autistic people are not robots and that’s a harmful stereotype to perpetuate however. sometimes it can be very helpful to say “run system diagnostics” in a robotic voice and start scanning why you’re feeling bad
“[Steven] is one of my best friends. I was with him when he proposed to his wife. He’s been on this run with me since before I even started on the show. Losing him as a character and as a guy I get to hang out with every day is a bummer. It’s the last thing in the world I ever wanted to happen. You lose people on this show and you’re like, ‘That’s how the show works,’ but when you lose somebody that close to you, it just sucks. I’m a fan of the show as much as I am an actor on it, and I fall in love with these characters. You see these characters change, and I see people grow as actors, and I see them take chances, and I see them do things that blow my mind. I cry with them. I fight with them. We built this friendship since day one, just like Daryl and Glenn did. I fucking love Steven.” – Norman Reedus
I keep going back to Bruce's mindset in Joker War, and especially what he took away from it, because... it's fascinating how impersonal and yet helplessly personal he is, regarding Joker.
It's obvious to me Tynion has worked with Snyder, especially on works involving Batman & Joker, because Bruce barely sees Joker as a human being. It starts with the way Bruce talks about Joker when fighting the fake Designer:
-- Batman (2016) #93
Bruce equates Joker to the abyss. In a move that surprises no one, he asserts once again that others don't understand Joker-- he isn't a common serial killer, he isn't insane, he's something else.
The theme continues as the plot progresses:
-- Batman (2016) #95
I don't really like that Tynion used a flashback to Bruce and Joker's first interaction in The Man Who Laughs to establish that Joker was this incomprehensible force of evil, even then. It's an inaccurate reading of the comic, and it oversimplifies Joker. There's a lot to be said about how this approach to Joker as less of a person and just a cardboard cut-out of Pure Evil is boring, one-dimensional and has unfortunately infected a lot of people working with the character over at DC, but alas-- not trying to go into the Doylist side of things in this post.
However, the flashback mentioned is meant to tie in to Bruce's hallucination of Alfred later on, the one that gives him the strength and motivation to keep fighting:
-- Batman (2016) #98
Alfred is a figment of Bruce's mind, hence... it's Bruce who puts Joker and death on the same level. Joker is a kind of inevitable force of destruction, something he can't hate. You cannot hate a hurricane, you cannot hate an earthquake. You cannot hate death or an abyss that consumes, because that's simply its nature. What it does.
...And yet. Despite how seemingly impersonal his way of seeing Joker is, there's still a part of Bruce trying to understand, trying to make sense of Joker. There's a little story in Detective Comics detailing Bruce's thoughts during Joker War, in which we see Bruce pondering the following:
-- Detective Comics (2016) #1027 -- The Gift
"Is that the lesson?" It's reminiscent of the questions Bruce addressed Joker through the listening device planted on the corpse in Batman (2016) #93: "Why attack me like this? What are you trying to prove?".
But it's more than an inner conflict. After the conclusion of Joker War, after Bruce walks away (while knowing Joker had the tools to disarm the bomb and would not die), Bruce tells Selina his true thoughts. God bless her heart for pushing his emotionally constipated ass:
-- Batman (2016) #101
Bruce thought of everything Joker did in terms of a lesson. He's thought of Joker's actions as that for a long time now, and there's a painful paradox to it; the points Joker makes about Batman always hurt Gotham and the people around Bruce, but part of him still listens. Part of him still tries to make sense of what Joker is saying and learn. And at the end of the day, even after all the death and destruction Gotham went through as a price... he thought that Joker was right.
He even proceeds to put those lessons into practice. He moves to a townhouse in Gotham, he tries to be closer to the city and belong to it, not be apart from it. Start over, change. And yet, in his new base of operations, we get this:
-- Batman (2016) #106
Out of everything in the original Cave, all the trophies and the reminders, Bruce brought the Joker card with him. There's no other personal element in there, nothing else meant to be decorative or more than just practical. Nothing else but the card on the floor. It's especially interesting when you take into account that Fear State, the major arc that follows Joker War and Ghostmaker's introduction, is about all the ways in which a traumatic past defines or breaks people.
And yet Bruce carries this piece of the past with him. It'll never cease to fascinate me, how much Bruce intellectualizes and dehumanizes Joker, so he can avoid his personhood and the true parameters of their relationship... all while asserting to himself and to others how he's the only one Joker sees as alive in a cold dead world, how he's the only one who matters to Joker. How he's the only one who understands how Joker works, how he's the only one who can stop him.
(Don't even get me started on Miracle Molly being Joker-coded, or Khoa as a psychopathic individual on the side of good Bruce forgives murder for, because hoo boy. Actually I might make a separate post about Fear State, and then another about Ghostmaker... goddammit, brain.)
