my pleasure in watching movies.

It's especially because, like, my friend wanted to go see the Suicide Squad, the first one, not the Suicide Squad, but Suicide Squad.

And and we were told that we had to watch that one first.

And I had not seen Batman V Superman in the theaters because I thought it was dumb and I thought they were taking the worst parts of Batman and making that into a movie just based off what they were talking about.

And I didn't think that they really understood the character.

So I protested it and didn't watch it in theaters.

But my friend really wanted to see go see the Suicide Squad.

So I said that I would do it.

And I watched it and I like I had a like a blue screen of death moment after the movie was over.

It's like, I cannot believe this is what was made in theaters.

Well, talking about the worst parts of DC, let's get into the themes for The Killing Joke.

I told you I would be the worst about it.

I told you I would be the worst about it.

I I'm I'm gonna find skillful ways to cut you off if you start going too deep into please skirt gate.

Although skirt gate love skirt gate.

That was wonderful and a very well earned diatribe.

But first we must talk about this theme from The Killing Joke, which is untitled parentheses.

You construct intricate rituals, oil and water, cats and dogs, Batman and Joker.

Some things just don't go together unless so we're talking about Barbara Kruger's iconic work, which is called Untitled Parentheses.

You construct intricate rituals.

She links male violence with intimacy, potentially as a replacement for in the culture that refuses to allow men a space for that.

Batman and Joker both link themselves to the other.

Is the violence between them compensating for something else?

Perhaps so.

I do want to talk about untitled parentheses.

You construct intricate rituals because listeners at home might not be familiar with this.

This is a like a photograph that has been like manipulated to include some text on it, but it's on the left hand side.

It looks like it's a fight or brawl between two men or in a group of men, some of them are laughing, but they're all like engaging with each other in some sort of like physical, like roughhousing or maybe a fight on the right hand side.

If this is all in black and white is the text.

You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men.

And I think that is the most relevant thing here.

Mary Lee wrote the notes for this.

And I really like this theme.

I enjoy this perspective quite a bit.

I think it's also kind of interesting that we begin this whole story with Batman saying that their story, the story between Batman and Joker, only ends if one of them kills the other.

And I think, like, if we look at this work, we could say we could see like, if we're being general generous, then maybe this implies the death of the old Batman and Joker dynamic, which allows for like a new maybe queer relationship once the story ends.

I think more plausibly, though, it's really just kind of implying that you can't have two men going after one another without them dying because maybe it's unnatural in some way or society just won't allow it.

So there must be a cessation of life.

I think that's pretty grim.

Yeah, it is grim.

That is very grim.

Personally, I think one of the most interesting parts of the dynamic between Batman and Joker in this particular comic is the ways that Batman is the one who's reaching out like empathetically to the Joker in in like trying to stop this cycle of violence between the two of them.

Because for the most part, in across different mediums, across different stories, the Joker is generally the one who seems to believe that they are linked and that he and Bats's dance are, are meant.

They're meant to dance together forever in this dance of violence, in obsession and all of that stuff.

Well, Batman is just like stoicism, stonewalls and like, does it like react in any way?

So I, I very much enjoyed the empathetic take on on how Batman views them.

And he is kindly and like asking, Hey, can we stop?

Do you think that we could like work this out?

Do you think we could have another way to be, which does include a queer possibility, if that's what you're into?

But even still, I thought that was one of my favorite parts of this particular comic, the ways that you can see Bruce Wayne, empathetic man breaking through, which is not generally acknowledged as an idea in the Batman universe.

Yeah, and for me, you know, honestly, superheroes, because I, I wasn't super exposed to them in a comic space and it was OK.

Yeah, Lois and Clark was on whatever UPN or whatever, whatever, whatever station it was showing on for Southwest Michigan.

But it was even like sort of before the superhero boom.

And so most of my impressions, especially of the DC Comics, I know I know practically nothing about Marvel until the explosion of, of Marvel on a, on a movie theater front was that the these are almost all parallels to parts of the psyche.

And they are used in conversations about understanding and evaluating the psyche.

And they are tools to help people who resonate with these characters to explore their own psyche.

It should surprise no one that Superman is the one that is used a little bit more because his name is literally Superman.

It is a very easy thing to do in psychology to explore the nature of who Superman as an icon is.

Not like Superman in theaters right now, which I understand is a much, much different vibe.

Or even Superman V Batman like that.

That I understand also was a different vibe.

A vibe that went on 30 minutes too long at least.

At least this.

However, Batman was a different way of looking at the inner conflict of a person with trauma.

And so to me reading this comic, it lined up with like everything we talked about in school vis A vis cultural conversations around Batman in psycheanalysis.

Because this comic is all about the Taurama providing trauma, responding to trauma, what you look like as a result of trauma.

And so that was kind of fun.

It just is because of that view of it, I didn't really get to dive into like the Batman versus the Joker of all of it because I was too busy.

Just like looking at trauma.

I love that David, thank you for bringing such a beautiful and unique perspective.

Yeah, I you know what?

I'm excited to talk about it because I have a lot of questions.

Great.

Well, that's that's a great opportunity because we're going to talk about the source of that trauma with our next theme, One Bad Day.

So in the comic, Joker tries to drive Commissioner Gordon to his breaking point to prove that anyone can go insane, just like the Joker Ted, which is all part of his deeply held nihilistic view of the universe.

That's right, folks, the $10 word we're talking about today is nihilism.

Yet again.

It's.

Back.

It's back, baby.

It's back the the overwhelming specter of nihilism is once again upon us.

So this is this is clearly the school of philosophical thought that most resonates with murderous clowns.

Which is silly, because absurdism is right there.

Here's what I'll say is that not to not to just keep being like David went to social work school, but there is a lot of psychological background about around this sort of nature of 1 bad day can put you into a dissociative state.

We are all honestly to really simplify my education one bad day away from a dissociative episode.

But as you both might guess it is a lot more nuanced than like I will show you graphic images and cause you to go insane or like I lost my wife and then had to put on a phallic shaped hat and steal chemicals now I'm insane.

There's a lot more nuance, but truly and honestly, if you think about it like Star Trek, I guess we all, we all walk around with our Shields up all the time.

And over over the course of your life, the course of your week, the course of your day, you're going to bombarded from things that take that down.

And if something gets through that damage can be very severe to us.

If you if you take enough of that damage, then you can have a dissociative response where you're trying to distance sort of who you are from the trauma that you're experiencing.

That can lead to you imagining things that aren't there, having relationships with things that aren't there, and having sort of conflict with people who live in a world that you can no longer perceive in the right way.

And so it's kind of interesting that that's sort of how Joker is coming out of all of this.

And I guess there has been, I only learned this because of this podcast.

There's been a lot of people who have armchair psychology, the Joker to death.

We never did that in school, but I do think that the whole like concept of this is very grounded and very real psychology.

And I love that too.

I think part of why I really like psychology, that was my initial my, I have a bachelor's degree in psychology and then I shifted over to English literature is because I, I like being able to take these two things together and squish them as part of like analysis.

So I really enjoy that there is kind of like a psychological element to what is being described here.

I think it also works on a really literary level as well.

I like in terms of plot and narrative that this version of the Joker cracked after having one bad day.

I think that on a literary level is really fascinating.

And it kind of makes sense too because, yeah, as you were describing David, like you build up enough, your shield breaks down far enough, if it gets bad enough, you can have a dissociative episode and you are kind of untethered from reality.

I don't think it totally applies to the Joker because he were operates in a comic book logic where things can just and he's capable of doing things because he's a comic book character on one hand and he's also a clown.

So he really is like the ultimate trickster archetype.

So I think all that being said, it seems to me that Alan Moore is trying to apply some sort of morality to this whole concept of nihilism and and having like a mental breakdown and saying like, well, Gordon is is able to demonstrate that no, it's just the Joker who is wrong.

It's just the Joker who is weak enough to dissociate.

If you're a morally good enough person, that can't happen because Commissioner Gordon is in this story are monument of what is good.

That's like the whole thesis behind why the Joker is doing this.

He can corrupt the uncorruptible.

But I don't think that really works for me in this narrative because I think it's kind of strange to have the Joker who is nihilistic.

And I do think absurdist is kind of like antithetical to the idea of having some sort of morality like view on it because it by its nature, it has to exist outside of that.

