Jack on Heath

[The Dark Knight]

Yep, that's right.

The Nolan Joker loophole is the facial scarring which he cannot take off. But it doesn't work in the same way. Case in point during Loeb's funeral parade where Ledger fits in with everybody else and even gets a plum position near the front. Plot convenience or not - nobody notices his disfigured face. In comparison, B89 Joker uses flesh colored make-up to cover his appearance - but it doesn't fool anybody. The grin is still the same and his identity is obvious, although less jarring. That's the price of being The Joker.

[The Laughing Fish]

Yep, that's right.

The Nolan Joker loophole is the facial scarring which he cannot take off. But it doesn't work in the same way. Case in point during Loeb's funeral parade where Ledger fits in with everybody else and even gets a plum position near the front. Plot convenience or not - nobody notices his disfigured face. In comparison, B89 Joker uses flesh colored make-up to cover his appearance - but it doesn't fool anybody. The grin is still the same and his identity is obvious, although less jarring. That's the price of being The Joker.

I remember reading someone's blog that his reasoning for not liking TDK's Joker was because it was a complete departure from the "cognitive dissonance" surrounding the contrast between the Joker and Batman. He claims that Joker's traditionally clownish look seems harmless. Some people may disagree with this, but this guy argues that most people tend to hold the idea that clowns are harmless and Joker's traditional demeanor, with the permawhite skin and goofy smile made him unpredictable and underestimating. One could initially mistaken him for a clown who could merely entertain children without realizing he is actually someone who could hack you to death for laughs. Sort of like how Jack's Joker amuses that kid before killing that mobster in front of City Hall .

Whereas when we look at Batman though, people may assume him to be evil and dangerous because how he looks demonic, which is why everyone in film, TV and comics tend to be alarmed by his presence. But instead, Batman is actually a force of good fighting against the evils like the Joker who are terrorizing Gotham.

Basically, if you were to look at the traditional Joker for the first time, just standing there smiling but not doing anything else, you probably wouldn't have guessed that he could be a psychotic villain. With Ledger's Joker though, it's not so surprising, because he looks too deranged with those scars on his face.

It seems like a simple analysis but it's kinda true, at least I reckon.

[The Dark Knight]

Exactly, just like Rolf Harris, now outed as a child sex offender, broadcasting himself as a sweet, funny/cuddly man when his deeds were disturbing in contrast.

[Edd Grayson]

I see what you mean, Laughing Fish.

[Silver Nemesis]

Oh boy, this thread's gotten very one sided . I thought Ledger was excellent as the Joker. It's not a matter of one performance being better than the other, and it doesn't really bother me if the majority of people disagree with my own opinion. I like Nicholson and Ledger in the role. So I'll try and defend Ledger's performance, just as I would if everyone started slagging off Nicholson's.

I don't see much of that in Ledger's Joker. He doesn't give a damn about his own appearance, and the film never really shows us his egotistical side.

Over the years many comic artists have drawn the Joker as looking dishevelled and unkempt. It's been taken to extremes during the New 52 with the whole Leatherface-Joker thing (which, for the record, I'm not a fan of).

But even if you look at earlier stories like Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (1989), can you honestly say McKean's Joker doesn't look more like Ledger's Joker than Nicholson's?

Nicholson's Joker may have the more classic Pre-Crisis look, but the appearance of Ledger's Joker isn't totally removed from the source material either. The Joker isn't always scruffy and unkempt in the comics, but he isn't always a pristine narcissist either. The more nihilistic portrayals of the Joker tend to be the messier ones, as the notion of sartorial/cosmetic order is contrary to his philosophy of chaos and disorder.

One thing I didn't like about Ledger was the police station scene with Batman in which he acts like he and Batman are the same. They're not, They're supposed to be polar opposites; one is a direct contrast to the other. Batman is all business, Joker is a clown.

But beneath the outer differences, there is an underlying similarity. Yes they're opposites - but they're opposite sides of the same coin. That's what Alan Moore was getting at with the joke about the two escaped inmates in The Killing Joke. And I'm fairly certain it's what Burton was getting at with his "duel of the freaks" analogy. Batman and the Joker are two extremes acting outside of the law. One of them seeks to restore order, the other to upset it. But they're both equally nuts in their own way. The difference is that the Joker can see how absurd they both are, whereas Batman can't.