Bruce's contradictory attitudes toward Joker have been a topic of interest of mine for a while. You could just blame it on different writers having different interpretations, and that's totally valid. But I think it's actually more interesting if you focus more on what happened in-universe:
So, in n52/Rebirth continuity, Batman: Cacophony is canon in rebirth, as is TKJ, and Bruce showing Joker his playing card pre-DOTF, and now this mental... debate(?) thing that went down in his head in 130.
It's hard to pinpoint when exactly Bruce seemed to start viewing Joker as something inhuman, but I would say it started to become really apparent around DOTF.
Prior to DOTF, there's a clear pattern of Batman acknowledging Joker's humanity even when others won't, and more importantly, refusing to give up on him even when everyone else has. We have four solid examples of Bruce empathizing with Joker even after he's done blatantly horrific shit and three examples of Bruce actively reaching out to him. Even in DOTF itself there are moments where Bruce does arguably acknowledge the humanity in Joker:
This being the most notable, probably. But still, at this point, he has to remind himself that Joker is just a man.
And in Endgame:
We have this.
"He's not crazy. He's just evil."
This is directly after Bruce acknowledges that Eric wants to help the inmates; it's more than just saying that Joker is beyond help now, it's saying that he was never capable of being helped at any point. Bruce is practically disavowing any past attempts he made at helping Joker, claiming that, essentially, it's just his nature, he's just evil. It's safe to say at this point (at least outwardly) Bruce has given up on any chance of rehabilitating Joker.
In the finale, there's more to suggest that Bruce has given up on Joker. Letting Joker die, or killing him wouldn't just be a betrayal of everything Batman stands for, everything he was created for, but it would also be denying Joker the possibility of ever recovering. Letting Joker die takes away the chance, however slim, that he could ever get better. So in that way, letting Joker die is giving up on both Batman and Joker.
Bruce's behavior in the very, very end is also bizarrely humanizing, what with him calling Joker his friend. And before that, basically begging Joker to forgive him for essentially committing murder-suicide. So I really think that there's a part of Bruce that will always see the humanity in Joker no matter what he's done (and I would argue that that manifests more currently as Bruce trying to understand Joker) but I also think that since n52, that part of his brain has just been shoved aside.
Acknowledging Joker as human is inherently acknowledging that there is some infinitesimally small chance of recovery for him. In Bruce's eyes, at least. If he's human, there's something in him that can be reached. He's not fully gone. There's a chance. There's hope.
At this point, I think it's just too painful for Bruce to acknowledge Joker as human. Because if he ignores his humanity, then he can disregard the idea that there's any hope for him. He doesn't have to deal with the guilt that comes with thinking that maybe if he just tried a little harder he could convince him to get better. He doesn't have to deal with the guilt that comes with beating the shit out of someone who could maybe potentially get better if he went about it in a different way, instead of practically enabling their mental illness.
So, I very much think that Bruce viewing Joker as something inhuman is a reaction to being rejected every time he reached out. In DOTF particularly, reaching out to Joker ended up having severe consequences. He tried to bridge the gap between them, he was vulnerable with Joker, and it blew up in his face. Joker fully took advantage of his vulnerability. After all of that, it's understandable that Bruce would pick the easy way out; the way that everyone else picks, which is viewing Joker as a monster or just plain evil, rather than the reality which is significantly more complicated.
Also ofc there are the more obvious reasons, like dehumanizing Joker is just basic emotional distancing, easier than dealing with the complicated reality of their relationship that kinda shit, but I really think that Joker's continual rejection of Bruce's offers to help plays a massive role in it. I don't think Bruce can handle the reality that from a theoretical standpoint there is a chance that Joker could still be rehabilitated, but Joker doesn't want to be fixed, or even if he does, he doesn't feel like he can. It's extremely obvious that he's a very compassionate person and his urge to help others borders on compulsive, so I think it probably kills him to be so close to Joker and not be able to help him. I mean, it has to be like watching someone drowning right next to you but they slap your hand away every time you try to pull them up. It's gotta be agonizing. So it's just easier to pretend that he can't be helped and that he never could have been at any point.
Indeed, I agree! This beautifully touches upon a lot of my own thoughts on DotF and Endgame, and especially Bruce's approach regarding Joker. My focus in this post was on Tynion's work specifically, but absolutely-- DotF is where the pattern of Bruce seeing Joker as something inhuman became the most obvious. Personally I think it goes even further back to Morrison's take on Batman and Joker, and perhaps even Miller. However, as you say, there's plenty of contradictions and inconsistencies when it comes to Bruce and Joker's characterizations... but half the fun (at least for me) is trying to make some sense of it all anyway.
