And then, in an equally detailed sequence, Joker begins to undress Barbara as she writhes in agony on broken glass, promising he’ll take some snapshots for her father to see. Joker shoots Barbara through the spine, an act shown in painstaking, painful detail. The doorbell rings and she answers it, thinking it’s her friend Colleen from across the way, come to collect her for yoga. The “adult content” happens in an earlier, domestic scene, where Barbara – who has recently retired from being Batgirl – is helping her dad, Commissioner Jim Gordon, with his scrapbook and cocoa. Neither of them is tortured or humiliated or victimised. The violence between Batman and Joker shows nothing remarkable or graphic. But the reason they go through that routine – before collapsing into laughter, in what might be a hug or a deadly grapple, on the deliberately ambiguous final page – is the sexual violation of Barbara “Batgirl” Gordon. Yes, it includes Batman-Joker violence, and then some sixth-form-philosophical stuff about insanity and evil, and whether anyone could turn into a villain if they just had “one bad day”. But The Killing Joke isn’t quite like every other superhero comic. Why should anyone outside the comics community remotely care? Joker is going to hit Batman, Batman is going to hit Joker, and maybe there’ll be some blood and cursing to justify the rating. So far, so familiar: executives getting geeks wound up about a cartoon movie and touting its dark, edgy content.
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