Batman and Joker: Apollonian and Dionysian Forces?

BAT MAN I N PO PU L AR CU LT U RE C O N FERENC E COMMEMORATING THE 80th ANNIVERSARY OF Batman April 12-13, 2019 BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY’S JEROME LIBRARY, BOWLING GREEN, OHIO CO-SPONSORS Department of Popular Culture | College of Arts and Sciences | Wood County District Public Library | Browne Popular Culture Library Stoddard & O’Neill Fund PRESENTED BY 19AS8780 Batman Conference Program.indd 1 4/9/19 9:43 AM BAT M A N IN P O P U L AR C U LT U R E C O N F E R ENCE APRIL 12-13, 2019 | BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 2019 8:00-8:30 a.m. 8:40-8:55 a.m. Registration 11:20-11:55 a.m. Pallister Conference Room-A Opening Remarks Pallister Conference Room-A Susana Peña, Director, BGSU School of Cultural and Critical Studies Pallister Conference Room-A How to Horrify Batman Sam Cowling, Denison University Lunch Break Popular Culture Library Tour 1:00-2:00 p.m. 3-A - Batman and Teaching Roundtable Discussion Robin, Everyone Loves the Drake Podcast/Rob’s Rogues Youtube Channel Rob Myers Evolution of the ‘Weltanschauung’ of a Batman Epicurean Through his Fictions Shipra Tholia, Banaras Hindu University (India) 1-B - Batman Psychology, Philosophy and Religion Room 142-B Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight Travis Langley, Henderson University Jesus, Superhero: Batman as a Guide for Understanding Early Christianity Gregory Gorham, Grand Canyon University 10:10-11:10 a.m. Pallister Conference Room-A The Rise, Fall, & Uncertain Future of Batman as a Media Property Mark C. Rogers, Walsh University Holy Shark Repellant Bat-Spray! (How the 1960’s Counter Culture Shaped The Batman on Television and Beyond!) Chris McVetta, Cleveland State University Batman 1966: A Podcast Perspective John Drew, The Batcave Podcast Room 142-B Batman and Joker Apolinan Dionysian Forces? Marco Favaro; PhD Candidate at Otto Friedrich Universität-Bamberg Let the Feast of Fools Begin: The Apparatus of the Carnival in the Joker of Morrison & Snyder Andre F. Peltier, Eastern Michigan University Citizen Joker?: An Exploration of How the Batman Mythos Can Help Students Understand Citizenship Angelo Letizia, Notre Dame University of Maryland The Darkest Knight: Batman as Gotham’s Greatest Villain Trevor Snyder, Eastern Michigan University Jeffrey Allan Brown, Bowling Green State University Jeremy Larance (Panel Chair), West Liberty University Travis Langley, Henderson State University Steven Leyva, University of Baltimore Batman in the Collab Lab Room 122 Special Session at BGSU’s Collab Lab led by Dr. Jerry Schnepp from BGSU Limited to the first 25 attendees Room 142-B Batman Incorporated: The Split-Space of American Heroes and Asian Subjectivities Chris Richardson and Kathryn Frank, Young Harris College Batman in the Courtroom James M. Dedman IV, Gallivan, White, & Boyd PA I Was So Low on the Neighborhood Totem Pole that I Played Catwoman’s Assistant: The Batman Television Series in My Family’s Folklore Dana Nemeth, BGSU/BPCL 2:10-3:10 p.m. 4-A - Girls of Gotham Pallister Conference Room-A Bat Meets Girl: Adapting the Dark Knight’s Love Life to the Big Screen Brandon Bosch, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Barbara Gordon as the Epic Hero and the Men Who Influence Her Journey Stella Bowman, Writer & Media Journalist, Batgirl to Oracle: The Barbara Gordon Podcast 10:10 a.m.-12:00 p.m. 2-B - Batman and Villainy Pallister Conference Room-A 3-B - Batman Beyond the Page Political Philosophy in the Dark Knight Trilogy Brandon Trey Jackson, Itawamba Community College 2-A - Historical Aspects of Batman Pallister Conference Room-A Holy Bat Heartbreak: The Long Dark Knight of the Soul Dr. Jenny Swartz-Levine, Dean, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Lake Erie College 12:00-12:55 p.m. 9:00-10:00 a.m. 1-A - Historical Aspects of Batman Keynote Speaker Batman and Catwoman: From the First Kiss to the Last Jordan Valdes, Multiverse Musings; A DC Comics Podcast 4-B - Batman Historical Perspectives Room 142-B A Knell for Bruce: Alex Ross’ Visual Narrative in “Origins: Batman” Kyle Hammonds, University of Oklahoma Batarang X Marks the Spot: Batman Comics & Cold War Imperatives in the 1950s Zachary Matusheski, Ohio State University Remember That One Time?: The Many Batmen of the Multiverse Jacob Perry Batman as Terrorist: The Blurred Line Between Hero and Villain Thomas Ulch, Eastern Michigan University 19AS8780 Batman Conference Program.indd 2 4/9/19 9:43 AM FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 2019 continued 3:20-3:55 p.m. 6-B - Batman Technology and Gender Keynote Speaker Pallister Conference Room-A Growing Gotham, Making