True. I also thought that Joker dressed up as a nurse as he leaves the exploding hospital to be a big missed opportunity for him to do something clownish. I could always imagine the traditional Joker singing or doing an outrageous dance while making his way to safety, probably to the tune of something like "What a Wonderful World" or something. 

Instead, Joker just walks his way out of there, slaps the detonator a little bit to get the bombs to continue working and then leaves with a dead set (no pun intended) serious expression on his face. Underwhelming. 

With respect to the joker and the hospital scene, I prefer when he's either clowning around while making serious crimes or simply taking it in as another day at the office. It should have been done one of two ways

1) have Ledger dancing around or motioning/miming maybe singing "London bridge is falling down"
2) have ledger act natural, ie. whistling to himself, perhaps eating or drinking, maybe ask a casual question to a bystander ie "do you think it will rain later?", heck even ask someone for marshmallows but Ledger basically did nothing but cringe.

That's actually one of my favourite moments in the film. I thought Ledger played the scene perfectly. That and the moment where he cleans his hands with disinfectant before leaving the hospital. He'll happily bloody his hands slicing people's faces open with a knife and mutilating their corpses, but he'll take time to disinfect his hands after visiting a sick patient. Little moments like that added a nice layer of black humour to his performance. They're more subtle and less frequent than Nicholson's antics, but no less funny IMO. If he'd started dancing or singing, it would have been overkill. That might work for Nicholson's Joker, but not Ledger's.

What I always find funny about the explosion scene is that the Joker isn't really frightened or worried when the final blast goes off. He just pretends to be. Even though there's nobody watching him, he'll play the fool to get the most out of the moment. That's classic Joker right there.

* "Madness is like gravity..." A cute line, except the character depicted in The Dark Knight wasn't "mad", or crazy, or anything else that would make for a good quote (or resemble The Joker character.) He was precise, calculating, and filled with nerd-rage... and not at all crazy. Jittery as hell and really, really pissed? Yes. Murderous? You bet. "Mad (as in 'a Mad Tea Party')"? No. Every one of his schemes (and long-winded speeches, for that matter) were, as many of you have pointed out, meticulously planned & executed - the work of a focused, scheming terrorist, not of a chaotic, fun-loving psycho, which you could call 'reinvention'...

You could say the exact same thing about the Nicholson Joker. He was incredibly meticulous in his plans, especially if you read Hamm's original script. He plotted the murders of the mob bosses who opposed him, consolidated all their resources into a single organisation (Nicholson's Joker is actually a businessman amongst other things), unearthed a secret nerve toxin from the CIA, broke it down into a compound poison, contaminated thousands of hygiene and cosmetic products, poisoned almost the entire GCPD, and timed the poison so it would kick in just as he was crashing the unveiling of the bicentennial statue (see Hamm's script for this subplot), repeatedly hijacked the city's TV signals for his own illegal broadcasts, mass produced counterfeit banknotes with which to lure the public to his parade, and staged a massive street party that even the city council couldn't match.

Insanity doesn't necessarily mean diminished intellect. It would take a genius to pull off what Nicholson and Ledger's Jokers did, but it would take a madman to actually want to do those things.   

* TDK Joker's monologues praising "chaos", "anarchy" and "disorder" are ripped pretty much verbatim from The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, a 1933 German film. Again - director & screenwriters at fault here, not Heath; I just thought it was lame of them to do that.

I don't see that as a flaw. Nolan's cited his fondness for Fritz Lang many times. And as a fan of classic cinema, I like it when filmmakers reference their influences. There are plenty of ideas/images/lines of dialogue in Burton's films that are lifted from earlier movies. Connecting those dots adds an extra layer of fun for film buffs looking for intertextual readings.

Especially with batman 89, you really need to nitpick to find flaws there, they aren't apparent.

We should discuss the flaws in Batman Returns sometime. I've spotted a lot of them the last few times I've watched it. But I'll save that for another thread. Bottom line, every film has flaws. If you want to find them, you will. The question is, are the flaws really so apparent that they outweigh the merits and spoil your enjoyment of the film. In the case of The Dark Knight, my answer to that question would be no.

I rememeber when I was arguing with a Nolan fan. I told him/her that I liked Jack better mainly because Heath was too bland and serious about anarchy and chaos. The reply: "You think the Joker's supposed to be funny?"

I stopped at that point. Of course the Joker's supposed to be funny as well as a cruel killer, that's what makes him the Clown Prince of Crime... 

