Blogotional

I want to finish the discussion of comic book villians with a look at the character that may be the best villain ever - The Joker.

It's interesting to me that he has never been a very good bad guy when confronted with any other hero - but against the Batman he simply cannot be topped as a character - he's outstanding.

I think the Joker's perfection comes from the fact that he is not so much Batman's opposite number as he is who Batman ought to be. I have said it many times before, I do not buy the very fine line Batman walks between hero and murderer, vigilante and cattle-rustler. He is simply too obsessed, obsessed to the point of madness. The Joker simply is madness.

There have been oblique references in other titles, most notably in the Justice League, that only Batman can really deal with Joker. Martian Manhunter has probed Joker's mind and come up nearly insane himself. Batman deals with Joker because he too is mad - at least to some extent.

This image is from Miller's Dark Night Returns and is part of a sequence that I think best depicts the relationship between Batman and the Joker - they are inextricably linked, stuck forever in their battle - practically two personalities fighting for control of the same person, and they truly hate each other. Batman arrives at this pooint determined to finally kill the Joker, but in the end cannot do it. But the Joker, malevolent to the end, Kills himself so that Batman will appear to have been a murderer.

But like most great comic characters, it is the appearance, the image, the art that matters the most. Joker is brilliant because of the essential stuff of his appearance, he should be benign, even happy in appearance, but he is so ugly and so frightening. That a clown can appear frightening has been known since the first guy put on the whiteface make-up, but never has it been captured so well as in the Joker.

A final note - in all the history of movies based on comic characters, never has it been done so right as Jack Nicholson's performance as the Joker. Say what you will about the movie, Nicholson absolutely nailed the character - a genius for crime while being an absolute raving lunatic. It just does not get any better.

X-MEN: The Last Stand brief review

In a nutshell, this movie eschews the humanity of the mutants so well portrayed in the previous two films directed by Bryan Singer (who is doing this summer's Superman) for a straightforward action flick, with its contrived emotional peaks and flat characterization.

This film will appeal to fans of the comics in the sense that it introduces many characters and references missing from the previous films, providing those fans with a touchstone. However, in so doing it rewrites the legend of one of the greatest comic story arcs ever conceived very radically, and given the two-dimensionality of the characters the rewrite fails to provide the level of pathos that made the comic story so great.

Even the two newly introduced characters that have significant roles - Beast (suberbly casted and played by Kelsey Grammer) and Shadowcat, Kitty Pryde, are done so flatly that you come away wanting to know who these people really are.

In the end this is an enjoyable movie and worth the price of admission, but it lacks the stuff of greatness. This is more Con Air than Spider-Man.

Related Tags: comics, comic books, villains, The Joker, DC, Batman, X-men: The Last Stand