So I think that doesn't really work and I think it's incongruent with the story that Moore had been telling.

I also think that the ambiguity of the ending, which to me I think is like the high point of this comic.

I it kind of reads more like Joker's plan was to corrupt Batman and to just admit that he is just like the Joker as opposed to trying to make Gordon go insane.

Because when you're falling along with Batman's plot in this, he's just stress level 10 the entire time.

Like he actually like he's he also feels like a different Batman because I've never heard Batman threaten to kill someone before or say we're going to end up killing each other.

Because the Batman that I know and the one that seems most common in comics is like the great detective or the caped crusader.

Like he gets things done and he's dark and perhaps anti heroic in some way.

But he's never said we're going to kill each other because that's Batman doesn't do that.

And I remember that was like a big deal with like the Batman, Superman movies was that Batman killed people.

And that is, I don't think, right.

And it doesn't feel like it also works with the story that's trying to be told here because the truly uncorruptible person should be Batman and Gordon.

But I don't know.

I just don't think it works.

I think the ambiguity at the ending as a result, where maybe Batman does kill Joker once and for all, feels less earned as a result of all that.

Interesting.

My only contribution to these notes here is the meme image where there are two people sitting next to each other, one of which is that something in black and white with their head in their hands where it says nothing in life matters.

And the next is like a cool 80s guy with a thumbs up and glasses with like dolphins in the background that says nothing in life matters.

Hedonistic nihilism is the way to be, my friends.

Well yeah, nothing matters to just live baby woo.

That's my whole thing.

Yeah, I everything I've learned about Foucault and nihilism versus absurdism is strictly from the passion of the nerd go through of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is excellent by the way.

But he talks a lot about like absurdism and nihilism and stuff like that where there's a quote from Angel the show, which is if nothing in life matters, all that matters is what we do.

And like.

I think that honestly, the fact that the superhero axis of nihilism with like Joker being like everything sucks, nothing matters.

And like Batman still picking up his boulder and going on anyway, I think this is is an interesting conversation that could be had by people who are way smarter than me.

I just think that meme image funny.

And that's true.

Meme image is funny.

But you know what isn't funny?

Refrigerators.

So stupid.

So stupid.

But listen, we're talking about the Joker.

I can make bad jokes because that's part of the whole vibe today.

So yes, we are talking in this theme on refrigerators.

So in 1999, GAIL Simone coined the term women in refrigerators, or the verb frigging, when discussing a Green Lantern comic where Kyle Rayner's girlfriend Alexandra De Witt had been murdered, shoved in the fridge in his apartment and left for him to discover.

As a way to discuss the ways female characters are repeatedly killed, maimed, and sexually assaulted.

To give the male characters around the motivation, especially in comics, Barbara Gordon is paralyzed and implied to be sexually assaulted while photos are taken of her bleeding body specifically to hurt her father, Commissioner Gordon and Batman.

This whole thing is so non essential to the plot.

It wasn't even in the brief description we talked about earlier, making it an essential part in the discussion of superhero comics and misogyny.

So I had been warned about the Barbara component in the plot and how it had aged poorly, but wow it is truly bad the way Barbara is just kind of used as a plot device.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's, I'm glad that we're talking about fridging.

I think that this is a great opportunity for us to shed some light on this for anyone who maybe is very familiar with the term but doesn't know it's sort of origin.

And so this helped me also get that fridging is a trope.

It's not a literary theory.

It's something that had already been going on.

And it took the sort of collective recognition to sort of name this.

And what Simone did is she compiled this list as, like, just a fan of comics.

Like, she doesn't have a background in literature.

This is not like her bread and butter.

She wasn't writing a thesis.

And she just mailed all these publishers and then put their responses up on a website.

It's like, here's what the people who make your art think.

And it was such a bad ass punk move.

And the website is still online.

It's still pretty much in its 2001 version glory.

And it is it is just a list of things and and some of the correspondence that has come in some of the fan response.

One of the things that I particularly appreciated was a ton of people wrote in to Simone and were like, well, men get this too, to the point that she shared this and her her fan, a fan of hers who was also part of this sort of community.

John Bartol wrote and quoted dead men defrosting.

Like, yes, it does happen to male characters, but then they're instantly OK, like, which means it's not the same thing.

It's, it's the same, it's the same verb.

It's just not the same outcome.

And so that the impact is much, much different.

And Bartol's response, you know, really sort of opened my ass because I hadn't considered this.

I'm not, I'm not a comics reader.

And this was really fascinating.

I will be referencing Lauren Watson's thesis on comic book women that she published in 2008 as part of getting a master's degree in literature from Texas State University.

And so I thank you, Lauren, for your excellent, excellent work and for writing 32 pages about Batman, The Killing Joke.

I really appreciated reading them so that I could have some substantial background in this.

One of my favorite things though, in her thesis was that Watson argued that Barbara's situation doesn't even meet the criteria for a fridging and that makes it even crueler because ultimately the shooting of Barbara Gordon doesn't motivate Batman.

It doesn't even accomplish what it needs to with Commissioner Gordon.

It is almost exclusively there to shock and traumatize the audience and that is why it is so remembered and discussed.

Is what Watson argues, is that we all have gone through trauma having seen these comic panels, but they don't actually impact this story tremendously much.

So it doesn't it it, it's like lower than, it's like worse than fridge.

It's like cruelty.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's it is indeed just kind of cruel.

I I talk about this a little bit later.

I think More has a history of doing this sort of thing that's meant to shock the audience and kind of also deconstruct or criticize.

Comic books as a medium, which I think is a valiant thing to do.

I think you should like criticize the medium that you're that you're working within because that's how the medium grows.

But I don't, and again, I'll talk about this more later, agree with the actions here because I don't.

It's, as you said, David, it's just kind of meant to shock the audience and just kind of traumatize us.

And it doesn't have a huge impact on the plot within this story.

Yeah, I, I think that what Watson does is incredible, and I'm definitely going to read that myself.

But I, I would push back on her thesis that this doesn't count as frigging, if only because it just because it doesn't work doesn't mean that that wasn't the intention for doing those things.

And I do think that that is has to be like acknowledged as part of the action here because it was done specifically.

Just again, because Gordon and and Batman don't respond like as intended doesn't mean that this wasn't done for that reason.

Does that make sense?

Right.

It does, but I I would encourage you to read Watson's thesis because I I maybe I'm not communicating it fully, but Janine Joker's pregnant wife is fringed because it directly motivates his actions.

Because this doesn't directly end up motivating a character's actions.

It's crueler.

It is.

I suppose if you could measure more misogyny, it is treating a female character even worse because it doesn't even result in outcome.

And it became very important for Watson to make that clarification cuz when Watson eventually threw this, the Joker is just a section of this.

Through her entire thesis, she is proposing a new pedalogical theory around comics writing rather than just noticing the trope of frigging.

And tropes and theories are very different thing.

One is top down, 1 is bottom up.

But that's all I can give you on that because I did not get a master's degree in literature.

But in the attempt to do that, it would became very important to say where is the line?

And upon reflecting on one of the most well known stories, which Batman, the Killing Joke, is it surprised even the author, Watson, that when you when you look at this pedal logically, it doesn't even fit the mold of what Simone had first sort of said.

Hey, this is this is where I'm noticing this pattern.

This doesn't even actually fit the pattern.

That's wild.

I I really.

Have isn't that wild?

Isn't that It's just, it's just bonkers because it's so awful to read and it's, it feels like a misogynistic use of a female character.

And I'll get into it later.

But like Barbara, Gordon apparently is a very well fleshed out character.

Oh yeah, no, she's, she's a well known, well loved, very famous character who you don't like in your notes.

You're like, who is this?

And you, you, you pause it.

It's like yes, but the fact that who she is is so unimportant it doesn't even mention it in the comic.

Right, right.

Well, obviously we are horrified, but I must ask both of you to evaluate the first of the two criteria that we ask of every media that we engage in here on the podcast was Batman the Killing Joke horror.

Were you scared while engaging with this comic?

I don't think it counts as horror for me.

I think there are some really stark and shocking images.

There's one image of that like recurs of like the guy who sells Joker the amusement park Joker kills him in classic Joker style.

And it's kind of like the guy's face is stretched out into that rictus grin and big bug eyes that happens to people that are affected by Joker Venom.

And that shit's scary looking.

