ENG235 The Graphic Novel Midterm

Gengyu Xu

999677256

Part A 1-b
After a flashback of the day he lost his parents, a retired Bruce Wayne decides to
reassume the role of Batman and continue to fight crime. In this panel, a bat breaks the window
of Waynes room, symbolizing liberation from the struggle between his two distinct identities
(Batman the vigilante and Bruce Wayne the millionaire). This is a humble homage to the origin
of Batman, or more specifically, when a bat flew into Bruce Waynes room and inspired him to
take on the persona of Batman. It is a not-so-subtle metaphor that depicts the rebirth of Batman.
Unlike the original scene in which the bat flew in quietly, in this panel the bat violently shatters
the window which was made intentionally by the author to look like prison bars. This
ingeniously expresses Waynes situation by raising the question: Did the bat free Wayne, or did
the bat simply join him in his own prison? By returning as the dark knight, Wayne essentially
locks himself to a never ending struggle with crime and corruption. But if he chooses to remain
Bruce Wayne, then he will be forever haunted by how tiny (Miller 25) and insignificant he is.
This scene is meant to portray the fact that no matter which identity Wayne assumes, he cannot
win.
Part A 2-b)
In this scene Batman talks to a person who is presumed to be the Joker without receiving
much response. Later it is revealed that the Joker in fact had escaped and Batman had been
talking to a double. One recurrent idea in the book is that Batman tries to help the Joker, but all
his efforts are wasted. In this scene Batman tries to have a rational conversation with Joker, but
ironically the real joker does not hear any of his pleas, and he never will. The scene also explores

another common theme in the story - that of sanity. One motif frequently used to explore this
theme is the idea of two people together inside an asylum. This scene explicitly portrays that
kind of situation, except only one of them is really in the asylum - Batman. The author is
suggesting that maybe Joker is the one who is sane, and it is Batman who is insane. The question
of who is sane and who is not is raised several times elsewhere in the book. For instance, while
torturing Commissioner Gordon, Joker breaks the fourth wall and argues that the average man is
insane (Moore 26).
This passage essentially presents a macroscopic view of the entire story.
Part B 1)
In The Dark Knight Returns, Miller suggests that a mythical figure is a great man who is
too big for the average person to judge. It is someone to whom conventional law and morality do
not apply. Batman is portrayed as a myth when he was compared to President Roosevelt both
of them did something that would traditionally be considered immoral and unlawful, but were
not judged because they are too big (Miller 96). He also depicts Batman as a vigilante who
takes justice into his own hands and is not bound by conventional law: at the climax of the story
he takes on Superman, who is the very definition of law and order as defined by the government.
These two distinct portrayals of the dark knight are not contradictory. In fact they complement
each other; one cannot exist without the other.
The successor to Commissioner Gordon, Yindel, was a by-the-book police who
unconditionally opposes any acts of vigilantism. She publically antagonizes Batman and works
towards his arrest (Miller 116) until the turning point at which Batman heroically rides into a
crowd of violent gang members and enlists their help. At this point she finally succumbs and
agrees with Gordon that Batman is too big for her to judge (Miller 176); in other words, he has

become a myth. The very fact that Batman-the-vigilante is allowed to exist is due to his newly
achieved mythical status. The TV reporter Lana Lang is an avid supporter of Batmans
vigilantism. In some sense she herself is a vigilante because she goes against what is expected
from her by her superiors. Unlike the dark knight however, she never achieves a mythical status.
Thus she was constantly being censored by the government (Miller 187). Lana-the-vigilante was
not allowed to exist because she just was not big enough; she was still within the reach of state
jurisdiction.
Just as how Batman-the-myth allows Batman-the-vigilante to exist, the reverse is also
true. Consider how Batman achieved his mythical status. Many other people in the story fight
against crime, but they do not become myths. Commissioner Gordon fights crime, but he is not a
vigilante. The fact that he follows the law means that if he ever does something that is not strictly
legal, he will be judged. For example, during his talk with Yindel, the new commissioner
disapproves his inaction towards Batman-the-vigilante (Miller 96). Superman also fights for
justice. But he fights for justice as defined by the government. In other words, he does not
question the law and cannot be considered as a vigilante. Does he obtain a mythical status?
Clearly not. He is criticized as a political pawn, a joke, and many other things (Miller 194). The
only person in the book who achieves a mythical status is Batman. He does this by not ever
restricting himself to the realm of judicial law. He may be antagonized, but when the public
finally realize that everything he does is for the greater good, that is when they stop questioning
his actions. That is when he becomes too big to judge.
As demonstrated by numerous characters in the story, a vigilante cannot truly exist
without having a mythical status, and one cannot become a myth unless s/he takes justice into

