averagejokerkinnie - Tumblr blog

[averagejokerkinnie]

and rb for sample size & all that

[averagejokerkinnie]

Joker on top of a building, speaking through a megaphone: Don't worry Bats, I only have a few teeny-tiny demands! Just let me fuck you and I won't explode the buiding! Two-Face speaking through another, on top of a different building: What the fu- Batman on the ground, also speaking through a megaphone: I told you before, that would require me to take off the entire suit. I don't have any plans of unmasking anytime soon, especially for you! Joker: Aww, are you feeling insecure? I will take anything as long as it's you baby- Two-Face turning to Joker: DID YOU SERIOUSLY ESCAPE ARKHAM JUST FOR THIS??

[averagejokerkinnie]

“batjokes but only the lego version” i need you to kill yourself. if want the least toxic version for a ship whos point is to be extremely toxic then ship something else. im tired.

[averagejokerkinnie]

OK SO,

I’m guessing Batman/Joker: Switch (2003) is a bit niche since I hadn’t heard of it until really recently. But as the CEO of niche quasi character studies of the Joker from the early 2000s I’ve gotta give this one it’s flowers.

It starts out with an interesting premise that it doesn’t really use, but the opener is this:

So I was super hyped thinking this was gonna be one of those awful medical malpractice character studies that I love, where it examines what happens when you forcibly unravel the Joker personality with deeply unethical therapy.

(I love that concept and trust I’m writing a batjokes fic about something similar.)

But working on that theory, Batman comes to London to find Joker who has been let loose after what seems like a very unethical surgery where someone removed his smile and put it on the back of his neck. He’s not quite himself, getting a bit lost in the lines between himself and Batman, wandering around trying to solve what happened to him and forgetting to eat or take care of himself.

Which is where we get this great moment:

I love it. The second somebody genuinely cares and intervenes on his behalf he assumes it’s Batman.

I really like the way the panels are drawn here, leaning into the surrealism of Joker's wide eye, and the smile in the place it shouldn't be, it's all very Dali. This, in combination with the fairly rare show of vulnerability from Joker, and the totally disconnected nonsense way he speaks in this one, really heightens that feeling of 'oh there's something wrong here', it's weird seeing a broadly sympathetic take on Joker.

But they know each other too well, because upon showing up, forcibly giving him medication is actually one of the first things Batman does.

Batman reclassifies the lines between them, actually helping Joker get back to his baseline self. He doesn't capitalise on the confusion as a means of pacifying Joker or anything, he just rigidly reinforces the status quo- returning Joker to himself and putting them both back in Arkham.

But then we learn the real kicker: Joker asked for the surgery. It's really interesting to see the collage of his behaviour from far away, because this pretty extreme facial self-mutilation for the sake of a wider point, or just for comedy we won't see again for 10ish years, until he gets his face taken off by the Dollmaker before DOTF.

Just to quickly return to the initial vulnerability from Joker this issue teases the reader with. It does strike a fairly sympathetic tone, framing Joker as the victim of some cruel joke for once, removing his smile. But now we know he asked for it, literally. It isn't so much an ‘oh he got what he was coming to him’, but that the sheer amount of pain, psychological, physical pain the Joker experiences every day, due to this lifestyle he has chosen, is all still a direct result of his own choices. One bad day, or whatever backstory he may have had that led him here, we know that it is categorically not the only option. He is truly the architect of his own misery, he very much was the first victim of the Joker, and I find it interesting that this comic forces you to take that perspective. That even a vulnerable, half-starved and mentally confused Joker is this way because he "begged" for it, and is now facing the consequences of his own actions, with the faith that Batman will care enough to save him.

[averagejokerkinnie]

This is Batman and the Joker to me.

[averagejokerkinnie]

[averagejokerkinnie]

[averagejokerkinnie]

And if I gave up on being pretty

I wouldn't know how to be alive

[averagejokerkinnie]

[averagejokerkinnie]

When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night

With your head in your hands, you're nothing more than his wife

And when you think about me, all of those years ago...

...You know I hate to say, but I told you so

[averagejokerkinnie]

[averagejokerkinnie]

Bruce Wayne in Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham #1 (2023), art by Rafael Grampá.

[averagejokerkinnie]

Fifty shades of green.

[averagejokerkinnie]

I feel you on the lego batjokes hate. Previously i had no issue with it but fandom puritans and people who dont know SHIT about batman comics were so insistent on saying that lego batjokes is the only good batjokes that it basically ruined it for me

No because it’s actually so annoying.

“Lego Batjokes because its only okay in that universe!” You saw the most boring and watered down iteration of a character dynamic portrayed as legos and condemned anyone who was genuinely willing to explore it elsewhere because it makes you “uncomfortable”

They never touched a comic in they life, it’s always some sort of moral olympics like it’s so annoying. Way to ruin the fun.

No Lego Batman doesn’t have the best iteration of batjokes. Grow up girl, you picked the worst and simpliest version of the characters and continue to preach “oh only in this universe” just ship something else, I’m tired of this being the norm in batjokes spaces. Ship something else at that point there is no point in having you floating around just condemning people for a ship WHOS LITERAL POINT IS THAT THE SHIP IS TOXIC.

[averagejokerkinnie]

at first i sillyed and then i serioused...

[averagejokerkinnie]

Local loser man falls hopelessly for a murderous clown

[averagejokerkinnie]

Batman Europa #2 : Prague