- BATMAN DEATH IN THE FAMILY MOVIE
- BATMAN DEATH IN THE FAMILY SKIN
- BATMAN DEATH IN THE FAMILY FULL
- BATMAN DEATH IN THE FAMILY SERIES
Harley acts as a herald for Joker in Snyder’s story, but following that moment, the story doesn’t find room for her. (This being a contemporary DC Comic, these plans still require Harley to take her clothes off.) Harley Quinn proved immensely popular among fans following her debut in Batman: The Animated Series, and yet neither Snyder nor Grant Morrison, the other most popular Bat-writer of the last decade, has used her in Joker stories in any large capacity. But the Joker rebuffs a come-on from Harley, too focused on his plans for Batman. Like Snyder and Capullo’s slasher film scenes, the inclusion of Harley might read as evidence that Snyder isn’t leaning on allusions to the Joker’s queerness. In one of Death of the Family’s backup features, a flashback drawn by Jock, the Joker enlists the help of Harley Quinn, his quasi-ganster’s moll.
BATMAN DEATH IN THE FAMILY MOVIE
(He also wears a handyman’s jumpsuit for the story’s first few chapters.) But Snyder and Capullo’s take on the Joker as a movie monster is not incompatible with their queering of the villain.Īs Harry Benshoff argues in Monsters in the Closet, “the figure of the monster throughout the history of the English-language horror film can in some ways be understood as a metaphoric construct standing in for the figure of the homosexual.” Benshoff’s book, published in 1997, already reads like the product of an earlier era, but then so does Death of the Family, and the processes Benshoff outlines relative to horror films applies to Snyder and Capullo’s work as well: “homosexuality is used to further delineate the depravity of the villain.” Death of the Family’s Joker is a monstrous other, and his monstrosity manifests itself through both acts of violence and romantic overtures. The effect is ridiculous, although the design at least departs from portrayals of the Joker as a criminal dandy.
BATMAN DEATH IN THE FAMILY SKIN
For reasons predating Death of the Family, the character’s skin has been removed from his face, and Joker holds it on with sutures. In the pages that follow, he breaks the necks of police officers under the cover of darkness.Ĭapullo’s design for the Joker resembles that of a slasher-movie menace. This is prelude to the Joker’s first attack, on the Gotham City Police Department.
BATMAN DEATH IN THE FAMILY SERIES
Capullo’s opening panels are cinematic in the dullest sense readers see a series of widescreen exterior shots as a van approaches a dark and stormy Gotham.
Snyder wrote prose horror stories before coming to comics, and Death of the Family begins in the manner of a slasher movie. The character doesn’t actively identify as a gay man, but the writer and the artist double down on Miller’s coding and insinuations. Snyder and Capullo take Miller’s interpretation a degree further.
BATMAN DEATH IN THE FAMILY FULL
Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns took the character’s sexual orientation from subtext to text, presenting a Joker who calls Batman "darling" and "my sweet." Unlike most other iterations of the character, Miller’s Joker applies lipstick in full view of the reader-he’s not only a performer but also a genderfucker. Were this not creator Jerry Robinson’s intent, readers can still locate the Joker within a tradition of villain portrayal that relies on gay signifiers and a feminizing of male figures. Given the Joker's traditional depiction as a psychopath-cum-performer in dandyish purple dress, the coding of the character as a gay man arguably goes back decades. The Joker’s implicit homosexuality and his villainy wind together throughout the story, and Batman’s caped crusade reads something like a battle with gay panic. Reviewing Death of the Family's critics is not the same as reviewing Death of the Family, but responses to the work, along with Snyder and Capullo’s book, tell a larger story about how the culture surrounding these comics enables their worst qualities.ĭeath of the Family finds the Joker returning to Gotham City after a long absence and attacking Batman’s allies in an attempt to reinvigorate his rival. Death of the Family, a collection of the team’s recent Joker story arc, features a surprising blurb from the Huffington Post-“a book you need to read”-surprising because Death of the Family has reactionary leanings one might think only the comics press would be willing to indulge. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's run on Batman has met with acclaim since its start in 2011, up to and including Harvey nominations for Best Continuing Series, Best Writer, and Best Artist.
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