Dirk Deppey has been linking, and probably causing, a mini-debate amongst female fans of comics regarding Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. This centers, as with every other discussion of The Killing Joke, on the victimization of Barbara Gordon/Batgirl by The Joker. The Joker shoots Gordon in the stomach and through the spine, thus paralyzing her, and then takes pictures of her bloodied and naked body. (To my mind there’s also the implication of a rape.) One blog thinks it’s alienating to women, another says no, this stuff happens, it’s in the handling of it. Depictions of violence are not innately improper or alienating. Yeah, but…

A cavalier and socially irresponsible comic shop owner sold me a copy of The Killing Joke when I was about 11, and it, of course, blew the back out of my mind. At that point I had yet to develop abstract thinking, so I can’t say how aware I was that someone was responsible for writing this story, and I certainly hadn’t heard about Alan Moore, but it was clear that this was Something Different and significantly better than the usual Batman comic.

When I look at the book now, with wizened eyes, the The Killing Joke is still Something Different. It’s also bad. I don’t disagree with my childhood assessment that compared to whatever the hell else Batman was doing in 1988 (fighting Iran?), it shows a depth of craft far exceeding what had been achieved with the character. (And, yes, I include Frank Miller’s book in this assessment.) This tells one a great deal more about previous standards of writing and character development than it does anything about The Killing Joke.

In many ways, as it usually is, the blogosphere is half-right: the worst part of the book is indeed the violation of Barbara Gordon. Not because of its inappropriateness, nor because she’s a woman, but for the fact that it uses the character as a McGuffin, and uses her in the worst way possible. Not only is she subject to an unusual depravity, but the consequences of this depravity seriously damaged the character for future storytellers. I think that this is the worst thing that can be done with a genre character; you can let them grow, but you really shouldn’t screw them up for whomever is going to be working on the character after you. (To DC’s credit, and ain’t that a phrase I am not oft to utter, the pointless injuries sustained by Batgirl weren’t retconned and were developed into a new phase for the character. Has this ever happened before or since in comics?)

And what’s this claptrap about driving Jim Gordon insane?

Like the victimization of Batgirl, it’s pretext, one of several nonsense excuses strung together to get Batman and the Joker into a funhouse (because the Joker, you see, is a twisted image of fun) where they can then beat the crap out of each other. And since this is 1980s Alan Moore at his lowest, a book titled The Killing Joke has to be meta and have an actual joke at the end, allowing the reader the deep insight of Batman and the Joker laughing together and oh my god is there a ying-yang kinship between them? No, really?! Is there? Can Batman be just as crazy as the Joker?!?! Is this a metaphor for the madness of Thatcherite England?!

First, let me just out right say it: that joke isn’t funny and it never was. There. I’ve been waiting 16 years. But secondly, who cares if Batman is or isn’t crazy? This is the book’s payoff? That a genre character in an admittedly unrealistic medium is just as nuts as his arch-nemesis? Dude dresses up like a bat and is fighting an evil clown. How profound can it get?

Moore himself says this and, uh, more, in an interview on the great Daev Walsh’s Blather:

“But at the end of the day, Watchmen was something to do with power, V for Vendetta was about fascism and anarchy, The Killing Joke was just about Batman and the Joker - and Batman and the Joker are not really symbols of anything that are real, in the real world, they’re just two comic book characters.”

Some people blame Watchmen or Miller for the current state of comic books– personally, I blame The Killing Joke. To get from the ‘86 books to current comics, you have to strip those books of any of their plotting, any of their character development, any of their innovation and technique, and any of their ideas. (Obviously, with the last, I mean Moore. Miller’s ideas, such as they are, have always been: Mike Hammer Smash and Freedom Isn’t Free.)

The Killing Joke, on the other hand, presents an easy template for how to be an Editor-in-Chief and have an Event: kill off, mame, or otherwise screw up an existing character to get other characters together to fight, fight, fight. Provide pseudo-insights into their pseudo-psyches, preferably while they’re punching each other, and if, perchance to dream, along the way you can establish a heavy handed metaphor for the Current State of Things, then boffo for you!