Can you cite any funny Joker moments from The Killing Joke or The Dark Knight Returns? If not, does that make them poor representations of the character?

I'm not saying your preference for a funny Joker is wrong, but it is a subjective thing. I know people who love the sixties Batman and don't like Nicholson's Joker because he's too violent. Again, that's fair enough. Different strokes, and all that. But it doesn't mean any portrayal of the Joker that's less humorous than Cesar Romero's is automatically invalid.

Like I said, The Joker can't escape looking like a clown. He would so desperately love to be normal, but he can't, and it's one of the driving forces around his insanity.

I respectfully disagree with this. I don't think the Joker would ever choose to be normal. Not once his mind has snapped. Quite the opposite in fact, he'd try and change everyone else to drag them down to his level. Hence why he leaves his victims with a grotesque likeness of his own monstrous grin.

*but in Nolan's movies, Batman does seek a normal life by "taking off his mask", so I guess that aspect of Batman is wrong, too? Bah, so many fumbled characterizations with these movies.

Batman also wanted to quit and settle down with Selina at the end of Batman Returns. And he took his mask off in plain sight of one of his enemies. So I guess Burton messed up too.

The Nolan Joker loophole is the facial scarring which he cannot take off. But it doesn't work in the same way. Case in point during Loeb's funeral parade where Ledger fits in with everybody else and even gets a plum position near the front. Plot convenience or not - nobody notices his disfigured face.

I think that was just to suit the demands of the scene, similar to how nobody noticed the Joker's grin when he disguised himself as a policeman during his debut story.

In real life, a guy who looked like this could not blend into a crowd unnoticed. His 'smile' is as permanent as Nicholson's Joker.

In comparison, B89 Joker uses flesh colored make-up to cover his appearance - but it doesn't fool anybody.

It fooled all those people who attended the parade. And while Rotelli noticed there was something off about his grin, no one questioned his complexion. Which renders the permawhite issue moot - both Joker's could effectively conceal their white skin. Neither of them could fully conceal their smiles.

I remember reading someone's blog that his reasoning for not liking TDK's Joker was because it was a complete departure from the "cognitive dissonance" surrounding the contrast between the Joker and Batman.

The idea behind the aesthetic dichotomy is sound, but it doesn't work in practice. Batman is dressed like something that should terrify, yet he appears dashing and noble. The Joker is dressed like something that should amuse, and yet he's creepy and sinister. And it's been that way since they first clashed back in 1940.

I'd also like to point out that Ledger's Joker addressed certain aspects of the character that were emphasised in the comics after the 1989 film, and as such managed to cover new ground without simply rehashing what Nicholson did. For example, the concept of 'super-sanity' which was hinted at in The Killing Joke with the Joker's line about multiple choice origins...

...and which was then explored in greater depth in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.

To me, that matches the psychological profile of Ledger's Joker: an inconsistent, manipulative liar who changes his mind on a whim and kills with cavalier abandon. He doesn't crack many jokes or use pranks to kill people; neither did the original Joker in the early Kane/Finger run. He's a serial killer in a purple suit who mainly uses knives, guns and poison to kill his victims, and who tries to frighten the people of Gotham by announcing his crimes in advance; again, just like the original Kane/Finger Joker. I think Ledger's Joker essentially is the original Joker from Batman #1, except with some of the more complex psychological components of the Modern Age Joker.

Batman characters have been reinterpreted in a wide and diverse number of ways. We often invoke this truism to defend Tim Burton's portrayal of Batman and the Penguin, and I think we should extend the same open-mindedness to Nolan's characters. Otherwise we risk descending into fanboyism, where we make allowances for our favourite interpretations that we then deny to others.

Ah, 'The Joker's Comedy of Errors' – or as it's more commonly known amongst fans, 'The Joker's Boner Crimes'. I've been meaning to start a thread about that issue over on the comic boards. It warrants serious analysis by the comic scholars on this site.

[The Dark Knight]

I respectfully disagree with this. I don't think the Joker would ever choose to be normal. Not once his mind has snapped. Quite the opposite in fact, he'd try and change everyone else to drag them down to his level. Hence why he leaves his victims with a grotesque likeness of his own monstrous grin.

I'd say you're both right.

