With graphic sexual violence, and scant attention to its victim, the story has been disowned by creator Alan Moore and there is no excuse for its revival
Twenty-eight years is a long time in superhero comics. Characters die, come back to life, and acquire new names, costumes and identities. Whole universes collapse and combine. History can be rewritten – more than once. But 28 years after the publication of Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s slim graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke, this slight, dated story – which Moore has since disowned – is still being celebrated, adapted and retold.
A film version is scheduled for later this year, with a screening at Comic-Con in San Diego next month: fans successfully petitioned to get Mark Hamill, best known as Luke Skywalker, cast as the Joker. Warner Bros has announced that the film will be R-rated, remaining true to the “authentic” original story and its “blunt, often shocking, adult themes and situations”. President of the animated film division, Sam Register, promised he would live up to his responsibility to fans and reproduce the “violent, controversial” story accurately.
0 comments:
Post a Comment