And he just kind of keeps appearing in the background scenes of like landscapes and whatnot, just to kind of like always reminds you that he's there.

And I think that works because it's kind of funny that he keeps recurring, but it's also creepy, which I think is the Joker sweet spot.

Agreed.

Yeah, like I I understand why.

Because we decided we wanted to talk about the Joker.

I googled the list of Batman horror comics and we picked this from that list and I I do understand why it was put on that list.

I don't find it scary and I don't I don't know that it meets the criteria, but I understand why people put it on the list.

Does that make sense?

I do, yeah.

Listen, here's the deal.

Some of the locations are horror adjacent, like a creepy abandoned amusement park that kind of like you don't you don't set a ROM com in an abandoned amusement park.

Like that's not that's not the genre you set that in.

So I'm giving it to that.

I think a lot of the drawings are pretty grotesque, terrifying, horrifying.

I was a little shocked at Tyler's casual use of something called Joker's venom, which maybe is just a recurring thing that exists.

So there's lots of these guys who look kind of scary.

That's cool.

That's cool to know.

We only get one of them in this.

I could have, I could have had a second.

I would have enjoyed it.

But I think that the denizens of the amusement park, they're sort of like Joker's thugs are also a little bit interesting for us to discuss from.

And either we're supposed to perceive them as grotesque or they are grotesque or there's, you know, the throne of babies or whatever.

There's some, there's some imagery in here that I'm going to give this to you.

I was prepared to say no, but now that you're both on, no, I, I, I kind of feel like I'm, I'm holding the, the ball and I'm being defensive.

Like I, I actually was a little bit more horrified than the both of you.

I was never scared.

I read the book, I read the book, I read the comic before bed.

I had no trouble sleeping.

This wasn't a scary thing.

And I don't think the philosophical questions are particularly horrifying for me to consider.

So even though like I slept like a baby after the substance from a imagery perspective, I was thinking about the concepts of it throughout the night.

And this I what if heroes are just bad guys who have a code of ethics did not that did not thrill me for the evening.

I was not my heart was not palpitating at this idea.

And maybe that's because it's from 1989 and that's OK.

Like the the sort of evolution of that question has gone on to far more complicated and less interesting questions like what if Superman but evil, which I just never need to ask that question again.

Well, I just done merrily.

Don't don't sit on that.

Ask a question.

Got it.

Yeah, Thank you for redirecting me because I was so close to saying thanks.

But that's not the point.

The point is, is it queer?

Can we discuss this comics using the lens of queer theory?

Batman Joker OTP OK.

All right, listen, is there is that a thing truly and honestly, do people ship these two?

Oh yeah, like the canonically like how the Joker feels about Batman in a romantic sensei is a question that pops up a lot in different stories adaptations like how they feel about each other is that's a thing with a capital TH.

Well this is Alfred erasure and I will not hear it on this podcast.

Batman Alfred for life.

Interesting, love that.

Thank you so much for your perspective.

That's all I got I I do think that the The nature of a story that is about insanity, a story that is about how we label insanity, has a lot of relevance to queer theory because I think for a tremendous amount of our history we have included aberrant sexuality under the mantle of insanity.

It is well within recent history that we removed what we now call queer identity from the diagnostic statisticians manual, the DSM.

We we have been rethinking the role of sexuality in identity for many years and psychology has struggled with this for its entirety as a profession.

And that was well influenced by the Nazis.

But there were there were problems pre Nazi and there were lots of problems after 1940.

So I, I I know our history from Hirschfield on back, and the notion that we Live Today in a world in which queerness isn't isn't pathologized, but we are reading a story about pathological sanity I think has some easy to connect dots for us in queer analysis.

Hey, I love that B.

Are you speculating then?

And the reason why Gordon wasn't like he didn't crack as, as Tyler said earlier, is because he's too heterosexual.

Too straight, He's too heterosexual.

Your heterosexuality saved you this time, Commissioner Gordon.

But next time I'll be back.

Yeah, and so then that man is is dealing with his relationship with the Joker on a, a potentially queer access of like, are we going to tip into love or are we going to stay heterosexual?

God, I love that.

David, thank you so much for this fun thought experiment that I'm going to be playing with the rest of the episode.

Yes, if you have comments about my Joker impersonation, please e-mail the podcast at fearcodedpot@gmail.com.

Yeah, only praise.

Only praise.

Typing in the e-mail right now.

Hey, David.

I loved that.

Do it again.

Thank you.

E-mail the podcast and see I'm now, now I'm being Green Goblin.

The the line is so thin it it's just too thin.

You were kind of giving the the Adam West Joker though, which I love.

Well, so that works.

It works for me.

We we paint on the canvas with the paints on our palette and tell her I don't know what to.

Tell her so true, how beautifully, so wonderfully, said David.

So wonderfully said.

Oh, any other any other reads on queer theory for Batman, The Killing Joke in particular?

But I even think like the characters Batman and the Joker, 'cause they do exist within a, a, a pantheon, I guess, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, like I was gonna say like this sort of idea that the the law enforcer and the law breaker are such a fun dynamic.

We see that all the time in crime stories, but also it's something that is commonly romanticized, especially like you think about like Les Miserables, like Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert.

That's like one of the original like ships because yeah, it's extremely gay.

Like they're obsessed with each other or Javert is obsessed with Jean Valjean.

And either way, like they're, it's a baked in wonderful source of tension between two powerful character types where one tries to enforce the law and the other breaks the law.

And those things are diametrically opposed.

But that desire, that passion between the two of them is so charismatic that of course it draws people in to like ship them, but even just be fascinated by them because I think the Batman and Joker are very have become so popular in like our global like pop culture, like knowledge that it you can easily make comparisons between the two to anyone that's like not interested in comic books at all.

You understand, like the you understand what someone is talking about when they're alluding to these two.

So I think it's a very powerful relationship that they have.

It's certainly stronger than I think any other hero villain relationship in comics, period.

I.

I don't know about that.

I I.

Well, what do you think?

I I think that you have to consider Wonder Woman and Chitara and also Lex Luthor and Superman in that conversation.

I don't think the well, those are gay.

I'm talking about like popular knowledge, like things that everyone kind of universally recognizes.

And I think it's easier for people to kind of think about Batman and Joker that way because 1 is a caped crusader dressed like a bat and the other is a scary clown guy.

So it's.

If you're talk, if you're talking about like within popular culture, outside of the comics book world, I have to give it to you.

But you're just saying in comics like even like with the DC Comics, like Lex Luthor had a clone made with Superman and his own DNA because he wanted to have a baby with Superman.

So like I, I simply don't know what you're like, how to qualify?

That we're going to have to talk about that on another comic book day, because that's something I've never heard of and I want to dig into.

But unfortunately, we are.

We are all Killing Joke today.

Yes, we are all Killing Joke today.

I do think that if we're talking about queerness within like the Batman's fear, I do think that there are a lot of interesting conversations that you can have like Batman and Joker like and and and everything like that.

I do think that since she is here, we should all also mentioned that that Barbara Gordon Batgirl was specifically created to stop people from thinking that Batman and Robin were gay for each other.

That is 100% a true fact and also is speculated that the reason why to this day neither Batman nor Dick Grayson have been confirmed queer, even though there are a lot of people have been saying for a long time that one or both of them are bisexual is because of what happened with the idea of the two of them.

We're in some sort of relationship which is insane.

Well, I just have to say this before we break off into our plot.

B by B.

If you dress up like an animal and you're running around with another guy, you're a furry, which makes you gay.

Oh my God.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Done deal.

Done deal.

Well, there we go.

I have nothing to add on a furry conversation, so instead I will turn us into the beat by beat of the 1989 comic Batman The Killing Joke.

The comic opens with Batman heading to Arkham Asylum.

Hey, I know that place.

That's where Doctor Chase Meridian works, right?

Who is Chase?

Meridian OK, Anyway, I thought I thought I was going to earn points with that you.

Earned more points and and and Tyler and I lost them.

That's what happened.

Nicole Kidman, come on the podcast, Talk to me about your time as Doctor Chase Meridian.

But anyway, you work at an Arkham Asylum.

That's where the story starts.

And Batman is there to talk to the Joker, trying to see if there's any way they could change things so they didn't end up killing one another.

When he realizes that the man in the cell isn't the Joker, he has escaped.