The Joker probably wants to be 'normal' per se, a life before the chemical bath with his wife - if that backstory is to be believed. But realises he cannot go back. Thus launches full steam ahead into oblivion. The Joker's (the user) signature says it pretty well, I think:

"Imagination is a quality given a man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humour was provided to console him for what he is."

Batman also wanted to quit and settle down with Selina at the end of Batman Returns. And he took his mask off in plain sight of one of his enemies. So I guess Burton messed up too.

This is true, however entertaining the idea and actually going through with it, directionally, is a different thing altogether. The fact he wants happiness, but is destined to suffer alone, benefits the film.

In real life, a guy who looked like this could not blend into a crowd unnoticed. His 'smile' is as permanent as Nicholson's Joker.

And as we know, Nolan's series loves real life. But it's not what is presented. He does blend into the crowd un-noticed.

It fooled all those people who attended the parade. And while Rotelli noticed there was something off about his grin, no one questioned his complexion. Which renders the permawhite issue moot - both Joker's could effectively conceal their white skin. Neither of them could fully conceal their smiles.

I don't think his TV broadcast fooled the people attending the B89 parade. I think that was pure greed, the prospect of cash being dumped on the streets. Everybody knew Joker was the one on TV.

It does raise inteserting thoughts, though. Is Nicholson Joker, or any of them for that matter, putting on a purple jacket any really different than Ledger putting on makeup? I think the makeup lends the 'getting into character' connotation a lot more. Ledger's Joker has to go one step further to become that white face, red lipped image.

[DocLathropBrown]

Bravo, Silver.

Look, I'm anti-Dark Knight almost as much as the next Burtonite (actually, anti-Nolanite, in truth), but the one thing about the film I could never deride and never pick on is Ledger. And it isn't because he died. Do I think he would have gotten that Oscar had he lived? Not really, but from the first time I saw the film, despite how much I disliked other elements of the film and its world... I adored his Joker, and was rather shocked that I did.

Despite the changes to the atypical portrayal of the character, Ledger still managed to capture the essence of the Clown Prince... something that I don't think other performers in the Nolan films managed to do. Ledger was on another level with that performance in that he was limited by having to play by Nolan's stripped-down rules and he still managed to nail the character's core.

Do I prefer Nicholson? I suppose... but it's not for any reason other than my appreciation of a more direct adaptation. But Silver is right.... to pick on Nolan for his faithfulness is one-sided when Burton and Schumacher took their own liberties. I only ever made a stink about Nolan's inaccuracies in the face of extreme anti-Burtonism. In truth, I have only ever been anti-Nolan in the face of Nolanism. To me, the films are just as welcome as Tim's or Joel's, and are no less valid. A film's plot holes are one thing (and TDK/TDKR have plenty), but it's creative choices are another. I will poke fun at the overwrought dialogue all day long, but the Joker not using a smling poison? Ain't no thang.

And especially since the comparisons are over and the heat has come back off of the Burton films (If anything, it seems like Burton love is on the resurgence)? Let the anti-Nolanism go. I have. "It just doesn't... hurt so bad anymore. You can understand that, can't you?"

Ledger was phenominal. Nicholson was phenominal. Anyone who refuses to give Nicholson his due isn't a true Batfan, so let Ledger's performance live on without scorn. In the end, Jack stands on his own and doesn't need defending anymore. If anything, Ledger will need defending when the next iteration comes around.

[Edd Grayson]

I don't have a problem with people praising Ledger, I think he deserves most of it, I don't like it when people hate on Jack's Joker just to make his Joker look better.

[The Laughing Fish]

I can definitely understand why you don't like the New 52 Joker, Silver. That design really does look like sh*t, even worse than the Glasgow smiles. It only gives me a reminder why I don't generally read today's comics.

But beneath the outer differences, there is an underlying similarity. Yes they're opposites - but they're opposite sides of the same coin. That's what Alan Moore was getting at with the joke about the two escaped inmates in The Killing Joke. And I'm fairly certain it's what Burton was getting at with his "duel of the freaks" analogy. Batman and the Joker are two extremes acting outside of the law. One of them seeks to restore order, the other to upset it. But they're both equally nuts in their own way. The difference is that the Joker can see how absurd they both are, whereas Batman can't.

