The Killing Joke (Alan Moore)

I read this out of an Alan Moore collection from the library.  And I read a few of his Superman stories from that collection before this one.  It turns out that, for the most part, comic books are stupid.

This one wasn't, though.  Even if I didn't get the end.

The overall idea is an interesting one: how close are we each from giving up on our moral compass and devotion to the social ethic?  If we undergo an experience traumatic enough (caveat: it's more interesting when the Joker doesn't have a backstory.  But within this book, it's not clear if the backstory is true, anyway) how will we react in an attempt to process what has happened?

Batman himself is right on that knife's edge.  His traumatic loss of his parents has driven him to near lunacy.  The only difference is he holds himself to a self-imposed moral code, but it's not at all clear that he does this out of any kind of rationality, or if his own irrational response just happened to take the form that it did.  The Joker fell on one side of the line, Batman fell on the other, but the Joker is essentially right about the irrationality and amorality of the universe.

Commissioner Gordon, though, emerges as the moral rock at the center of Batman's world.  Exposed to the same kind of trauma (worse, probably), he holds to the same moral principles he has always held-- and is not being irrational when he does so.  He has always understood why Batman does what he does; he will not allow himself to fall into a similar gray zone of justice.

The Joker's adoption of the carnival freaks as his minions make an interesting symbolic point.  There really is an unexplainable unfairness in the universe, that allows innocent individuals to be born into such handicaps.  It is a condition that cries out for a justification.  And, if none is forthcoming, it is easy to conclude that there is no justice to be bound to in the first place.

The Dark Knight did a good job of exploring these influences on and implications of the Joker's actions, but this story nails down the themes in a very succinct and concrete way.

But the end of the book was lousy.

Batman: Year One (Frank Miller)

Color me unimpressed.  Batman needs villains, and he didn't have any here.  The whole thing felt like it never got off the ground.  Yeah, yeah... Batman needs to be created, and he doesn't quite know what he's doing at first.  But ultimately, nothing is at stake except for some (mostly) petty crime.  I needed a bigger conflict to hold my attention.

I suppose this was a good exploration of the psychology of Lt. Gordon.  If that hadn't been delved into before, it was very nicely done.  And it nicely wraps together a whole slew of characters that I recognize from other references-- Harvey Dent, Carmine Falcone, Catwoman, and Det. Flass among them.

But Batman needs villains.

Though the overall theme made for one helluva movie.

The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller)

This is the first graphic novel I've ever read.  And it's the first comic book I've read since Dennis the Menace Learns the Our Father (the Protestant version, anyway).  The plan is to get a feel for the format with a few Batman titles before diving into Watchmen.  In any case, I'm impressed.

What surprised me the most was the inferences I had to draw as the reader from very few details in each panel.  And yet, the the implications were all fully there on the page.

Another aspect that I enjoyed: the critical commentary about many elements of modern society that I privately rail against as well.  Unserious media, relativistic reluctance to name evil as evil, hippie parents, therapeutic solutions to spiritual problems... it's all there.

I love Batman making fun of Superman.  Come on, you pansy.

So apparently it's well-established that Frank Miller wrote Batman as an explicitly Catholic character.  To that end, I loved the shout-out to Catholicism's devotion to absolute truth in the face of ever-changing worldly fashions:

The Pope today declared that the Church's stand on contraception will not change, despite yesterday's firebombing of St. Peter's Square.

That's right.