Week 13 Assessment - The Killing Joke

1.     What is the reaction to the text you just read?

- The whole text made me feel rather emotional, but mostly sympathetic for the antagonist of the story: the Joker. I absolutely loved how the comic continuously flashes back into the Joker’s backstory because it shows you how human he was, before he became a villain. He had a wife he loved and cared for, he was a nervous little man with ambitions for the sake of his family’s future. My favourite thing about DC villains is how their story makes you come to understand them. The art style hooked me in a lot because of the interestingly dark atmosphere of it, as well as how serious it looks despite being slightly on the cartoony side. I thought that fit really well with a Batman comic, especially one centralized around a character like the Joker.

2.     What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the story with which you were able to connect.

- The biggest connection I noticed was the first transition between the Joker and his past self. It shows him holding his hat in one panel, and the next panel showing a man in the same position in a different scene with those flashback sepia colours. That immediately gave me context that this is about the Joker’s past without even having to show his face or any text telling me what just happened. Another connection I noticed was between Batman and the Joker on the final page. I found it very haunting seeing the Joker laugh during a point where he’s at his weakest, but I found it even more haunting seeing Batman laugh with him, choking his nemesis. It felt almost as if at this one point in the story, Batman and the Joker became the same person.

3.     What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

- If I had to choose, I think a short, thirty-minute animation would be a medium I would take this story into. I feel like the comic seems a little too short to make into a full-length movie, but I still think it could be possible if a little more content was added. In terms of changes, I would probably elaborate more on the two men in the Joker’s past, as well has the Red Hood incident. I was a little confused on how he suddenly turned into the Joker as soon as he takes off the red helmet the guys forced him to wear, so I feel like putting that in an animation, possibly showing how this transition happened, would clear it up.  It was understandable how his wife’s death caused him to go insane, but the green hair and everything threw me off.