
In the world of comics, Batman is one of the most well-known vigilantes around. After first appearing in 1939, Bruce Wayne’s crime-fighting alter-ego has stuck around in the hearts of DC fans for over 70 years. Throughout those 70 plus years, one of Batman’s arch enemies has been the Joker, whom Batman has faced countless times in all kinds of environments and circumstances. The Joker’s first appearance was a year after Batman arrived on the scene and was actually in the first Batman comic in 1940. One telling of a Batman vs the Joker story is in “The Killing Joke,” by Alan Moore, a tale that has caused much controversy and uproar in the comic community over its ambiguous ending. The story begins with Batman going in to Arkham Asylum, Gotham’s insane asylum that houses the city’s worst villains (the comic features Two Face also known as Harvey Dent and The Penguin, identifiable by his elongated nose and trademark monocle) and Batman going to the Joker’s cell where he attempts to get information out of him. Following this are many flashbacks that show the Joker when he was just a regular man as well as several scenes with the Joker at a carnival doing different acts, such as paralyzing a normal man and torturing Commissioner Gordon, and showing the Joker coming to the Gordon household and shooting Barbara Gordon. 

The comic ends with a long fight between Batman and the Joker at the carnival when Batman attempts to save Commissioner Gordon. The Joker pulls a gun on Batman which only fires a little flag that reads “Click Click Click.” The two then repeat the conversation they shared in Arkham over them killing each other, at which point Batman grabs the Joker by the chest or neck and the Joker laughs out the last few panels, leaving the ending open as to whether Batman kills the Joker or not. However, this is not the main message of this comic as Moore recycles many aspects of this story throughout, the last conversation being only one of many. Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke” is a comic about Batman and the Joker that puts a lot of its focus on the Joker and how he became who he is, but its ultimate message is about how things in life end up coming full circle, which the comic showcases through repetition of many of its artistic details.

The use of reflections and transitions in the comic are very repetitive and common. The reflections here are not the always flashbacks themselves, but rather when a character sees his/her actual reflection, and the transitions are going from panel to panel, moving the story along whether it stays in that scene or moves along to another scene. One of the more common sights in “The Killing Joke” are puddles that show the reflection of whoever is looking in the water. When the Joker is at the chemical plant after being chased down by Batman, he removes his red hood and looks in the acid puddle and sees that his skin has been bleached and his hair colored green. At the beginning of this scene, before the chase the normal man Joker is seen looking into a puddle before going in to the plant. This panel directly follows a shot of the current Joker looking into a puddle at the carnival analyzing who he is and what he is doing. It is here that Joker says “Perhaps [Commissioner Gordon will] get a little livelier once he’s had a chance to think his situation over…to reflect upon life, and all its random injustice” (Moore). This shot of the present is immediately followed by a flashback of the Joker getting ready to break in to the chemical plant, which is where he is looking at the puddle there. These shots, along with several others, show the Joker reflecting upon life just as he wanted Commissioner Gordon to do. But these are not the only shots that have these back to back transitions going from past to present or vice versa where the focus of the shot is the same as in the following panel. One of these is at the start of the first flashback where the current Joker is looking at a poster at the carnival that reads “See the Fat Lady” and the Joker standing with his hands behind his back. It is followed by the old Joker at his house with his pregnant wife sitting in the same area of the panel that the poster was in, and the Joker standing in the same position. The poster along with the Joker saying “…money isn’t really a problem. Not these days” (Moore) triggered the Joker and brought him back to when he came back from his comedic audition which was at a time where money was a problem for the Joker and his wife. 

Later on in the comic, there is a scene where the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon then walks into the Gordon house where he pours himself a drink, and the last panel where he is smiling widely with a drink in his right hand and reaching out with his left is followed by a flashback that starts with the old Joker clearly distraught but still with a drink in his right hand and still reaching out with his left. Another scene that follows this pattern of contrasting, yet unspoken emotion is at the end of the first flashback with the Joker reaching out to touch his wife’s hand and then in the next panel he is reaching out towards a mirror at the carnival. This second pair of shots have mirrors somewhere in the view where the Joker’s expressions can be seen. Frist he is seen smiling as though everything will be fine, but then he is grinning angrily as though he is upset with his past or what he has become. If the comic went in chronological order, the reader would be able to identify that the Joker had always feared what he was going to become, starting with the first discussion of putting on the red hood where he was clearly troubled, then after he became the Joker he was still upset with his past, seen as he reached out towards the reflection of himself. 

In “The Killing Joke” what’s really a joke is the weather because it is always raining. Gotham never has a sunny, or even just not rainy day. Almost every scene that takes place outside has rain, even some that take place inside have rain shown through windows, such as in the first flashback when the old Joker looks outside while freaking out over his money troubles. Despite its pain in terms of weather, rain is one of the most important details in this comic. The very first panel and the very last panel are the same shot; a full-panel puddle with rain drops falling and splashing in the puddle. Rain in this comic is used to bring things back together or to call back to earlier times, whether they are a flashback or just earlier scenes in the comic. When the Joker is torturing Commissioner Gordon, while looking in the puddle with his cane down talking about reflecting on life, it is raining and then in the next shot with the Joker and the men outside of the chemical plant, it is still raining. In this same flashback is, as mentioned, the Joker’s first encounter with Batman. The chase happens in the rain and every scene that takes place in time after that flashback that features the two of them has rain in it. 

Since the comic also opens in the rain, the first scene with Batman going to talk to the current Joker at Arkham Asylum, the reader is aware that it is still raining outside. It is in the Joker’s cell that the two have a conversation where Batman tries to discuss the likelihood of the them killing each other and that Batman wanted to try to avoid that, but the Joker just was not having any of it. Batman almost initiates a fight by grabbing the Joker by the collar, but Commissioner Gordon and a security guard come in and separate the two. In the last scene in the comic, it is now Gordon that Batman is trying to get out of the Joker’s grasp from the carnival that the Joker runs his operations out of. Batman and the Joker quickly get into another fight in the rain where the reader is reminded of the exact conversation the two had at the start of the comic. The rain was outside of the asylum but brought back the conversation from within while the two fought across rides and then out in the rain. It is after the fight, still in the rain, where Batman picks the Joker up by the collar just as he did inside of the asylum and the Joker’s laughter fades out in the rain like it did after he took off the red hood in the rain until finally all that’s left is the same shot from the first panel, the rainy puddle.

“The Killing Joke” by Alan Moore is one of the most famous Batman comics in which he continuously fights the Joker, both in the past and present. Batman from the start is asking where an unnamed man is at, then after Barbara Gordon is shot the reader finds out Commissioner Gordon has been captured and that Batman has been out to save him. Although it is a Batman comic, most of its focus is on the Joker, relaying to the reader that things in life do end up coming full circle through the comic’s use of reflections (both literal and figurative) of characters, and rain that is seen everywhere in this comic. This comic sheds a lot of light on the Joker’s past, but all the looking back done by the Joker makes the reader look back on his/her own life and what has come back around, and despite the possible negative ending to the comic, still gives hope that things can come full circle.