Metropolis: Building the DC Universe Dan Mishkin, Comic Book Writer/Creator Batman’s Animated Brain(s) Lisa Kort-Butler, University of Nebraska-Lincoln 4:00-5:00 p.m. 5-A - Batman and Popular Music Room 142-B The Fridge is Full: Barbara Gordon, Oracle, and Reclaiming Narratives for Female Characters Tricia Ennis, Bowling Green State University Pallister Conference Room-A Batman on Vinyl Bill Schurk, BGSU Libraries/Bill Schurk Sound Archives (Retired) 6:15-7:15 p.m. Batman in Music from Latin America Carlos Villegas-Castaneda, Adrian College Simulated Vigilantism: Interpreting Christopher Nolan’s Rendition of the Hyperreal World of Batman Amar Singh, Banaras Hindu University (India) 7-A - Batman in Film Becoming the Brave & the Bold: An Evolutionary Study of DC Comics’ Batman Soundtracks Anna DeGalan, Bowling Green State University 5-B - Batman and Fandom Pallister Conference Room-A Roundtable Discussion: The History of Live-Action Batman on Film Ryan Hoss, Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Batman on Film Podcast Room 142-B Figuring Out the Dark Knight: Transmediality, Creativity, & the Bat-Toy Simon Born, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Germany) Pretenders to the Cowl: Batman’s Unofficial & Unlicensed Films Britt Rhuart, Bowling Green State University 7-B - Batman Romance and Recovery Room 142-B How Gotham Adapts Batman to the Small Screen Joshua Bertone, The Batman Universe Batman as Hope for Recovery Jason Knol Batman Pitching for the Mets: Matt Harvey as the Dark Knight of Gotham Raymond Schuck, BGSU Firelands The Fusion of Comic Book Motifs & Romance Novel Tropes in the Evolving Relationship of Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson Nancy Northcott, Independent Scholar 5:10-6:10 p.m. 6-A - Batman: Sex and Gender Pallister Conference Room-A “He Doesn’t Know You Like I Do:” Barbara Kean’s Sex Appeal and Gotham’s Woman Problem Carey Millsap-Spears, Moraine Valley Community College From All-Knowing to Erased: Oracle’s Representation and Erasure of Disability in Comic Books Courtney Bliss, Bowling Green State University 7:20-8:00 p.m. Light Reception Pallister Conference Room-A How the Heteronormative Patriarchy of Batman is Challenged by the Diversity of his Supporting Cast Donovan Morgan Grant, Writer/Media Journalist; The Batman Universe Podcast, The Hooded Utilitarian Podcast, & host of socio-political podcast Questions, We Don’t Have Answers The Batgirls: Fifty Years of Feminism in Gotham City Carolyn Cocca, State University of New York SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2019 10:00 a.m. Registration Pallister Conference Room-A 10:05 a.m. Opening Remarks Pallister Conference Room-A Sara Bushong, Dean, University Libraries 10:10-11:10 a.m. 1-A - Batman and Modern Technology Pallister Conference Room-A Bat-Computing: Exploring the Line Between Fact & Fantasy with Information Technology within the Bat-Universe Frank Jasper-Stump, Davenport University I Build 1966 Batmobiles for a Living! Marc Racop, Fiberglass Freaks Batman and the Arkham Series: Adaptations of Existing Texts & Words Devin Elliott, Bowling Green State University 19AS8780 Batman Conference Program.indd 3 10:10-11:55 a.m. 1-B - Historical Aspects of Batman Room 142-B The Legacy of Batman: Knightfall Ryan Hoss and Rob Myers Bat-Signals: The Deployment of Superhero Iconography by U.S. Military Personnel from Vietnam to the War on Terror Buddy Avila, Bowling Green State University 11:20-11:55 a.m. Keynote Address Pallister Conference Room-A Batman and Sons: Family and Patriarchal Authority Dr. Jeffrey Brown, Bowling Green State University 12:00-12:55 p.m. Lunch Break 4/9/19 9:43 AM SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2019 continued 1:00-2:00 p.m. 2-A – Batman, Robin and Beyond Pallister Conference Room-A The Dark Knight and the Boy Wonder – Does Batman Need a Robin? Joshua Smith, Bowling Green State University 4-B - Batman, Joker, & Nietzsche’s Ubermensch: A Critical Response to Charles Robertson James McGrath, Butler University Rev. Shayna Watson, Episcopal Church Matthew Brake, George Mason University Room 142-B The World’s Greatest Detective at the Movies: Recontextualizing & Decontextualizing Batman’s Investigative Techniques (or Lack Thereof) Jason Tselentis, Winthrop University 5:10-6:10 p.m. A Look at the 1966 Batman Test Pilot Episode Artifacts & Explore What Features Remained and Changed for the Series Troy R. Kinunen, MEARS Online Pop Culture Auctions “You had a Bad Day Once, am I Right?”: The Recognition and Communication of Trauma in Moore & Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke William Weaver, John Carroll University 2-B - Batman the Animated Hero Unlocking