Joker: A Unique, Complex Antihero and Disruptor - Essay Sample

Introduction

The 'Joker' in "Batman: The Killing Joke" is a unique character that often disrupts people's notions of the antihero and wicked. As such, the expectations of people are entirely challenged while pushing people to the limit such that they are forced to transform the way they assess him. The Joker may further be described as a pessimistic and psychopathic killer yet so prevalent and treasured. He is also complex as his delinquencies are not motivated by the desire for ambition, money, or other conventional aspects. Instead, it is the terror that he spreads that is conceptual and motivations logical as well. The essay will explore the character of the Joker in "Batman: The Killing Joke."

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The Joker in the novel is demonstrated as a struggling stand-up comedian whose wife and unborn child died in a car accident. He then began robbing a chemical plant to survive and fell into a barrel while escaping Batman. As such, the narrator eliminates the background of the Joker as a master criminal and instead insists that he was a relatively ordinary man who faced one bad day that made him a lunatic. Presently, the Joker is seen to kidnap and brutalize Gordon, paralyzing and brutalizing her then taking lustful photos of her to irritate her father. He guaranteed that Gordon is paralyzed for years and took it as a hoax to depict that what he had experienced could be faced by anyone else as well (Moore, Bolland & Starkings 6).

The Joker is the most dishonorable opponent of Batman and also the first to endure his cautious integrity. He further plays the most crucial role in defining Batman as a hero. It has further been observed that before he becomes the Joker in "The Killing Joke," he is powerless after undergoing an individual loss. When he becomes the Joker, he has the authority and assurance to challenge the elements of the society, which he connects to, resulting in his formerly weak incarnation. Thus, the aspect of power and the capability to exercise it as well may be crucial features of the Joker that seem appealing to people.

On the other hand, an analysis of the Joker can be related to what is described in "Understanding Comics." In "The Killing Joke," the author gives readers a sense of stability and uses pointed shapes to invoke fear. Also, there are vertical shapes that are exciting. At the same time, both authors explain the way colors affect readers. As such, the Joker is a character with physical features that raise fear into the reader, but he is still dressed in lightly decorated clothes that offer one logic of tranquility (McCloud 12). Thus, the reader fears but loves the character at the same time.

The Joker can further be assessed through the lens of setback. The first element depicts that the character is an orphan and outcast, but there is not implicit proof to illustrate that he is an orphan. The story commences with an out-of-work comedian residing in a slum apartment and turns against the society through resorting to crime as he looks for a better life (Moore, Bolland & Starkings 14). Consequently, this act directly infringes on what is considered as the right behavior within his community and makes him a communal outcast. On the other hand, there is an element that conveys that the hero is more committed to justice than to the law. When this idea is converted into a result, it leads to the evaluation that the Joker is the characterization of evil beyond the contemporary range. The Joker can even damage one's idea of evil by exceeding all the moral categories with this specific brand of wickedness. One may thus purport that the Joker's sole motivation is chaos and terror with no form of honor or rationality for the regulation.

The Joker has no alter ego, and thus, the taboos that should exist to hinder his actions and the ones that should also oversee his alter ego are practically absent. When a chemical plant is being robbed, the Joker jumps from a catwalk into a pool overflowing with chemical. He is then shown on the final page, climbing out of a pond as the rain falls. The shore is filled with garbage and has a perverted line of barbwire and work gumboot with a hole in the sole laying informally cast-off among the fading weeds (Moore, Bolland & Starkings 21). As such, the absence of an alter ego frees the newly produced ego from any other previously formed social taboos that would manage his actions within the communal convention. Also, the Joker is represented as he is, that is, the Joker from the start to the end with any moral violations falling openly on his shoulders instead of the man he was in the ancient. Freedom from ethical prohibitions that have been informally verbalized allows the Joker to produce his social strategies and seemingly places him above the law by placing him out of society. The Joker is not loyal to any government or state and is thus obliged to no one but himself. He is also separate from the community while connected to it, making them interdependent (Moore, Bolland & Starkings 32). By not obliging to the mandates of the society, the Joker acts to outline and strengthen the actions that will be considered acceptable within that society.

Most superheroes in graphic novels usually have extraordinary capabilities that emerge from numerous sources such as organic investigation to legacies of alien physiology that transpire logically. Also, the origin of most superheroes depicts the accidental exposure to toxic chemical levels leading to that person gaining powers(Weiner 4). The Joker can be equated to these heroes, and whose exposure to chemicals reveals superior prospective within him as well. Numerous instances where a character is transformed from the average to the super usually leads to the hybridization of technology, plant, animal, or even the human body. The characters can be epitomized to Donna Haraway's cyborg's model by blurring the lines between their previously human element and that which is hereditarily alien to them in a new structure (Grebowicz, Merrick & Haraway,22). Therefore, the Joker is not an exception since he crossbreeds the harmony between flesh and chemical.

Besides, the combination of the Joker with foreign chemicals does not mark him as the outdated cyborg in the sense that he surpasses and further includes the margin between animal and human or even the mechanical, he can still be regarded as a cyborg. The cyborg can also be related to the struggle between death and life and has no gender or origin (Grebowicz, Merrick & Haraway,22). As such, the cyborg is allowed to employ collective social awareness using the imagination towards the fear of tyranny and the risky likelihood that exists as well. The origin of the Joker may have been provided, but he contradicts this source when he makes a statement about memories and how he came into existence and also how he prefers it to be based on numerous choices. Thus, through this annulment, the Joker denies his origin by implying that reality is capable of lying. The aspect denial is what can be viewed as the significant trouble posed by cyborgs (Moore, Bolland & Starkings 37). Therefore, this analysis assists in illustrating how inessential the origin of the Joker is to his character.

The paper has explored the Joker, a comic character in "Batman: The Killing Joke." He is demonstrated as a struggling stand-up comedian who loses his family in a car accident. The Joker is also a dishonorable enemy of Batman and the first to experience his cautious integrity. His character seems to give reads some form of stability. The Joker's physical features raise fear in the reader, but he is still dressed in lightly decorated clothes that give one a sense of peace. He has been portrayed as a character that can damage one's idea of evil by exceeding all the moral categories with his particular brand of wickedness. As such, his single motivation may be demonstrated o be terror and chaos without honor or rationality for the law. The Joker also lacks an alter ego and thus does not abide by taboos that should even oversee his alter ego, which is absent. It has further been established that, just like other superheroes, his capabilities emerge from various sources like an organic investigation. The Joker exposure to chemicals reveals a superior perspective within him.

Works Cited

Grebowicz, Margret, Helen Merrick, and Donna J. Haraway. Beyond the Cyborg: Adventures with Donna Haraway. , 2013, pp. 22.

Moore, Alan, Brian Bolland, and Richard Starkings. Batman: The Killing Joke : the Deluxe Edition., [United States] : DC Comics. 2019, pp. 1-52.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. Tundra Pub., 1993, pp. 1-47.

Weiner, Stephen. Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel. Chicago: NBM Publishing, 2012, pp. 4.