At the same time, Joker quote buys an old abandoned amusement park and remembers a time before when he was a normal man with money problems and a pregnant wife.

He wasn't making any money as a stand up comedian, but the two of them were happy together.

Also, let's just this this starting thing through Arkham.

I've got to say, I'm not a comics guy, but I know villains when I see them and it was so nice to just see them hanging out in their little cells.

We saw Harvey said hi, saw the Penguin.

I was like, call me.

It was just it was a nice little, it was a nice little time for me.

I enjoyed it.

Yeah, I genuinely love the opening and I think that throughout the comic, Ballard in particular is cooking with gas here and throughout like he is the art I think is really phenomenal.

But like the way that the opening with the rain, like you, we can see like Batman moving through the halls and all of the the villains stuff.

I think it rules it like it's legit good.

I agree.

I think it's always really fun when we start off a Batman story with him having to go to Arkham Asylum just because like one of my favorite like representations of Batman is that it's kind of like a modern gothic romance.

And the most recent, the Batman with Robert Pattinson did a wonderful job trying to make it gothic but modern.

I love that.

I think this was really fun.

Just like David, I'm a sucker for a rogues gallery and we got to see that.

We got to see beautiful representations of them.

And I think that's that's great.

And then of course, this opening is a remix or Christopher Nolan remixed it into Act 2 of The Dark Knight.

When Batman goes to interrogate Joker, they have their, you know, one-on-one and Joker beats the shit out or Batman beats the shit out of the Joker.

And in this, Batman is ready to go.

He's already like ready to beat the shit out of the Joker.

And he kind of starts to do so, showing that this Batman is maybe more of a loose cannon or he's just had it up to here with Joker by now.

And, you know, it works.

It works really well.

It's very effective.

I love seeing Batman and Joker getting to talk.

And yeah, I think that's cool.

What do we think about leaping into this back story of the Joker?

Because this is a very famous for the story is very famous for being a potential origin for the Joker.

Yeah, I was actually going to ask both of you this because I have not seen the Joker film, the film that just is called Joker.

And so I but I am familiar with the fact that he was a stand up comedian and it didn't work.

And so is is this the origin of that is, is this the first origin story of the Joker?

And it it also sounds like from Tyler, maybe there is not just one, which is fine.

I understand how comics work.

I'm not, you know, not that much of A novice.

Yeah, so, so this is, I think we're a popularize.

I think this is the most popular Joker origin, which is why it showed up in the movie.

I haven't seen the Joaquin Phoenix Joker.

I'm not interested.

So you could tell me anything happened in that movie and I'll be forced to believe you.

But I personally hate Joker origins.

And so so this is like because this comic is so big, so many people have accepted this is like the true version where even in like later in the comic, Joker says that hey, maybe it's not even true.

It's he's an unreliable narrator.

That I like I I like that as because I I do think the Joker would fuck around with you about where his origins were.

I think that is fun yeah.

Now we do we do get a Joker origin in the Burton film, right?

It maybe just goes to the dentist, right.

It's like a it's.

Like a no actually.

It's basically what the the the ending with the acid vial and everything or acid VAT.

Yeah, like the acid VAT shows up a lot.

I think that the acid VAT is silly, but I have to accept the acid VAT is a thing that people like.

But yeah, I can.

I tell you what can I tell you what actually just happened for me though before, before you go on, I was misremembering the spoof on The Simpsons where Lisa goes to the dentist and they make her look there.

There she reenacts Jack Nicholson's scene from the Burton Joker.

And that is why I said, did he look like that from the dentist?

So you know what?

Everyone come for me.

Just absolutely roast me.

Yeah, if you come for David, you have to get through me, Dave, as a delight.

I love that the the one thing I will say that's positive about these flashbacks is I do like the way that like the art style, like reflects what's happening in the flat.

Like they always have a really cool like match cut to and from when they are going into the flashback moments.

And I think that that kind of rules.

I do think it's kind of interesting that Brian Bolland his My version of The Killing Joke is the deluxe edition and a hat and afterword from Oh, cool, So you saw.

So there's this afterward from Brian Baldwin and he talks about how he actually had to like grit his teeth at the idea of doing a Joker origin story because he would never want to do this.

So he himself even thinks about this as just being kind of like one possible back story.

I agree with you merrily.

I think the whole thing with the acid bat is kind of silly, but it is a comic book.

And at the time that was just like a theme that you did in a comic.

And we didn't really understand how acid bats work.

Yeah.

So that's that's how we got where we are today.

I like it more when the makeup is just a makeup and like Joker is choosing to present himself that way because he's a little weirdo guy.

I think that that's more compelling than his skin was bleached and his hair turned green somehow and that's why he's so cuckoo bananas.

Yeah.

Well, then I will take this opportunity to talk about the back story, which I was going to in the next scene because that's when I learned about it.

But in all of these backstories, they are colored to indicate that they are a back story.

It's.

Sepia with the red highlighted and throughout.

Yes.

So we all read the same version which is the ducks, which apparently is the only, it is very difficult to find other versions of this, but that is not the original coloring on these.

I have learned and I have seen the original coloring and it is fabulous.

What?

Yeah, I do.

I do think it would be.

No, I don't think it would be harder because the character models look very different.

But it you then don't really know you're in a back story like the sepia does.

But the original colors are very nice and I'm a little bummed I didn't read it in the original version.

I'm shocked now.

I thought that like it had been recolored to like, full color.

You see, the sepia is not what it was.

That's a that's huge.

What was it supposed to look like?

The rest of the comic, it was like full.

It was print color really for that, whatever that four color notation thing is.

Well, I like CPS so.

I agree with you.

I like the CPA.

You know what?

I don't like the scene that I'm about to describe.

So get ready guys, because the big thing is coming.

This whole this whole month I've been trying to give you things to stop you from talking and you just keep being like, we gotta talk about them, so let's get it done.

Well, let's do it.

All right?

OK so at the Gordon home, Commissioner Gordon is cutting out a news article about the Joker breakout.

While talking with his daughter Barbara.

The doorbell rains and she opens it only to find the Joker and some of his goons behind it.

He shoots her monologues while the goons knockout Gordon and then starts unbuttoning her top, saying he takes some snapshots to remind Gordon of her in the past.

The man who would be Joker agrees to help some thieves sneak into his old job at a chemical plant to provide for his family, but he's nervous about getting caught.

The shady thieves assure him that everything will go smoothly and to ensure his anonymity they have they have a costume for him to wear.

Incorporating a red helmet and Cape make him look indeed like a red condom.

Yes.

And so this is where I wrote all these questions that we have referenced, but this is where I was like Barbara's Batgirl, right?

Like I think I know that because BG Barbara Gordon and also Alicia Silverstone.

And so I thought like, even now and then as I read Watson's thesis and her giving me the entire genealogy of the Gordon family, I found out that she was Batgirl and was also a senator who lost re election in 1980 just as Ronald Reagan took office.

And I was like, great, fucking Reagan's in this shit now too.

Oh.

My God, he haunts us.

He haunts us all.

And So what I learned from Watson's history, and maybe this will line up with the history you all have if you were following Batgirl, is that in the last issue of Batman comics before The Killing Joke came out, they had Batgirl retire to make her a civilian and make this tragedy more apparent because she had retired.

Question mark.

That's where I got.

I had heard that she had retired from being that girl before The Killing Joke.

I didn't remember that she was a senator, but like, I guess good for her.

You should go back to doing that.

But yeah, so she she was Batgirl for a while.

That's what she was created to do.

And then after this happened, she and I say she is was Batgirl because what what comics continuity is doing with her?

Like.

Yeah, because for a long time she was this character Oracle, which was a a much beloved super soda in her own right.

People loved Oracle.

She was a leader on a different team called Birds of Prey.

She was a a pivotal figure through like the bat family universe and like in the DC comic sphere in general because she was like the person who was in a chair who was able to hack into anything.

She's like the information network.

People really loved Oracle, but her time as Oracle versus Batgirl is like constantly being like changed or investigated.

But she could walk again for some reason.

And some people have a lot of feelings about what kind of character they like their Barbara Gordon to be.

Interesting.

Yeah, well, I guess let's talk about the the really kind of instining factor that changes Barbara, which is the Joker's arrival in him shooting her.

So I do find the Joker's arrival very effective.