his/her own hands. Thus Millers portrayal of Batman as both a myth and a vigilante is not only
entirely consistent, but well justified.

Part B 2)
It is a popular belief that the title of Alan Moores one-shot graphic novel The Killing
Joke, refers to the storys ending, in which Batman is presumed to have killed the Joker. I
personally do not believe that the Joker dies. I believe the killing joke does not refer literally to a
joke that killed the Joker; it is more like a joke about killing. It refers to the fact that the
Joker is constantly trying to kill Batman (Moore 42), yet time after time, Batman refuses to hurt
the Joker because he wants to do it by the book (Moore 43). The joke here is that Batman
constantly tries save the Joker from lunacy, but every time his efforts prove to be futile because
the Joker does not need to be saved. In the end Batman shares a maniacal laughter with Joker due
to his realization of how rational the Joker actually is.
Let us dissect the Jokers final joke. The first thing worth noting is that he never refers to
the two men as lunatics. They were simply two guys in a lunatic asylum (Moore 45). The
Joker had asserted before that the average man is mad (Moore 33). Here he is alluding that he is
trapped in a world full of lunatics with Batman; they are the only two sane people in this story.
This is contrary to what Batman believed. He believed that the Joker is mad and can only be
saved by him. Joker does on multiple occasions call both himself and Batman crazy (Moore 41).
But this does not have to be taken literally. He becomes mad because he is simply very
frustrated by the world, which to him is all a joke (Moore 39). Batman on the other hand is crazy
because he cant see something that is so obvious.

In the Joke, the first guy offers the second a bridge made of a light beam. Nothing really
suggests that they believe a light bridge would actually work. In fact they both realize how
absurd this idea is. The Joker is the guy offering the light bridge. He is intentionally trying to
deceive Batman, just as he always does. But the Batman, as always, realizes its a trap and does
not fall for it. Batman could, if he wanted to, just make the leap and join Joker (as well as the rest
of the lunatics he fights against). But that would mean giving up everything that he stood for. So
just like this, Batman will forever stay imprisoned by his hope of defending justice and ending
all evil. Joker on the other hand is free from this burden that is morality.
In essence, Joker is frustrated that Batman, the only other sane person in the world cannot
see what he sees. If he just puts his distrust aside for once, and listen to what the Joker has to say,
he would realize that the two nemesis cannot be more alike (Moore 11). The only difference is
that the Joker, after experiencing his one bad day makes the bold leap of faith and is now a free
man. But Batman is trapped the day he decided to fight crime. The only way out perhaps is just
as he suggested at the beginning of the book: either he makes that leap and kills Joker, or he gets
killed by Jokers light bridge (Moore 4). Of course the real Joker did not hear any of this;
Batman was talking to a double. This is perhaps why they shared a slightly different kind of
laughter (Moore 46). Batman realizes the irony of his situation, while Joker is simply laughing
because he outsmarted Batman (which he has always been trying to do).
I do not believe the killing joke refers to the literal death of the Joker, because if one
examines the central panel of the last page, Batmans hand is nowhere near Jokers neck. His
smile while performing the ambiguous action seems to suggest it is more like a friendly push on
the shoulder. In the next panel, Jokers hands show that he is physically relaxed, instead of
struggling for his life.

If Joker does not actually die, then perhaps a symbolic interpretation of the killing joke is
more appropriate. The fact that this struggle between life and death will never come to an end;
the fact that Batman does not realize this, despite it being so blindingly obvious to the Joker, who
Batman considers as insane; that is the killing joke.