Lee Bermejo and Brian Azzarello's Joker Graphic Novel

[ronny]

the joker in azzarello's story got green hair, was laughing and smiling, killed people with a joy and had a thing going on with batman. that sounds pretty much like the joker.

Yeah, but in this story a lot of his character can be attributed to the pills and plate of cocaine. I don't see the need to turn him into a common junkie.

 

[GoblinWhirlwind]

^^^ Yeah, I wasn't a fan of them turning the Joker into a druggy.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Yeah, but in this story a lot of his character can be attributed to the pills and plate of cocaine. I don't see the need to turn him into a common junkie.

I wouldn't say that makes him a junkie, the pill taking seems to make him more human. Just think, the guy is in and out of mental institutions all the time, he'd probably be on some medication. He obviously loves it!

And doing cocaine doesn't make you a junkie, it's not exactly like crack or smack is it? And we don't know if he done coke, maybe Harley gets on the coke and he gets on the pills.

 

[Daredevil_2003]

I have to agree that the pills and the coke is a bit much. I don't have a problem with a character doing it, just not The Joker. I've always liked the 'super-sanity' argument. I just dont view his mind working in a way that he would want/need pills or a recreational drug. *shrug*

 

[GoblinWhirlwind]

Yeah, the Joker is so insane that he's actually sane. His mind can't be classified by any current psychological definition.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Hmm well I suppose you lot are right. I think it's ok for this particular story, it adds some depth to the character and shows that he is really unstable, that a man in real life could really be this ****ed up. I don't want to see the drug taking introduced to the canon Joker though.

Anyway here is another wallpaper I quickly whipped up! Hope you like!

 

[GoblinWhirlwind]

If we're gonna have a wallpaper extravaganza, here's a couple I did..

 

[Daredevil_2003]

Ace: ooooohhhh...That one's very nice!

Gobby: I'm in love with the first one. I don't know what to use as a wallpaper now.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Yea that one with the fire around him is awesome.

 

[GoblinWhirlwind]

Yeah, the first time I saw it I knew I had to have a wall of it lol.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Yea it's one of my favourite images of the Joker from any comic.

 

[CELTICPRED]

Joker laughing amongst the flames is excellent.

Vivid.

 

[deathfromabove]

Yeah, but in this story a lot of his character can be attributed to the pills and plate of cocaine. I don't see the need to turn him into a common junkie.

this tells me you dont have much experience with pills or cocaine. neither make you into the sick man that the joker was in this.

i agree with knaves that it makes him more human if anything. and i see no reason (other than a fan's personal preference) that the joker would refrain from recreational drug use. he steals, lies, murders, destroys, cripples and generally causes chaos and anarchy at every turn but he draws the line at ingesting illegal substances? not buying it. in fact i saw nothin' in this book that was out of character for the joker imo.

couple of things i noticed. a bat like figure is seen a few times up amongst the roof tops of gotham. the first (and most obvious) is when j is first released. on the page following the splash page (of him at the gates of arkham) second panel. crouching just above the gargoyle is a horned figure. in the next panel joker looks back over his shoulder. next panel lightning strikes and the figure is gone. next panel joker "salutes the city". is he really saluting bats who he knows is watching him and who joker thought he glimpsed?

when joker tells jonny to hand him the shovel in the trunk of the firebird, jonny replies "how'd you--" implying that the joker knew it was there. isnt it entirely possible that joker had been in that car before? maybe he even put that shovel there at some point in the past? i mean the joker was monty's boss and the grin and bear it was his club. could it be that it was also his car? or maybe its just common practice amongst gangsters to keep spare spades in the trunk for rainy days? after all you never know when you might have to dig a hole at a moments notice.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

this tells me you dont have much experience with pills or cocaine. neither make you into the sick man that the joker was in this.

i agree with knaves that it makes him more human if anything. and i see no reason (other than a fan's personal preference) that the joker would refrain from recreational drug use. he steals, lies, murders, destroys, cripples and generally causes chaos and anarchy at every turn but he draws the line at ingesting illegal substances? not buying it. in fact i saw nothin' in this book that was out of character for the joker imo.

couple of things i noticed. a bat like figure is seen a few times up amongst the roof tops of gotham. the first (and most obvious) is when j is first released. on the page following the splash page (of him at the gates of arkham) second panel. crouching just above the gargoyle is a horned figure. in the next panel joker looks back over his shoulder. next panel lightning strikes and the figure is gone. next panel joker "salutes the city". is he really saluting bats who he knows is watching him and who joker thought he glimpsed?

when joker tells jonny to hand him the shovel in the trunk of the firebird, jonny replies "how'd you--" implying that the joker knew it was there. isnt it entirely possible that joker had been in that car before? maybe he even put that shovel there at some point in the past? i mean the joker was monty's boss and the grin and bear it was his club. could it be that it was also his car? or maybe its just common practice amongst gangsters to keep spare spades in the trunk for rainy days? after all you never know when you might have to dig a hole at a moments notice.

I've been thinking about that as well. Is it possible that the guys in the other car were Monty's boys as well? Sent to off the Joker? And someone put a shovel in Jonny's car and Joker obviously guessed this? Maybe that's another reason why he offed Monty, he knew he was making moves behind his back and would see to it that he was killed.

