Expert: Justin Case - 11/10/2009

Question
QUESTION: I have been writing my own book and my friends tell me that my bad guy in the story does stuff that makes The Joker look normal but I don't really agree can I tell you some things my character has done and then you could be the second opinion and see if my guy is indeed worse than The Joker?

ANSWER: Hi Alex -

Absolutely, I'd be happy to offer my opinion as a Batman fan and as a struggling writer myself!

Send stuff my way!

D. -

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for allowing this question. Here are 10 things my character has done and since I'm getting aggravated saying my character I'll use his name Deuk. Any way I just want to know how you think he compares to The Joker. Now to be fair I should mention that Deuk has no morals and his personality is between apathy like Michael Myers and excitement like The Joker himself.

1. snaps an infants neck and then eats the baby.

2. Tricks a room full of people into killing each other and then kills those that are left.

3. Rapes a pregnant woman and then rips open her stomach and eats the unborn child.

4. Hypnotizes everyone watching a sports channel to kill themselves in the most gruesome way their subconscious mind can think of.

5. Breaks a mans back poor's acid on it and then chops it with an ax.

6. Gives some kids treats laced with poison the painful agonizing sort of poison.

7. Sets a neighborhood on fire.

8. Crashes a plane filled with explosives into a building.

9. Randomly walks into  a house shoots the little boy in the head rips out the woman's heart to eat and then forces the man to rape his dead wife and he shoots him while he's doing that in the back of the head.

10. Hypnotizes a group of people and makes them think they are being repeatedly and endlessly tortured.  

Answer
Hi Alex -

Wow Deuk sounds like a real sicko!

I think he's somewhat comparable to the Joker, but not necessarily a level of magnitude worse.  Joker arranged to kill Jason Todd and his mother, paralyzed Batgirl after humiliating her and snapping her spine and has killed thousands of individuals just for his own self gratification.

He's also initiated riots in Arkham Asylum (anyone think any guards didn't get killed during those riots?), orchestrated assassinations, corrupted other individuals into super villains (Harley Quinn etc.) and used biological and chemical warfare on entire cities, not for profit, just because it excites him.

The Deku character doesn't strike me as being particularly heinous in any specific way any more than Hannibal Lector, The Crow or maybe even Jack Bauer in the televised series 24.

Deuk's actions are appalling and certainly the world would be better off without such an individual, but nothing he does is necessarily worse than what I've seen in the Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm street or Hellraiser movies.

Does that help?

Deran