What THE KILLING JOKE Is Really About

"...Watchmen was something to do with power, V for Vendetta was about fascism and anarchy, The Killing Joke was just about Batman and the Joker - and Batman and the Joker are not really symbols of anything that are real, in the real world, they're just two comic book characters."
-Alan Moore, quoted in Gary Spencer Millidge, Alan Moore Storyteller (Lewes, East Sussex, 2011), p. 139.

I rarely disagree with the Awesome Mage but this is one occasion. The Killing Joke is about whether one bad day is enough to drive anyone mad. It happened to the Batman. It happened to the Joker. The Joker tries to make it happen to Jim Gordon - and fails.

Would one very bad day be enough to drive you or me mad? A very important question.

Addendum, 29 Nov 2015: I have addressed this issue before. See here.

Another Kind Of Alternative History

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation:

I confess to not understanding everything that happens in the concluding chapter of SM Stirling's Under The Yoke - the text becomes cryptic. Some nuances have become clearer with rereading but what is Andrew's motivation?

Draka Volume III should be in the post. Meanwhile, Bryan Talbot presents a kind of alternative history that is not to be found in any work by Poul Anderson or SM Stirling: Britain lost the Napoleonic War (OK, so far) and the world is inhabited by anthropomorphic animals! (See image.)

Maybe funny animals histories make more sense in visual media? Alan Moore attributes familiar animal characters to Doctor Moreau. Talbot has Rupert Bear's father gardening in the background of a few panels.

Thus, I was mistaken to postulate that Anderson and Stirling had covered every aspect of the alternative timelines idea - but maybe writers and readers of prose sf do not want talking animals in their texts? Anderson and Gordon R Dickson came close to it with their Hoka.

Black Orchid And The Rubaiyat

By rereading Neil Gaiman's and Dave McKean's Black Orchid, Book One, I have learned Quatrain 26 of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

"Oh, come with old Khayyam and leave the Wise
"To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
"One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
"The flower that once has blown forever dies."

Why does he say "blown"?

Wiki tells me that "Rubaiyat" means "quatrains."

Ant-Man And Film Continuities

Completely different versions of the characters. Avoiding spoilers. This Hank Pym is completely different from the one I know in The Ultimates and presumably both are different from the version in mainstream Marvel continuity?

The Movieverse progresses. However, I am informed that there are four cinema continuities:

the Movieverse;
the Fantastic Four and the X-Men;
Spider-Man;
Namor.

I have not seen previous FF films and am less inclined to go to the new one now that I have been told that it is set in a different continuity.

Superman In Public Consciousness And Popular Culture

Regular readers might remember that recently I have:

reread Rick Veitch's (sequel to Alan Moore's) Swamp Thing;

been reading for the first time SM Stirling's Conquistador;

been enjoying these texts while also spotting any connections with the works of Poul Anderson.

Our theme for today is references to Superman. In a work of fiction, any reference to Supes implies either that he is a real guy out there somewhere or that the fictional characters share with their readers a popular culture in which this now mythical figure has become a permanent fixture. Veitch gives us the first; the others the second.

Veitch
Swampy goes to Metropolis to kill Lex Luthor who is protected both by his own security system and by Superman. Veitch, like Moore and Gaiman, applies a new insight to an over-familiar character.

Lois Lane: Clark?...Why is it when I'm talking to you, you always seem to be listening to something else?

Lois Lane: There you go again! I start talking and you stare off into space!

Clark Kent: Huh? Oh, uh...Just enjoying the view, Lois. You can see the whole city from up here.

Lois Lane: Yoo hoo! Earth to Clark. Come in, Clark!

-Rick Veitch, Swamp Thing: Infernal Triangles (New York, 2006), pp. 56, 58, 61.

Anderson
See here.

Stirling
"'Brother, with the amount of money RM and M had to throw around, you could bribe Superman'...'Ten million dollars,' the Man says. 'No, no, I am Superman!' Then it's thirty million. 'No, no, I stand for Truth, Justice and the American Way!' So then it's fifty million, and Superman comes back: 'I'll kill anyone you want!...'"
-SM Stirling, Conquistador (New York, 2004), p. 298.

Of course, the real (?) Superman is incorruptible. (In one version, Luthor, formerly the most powerful man in Metropolis, tries but fails to buy Supes as soon as the latter comes on the scene.) But Stirling's character is making a point. Rolfe Mining and Minerals is one of many front organizations for the Commonwealth of New Virginia which has been secretly exploiting another Earth for decades. By any ordinary standards, their funds are unlimited and "Rich enough to bribe even Superman" is a powerful way to say this.

Swamp Thing And The Universe

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing explores the Terrestrial hereafters:

The Region of the Just Dead;
Heaven;
Hell;
the infinite Chaos beyond Hell;
the Original Darkness that was before the Creation rising from Chaos and advancing through Hell towards Heaven.

Next, he visits Gotham City.

Then, he travels through the universe:

exiled from Earth, he spends time on an uninhabited blue planet;

launching himself into space, he collides with the Zeta Beam routinely teleporting Adam Strange from Earth to the Centaurian planet, Rann, and lands on Rann, which is dying because of an earlier nuclear war;

Thanagarians plan to trade environmental technology stolen from the vegetable civilization on the planet J586 for the Rannian Zeta beam so that they can use the beam to conquer Earth;

a liquid animal from Minraud near J586 drowns one of the Thanagarians;

en route to J586, Swampy is trapped and raped by a planet-sized AI of a kind that wander through interstellar space, either meeting to procreate or eating spaceships that land on them;

J586 has a member of the Green Lantern Corps but has heard rumors of the decline of the Guardians of the Universe who appoint the Green Lanterns to defend specific space sectors;

after traveling from J586 to the Promethian Galaxy, Swampy meets Metron of the New Gods who tries, using Swampy as his vehicle, to enter the Source but succeeds only in discovering an Aleph, a point from which it is possible to observe all other points in space-time;

Swampy returns to Earth.

Gotham City In Alan Moore's Swamp Thing

Captain Jon Logerquist founded Gotham City in 1635.

The suburbs include Evanston with lawns and shrubs and Gotham Village with vacant lots.

The techno-belt includes Allied Metalurgical in Little Stockton.

Uptown is Gotham Park.

The business district with Gotham Stock Exchange is to the south.

West is Glendale, originally a separate town.

East are the slums of Bryanttown.

North are Charon, comprising a hospital and two cemeteries, and Sommerset with woodlands and Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.