Even with the animated adaptation of The Killing Joke from Bruce Timm more than a year away, the news has sparked continued debate about the stories role in overall DC cannon, what it says about the industries view of women were at the time, and other vectors of inquiry I don’t feel like listing.
I continue to be curious and interested in the prospect of the feature for several reasons, even if it does give me pause. The DC Animated Features exist under very clear production limitations. The clearest limitation for these features is time, they are budgeted to run 75-77 minutes and that is it. This among other limitations makes the prospect of adapting a storyline or just writing an original one an interesting challenge. DC hasn’t lived up the quality past features in recent outings but I continue to watch them regardless.
The question of time is an interesting one for The Killing Joke. With its continued popularity, you’d think it was some 12 issue maxi series or otherwise large epic. It isn’t, Comixology lists the page count at 66. There have been Deluxe or otherwise an extended release of the story but the main content is in the mid-sixties in terms of page count. Surprisingly the adaptation will be getting an extra 15 minutes in the form of a prologue that “helps set up the story”.
Story setup is the thing I don’t think The Killing Joke needs. There is great tightness to the story. The first 16 pages establish everything we need to know – Batman finds out Joker is escaped, Joker sets up at the carnival grounds, and then page 17 BAM!, it happens. There is an immediacy to everything that creates tension in the story and reader. It is an immediacy that is also undermined/heightened by the non-linear and unreliable Joker ‘origin’. The Killing Joke is a thriller first that only in retrospect can you really comprehend some of the deeper ideas. It’s this aspect that makes me think it’ll actually make a solid 77 (or 92 minute) feature.
What The Killing Joke now needs is an epilogue. The Alan Moore Elseworlds turned cannon story is primarily known for 2 things: the ‘origin’ of the Joker (it isn’t) and the crippling of Barbra Gordon. The later spurred on by a rather infamous quote by Editor Len Wein. The Killing Joke isn’t about Barbra Gordon, she is just a pawn for the Joker to torment her father with. But she is the stories greatest victim. These are not unmutable objects, their value and story changes over time, and it has become one inexorably linked to Barbra Gordon. Who other than a brief scene in the hospital to spur Batman to catch Joker isn’t seen again.
In a recent column on comicmix, John Ostrander wrote about his and his late wife’s thought process on bringing Barbra back into the DC fold, by reintroducing her into the pages of his Suicide Squad run.
Kim and I felt that, if we did the job well, Oracle could become an important part of the DCU. It solved writing problems for other writers; how did their protagonist learn a necessary plot point? They went to Oracle. She went on to become a valued member of the Justice League and led the Birds of Prey in their own book.
The last story that Kim and I worked on together before she died was Oracle Year One, drawn by the wonderful Brian Stelfreeze. We showed that year as Barbara made the transition from broken hero to dynamic Oracle. She became a strong and much loved icon for the disabled community. In making her a hero again, Oracle allowed others to heal with her. The reader healed with her.
The context the Killing Joke exists in today isn’t the same as when originally published. Conversations about mass/popular medias portrayal of women is consistently brought up and we are starting to see some real change. Her treatment in The Killing Joke probably didn’t get much though by Moore since, this was supposed to be a one shot Elseworlds tale. No need for him to follow up. Except, it was. Giving Barbra Gordon an epilogue, showing her heal and become Oracle would make her the key character in disproving Jokers theory that it just takes one bad day to turn into him. It would illustrate the effects that story has had on DC canon by expand and enriching The Killing Joke.
Adaption across mediums is a tricky business trying to tell your own and someone else’s story at the same time. Especially something written by Alan Moore, whose work is often best taken in their original medium.
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