Arkham: Forensic Psychiatry and Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery Vasilis Pozios and Praveen Kambam Room 142-B Above and Beyond Batman Benjamin David, Host of the Above and Batman Beyond Podcast Pallister Conference Room-A 5-B - Batman and Whiteness Roundtable Morality and Ethics in Three Landmark Modern Batman Titles Sean Gadus What Did Scooby Do(o) with Batman? Looney? and Barbera-ic Raptures in the Batverse? Rocky Colavito, Butler University 2:10-3:10 p.m. 3-A - Batman and Critical Thought 5-A - Batman and Villains Pallister Conference Room-A Room 142-B Danny Anderson, Mt. Aloysius College Neal Coyle, Southwest Baptist University Christopher “Mav” Maverick, Duquesne University 6:15-7:15 p.m. 6-A - Batman and Family Roundtable Discussion Swingin’ with Bat-Daddy Pallister Conference Room-A Jim Beard, Independent Historian, Writer Batman and Permanent Things: Classical Lenses for Interpreting the Dark Knight Sean Hadley, Faulkner University, Great Books Program We Are BatFamily: Batman and his Allies in the 1990s and Early 2000s Kristen Geaman, University of Toledo Batman vs. False Dichotomies: The Ethics of Problem Solving Jonathan Brownlee, Bowling Green State University His Two Dads Philip Perich, Capes & Lunatics/Sidekicks Podcast Stan Lee’s Batman: An Examination of Silver Age Comic Book Cross Pollination Alan Jozwiak, University of Cincinnati 6-B - Batman and Structural Supervillains: Patriarchy, Capitalism, Surveillance and Imperialism in Batman’s World Room 142-B 3-B - Batman and Theology Roundtable Intelligence-gathering Bats: Surveillance (Bat) Cultures in Rebirth’s Detective Comics Sean Mardell, Texas State University Room 142-B Evil as Deprivation in Grant Morrison’s Batman RIP & Final Crisis Matthew Brake, George Mason University The Appropriation of Judgment: Batman as Replacement for Divine Justice Joshua Wise, St. Joseph’s University The Emancipation of Women? Batman, Catwoman, and the Cultural Enforcement of the Patriarchal Structure Sydney Heifler, The University of Oxford, England 3:20-3:55 p.m. Batman God of Capitalism: Radical Individualism in American Mythology Jen Cardenas, Texas State University Keynote Address A Conversation with a Bat-writer Mike Barr, Comic Book Writer/Creator Pallister Conference Room-A 4:00-5:00 p.m. 4-A - Batman and Political and Social Theory Pallister Conference Room-A Billionaire Superhero as Oxymoron Rachel Ramlawi, Bowling Green State University The Dark Knight is Not Alt Right Nathan Wallace, Ohio State University Can Do Dynamism as a Vehicle, Inspired by Batman Comic Books Andreas Luescher, Bowling Green State University Batman to Batwing: Incorporating Capitalism, Imperialism, & American Exceptionalism Sean O’Brien, Wayne State University 7:20-8:00 p.m. Light Reception Pallister Conference Room-A SATURDAY, APRIL 13 – 1:00-3:00 Wood County Public Library Bowling Green, Ohio The Craft of Comics Marc Sumerak Special Thanks College of Arts and Sciences • School of Cultural and Critical Studies • Popular Culture Department Ray and Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies • Stoddard-O’Neill Fund • Wood County District Public Library 19AS8780 19AS8780 Batman Conference Program.indd 4 4/9/19 9:43 AM Marco Favaro PhD Student Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg Weißenseer Weg 1, 10367 Berlin Email: [email protected] Mobil: +49 (0) 152 06087 771 Berlin, 12.04.2018 Batman in Popular Culture Conference April 12-13, 2019 Bowling Green State University, Jerome Library, Pallister Conference Room Batman and Joker: Apollonian and Dionysian Forces? Batman and Joker are two of the most famous characters born on the pages of a superheroic comic book. Their popularity goes far beyond the paper world they are from: it reaches every mass culture’s corner. The symbolic strength of those characters and their resonance on the collective imagination is not restricted to entertainment phenomena but reaches psychological, literary, anthropological and philosophical themes and concepts. It is from the philosophical point of view that I intend to analyse the relationship between the dark knight and the clown prince of crime. I will refer to Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, namely his analysis of the Apollonian and Dionysian concept, in order to analyse the relationship between Batman and his nemesis. Joker as a chaotic and irrational force on the one side and Batman, who tries with all his strength to oppose the chaos and absurdity, marking his life since the murder of his parents on the other side. I will show how this fight embodies the eternal struggle between the two Nietzschean principles. First, I will investigate Batman and