Batman: White Knight Comic Will Use Joker's Name From 1989 Movie
Batman: White Knight will be the new comic book project from writer/artist Sean Gordon Murphy, and [...]
"Ever Danced With The Devil..."
In Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie, Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) is a heavy-hitting enforcer for mob boss Carl Grissom. When Napier leads a burglary of the Axis Chemicals plant, Grissom sets him up for a fall by calling in the police. During the raid, Napier faces off against The Batman and ends up falling into a vat chemicals, which transform him into The Joker.
Batman: White Knight will explore a version of the Batman mythos in which Gotham City is terrorized by the figure known as The Batman, while Joker is actually a hero, dedicated to protecting the citizens.
As Murphy told Wired:
"My main goal was to undo the comic tropes while changing Gotham from a comic book city into a real city—a city dealing with everything from Black Lives Matter to the growing wage gap. [But] rather than write a comic about the wage gap, I gave those ideas to the Joker, who leads a kind of media war against Gotham's elite by winning people over with his potent observations and rhetoric... We know the Joker is a genius, we know he's relentless, and we know he can play the crowd, so why not make him a politician?"
This will depiction of Joker will be the first time the Jack Napier name has been used in the comic books (excluding direct tie-ins to Burton's '89 movie). Needless to say that piece of nostalgia will only go so far if Murphy's concept doesn't connect with fans.
Batman: White Knight #1 will be on shelves Wednesday, October 4th.
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