Assessment

While I was reading Batman the Killing Joke my main reaction was a lot of empathy for the Joker to be honest. I never really got into superhero comics when I was younger and had only seen glimpses of movies my older brother would watch about them but I had never seen or heard of the backstory of the Joker or how his whole criminal career began with Batman. I ended up needing more time than everyone else to read because I was trying to soak in the images but also the words because they felt really important to the story and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything I could use to make connections in different parts of the storyline. I really enjoyed the visuals and how the flashbacks were in black and white and how easily you could distinguish characters even with their younger selves. I think Joker's backstory is really sad and he was just trying to give his significant other and their child a fighting chance for a better life. A life he thought they deserved... Who doesn't do that? Hardly anyone would say "I don't want the best life could offer for my loved ones." It made me sad because he was planning on it being this one time thing and no one would know it was him and he basically just got roped into it by these greedy men who couldn't care less if he didn't want to do the job anymore literally right after he found out his wife died and presumably his child to be as well. It kind of made me mad but mostly sad and then just the events that kept leading one after another to create this whole villain we knew as the Joker.

I also liked seeing Batman wanting to end the whole thing and know why the Joker is the way that he is and what started his reign of madness. I feel like it was nice to see a softer, compassionate side to a superhero in contrast to just some strong person who fights "bad guys" and puts them in jail without a thought as to why the person would do such a thing. I really liked this version even if it was kind of sad and slightly depressing in some places but I think it was done exquisitely. It was a hell of a compelling story, it captured my attention as a reader and kept it, it evoked tons of emotions, it made the reader think about why people do what they do and how traumatic things can affect people, and I feel like it did what it was set out to do by doing so.

I personally made quite a few connections with this story. Growing up not super well off with a single parent working long hours just to scrape by, I could connect with wanting life to be simpler, easier, better. Everyone wants more than what they have (or almost everyone). I think if most people had a chance to better their family's lives by doing one criminal act where no one would get hurt and no one would find out who did it most people would do it. I also have experienced some mental health issues with some family members so I connected with that within the story as well. Often times it's a chain reaction of events that create the mental health issues (depending on what they are) ie. trauma, drugs, etc. I liked this comic because it showed partially why the Joker is the way that he is. I also liked that Batman actually showed compassion and a want to understand the Joker and for them to basically call a truce so both of them can live their lives (so no one has to die by the other's hand).

I think this comic would bode well to being made into a live-action film. I wouldn't want to change much about the storyline or visuals because I think they're already really strong and read well as they are. I think I would like a tiny bit more about the history of the Joker and Batman and why/how Batman got to the point of wanting to know why the Joker is the way he is and wanting to end their feud. I would definitely want to keep around the dramatic coloring and drastic lighting. Other than those small things I would try to stick to the comic as closely as possible. I always hate it when people change the story so drastically when making films about already-made stories so one has to be better than the other and most times it's the "book" or original story. I feel like people always get so mad about these changes because it's such a slippery slope one slight change can create this domino effect and end up changing so many more things down the storyline so I definitely wouldn't want to do that. I would still like to keep some comic aspects to the film like Scott Pilgrim VS the World does with the additions of comic words, shapes, and lines for action movements in some shots.