I think using like, cuz opening the door, like the way this is portrayed in the comic is really one of the scary moments where it's just Barbara opening a door and then there's a Joker, he's wearing a hat, so his eyes are obscured BC like 1 little glimmer of light caught in his eye.

And it's really scary and it's used quite effectively.

But then he pulls a gun out, which is.

Well, the gun's already out, to be clear, but like.

Well, the guns either way, though, he has a gun, not like a toy gun, not like a cowboy's like fake gun or anything like that.

It's not obvious.

It's a toy, which is so often the case with a Joker.

It's just a straight up revolver and he shoots Barbara with it.

And it feels kind of like, I don't know, like mean kind of like, like I'm thinking about this within the framework of what David was describing, which is that this was meant to traumatize us or scare us or shake us up.

And I think that follows through because, like, we just saw the Joker poison a guy which is very comic bookie and very Joker ass because he's using like a trick handshake needle.

Very common Joker kind of thing.

Yeah.

It's like the the joy buzzer where you like if you shake hands it'll, you know, shock them, but instead of shocking them it's a hypodermic that kills them with the Joker venom.

I think it's the fact that it's a gun shatters like this comforting illusion of like comic bookiness, because that's the Joker's told shtick is that he takes like clownish things and he makes them murderous.

And in this it's just straight up a gun.

And I think that is like a penchant of of Alan Moore's.

Like he likes to shake us up as readers.

He likes to shake the whole medium of comic books.

And I think in that sense it works.

And I think there is a version of this whole story that does work, where maybe this is more centering on Barbara's perspective of the story, and we have Barbara's view on everything, but instead it is focused on the men that just in which Barbara orbits, and Barbara is not a core part of it.

And I think that makes it shitty.

Yes yes, you know it's also shitty.

The shoots are like in her womb, which is just weird.

And like where the shot happens, it's, I don't know it, it, it felt very misogynistic to me, just like the placement of where the gunshot was.

It's just like in that reminds me of Terrifier too, with where, you know, Serena was stabbed by art and then that was the thing that glowed to bring her back to life.

And then it was the whole Jesus and Mary and she's everything in an Angel combined into one.

But instead it's just, it's just Barbara is shot there.

And I think if she's shot there in the womb, then it feels even more intentional to attack her as like a woman.

And that just feels like dirty, like not like not like in a ha ha, like lewd sort of way, but just like it's just, it's just extra gross to me.

When the way that like he takes pictures of her and it's framed as a sexual assault, like I, I knew that like cuz again, I felt like I had read this before.

When I got to that point, I was like, wow, I guess that I didn't.

Or at least if I did, I kind of forgot that this was a part of it.

Cuz I, I was really shocked that like this was what we were doing with Barbara Gordon, Batgirl, one of the most famous women in Batman comics.

It just, it felt mean.

It feels like it it crosses lines, it's a it's a violative act, which it's a you know, it's a not OK, but it like villains cross lines.

That's their that's kind of what makes them villains, you know, yeah, I I am familiar with the concept of a villain it but it it did.

I think it's the not it's the Tyler put it.

I wish we all had a better eloquence for this.

It feels so unfantastical.

It feels so uncomic, booky.

And that I think is what makes it sit weird and for it ultimately to not have an impact, whether that's because Jokers machinations don't work or Commissioner Gordon is like so morally upright that he cannot be turned insane.

And it almost takes Batman off the case to go visit Barbara in the next scene, that there's like a narrative disc congruence to this as well.

So it's sort of like it, it changes the, the, the IT changes the sort of momentum of the story and it's traumatic and it kind of sucks and it's a little misogynistic.

I think that that's why this is so remembered, which is kind of a it's kind of a bummer if this is such a important story that the actual thing that this gets remembered for is kind of like the worst part of the the comic.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what's not?

The worst part of the comic that really brought me joy was in the flashback, the the thieves and the man who would be Joker are sitting around eating fucking shrimp.

And I was like, Oh my God, it's the substance again.

What is it about gross men eating shrimp that just keeps popping back up?

Mediocre men love eating shrimp.

Well, it also works like in terms of like color and assigning meaning to color because the shrimp is the same color as the red hood that Joker has to wear.

So it's kind of like almost like foreshadowing of like Joker is going to be victimized by these people and help turn him to this path of of villainy.

Got it.

I like that.

Yeah, yeah, they, they're just like picking the legs off the shrimp repeatedly, which is, again, normally that have been cleaned off before you've cooked them, but whatever.

So in Barbara's hospital room, the doctors and police officers discuss her paralyzation and Gordon's kidnapping with Batman.

She wakes up terrified of what Joker is going to do with her father, saying that he's taking it to the limit.

This time at the carnival, it confused.

Gordon is stripped naked, colored and tasered by three hench people before being brought to the Joker, who is sitting on a throne of doll heads for some reason.

He explains that he is going to drive Gordon insane too, and has prepared a special ride just for him, the Ghost Train.

Damn Gotham Memorial Hospital, not, you know what, 1989 before HIPAA.

Then I accepted.

I accepted.

Tell Batman everything.

Yeah, it's just like the way that the the doctors are just manipulating her feet like as she's unconscious to Batman and this police officer kind of fucking sucked.

It's more of that sort of casual misogyny that's being thrown around and it like, I would again, love the story where that is all the same thing happening, but it's all being told from Barbara's perspective.

But it's said she is she's a prop.

She's just a prop.

And that, that's a shame because I think also the scene is great with Barbara because like, on the one hand, it's very classic superhero of Barbara to wake up and her first thought is about her father and trying to get him help.

And I think that's, that's awesome.

I love that because it shows that Barbara is one of the uncorruptible.

She's an untouchable.

She can do it even though she just had something horrible happen.

She can think about other people.

However, doing so also prioritizes Gordon's pain over Barbara's.

And that sucks, yes.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I agree with you, Tyler, because it is a very heroic moment to be like, I'm concerned about my father.

And I maybe unrightfully, maybe this is unfair to Commissioner Gordon, but I do read Gordon as, yeah, he's an older guy.

Barbara takes care of him, right?

Like, or there's at least some level of familial connection between them.

And that is that is where I read that concern out of like, familial love.

Not necessarily like, just I'm a hero and I care about people who are hurt.

I actually care about this person.

This is my dad, right?

This is.

That's your dad.

Yeah, so I I didn't, I didn't hate her waking up and be like, Oh no, my dad because, you know, Oh no, my other person in the scene is probably like what anyone should say in that situation.

Yeah, especially because like he was kidnapped but before like she knows that Joker has him.

So like I get it but.

Yeah, yeah, it doesn't.

I mean, we, we don't get she's, she's otherwise completely unused.

And that's what sucks.

But like, I, I wouldn't have mind the first thing, I guess the first thing I would have loved her to say is like, I can't feel my fucking feet because that would be a realistic reaction to waking up and not being able to fill your feet.

But the second thing being like, Oh no, my dad got kidnapped by like the worst person in the world.

That's I'm not, I don't, I don't diss the comic saying that like the Joker is bad.

I recognize and understand that even the most unhinged fangirls should not want to be kidnapped by the Joker.

It's just one of those things where it's like we wouldn't bring it up, but because of these other issues that are going on, it becomes more apparent, yes.

Exactly.

Yeah, you nail on the head, Tyler.

Nail on that.

Yeah, like Barbara gets almost 0 lines in he in this comic, like she is introduced like mother Henning and fussing about like the glue in the scrapbooking, it was like, you're using too much glue, it's gonna squid you over the sides.

And then and like bringing her dad hot chocolate and all of that stuff, she gets shot.

Doesn't really say anything else in the rest of the scene because she's like crying, which is understandable when you were in a huge amount of pain.

And then this is her only other scene where she doesn't express anything other than concern over her father and like, fear about what the Joker's going to do.

And for Barbara Gordon to be reduced to no other words kind of fucking sucks.

I do like the Joker's whole monologue here.

I guess that I I liked the creepiness of the sort of denizens of the carnival.

I that did work for me.

I do love the throne of babies.

You can't.

You can't not let me enjoy the throne of babies.

The throne of babies is incredible.

They're so fucking uniform that you have to.

You do then read them as dolls, which is great is that you're not worried.

They actually like he accidentally.

He totally would have on purpose killed a bunch of babies to make this throne.

But it it adds this like weird absurdity that works on like the clown level of the Joker.