Bruce fully falling into the extreme of refusing to admit any humanity on Joker's part is undoubtedly a result of Joker's actions. Joker has rejected Bruce's offers to help multiple times, only escalating when it comes to the atrocities he's committed and the harm he's dealt to the people Bruce loves. However, I do think there's more at play... in the sense that Bruce definitely could've tried more, but didn't. You alluded to this yourself when mentioning that by seeing Joker as an irredeemable force of evil, Bruce doesn't have to feel guilty for not trying harder. But why doesn't he try harder?
With the exception of The Killing Joke... Cacophony, Secrets, and even that flashback we get in DotF, are less attempts to rehabilitate or help Joker, and more just moments of reaching out. Did we ever get an arc or a plot solely about Bruce trying to help Joker? DC could've done this in a myriad of ways. Bruce could've pulled strings to get the best kind of therapy for Joker; he could've funded scientific research investigating drugs or treatments that might help Joker. Bruce investing in Joker's rehabilitation, one way or another, could've been the main plot of a DC story-- and yet, there isn't one like this out there in canon. At least, there isn't a comic I can find or think of. For instance, in The Batman Who Laughs, Snyder was able to come up with a whole drug capable of changing one's neurochemistry and inducing empathy in psychopaths, developed by Wayne Enterprises and used on James Gordon Jr., and yet... this drug was not administered to Joker. No indication is made about even trying to "cure" him.
And leaving aside the fact that non-rehabilitated, villain Joker sells more comics, why hasn't Bruce tried harder? I will put the rest of my thoughts on this under the cut, since there'll be comic panels and lengthy rambles as per usual.
The only stories I can think of touching upon Joker being rehabilitated as a plot point are Batman: Secrets, Batman: Joker Time and in a way, Batman: Going Sane. Interestingly, what you'll find is that all of these have something in common: Bruce immediately doubting that it's real. (Even Harleen, which is Black Label and not in continuity, has Batman very reticent about Harley's claims that she can help Joker.)
Oh, it's true he has objective reasons for being skeptical-- but he doesn't act hopeful. As in, he doesn't investigate Joker's behavior while acting as if he wishes the rehabilitation is true. He does it in a distrustful, almost vicious manner.
-- Batman: Secrets #1
Derisive. "So much for your rehabilitation." And then there's Bruce's attitude in Joker Time:
-- Batman: Joker Time #2
Sure, Bruce is very justified in doubting that Joker can be rehabilitated by a cheap reality show that's only aiming to get a high viewership. But it's once again his general approach that I'm trying to point out. His mistrust of Joker being truly helped or genuine in his televised experiences runs so deep that Joker himself predicts that he'd try to disguise himself and infiltrate the crew, later on... which Bruce actually does to a t.
And yet, at the end of Secrets, Joker admits that he regretted his actions for real (with the tragedy being that no one believed it), and Bruce says "People can change. Maybe even you." And yet, in Joker Time, it's clear that some parts of the stories Joker told are true, and that they communicated real pain on his part. Both Secrets and Joker Time suffer a lot from the "TV rots your brain!" rhetoric specific to the 2000s, overall having a lot of flaws, but as the few stories that focus on any kind of structured rehabilitation attempt for Joker, I do think they must be taken into account. In both, Joker is deeply enamored with the attention he's getting from Gotham, much like in Devil's Advocate. And Bruce obviously sees through Joker's histrionic motivations, but something seems to blind him to the fact that underneath it all, there's a part of Joker cooperating. And instead of trying to appeal to that part of Joker, keep him in a state in which he's less inclined to kill people and cause harm, Bruce overlooks it entirely-- even at this point, he deems Joker "evil".
Thing is, Bruce has a bit of a pattern in this regard. I'm working on a bigger meta regarding Bruce's reactions to all the times his Rogues have attempted rehabilitation, but the gist of it is... ironically, he reacts badly, a lot. With some exceptions, he doesn't fully trust it, or reach out to support it unless he sees practical benefit in it. Riddler is a good example in this regard, since he had multiple attempts to "be better", in stories like Run, Riddler, Run or his reformed PI arc that spawns multiple titles, but has a big chunk of Bruce-related interactions in Detective Comics. No one articulates the point I want to make with this paranthesis better than Tim himself. In the following issue, Bruce provided the reformed Riddler with a case that had temptation hidden inside it, and despite Bruce's low expectations, Riddler did not take up his villainous ways again or disappoint:
-- Detective Comics (1937) #837
"And now that Riddler has come through, you're downright irate," says Tim. Hell, even when it comes to Harvey Dent, the Rogue who's closest to Bruce in terms of personal history (tied with Thomas Elliot, I suppose), had to face Bruce's immediate distrust with being "cured", which Bruce only supported when he had need of him to begin with:
-- Batman/Two-Face: Face the Face
I've got a lot of thoughts on Bruce's history with the concept of rehabilitation, but I'll leave it for the meta I've got in the works. However, at the end of the day... why would Bruce be angry at the indication that one of his villains has genuinely reformed? Him being so inclined to immediately distrust and keep an eye on all his villains is entirely logical (the man is just as paranoid about his friends and allies)-- but it's his lack of effort when it comes to supporting the rehabilitation of his Rogues that's interesting. Including Joker's.
