Posted by Neil at 209.245.186.244 on January 18, 2001 at 12:50:14:
In Reply to: Wrongy mc-wrongman posted by Bob, the Lord of Evil on January 18, 2001 at 08:41:49:
: : Death in the family was just cheesy, in my humble opinion. A stupid way to sell comics. But Joker beating Robin to death with a crowbar, oh that was so funny and entertaining. Great covers by Mike Mignola, though.
: Well, you're not wrong about that. But the Death of Robin in the long run was certainly a huge payoff. I agree, the story could have been a hell of alot better, but his actual death wasn't bad. Though I kinda liked the idea of Joker just killing him one, two, three, for pure shock value.
I think the harsh part was the phone in. Clearly they didn’t have a dramatic necessity, they just wanted to have big, fat stunt and that came across to a lot of people as ugly.
The issues involved are generally pretty lame, but I agree that the actual murder was handled in a dramatic fashion, that worked overall. I still wish DC would go back and deal with Jason Todd issues in LOTDK or something.
: : The Killing Joke's art was beautiful and the writing and fantastic, but the raping and paralyzing Batgirl was a tad much. Now, Joker raping her because of a phone-in poll, that would have been something.
: She wasn't raped. She was simply stripped and photographed. Joker doesn't have much of a sex drive.
I don’t think any of that IS or is SUPPOSED TO BE as clear as either of you suggest here. I think the creators intended that to be ambiguous.
But let me say this, rape has not one fucking thing to do with having a sex drive!!! It isn’t about sex; it’s about power and violence. That’s all! Sex is just a particularly harsh and simple way of going about that.
And since stripping and photographing someone is still a SERIOUS SEXUAL ASSAULT, it’s a semantic argument that a reasonable person could hardly take great satisfaction in winning.
: And, aside of this, I think it was a suiting way to show how far everyone can be pushed. It added levels to the best supporting character in comics, it destroyed a lame superhero and made her a kick ass one...
I agree that Barbara Gordon has been improved vastly as a character since becoming paralyzed.
: I think that all these Batman stories when looked at from a bith farther away create this truly great epic. Its too bad it will never end. I think a REAL ending for Batman written by, I dunno, Frank Miller or Alan Moore or both.... Could help resolve everything we've seen.
I’m ambivalent on that point. I agree that the larger scope does make some of these things more interesting, no matter how crass the original intentions were.
I’m also not sure how well I’d like an ending to the story of Batman. I’ve always thought comics should move forward steadily, but I’m not sure any one ending could be satisfying.
Maybe a linking story of people in a post-Batman world debating what happened, wrapped around stories by a number of great Batman writers…