And I think that in a lot of modern tellings of the Joker, the clown aspect can sometimes get a little bit confused for sort of a sort of a like chaos only.

And for clown horror month.

I'm really glad that we are like here at a fucking circus.

We're doing a clown.

Yeah.

All of his his denizens are sort of like freak show people.

We've got like the fat lady, conjoined twins, strangely large infants, but like the three.

Had people that the Joker has are like adult baby looking people it's.

It's, I think they're meant to be like little people that have maybe been exposed to some of Joker's chemicals and and whatnot, and now they're just dressed up as cherubs.

So it's many things in this have not aged well, but I do think it is part and parcel with the Joker's whole circus aesthetic and clown aesthetic.

And I totally agree with you that I think modern representations lose that a bit.

But I think this whole thing and especially like the train train ride, it does give a little bit of like welcome to my twist in mind.

But like it, it works though, because the Joker is like that and he's so over the top that it's impossible to take seriously.

Kind of like what I was talking about earlier with Warhammer 40K.

There are little, there are literally babies with cherubic wings that have been grown that are just in vats that are just kind of meant to like pass messages around.

Like it's so silly and so over the top.

You can't take it seriously.

And I kind of see that here as well.

And it's fun.

I like that.

I That's the kind of shit I want to see with the Joker.

Yeah, like I, I, I, I love the throne of babies.

Don't get me wrong.

I just, it, it takes me out a little bit because it's like, what are we doing here?

What are you, the joker trying to express with the throne of baby dolls?

What is happening?

Why are there 2 baby doll heads on TV either side that are on fire?

What?

What do you?

What do you want?

What are we doing?

I think it's hilarious, no?

No, it's not the baby dolls.

I am going to buy a barrel of baby dolls after this recording.

Then it's the actual content of his monologue.

And OK, so I'm I'm foot in two worlds on this one one world.

I love the idea of using the past as a resurgence of trauma to achieve this goal, which is to corrupt what you see as uncorruptible and this his means to an end, is to make Gordon go crazy through having a really bad day.

The other side of my foot though is that OK this is my first comic but like Commissioner Gordon has surely been through some shit in his life and trauma is actually a lot more impactful to us as individuals when it has been a little bit more time since we have explored it, especially we have not resolved it.

Commissioner Gordon would be understandably still going through the situation that he had just endured in his apartment when he watched his daughter get shot.

So using that as the only means of focus and then extremely sexualizing Barbara in order to further deliver that on his little crazy ride.

That gets a lot of these things conflated to me when instead IA more effective way of actually achieving this would be to say here all the times you fucked up in your life, Commissioner Gordon, here are all the bad days that you let people have because you didn't save them in time.

And that, I think, would a get us out of this whole Barbara of it all.

And we could have just let Barbara be a fucking hero and show up at the carnival with Batman as like I put my Cape back on because I'm not a senator anymore because of fucking Reagan.

But instead we don't.

And instead the ride ends up being, I think the worst for it.

Yeah, agreed.

Yeah.

But I like, I like the idea that I I can use someone's experienced trauma to corrupt them.

That is, I like that.

I like that a lot.

I agree.

Agreed.

In the past, while the man who would become a Joker is setting up for the big heist that night with the two thieves, some police officers arrived to tell him that a freak accident killed his wife.

Devastated, Joker tries to back out of the robbery because what's the point now?

But the thieves refused to let him.

On the train ride, Joker has rigged televisions throughout to sing, dance and monologue about his philosophy while his hench people make Gordon watch the screens change to showing naked pictures of Barbara as she lays there bleeding in pain after getting shot.

He's made to write it over and over and over again.

I think this, the comic book framing of this is fun because on on one side of the page, it's Gordon's perspective.

So it's all of these horrible things.

We have the monologue, the singing, which I I actually love that there was a song and dance routine in here.

It's so silly, which is very, that's camp and that's very Joker asking.

And I love that they did that.

And I could even hear like the melody and stuff going in my brain, which doesn't normally happen.

So that's, that's fun.

On the other hot half of the page, though, is Batman's whole journey trying to find where the Joker is.

And of course he ends up like he is the world's greatest detective.

So of course he's on the case.

He's trying to figure out the solution.

It ends up literally being given to him by a cop.

But you know, whatever.

I I do think, though, that there are still some problems with this scene.

David, I know you wanted to talk about some of like this whole thing with motivation.

Yeah, I mean with with in the in the past, this is where Jeannie, who's the the man who wake up the Joker's wife, pregnant wife when she gets killed off screen in like a freak industrial accident, that motivates his inaction, which has been sort of like not accepted by the other villains.

And then so his action that remains the same, but a motivation to inaction is still a motivation.

And so this is where Jeannie's like death is absolutely meets the criteria of fridging, which was, you know, laid out and discussed as we talked about earlier.

I think though where I start to become a little bit confused about motivations in this section.

Is the Jokers whole deal.

So the Joker is sort of chaos.

He has plans, but they're they're sort of extemporaneous.

They they they take advantage of that chaos.

They work and flow in the chaos, and this methodical nature seems to be almost like a pop psychology version of chaos theory, to the point that it almost felt like this whole thing.

And again, not a not a comics person, so I could be getting this totally wrong, but this seems like a machination of the Scarecrow, not of the Joker.

That's interesting.

I hadn't really thought about that.

I do think, well, actually I'm going to direct this to Merrily because you are the comic expert here.

I'm kind of closer to David's experience.

I think that this like I get where you're coming from.

At the end of the day, I think Scarecrow this would be too much work for him because he would simply just need to like Gassia up with his his fear toxin and then like you, you would be seeing these things without him having to create a roller coaster ride to go through it.

The thing about the Joker that's so wild is, like, how his plans and like, his insanity work is different by every writer in every comic.

Oh, sure.

So yeah.

So like, I, this could I, I, I do think that this is pretty classic Joker, if only because people have taken this kind of thing and gone on to, like, build on that.

Like, he is the kind of person who's like, what if I just built a whole roller coaster just to drive you crazy?

Wouldn't that be insane?

That sounds pretty jokery to me.

That's true.

That is kind of the welcome to my twisted mind, sort of I that I.

You got to think about Joker as welcome.

To my twisted mind, I think that that is the perfect way to encapsulate how you should respond to this Joker.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I think it's I I agree with David and I also agree with you merrily.

I think that both of these things are true.

I think on the one hand, it is like a little bit more of like an orchestrated plan.

Like Joker doesn't only have like a, like a, like a plan.

Here it is very well constructed to go off at certain like like things like, oh, this failed, so now this is going to happen.

Now that's going to happen because this thing is going to happen.

And that does feel a little bit more non joker ish.

That feels maybe more of like an Alan Moore sort of thing because Alan Moores narratives kind of work like that.

Like you think about Watchmen and spoilers, spoilers alert for, you know, something that's ancient at this point.

But like the big twist in that is that the big villain wins because he initiated his plan before the heroes got there.

And that so that is infamous in comics and I love that.

And it feels a little like that in terms of what the Joker is capable of conceiving here.

But I think it doesn't totally fit.

His MO is just like, I'm going to do this thing, you know, You know, and I kind of.

You guys were both right because like I think that the kind, the villain who for the most part who we've constructed an intricate thing just because it's part of his bit is the Riddler.

The Riddler.

Would do that.

Yeah, he loves to commit.

He loves to commit to a bit and I I do love that for him.

And crimes.

He also loves to commit crimes.

Yes.

I kind of want to watch just Batman, like I should go watch Batman in the Animated series after this because I just want to see like, these super villains just try to rob banks.

Yeah.

Just need.

I need something that's like, chill, you know?

Yeah.

Even though I know there's some darkness in the animated series.

Don't.

I'm not gonna talk about it.

We're we simply have to move on.

Don't care.

We simply must move on.

OK so, well, too bad Batman scours Gotham for any signs of Joker.

He does get a clue when an invitation and ticket is sent to the Gotham Police Department for the amusement park with compliments of the Joker himself.

At the park, Gordon is finally pulled from the ride and taken back to his cage by the hench people.

He is non verbal right now.

In the past, Joker and the thieves break into the chemical plant, but things go wrong immediately.

The helmet that Joker is wearing, made to look like he's the Red Hood, is hard to see in.

There's more security than there should be, and really it's just an overall disaster.