 

[deathfromabove]

I've been thinking about that as well. Is it possible that the guys in the other car were Monty's boys as well? Sent to off the Joker? And someone put a shovel in Jonny's car and Joker obviously guessed this? Maybe that's another reason why he offed Monty, he knew he was making moves behind his back and would see to it that he was killed.

interesting theory.

i think i posted these before but ...

 

[Ace of Knaves]

awesome!! Them scars look sick!! How did you do them?

 

[deathfromabove]

awesome!! Them scars look sick!! How did you do them?

pre colored liquid latex applied directly to my mug in layers.

and thanks!

 

[Evil_Meanie]

I really do like dfa's Bermejo Joker. The scars and the purple around the eyes are awesome looking.

I finally read this for the first time, and I enjoyed it, for the most part. My gripes are pretty much the same gripes that have been issued by others in the thread, I wasn't the biggest fan of the rape, and I really didn't care for the pills and the coke. However, I read this after reading dfa's post with all of the comparisons to King of New York, which led to me watching King of New York first. What an awesome movie that was, I don't see how I managed to miss it for all of these years, considering my love of Walken.

But yeah, this was a good stand alone, and I really wouldn't be opposed to seeing more stories from this version of Gotham City. I never want it to enter the main continuity, but I'd totally buy a spin off series or something. I'd never put this on the same level as The Killing Joke, but that's just my personal opinion.

I look at it in the same way that I look at All Star Bats. It's a very radical departure from the main universe, but it's definitely an interesting take. I'd love to see more of it. Very well done stuff.

 

[batpawn]

interesting theory.

i think i posted these before but ...

excellent. i like you much more as bermejo's joker than ledger's. i don't know why... i just think that it suits you better.

 

[Daredevil_2003]

That's an awesome makeup job, right there...

 

[Rasputin911]

Yeah, the Joker is so insane that he's actually sane. His mind can't be classified by any current psychological definition.

to quote the Joker: "ergh...no"

You're making a few mistakes:

1. Joker only has one mental illness.

2. Whatever he has isn't classifiable.

Neither of these are true. Joker quite clearly has Antisocial Personality Disorder (which is medical jargon for sociopath or psychopath-no remorse, violent urges, no empathy). He is also extremely narcisstic ("this belongs to me!"), maybe enough to classify as Narcisstic Personality Disorder as well. I might throw in some mild Schizophrenia too, since he talks to an invisible prescence after killing Tommy.

Now, i was only talking about this incarnation of the Joker. But i think those things probably apply to most other interpretations as well. The whole "so insane he's sane" thing is something Morrison thought up when he was high.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

to quote the Joker: "ergh...no"

You're making a few mistakes:

1. Joker only has one mental illness.

2. Whatever he has isn't classifiable.

Neither of these are true. Joker quite clearly has Antisocial Personality Disorder (which is medical jargon for sociopath or psychopath-no remorse, violent urges, no empathy). He is also extremely narcisstic ("this belongs to me!"), maybe enough to classify as Narcisstic Personality Disorder as well. I might throw in some mild Schizophrenia too, since he talks to an invisible prescence after killing Tommy.

Now, i was only talking about this incarnation of the Joker. But i think those things probably apply to most other interpretations as well. The whole "so insane he's sane" thing is something Morrison thought up when he was high.

I think he is actually talking to Batman there. He claims to be doing Batman's "dirty work" ie. killing off the mobsters. He is trying to get Batmans attention the whole time, that's why towards the end of the book he gets even crazier, shooting up a liqour store and slicing and dicing that old couple.

 

[Rasputin911]

I think he is actually talking to Batman there. He claims to be doing Batman's "dirty work" ie. killing off the mobsters. He is trying to get Batmans attention the whole time, that's why towards the end of the book he gets even crazier, shooting up a liqour store and slicing and dicing that old couple.

yea that's what i figured too. But the thing is, Joker had no way of knowing if Batman was there or not. He just thinks Batman can hear/see everything. So he was basically talking to himself, and imagining that Batman was listening. He assigns a God-like, omniscient status to the Dark Knight, and to himself.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Ahhh yea I see what you are saying. I liked it when him and Jonny Jonny were talking in the car before the meeting. "He's out there, you know that Jonny? Right on the other side of this window, watching me." It makes Batman mythical, like he is supposed to be.

But Captain Clown had this theory, that Batman and Gordon actually had Joker released to do their dirty work. I think that is a plausible idea. People say that is out of character of Batman and they are right. But this isn't a in canon comic is it? Maybe in this universe Batman would allow something like that. And if you check the page where Joker is released look at Arkham just as he sticks his middle finger up, Batman is perched on top of a gargoyle just as the lighting strikes, and then he vanishes. Maybe he was there watching over Jokers release, which he organised.

 

[batpawn]

Now, i was only talking about this incarnation of the Joker. But i think those things probably apply to most other interpretations as well. The whole "so insane he's sane" thing is something Morrison thought up when he was high.

morrisson never said that or classified the joker that way. in fact, he thinks the same thing about the joker as you did. morrisson is 100% aware that the joker got an sociopathic disease combined with a special case of neurological tourette's syndrome disorder. the only thing morrisson added was that no kind of therapie had any effect on the joker, which might possibly mean that the joker created some kind of supersanity for himself. which is far fetched, per se, but gives the reader a free room for his wn interpretation about joker's illness. morrisson NEVER said he is so insane that he is sane, which wouldn't make sense considering jokers latest appearance in batman r.i.p. where he is - utterly - nuts.