Joker’s birth: why do they create a whole new identity? How is Joker’s reaction to suffering and irrationality different from Batman’s one? I will then dig deeper into the relationship and the fight between the two enemies, focusing mainly on the balance of their morbid relationship. Finally, taking into consideration the Nietzschean concept of the Übermensch, I will try to understand if one of the two characters comes to incarnate the BeyondMan described by the German philosopher. I will mainly refer to the most emblematic stories lived by the two characters, which are: Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum and The Death of the Family and End Game by Scott Snyder. Origins A traumatic, painful and unacceptable event marks the birth of both the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime. Both confronting themselves with inconsolable grief and dull suffering: they feel suddenly emptied and drained. Both have to deal with the absurd and the absence of meaning of reality. Their world makes no sense anymore. “All sense left my life”, says Bruce in Year One of Frank Miller.1 Facing the absurd is dramatic. Grief is tightly linked to the experience of the absurd. Feeling the need to find a sense in happiness is not that urgent, because we feel fulfilled, at peace. However, suffering upsets the balance and brings back the human need to find a reason to survive the world. Batman and Joker's origin stories are not so different from each other. Just a bad day, as Joker says himself in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.2 “Man, the bravest animal and most prone to suffer, does not deny suffering as such: he wills it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not the suffering, was the curse which has so far blanketed mankind.”3 With these words, Nietzsche makes clear the connections between grief and search for meaning. Pain is unacceptable and senseless in itself. If we cannot avoid it, then we have to find a way to justify it. We need to make sense of the chaos. In this respect, the birth of the villain and the hero follow the same pattern: one bad day in which the sense of the world falls apart – and, together with it, also their identity falls apart. The difference lies in the reaction they have to the absurd that storms into their lives. While the Joker completely embracing the chaos, Batman keep pretending that life makes sense, that there’s some point to all this struggling!”4 Bruce faces the abyss of absurd but refuses it: by creating Batman’s identity he contemporary creates a new meaning for his life. The creation of the mask is a reaction against the absurd, which has forcefully torn apart his existence up to that point – it is a way to force the world to make sense as he says himself: “My parents… taught me a different lesson… lying on this street… shaking in deep shock…dying for no reason at all… they showed that the world only makes sense when you force it to…” thinks Miller’s Batman during his last fight against Superman.5 Creating and wearing a mask – a new identity – means forcing the world to make sense. The Joker, on the contrary, gives up altogether his former identity, fully embracing the chaos. That is highlight by the fact that the Joker’s real identity is usually unknown, he has destroyed it – he rejects any search for meaning, almost any identity. Dionysus and Apollo In Nietzsche’s work, the Apollonian mask is intended as an illusion, as the only way that the human being has to survive and overcome the Dionysian chaos. Dealing with Dionysus means dealing with the absurdity of being. Absurdity because it appears as inhuman, illogical, chaotic, averse to life. Nietzsche talks about ancient Greek that descended in the depth of Being, “knew and felt the terrors and horrors of existence.“ For this reason, he chose the surface, the illusion and invented the rational, Apollonian masks:6 that means truths, morals, laws, and so on. At our first glance, we can easily see in the Joker an incarnation of Dionysian chaos, while in Batman, with his desire to impose a meaning on the world, the Apollonian force that opposes it, creating a sense to contrast with the Dionysian absurd. A chaotic and destructive force that tries to destroy every rule, and a force of will that tries to create and preserve masks, truths, order and meanings. Both face each other, the first trying to overcome the second, which tries to stem the chaos. However, the dynamic between Apollo and Dionysus, just like the one between Batman and Joker, are not as simple. The Joker clearly embodies a force of chaos and destruction – he is an agent of chaos like he says in The Dark Knight.7 He is not so chaotic as he says, but