The thing with Nolan's Batman though is I don't get this character at all. He definitely does a lot of stuff that is rather questionable, like driving cars that cause collateral damage and picks and chooses who he kills...but at the same time he's trying to find a way where he can no longer be Batman ever again, where he can live a normal life. Burton's Batman is tempted by that chance towards the end of Batman Returns, sure. But Catwoman deprived him the opportunity. Whereas, by the end of Rises, Bruce fakes his death as both Bruce Wayne and Batman and puts his close few friends under such unnecessary grief to escape with another woman he barely knows.

You know what, the guy has issues after all. 

That's actually one of my favourite moments in the film. I thought Ledger played the scene perfectly. That and the moment where he cleans his hands with disinfectant before leaving the hospital. He'll happily bloody his hands slicing people's faces open with a knife and mutilating their corpses, but he'll take time to disinfect his hands after visiting a sick patient. Little moments like that added a nice layer of black humour to his performance. They're more subtle and less frequent than Nicholson's antics, but no less funny IMO. If he'd started dancing or singing, it would have been overkill. That might work for Nicholson's Joker, but not Ledger's.

What I always find funny about the explosion scene is that the Joker isn't really frightened or worried when the final blast goes off. He just pretends to be. Even though there's nobody watching him, he'll play the fool to get the most out of the moment. That's classic Joker right there.

To each their own I suppose, but I'd argue that the only classic Joker moment in the film was right at the end of the penthouse scene - when he remarked "Very poor choice of words!" as he pushes Rachel off the balcony right after Batman ordered him to let her go. That to me was the only time Ledger was playing a character that resembled anything like the Joker...and ironically, it's a moment where I rarely see anyone else, even the film's biggest fans, ever mention. But apart from that, I honestly felt that all those other scenes involving the Joker, like the hospital one, felt flat and didn't see the humour in there at all.

We should discuss the flaws in Batman Returns sometime. I've spotted a lot of them the last few times I've watched it. But I'll save that for another thread. Bottom line, every film has flaws. If you want to find them, you will. The question is, are the flaws really so apparent that they outweigh the merits and spoil your enjoyment of the film. In the case of The Dark Knight, my answer to that question would be no.

Batman Returns definitely had a lot of crazy absurd stuff, like the Penguin having a blueprint to the Batmobile, how nobody else in the apartment complex notices Selina Kyle having a mental breakdown nor were there any witnesses to her near death experience, and penguins marching down an empty street without anyone near in sight. Those are off the top of my head, and for what it's worth I can tell that Burton's first had its share of plot holes too. But I do believe the semi-comedic tone helped viewers to tolerate the plot holes; it's a comic fantasy where we can suspend our disbelief that this is a stage where fantastic and crazy things can happen in this world. Does that mean the plot holes should be excused? No, of course not. But at least the film's tone helps us to suspend our belief easier.

Now we already discussed our opposite views to each other about The Dark Knight before, so there's no need for me to rehash mine in great detail again. But I do believe one film's plot holes and inconsistent writing can be more egregious than the other, especially if the film wants you to take it seriously. It's one thing for Batman to say something something out-of-character like "Wrong on both counts" to Catwoman after what he's done to criminals (and I agree with you - there is a contradiction there), but it becomes an issue where his moral conflict against a heinous threat like Joker is undermined by the fact that he was responsible for deaths to other villains before and after the fact. Hell, some villains he killed were no more dangerous than Joker was, and yet Batman still kept him alive despite it would endanger the rest of they city. And when the film takes itself so seriously like TDK does, those problems stick out like sore thumbs.

Can you cite any funny Joker moments from The Killing Joke or The Dark Knight Returns? If not, does that make them poor representations of the character?

I'm not saying your preference for a funny Joker is wrong, but it is a subjective thing. I know people who love the sixties Batman and don't like Nicholson's Joker because he's too violent. Again, that's fair enough. Different strokes, and all that. But it doesn't mean any portrayal of the Joker that's less humorous than Cesar Romero's is automatically invalid.

Although Joker had many dark moments in those stories, he still used clownish gimmicks to kill people i.e. laughing/smiling gas (althoug moreso in TDKR than TKJ). It doesn't make the gruesome situation any more funny at all, but at least those stories keep his cartoonish trademark antics. Whereas Nolan's film replaces all of that with those annoying Glasgow smiles done off-screen, which makes it less suspenseful in my opinion.

Batman also wanted to quit and settle down with Selina at the end of Batman Returns. And he took his mask off in plain sight of one of his enemies. So I guess Burton messed up too.