Joker decides to abandon the thieves who end up getting killed, but they shout to the cops before they die that Joker or the Red Hood is the ringleader here, and Batman goes after him.

To escape Batman, Joker jumps into water contaminated by chemical runoff and comes out with his iconic new look.

White skin, green hair, the whole thing, laughing at the absurdity of the whole situation.

Inquiry is the Red hood.

If if I was like super into comics, would I have seen the Red Hood and be like, Oh my God, it's the Red hood.

Oh my God, did you see?

It's the red hood.

They used the red hood.

It's the Red Hood from forever ago.

So yes and no.

Here's the thing.

Here is the thing again, like this is a remake of an older comic which had an older version of like the Joker origin.

Like who's Under the Red Hood was the Joker, yadda yadda yadda.

But before that, nobody ever really cared.

And after this, nobody really cared until, and this is maybe a little bit too insider baseball, but Jason Todd, who was the second Robin, who very famously died as a part of a listener poll, like fans of DC Comics called in and said, hey, should we kill Jason or will he survive?

And Jason died by like 12 votes.

So he was very famously killed for decades.

And there was a saying that nobody stays dead in in comics except for Uncle Ben, Jason Todd and Bucky Barnes.

And so two out of three are still alive again.

And that's just how.

But like, for decades, that was it.

Since Jason Todd came back and he came back with a villain persona of the Red Hood because he is now like he was trying to get revenge on Batman and the Joker by trying to get Batman to kill Joker.

It was a whole thing.

I cannot talk to you about Jason Todd right now.

We will simply run out of time.

But because of that happening and like I love Jason, I love Red Hood.

I think that he's an incredible character.

It kind of fucking sucks that that is kind of semi canonical, like semi canonicized.

This Joker origin is no longer being part of a potential back story as like being canonically true and not sucks.

But like nowadays, seeing the Red Hood and be like Joker is Red Hood, it's all coming together is much more of a thing than it was at the time when it was just referencing a very like obscure older comic.

Interesting, because this sort of reeked as like like fan service to me, looking at it and having no idea is it was like, look, it's the Red Hood before we designed our characters with like recognized facial features.

This was the villain.

And it's a little bit of a murmur that that wasn't the thing, but fine, whatever.

We spend a lot of time looking at the costume and it kind of is not that good.

No, it sucks.

It like sucks.

It sucks on purpose.

It looks like a red condom, Yeah.

Yeah, and not even a fun red condom, like a boring red condom.

I also want to say, like Tyler mentioned it in the last description, like this is Batman Master detective.

I'm finding out where all this is happening and in the category of things that suck, it kind of sucks that in the end he just gets a giant quest arrow handed to him being like, you need to go to the amusement park.

And I get that the Joker is the sort of campy bitch who would send you an invite to his murder party that is totally on brand.

But then I don't need to see Batman interviewing all these people to find where the Joker is.

Though I loved those sequences and I thought they were really well drawn.

And so I just kind of feel like in the end, we also didn't have a lot of agency for Batman in this story, and Batman was also sort of on rails rather than than being an active part of the story.

Yeah.

You know, that's a really good point.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, I actually like that perspective.

And he could also kind of jives with Moore's whole MO is that he probably finds characters like Batman because according to Brian Bollard's afterword in the story, like Alan Moore doesn't consider this one of his greatest hits, which I found interesting.

I think part of that is because I don't think he's interested in classic DC superheroes like Batman.

I think he finds some kind of boring from my from what I've seen, and just like not very interesting.

I think he treats Batman like he's kind of a fool and he's just kind of like the plot device that is Batman.

Batman goes places until the very, very, very last page of the comic.

And then Batman becomes more of like an independent person, but I think he finds the Joker more interesting.

And I think it's interesting that also that this is not a very interesting back story for the Joker.

Like, I think the whole thing with the Asavat is kind of boring.

I think anytime the Joker origin story is jumping into a chemical bath is stupid.

We talked about this at the very start that that's just sort of how comic books were at the time, whatever, you know, that's that's how things go.

But I do think that it adds just one more tragic thing on the tragedy sandwich and is not necessary as a result because I think this story, again, could work of maybe the Joker is this tragic figure who has gone mad.

And I think that there is like a little bit of payoff towards that idea at the end.

But I think it's just kind of like, good Lord, man, we've added, we've done so much to this guy already.

Waiter, no more.

No more tragedies.

Flip your card to red.

We are done getting meet at this table here is so okay.

I agree with everything that you just said.

And yet this is a Joker origin story and my my ticket said Joker origin story.

And I know that it's not the thesis of this comic, but my my ticket was for one transformation into the Joker.

And it was during the sequence that I was like, I would like a small refund for my ticket because I didn't really get what it said on my ticket.

I was going to get like, he just sort of is the joke.

He's he goes from red condom into Joker.

It is not a transformation so much it's a reveal.

It's a reveal yourself.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

You know, I did like the fact that he jumped like into the river outside of the chemical and factory and was transformed by the runoff instead of just falling into a VAT of acid.

I did think that that was slightly better.

And then, like, just goes to prove that you really should not be drinking the tap water.

And Gotham, my God.

But on the whole, we could have done without this whole sequence, frankly.

Yeah.

I think the coolest part is seen a 1940s sort of Batman, Yes, which I think is actually one of the things that was redrawn in this version.

Oh, really?

Based off of the the afterward from Brian, yeah, I think that Batman in the original version just kind of looks like Batman.

This version, he has like the hooked ears up top and he just has more of like an animalistic sort of vibe.

Yeah, it's got the 40s wings.

I do also like that the Joker was scared shitless by Batman because the Red Hood obscured his vision, but also because Batman at the Stein looks scary as shit.

I think that's fun.

I I would have liked maybe some more payoff of people being like, Oh yeah, there's that guy that's running around at night.

He's beaten up all sorts of criminals.

You got to watch out for them.

They call them the Bat.

So, so, so again, like it's a very, very quick blink and you miss it.

But in the scrapbooking scene, Gordon is talking about how like this is where they first met talking about Batman and Joker.

And like in the scene where you if you listen to the cops, one of them is like, Oh my God, it's it's that guy Batman we've been hearing about.

So like this is kind of like one of Batman's first big show out moments.

So I think that like the fact that Joker is terrified because Batman is a new concept that there's a, a grown man in a giant bat costume who's going to like hurt you.

I I thought that was that was pretty good and.

I, I like that too.

I think that my problem with that, though, is kind of the same problem that we had with the Joker using a gun to to kill Barbara.

It's purely for us as readers to understand.

It's not the Joker's perspective on it.

The Joker is not really the one that's talking about Batman.

He's not thinking about Batman, He's not dreaming about Batman.

And Batman doesn't come up in his conversation with the lagoons like he's just scared of Batman because we have been told that Batman is scary and is being talked about.

Oh.

My God, that's so smart.

Yeah, you're so right.

Yeah, so I think like it, like this whole thing is just kind of like a like a little bit of a wet fart if I'm being real.

The the drawing of the Joker, which we used in our monthly promotion for Fair Coded, is a fucking amazing drawing.

Listen, everything that I say about this comic and that all of the negatives, please do not think the single second is directed at bollard and what he does with the art.

I think that he really does incredible work with this and like the way that he draws Joker laughing post like his his his little chemical bath and he's like bleeding out of his eyes a little bit or crying blood or whatever.

And like adapt reaction and then and match cut to the hench people laughing at Gordon that ruled.

That was so good.

Well, merrily take us home.

All right, everybody, are we ready if this train is chit chilling to the exit?

Let's get out of here.

At the amusement park, Joker's full freak show of hench, people hang around outside of Gordon's cage laughing at him while Joker monologues yet again.

When Batman arrives, the two fights while Batman thinks about the speech he gave earlier to that fake Joker.

Eventually, Joker escapes into the fun house, giving Batman a moment to free Gordon, who is still very much sane, and insists that Batman go catch Joker and bring him in alive.

They have to show him that their way works.

Over the intercom, Joker gloats about driving Gordon mad and insists that Batman is just like him, since he clearly had one bad day too.

Why can't he admit that to act like there's anything else is crazy?

Batman rejects Joker's premise completely and offers his help to rehabilitate him.

This is their chance to change the cycle that they're locked in.

They don't need to kill each other.