I'll let Bruce's mind and then Joker answer it, more or less...
-- Batman: The Dark Knight (2011) #13
-- Batman: Death of the Family
"Chasing us, forever chasing us! And why? [...] It's what you need," Joker says. "We're what you love," Scarecrow tells him. "What you fear, what you really fear is the light."
Bruce relates to Joker. Bruce relates to all of his Rogues, to differing degrees. And he desperately wants to be better, to break out of the prison of his own making that he calls Batman; and he hopes it's possible for himself and for them too, to be happy one day and overcome their trauma. If Joker can be saved, so can Bruce. If the Rogues can be saved, so can Bruce.
But then they try. They show signs of rising above that darkness Bruce is in alongside them, and leave him behind. Part of Bruce sees these attempts at being better and rages with the anger Tim saw in him-- an anger borne out of fear. Bruce is afraid of being left alone with his own pain, with his unending wounds, with his hopelessness.
I got into too much detail on this, but this is why I think that yes... it is agonizing for Bruce to know Joker can be helped, and that Joker refuses that help. But he hasn't tried that hard to offer him rehabilitation, because Joker's refusal to get help mirrors his own. If Joker is all better, what then? What does it say about Bruce if Joker gets better and he doesn't? Is he left behind again? Alone?
So, Bruce dehumanizing Joker is a coping mechanism for all the things you've described, but it's also... selfish. It's not simply because Joker has rejected his offers to help, his tries to reach out. It's also because he needs Joker to be a monster, in more ways than one. After all, if Joker is no longer a monster, there's no one to put an end to Batman either. No equal that can tear him down, make him stop, give him a peace he craves. (This is why Failsafe "killing" Bruce in Batman #130 and saying it's compassion got to me. Zdarsky clearly understands this side of Bruce.) And just like you said, Bruce undoubtedly feels guilt over not trying harder, over enabling Joker, but it's easier to believe there's nothing human left to help in Joker than to admit that part of him needs Joker to be who he is now.
About people believing that Batman killed joker at the end- it was this whole thing where the artist of killing joke made a comment at a con where he said he believed that Batman killed him after the camera panned away. Even back then though, it was cleared up pretty quickly by Alan Moore saying that wasn’t his intention and it wasn’t in the script whatsoever, and the artist also I believe retracted his statement. It’s been cleared up for like 30 years now and the truth is easily findable with a quick google search so I feel like people still touting around the idea that ‘Batman actually killed joker at the end!!1!’ Are just willfully ignorant or trying to sound fake-deep by ripping off a ‘theory’ off the internet that they didn’t take 30 seconds to fully read through
I'm curious if there's a source/more info on that con story; I’ve never heard it myself. But I think today the theory still has traction because Grant Morrison boosted it on Kevin Smith's podcast about 10 years ago, and a decade is not long enough for it to peter out.
But aside from that, people generally are fond of twist! endings and being the ones to blow other people's minds with them. And I mean, I can't say I've never done that. Even pushing against this TKJ interpretation feels like a similar urge. 😂 On the other hand, I've even seen an academic analysis say that Bruce grabs Joker by the neck, which just isn't what happens! Plainly!
If someone wants to think Bruce throttles Joker off-panel, that's their interpretation, but don't tell me shoulders are necks!
Same for the theory in general. If someone personally believes Bruce killing Joker is a better ending, that's their opinion. But this is a story where Bruce makes the point that he and Joker had different responses to their bad days. This is a story where Bruce says he's bringing Joker in by the book like Gordon asked. This is a story where even after Joker's done awful things to Barbara and Gordon, Bruce still offers him rehabilitation. This is a story that ends with Joker telling a joke about two guys escaping an asylum, one of whom believes he can help the other by encouraging him to walk to freedom across a beam of light, and the other who refuses that help not because he recognizes the beam will doom him, but because he can't trust the other guy.
"The killing joke" is that Bruce's refusal to take a life and Joker's refusal to accept help has trapped them together in an inescapable loop. Their mutual laughter comes from the recognition that the notion of them doing anything else is undergirded by fantasy. Beneath the impalpable beam of light is an empty gulf.
And if someone wants to tag the end of all that with "and then the real killing joke is that Batman kills Joker!", I cannot relate.
jbbartram-illu
stormborns
yousharknotpass
2087
izzy806
titsay
theartofmadeline
discoholicmusic