Fair point, but I think the reason why people complained about Batman wanting to retire throughout Nolan's series was because his love for Rachel was a factor in him hanging up the cape for good. So I guess for some people, it felt like his heart was really in it in the first place because if Bruce isn't talking about his intention to become a symbol for Gotham City, he spends a lot time talking about where he hopes he is no longer needed to be Batman anymore, at the expense of him actually going out as Batman and kicking ass. I guess people assumed that Rachel's death meant that Bruce would commit to being Batman for good, but when TDKR began with Bruce retiring for eight years after taking the blame for everything Harvey had done, some people thought it was a jump-the-shark moment. For what it's worth though, it never bothered me that he eventually retired because I thought the second film's ending never made any sense to begin with.

I think Ledger's Joker essentially is the original Joker from Batman #1, except with some of the more complex psychological components of the Modern Age Joker.

Is Ledger's Joker really identical to the original one from 1940? Because while he may share a few things in common like broadcasting an announcement of crimes he'll commit and choice of weapons, I'd say the comic one's MO is completely different: a jewel-thieving serial killer who poisoned people to death with smiling gas. This is a lot more simple and straightforward than Ledger's I think. I also found the original comic's disguise to be a lot smarter than the films' (and that even includes Burton's Rotelli murder scene although I still love it for its black comedy), given that it shows Joker being able to hide his grin until he shows the card to his victim.

RE: Killing Joke - I always thought the book is left open to interpretation in that the flashbacks did happen because of how Joker looks remorseful as he turns down Batman's offer for rehabilitation in the end. No matter how sly, I can never imagine Ledger's Joker doing that.

Batman characters have been reinterpreted in a wide and diverse number of ways. We often invoke this truism to defend Tim Burton's portrayal of Batman and the Penguin, and I think we should extend the same open-mindedness to Nolan's characters. Otherwise we risk descending into fanboyism, where we make allowances for our favourite interpretations that we then deny to others.

For what it's worth, while I do like Danny DeVito's performance as the Penguin,  I understand why some people didn't like his interpretation. It's a lot more grotesque, crude, and nothing like the gentlemanly mob boss too. And while I don't doubt there are traces of his take that stems from the comics, like Ledger's Joker I found DeVito's take to be different overall. Personally, my feeling for Ledger's Joker is the equivalent for those who didn't like DeVito's Penguin. Nothing against the actor or even his performance, I just didn't rate the way his character was depicted at all. In that case, I blame Nolan and Goyer for that.

One of the best things I love about this forum is that it does celebrate everything that's Batman related, which I don't find too often elsewhere. It also is a great place where people talk about what we like or didn't about certain interpretations, unlike people who post videos on YouTube ranting like idiots. But the best thing is this place seems to have people justify why, without getting on each others' nerves. That being said, any complaint I make Nolan's movies are based on what I judged on merit, nothing else. While Nolan's films have some comic influences here and there (like all comic-based films), I just don't think the hype around them are justified.

[Travesty]

I respectfully disagree with this. I don't think the Joker would ever choose to be normal. Not once his mind has snapped. Quite the opposite in fact, he'd try and change everyone else to drag them down to his level. Hence why he leaves his victims with a grotesque likeness of his own monstrous grin.

But that's the point of dragging people down to his level. If people were at his level, he would then be normal. Making people look like clowns, would make people look like him. But he can't be normal, he's stuck being a clown, which is why he snapped. So since he's stuck being a clown, he chooses to make everyone else a clown, and share in his insanity.

Joker wants to be normal, but can't. He's a clown forever. Therefore, he has chosen to make everyone like him, or chooses to show people(like Batman), that they're all like him, because he wants that normality in his life. But what he's doing isn't normal, it's psychotic.

Batman also wanted to quit and settle down with Selina at the end of Batman Returns. And he took his mask off in plain sight of one of his enemies. So I guess Burton messed up too.

First of all, Bruce/Batman never said he wanted to quit and settle down with Selina, he just said she shouldn't kill Max, and that she should stop what she's doing and go home with him. You're filling in a LOT of gaps on that one. Second, I wasn't talking about Burton in this particular situation. I never once brought him up, you did. I was talking about the Batman and Joker relationship, and said it really doesn't matter, cause Batman's portrayal was off, too. You're bringing in a straw man out of nowhere, in order to defend your stance. I'm not sure why, when I was never even talking about Burton? I'm quite aware that his movies aren't perfect, and also deviated from the source at times. So why are you bringing him up to me?