I come down in the middle of the born evil debate, as it pertains to fictional characters; i DO however, believe some characters work better without a definitive origin, if only because you cant please everyone (James Howlet).
Unless something changed though, Moore's origin was never meant to be canon. Just an intriguing possibility.
Also, @ Bentley's Joker as a Goblin clone joke!
Originally posted by krisblaze
There's no villain that's just evil, and frankly that's just a kindergarten outlook on morality. Nobody's born evil and certain DC writers' tendency to try and compose the Joker as some kind of force of evil is part of the reason why I've taken a distinct dislike to the character.
You're right, I don't care about the reasons for it, let's just agree the Joker sucks 👆
Originally posted by krisblazeInteresting. I don't disagree that characters need an origin (although in one of the many origins Joker had he was actually shown to be insane from an early age, pretty much born like that and I prefer that origin over the KJ) but that only goes for some characters. I hate it when writers go out of their way to write a sob story for every character with a sole purpose to make the readers go "Awww! He is not evil, he is sad!" and the story told in the Killing Joke does not work at all for the Joker. IMO that is. He may not be a force of nature but portraying him as a poor unfortunate victim of circumstances takes away from the character, makes him seem weak, even pathetic and that doesn't work well with his established character. One doesn't go as far as Joker did because of "one bad day", certainly doesn't get so good at it or enjoys it to an extent he does. So even if he had troubled childhood I don't really want to know about because you're not supposed to feel bad for every character. Joker is an evil mother******, there's nothing more to it. He might not be really insane even and he does horrible things because he clearly and wholeheartedly loves it regardless of what he once was. And there's no need for writers to try and justify it by forcing a sad origin down our throats. In my opinion at least. Sorry for the long rant.
What? I'm completely opposite here.There's no villain that's just evil, and frankly that's just a kindergarten outlook on morality. Nobody's born evil and certain DC writers' tendency to try and compose the Joker as some kind of force of evil is part of the reason why I've taken a distinct dislike to the character.
Morrison achieved the same effect and still wrote a nigh-human Joker.
I really don't think a humane origin takes anything away from a villain, quite the contrary.