his actions have no other objective then the chaos. What about Batman? He is, precisely like the Clown, a product of the same irrational force. As we saw, both are born from absurd and nihilisms. The destruction of the imposed sense of the world and the old values should not necessarily be harmful – nihilisms can also be useful to get rid of old truth and cages. It can also be the beginning of a new creation, and that is what Bruce does by creating the Batman identity. We start to see that these two forces that seem in opposition to each other are the same. Nietzsche writes, “at the end Apollo speaks the language of Dionysus”8. That means: the Dionysian force not only destroys but also creates the apollonian masks. Like the destruction of sense, also its creation is an expression of the Vital Dionysian force. There are not two principles that seek to prevail over one another, but rather a single principle that manifests itself in two different ways, following a cycle of creation and destruction. What initially seems like a clash between two opposing forces is revealed as the two different expressions of a single one. That means that Batman and Joker, products of the same force, are more similar than we like to admit. We can see the proximity that links Batman with the Joker in different stories. One example is the Videogame Arkham Knight. Another is The Killing Joke which ends with the Joker and Batman - the two crazy guys escaping from the asylum - who laugh together. Also, speaking of madness: another remarkable graphic novel is Arkham Asylum by Morrison and McKean. In this story, both locked up in Arkham, the two appear crazy almost in the same way. The Batman draw by McKean seems to have lost all its connection with humanity, appearing to us only as a shadow (understood in the Jungian sense). Both appear to us as expressions of madness - of chaos - with the only difference that one of the two, still has the possibility of returning among men, to make somehow a sense of this chaos. However, as the Joker reminds us at the end, there is always in Arkham a place for Batman. In this similarity, we also find one of the reasons why the two do not destroy each other. The Joker, a chaotic and destructive force, is unable to create a meaning, a Apollonian mask. However, he can find meaning in the fight itself, in the dynamic with Dionysus. “Fighting for meaninglessness but giving meaning by virtue of the fight” as the Joker states in End Game.9 The Joker challenges the Dark Knight: he does not just want to kill him – no, that would ruin his fun! He wants to force him to betray his rules, to renounce his moral, to embrace again the absurd of being. At the same time, Batman cannot kill the Joker. "Why have you never killed me?” asks the Clown in The Death of the family. “you don’t do it because I’d win – that’s what you tell yourself. you kill me, and suddenly who knows?! What’s stopping you from killing all of us baddies from going on a downright spree?!”10 Killing the Joker Batman would prove him right: he will give up his moral, his rules – the Apollonian mask he had created to survives the chaos. However, Killing the Joker would also mean embracing the Dionysian chaos again: Batman would become himself The Joker – or something similar. One fearful recent example is the Batman who laughs. Übermenschen So the Joker and Batman are just the same, like Apollo and Dionysus? Not quite. The Dionysian force has two faces. The Joker embodies only the destroyer. That is what Nietzsche calls “negative nihilisms”, a nihilism that can only destroy but is unable to create. Nietzsche talks about a free spirit who laughs at our certainties and truths. Nevertheless, he is free from the old apollonian masks, he remains a slave of Dionysus himself. He is not able to overcome the absurd, to create new meaning. As the free spirit the Joker laughs at our moral, but he is himself a slave of the absurd that initially destroyed his life. Batman, on the other hand, can gaze into the abyss of the absurd, without abandoning himself to it, without becoming himself an agent of chaos. On the contrary: he fights for meaning despite the absurdity of existence. In Joker by Azzarello and Bermejo we can see the actual difference between him and Batman. “Look at you… Desperate to be feared, you want to be perceived as a monster, draped in black. And yet… you have that little window… a glimpse at the perfection underneath. Obvious-- the chiseled good looks-- not the jaw, the mouth of a monster… Why do you let it be seen? Tell me why.” “To mock you” answer Batman.11 How? Not with words, but showing that he is not entirely a monster. He is still human – and that means that he