In the first installment of Views From a Superstitious and Cowardly Lot (the series within a series where I talk about Batman) Andy Leyland and I talk about Batman: The Killing Joke. To say that this is a controversial story is an understatement. For years The Killing Joke was considered a seminal Batman story. A must read. A violent look at the relationship between Batman and the Joker. A game changer. Now the worm has turned and The Killing Joke isn't seen as a bastion for mature comic book storytelling. It's an unnecessary story that damaged Barbara Gordon as a character and furthers the trope of killing or maiming a female character to further a male character's story.
For nearly two hours Andy and I talk about all of these issues and more. We look at the story as a story and then look at how this story treats its characters. Barbara Gordon is brought up more than once and the two of us get to vent about how we're sick of rape being used as a gimmick. I'm not going to lie. This episode has some fun points but Andy and I go to some pretty dark areas and we don't shy away from it. We ask a lot of questions and try to judge this story fairly. What are our final thoughts? Listen and find out.
As I mentioned Andy and I talk about some pretty serious issues in this episode. Normally I keep this a pretty light affair but for this story things get real. Because of that I wanted to warn everyone because I know there are people out there that, for a variety of reasons, get very upset when they hear about sexual assault and violence towards women. Because of that I am issuing Views' first ever trigger warning. Some people think that trigger warnings are silly and that people should just suck up and get over whatever is bothering them. To those people I say, "Too bad." I have seen the effects of PTSD and if giving out a trigger warning spares someone an episode then it is totally worth it.
Besides...my show, my rules. Don't like it? I really don't care.
Andy Leyland was nice enough to stop by. Be sure to check out his other shows, which include: Hey Kids Comics, The Palace of Glittering Delights, Listen to the Prophets: A Deep Space Nine Podcast, The Fantasticast and Keep 'Em Flying: A Firefly Podcast.
Next Time: I will finally release the awesome Suicide Squad episode Thomas Deja and I recorded. It's keen.
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