After thinking about it for a moment, the Joker says that he's too far gone already, but actually this this situation reminds him of a joke.

It's actually pretty funny and it gets a chuckle out of Batman.

The two of them stand in the rain and laugh together as the comic ends.

Well we got to start by saying that because Commissioner Gordon is a man, he was able to be subjected to 1 bad day and did not suffer the consequences even though they were these traumatic machinations.

But Barbara Gordon met her end in Act 1 and it this reminder of that and that that Gordon is instantly like no, I'm upstanding.

Like I am literally upstanding.

Yes, I might be naked, but you're Batmobile mowed down the inch people.

Which also, like rude Batman, they were.

Not they all ran away like I I don't think that he he hit anybody.

They all, they all went, it's the bat and they took off running.

Well, that's fine.

OK, well, I love that.

Then.

If they said it's the Bat, then this is nonviolent and I love it, right?

But I hate the fact that Gordon is like the most unscathed person who has ever been unscathed and all of unscathed dumb and his daughter.

It got, you know, debilitated instantly earlier in the comic.

There should be some consequence for Gordon.

I don't I don't mind that the Joker didn't reach his goal.

What I what I do mind is that like, Gordon has never looked healthier in this comic that he looks now, and that sucks.

Oh, it's it's still like the only thing that's different about him.

He's naked.

He seems fine otherwise.

I don't know, I thought.

Either.

I really would have loved a moment where it was like, hey, is Barbara OK?

Yeah, actually like your father.

Doesn't even care.

Doesn't even care, no.

He's I'm gonna sexual.

He's gotta be like, Nope, simply cannot have feelings.

I am a straight man.

Gotta go right back under the job.

God, yeah, no, it it bothers me too.

I think it kind of gives gives like a little bit more credence to maybe like, this is actually all aimed at Batman.

And Joker was just pulling like a long trick to try and make him think that Gordon was the true victim here and knows Batman.

And he's trying to convince Batman to just admit like, you should go crazy like me.

And then we can be happy together and queer them, which, like, OK, maybe work.

I think all of the stuff that happens in the funhouse is fun.

Like it's very classic Batman versus Joker stuff.

The art is really nicely done.

There's like beautiful, like posing that's happening It it feels very fluid and like there it like all of this is happening live and I love that.

I think that's very difficult to do in like comics art and they Bolland you genius it.

It worked great.

I also really like the joke at the end.

I think the ending conversation between Batman and Joker is the best part of the story.

I think that's a great examination of their relationship.

I think it's like just captures the dynamics so well and why they are doomed to be each other's nemesis forever.

I love that Batman laughs at one of Joker's jokes for like the first time ever.

And it is kind of like legitimately funny.

And it also like works as like a Joker style joke because it's about two people that are leaving an insane asylum and you know, one, they have to trust the other person, but they don't.

And I think so forever.

They will be stuck in this, in loggerheads with each other.

But then Batman grabs the Joker as the Joker is laughing hysterically, and the last three panels that we see is like Joker and Batman's feet from each other.

Then it's just the empty parking lot with some water, and then water covers the whole parking lot.

And it's very ambiguous and strange.

And it kind of makes you think, wow, did Batman actually kill the Joker?

Did he trust along with Gordon and show that this is the way that Gordon works is the way things should work?

And it's left to the reader to decide.

I like that.

However, I think that there are more parts to this story story that could have focused more on perhaps foreshadowing That or playing into more of Batman is the true like source for Jokers like 1 Bad Day.

And I don't think it works very well as a result.

I think it's I think it's a great ending that does not feel earned.

I completely agree Tyler and that was sort of the vibe I was having as well is why was I being in the story is called The Killing Joke.

We're ending on a joke where there I I didn't read it as a parking lot.

I just reopened in the comics to look at it.

I read it as a beam of light and then the last panel it does not exist, but I now understand that it's probably a pocket parking lot stripe.

So my bad.

The beam of light made more narrative sense.

But if this had been a joke that he was workshopping in the past and then it came to fruition and was birthed here at the end, that would have been some seriously good narrative payoff.

But there is a complete disconnect between.

The past and the present.

And that makes this sort of like ominous and ambiguous future a little bit less important to me as someone who's not super comics interested.

But I, I loved my reading of this straight line that appeared in the darkness of the rain splattered ground as a light that was then extinguished.

Because that's what the joke is about.

You can just walk across this beam of light.

I will never do that because what if you turn it off halfway?

Like you can't walk across the beam of light anyway.

But there was a very good narrative symbolism and then I was sort of left feeling a little disappointed by the ambiguity when that sort of ambiguity is the thing that I think listeners will know usually excites and interests me.

And I just don't think it worked because the previous 60 some pages didn't didn't plant the seed that needed to fruit this growth.

You know, David, it is a parking lot stripe, but I think it also works as like a metaphor for this beam of light.

OK, Yeah.

And the and the beam of light is obscured and then gone completely, right.

If that were the case.

So I do.

I actually really like that.

I didn't consider that.

So thank you for that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like that the the comic opens in a puddle of rain and then closes in a puddle of rain.

I love narrative symmetry.

Thank you.

So yeah, you guys.

And right.

So I have nothing else to add.

Well, unless anyone else has something to add, I think we can start wrapping things up.

So how do we feel about Batman The Killing Joke in terms of horror or queerness?

After our conversation, do you have any other final thoughts for this episode?

You both excited me by your conversations about the history and discussion that has been had around queerness for these characters.

But reading this comic did not make me eager to read more comics.

And it, it, you know, it's kind of a bummer because I, I would eventually love to find the thing that cracks my eggshell on getting into comics because I think a lot of people who I value are very interested in this as a medium.

And just because of of how I grew up and where comics were important and not important in my life, I've never really found the thing to give me that crack moment.

Yeah, yeah, I get that.

Well.

Hopefully like a shell cracking, not like using crack cocaine.

That's different things.

Or not cracking because you had one bad day.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

Of course.

Hopefully we'll get some good comics to you at some point soon in the future for if you're coded or, you know, just as personal recommendations.

I did not enjoy this comic very much.

I thought it was too grim dark.

I was too misogynistic.

And there's one thing that we actually kind of skipped over that I'd love to circle back around to that first conversation with the Joker and Janine, if you please read Joker's like text in like the worst guy, you know, voice because I swear to God, he's the worst guy you've ever met.

And that really just like off the bat, kind of like, Oh my God, this I this, this whole thing, Joker origin.

I hate it.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think this comic is pretty overrated and I think it's aged quite poorly.

I could see why it was such a huge deal back when it first released, but yeah, I don't think it's aged very well.

I think it is not something that you should avoid.

However, if you are like, if you're really interested in like the history of comics or you're just like a devout Batman fan, like the like the franchise or you're just like a huge Joker fan in general.

I think it's definitely worth reading even if you don't enjoy what it is, just so that you can experience it and say like, yes, I did read it.

Here's what I thought about it instead of just doing wearing it entirely.

There are definitely some wonderful Batman comics out there.

There's definitely Joker comics out there that are great as well.

And I hope we will, you know, dive back into the Batman well at some point, because I'm kind of with you on this, David.

I, I don't, I, I know and respect many people who are very interested in comics and talking about comics academically and, you know, talking about it on podcasts and everything else.

And I think that stuff is, is wonderful.

I would love to join in, but I just haven't had that that moment.

So when you find it, David, you let me know and I'll do the same for you.

It's not.

I just want to throw this out there.

I, I, I, I my favorite DC comic that I have ever read, and it's also highly lauded for a lot of other reasons.

I just looked.

I don't think it's a good introductory text, but I'm just throwing it out there.

Kingdom Come rules.

So just throwing that out there.

It's a really good DC comic.

The art style is incredible and it's a great summation of like that same kind of Hope Corps that you get with the new Corn Sweat Superman.

Love that.

OK.

Well, thank you all so much for listening to this episode.

Please remember to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and don't get even get mad by following us on Instagram and Blue Sky if you're coded pod.

This podcast is a proud part of the Glitter Jaw Queer Podcast Collective.

If you'd like to listen to more queer media podcasts, you can check out the full roster of shows at glitterjaw.com.

And join us next time as we conclude Auguste by conquering fear itself and maybe having a small sexual awakening with the episode The Thaw from the science fiction television series Star Trek Voyager.

But for now, we will simply say goodbye.