is not just a product of chaos, but he can face it, go over it and creates. He can impose meaning on the absurd. His connection with the human world highlights that his world still makes sense. However, it is a meaning that he chooses after facing Dionysus, and that is what makes him a Beyond-man. Not all masks are equivalent. Nietzsche distinguishes, on the one hand, the decadent masks, dictated by fears and insecurities, which suffocate the human being, on the other the not-decadent ones born from an overabundance of life force and energy. The first ones are imposed and spread as truths, although they are just stiffened and useless illusions; the second ones are on the contrary the result of the creative force and spirit of the individual, they accomplish a personal interpretation of the world. The mask of Batman is an expression of the hero’s titanism, rebellion and independence. It is a revolt against the absurd and not an escape from it. Fighting the Joker Batman faces the absurd over and over again, never escaping it. Like the Sisyphus from Albert Camus, it is precisely in this eternal dance with the absurd that he finds meaning. That is what Nietzsche calls “positive nihilisms”, and that is what characterises the Übermensch. The Joker can represent the laughing free spirit, the one that can see behind the human lies the meaningless of existence, the one that laughs at us for believing all those lies. Batman embodies the Beyond-Man, the one that sees the absence of sense, and yet fight to impose his meaning. To paraphrase The Killing Joke again: Batman can see “the funny side”, “He already heard it” but he does not laugh because he was already able to survive it and get over it. While the Joker, in front of the absurd, takes refuge in madness, Batman faces it, and despite it imposes a new sense. He is also able to create a new vision of the world, new values: a new mask and illusion. To conclude: we do not just see in Batman an Apollonian force against destructive Dionysian chaos, but an Übermensch, moved by the same Dionysian force of his enemy, but that does not seek destruction, but creation of meaning. That is also shown by his connection with the human world (the world of meaning in opposition to the chaotic world of the monster). In his eternal fight against the Joker, he should reaffirm each time his truth; he must impose his meaning to the world one more time. Bibliografia Azzarello Brian (Writer), Bermejo Lee (Artist), Joker. DC Comics, Burbank 2008. Miller Frank, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. DC Comics, Burbank 1986. Miller Frank (Writer), Mazzucchelli David (Artist), Batman. Year one. DC Comics, Burbank 2005. Moore Alan (Writer), Bolland Brian (Artist), Batman: The killing joke. The deluxe edition. DC Comics, Burbank 2008. Morrison Grant (Writer), McKean Dave (Artist), Batman. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. DC Comics, New York 1989. Nietzsche Friedrich, Also sprach Zarathustra. Kritische Studienausgabe herausgegeben von Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari. DTV de Gruyter, München 2016. Nietzsche Friedrich, Der Fall Wagner. Götzen-Dämmerung. 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The Dark Knight, Nolan Christopher. USA, Regno Unito 2008. 1 Miller Frank (Writer), Mazzucchelli David (Artist), Batman. Year one. DC Comics, Burbank 2005. Moore Alan (Writer), Bolland Brian (Artist), Batman: The killing joke. The deluxe edition. DC Comics, Burbank 2008. 3 Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse. Zur Genealogie der Moral. Kritische Studienausgabe Herausgegeben von Colli G. und Montinari M. DTV de Gruyter, München 2014. P. 411. 4 Moore A., Bolland B., The killing joke. Cit. 5 Miller Frank, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. DC Comics, Burbank 1986. 6 “Diese Griechen waren oberflächich – aus Tiefe!” Nietzsche Friedrich, Morgenröte. Idyllen aus Messina. Die fröhliche Wissenschaft. Kritische Studienausgabe Herausgegeben von Colli G. und Montinari M. DTV de Gruyter, München 2011. P. 352. 7 The Dark Knight, Nolan Christopher. USA, Regno Unito 2008. 8 Nietzsche Friedrich, Die Geburt der Tragödie. Kritische Studienausgabe herausgegeben von Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari. DTV de Gruyter, München 2016. 9 Snyder Scott (Writer), Tynion James IV (Co-Writer), Capullo Greg, Cloonan Becky, Fletcher Brenden (Artists), The Joker: End Game. DC Comics, Burbank 2016. 10 Snyder Scott (Writer), Tynion James IV (Co-Writer), Capullo Greg, Glapion Jonathan (Artists), Batman. Volume 3: Death of the family. DC Comics, New York 2014. 11 Azzarello Brian (Writer), Bermejo Lee (Artist), Joker. DC Comics, Burbank 2008. 2