Written Assessment | Batman: The Killing Joke

Written Assessment- Batman: The Killing Joke

1) What is your reaction to the text you just read? 

My reaction was that I was shocked how violent and brutal the Joker is in this comic. Growing up I was familiar with the film version of the Joker which was a more sugar coated idea of the villain. This comic is definitely filled with adult subject matter. I somewhat enjoyed reading the mature content even though some areas of the story seem like a horrific nightmare. At first my reaction to the format of the story where several different characters are profiled was a bit confusing for me to follow. However once the content picked up and the story grew to be more intense, the switching between characters wasn't an issue at all.


2) What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work in which you are able to connect. 

I think I connected with the forces of good and evil that play throughout the story. We most often want nothing but good things and security in our lives and there is always an evil that tries to interfere. As a human, I have experienced, temptation, trickery, and humiliation. Like Gordon, we can either let evil overcome us and let it drive us mad or we can chose to block it out. The phrase that the joker says "All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy".


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

I feel that because this story is very grotesque, the idea of making it a live action film, the content would need to be softened, or on the contrary, you could push the limits and it could be a rated R film. I would enjoy seeing this story told through the medium of a pop up book. This medium would give a sense of emersion into the story while still not frighten the reader with a real live film. Pop up books have a way of letting the reader discover the story in a hands on way. The reader can control how they want the story to go and what order they want to view it in.