Reflective Essay 3

One problem that has started becoming a recent theme in superhero stories is the idea that the superhero is to blame for the city's problems.  Well at least this is something that I find in the Batman comics and movies.  For example the movie, "The Dark Knight", initially the Joker comes onto the scene to do guess what, take down Batman.  Now I admit that Batman and the Joker have had a special relationship throughout the years, but when that film ends the Joker just comes out and says, "you won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness and I won't kill you because you're just too much fun."  When the villain says this to the hero in a comic book or movie I'm reading I wonder to myself what is going through the hero's head.  Does he feel remorse or regret for putting on his mask?  Recently, I read "Batman: The Killing Joke", this graphic novel is the first Batman text to have any sort of origin story for the joker and is in fact one of Tim Burton's major inspiration for making the 1989 Batman movie.  In the story the Joker shoots a Barbara Gordon in the spine, paralyzing her, and kidnaps and tortures Commissioner Gordon just to prove a point to Batman.  So if Batman had not existed would the Joker have done any of those awful things?  I think that it is ideas and thoughts like this that torture superheros when they hang up the cape for the night.  I'll leave you with this thought, in "The Dark Knight Returns" Batman had hung up the cap for 10 years and decides to return.  Hanging out in good old Arkham Asylum the Joker sees on the T.V. that Batman has returned to crime fighting so what does the Joker do, he escapes the asylum and creates a plot to draw Batman's attention.  So maybe this is just Batman and the Joker's relationship, but these two are the only example I can think of off the top of my head and I firmly believe that almost every superhero deals with this dilemma from time to time.