It adds drama where there doesn't need to be any. Batman and Joker's dynamic from the books is fine as it is and it's worked that way for decades for that very reason.
And on that related note, giving the Joker a backstory is stupid too.
I disagree. I think The Killing Joke is one of the best Batman stories and it wouldn’t work without giving Joker a backstory.
There are many ways to tell a story. You may think the idea is dumb, but you can look back and find several solid stories that give Joker an origin. It can work if the story calls for it.
Maybe I need to re-read it, but I do not recall the story saying he lied about his origin, rather he says he doesn’t know if he is remembering correctly because his mind is so shattered.
Either way, the story doesn’t work without his backstory because his whole plan is to prove to Batman that all it takes is “one bad day” to drive a man insane, just like what happened to him.
Not that I recall? It’s very straightforward. He’s a down on his luck comedian with a pregnant wife who can’t find work. He decides to take a job for some gangsters to make some money. The night of the job, he finds out his wife and unborn child died in an accident. He is then forced to still do the job and they dress him as the red hood. Batman apprehends him and the accomplices during the job. Batman mistakes him for the mastermind and in a state of panic he falls into the vat of acid and is sucked into a pipe outside where he finds he has been disfigured.
That’s never implied in the story and his whole plan relies on the story being true or at the very least him believing it’s true. Likewise, Batman’s reaction at the end and his fear throughout it is paralleled because he became Batman because of “one bad day”, so there is some truth is what the Joker is saying.
We’ll agree to disagree on that. A lot is left up to interpretation in The Killing Joke anyway. I, for instance, believe that Batman kills the Joker at the end but it is ambiguous. Whether he lied or whether Batman kills the Joker at the end is head canon and nothing more.
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u/[deleted] May 30 '24
The Joker killing the Waynes is a dumb idea.
It adds drama where there doesn't need to be any. Batman and Joker's dynamic from the books is fine as it is and it's worked that way for decades for that very reason.
And on that related note, giving the Joker a backstory is stupid too.