Alan Moore Shares His Blunt Thoughts on Superhero Films, JOKER, and Says Adam West Is the Best Batman
Comic book writer Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) recently sat down with Deadline for an interview to talk about his upcoming film, The Show, and during the conversation, there were a few interesting topics that were brought up. Those topics included superhero movies and his influence on Joker with Batman: The Killing Joke.
Moore wrote Batman: The Killing Joke, which is easily one of the most controversial stories in DC Comics. It was a super freakin’ dark story, and it was one of the inspirations behind director Todd Phillips’ Joker. In case you didn’t know, Moore disavowed The Killing Joke after having written it, and when talking about it in the interview, he said:
"I've been told the Joker film wouldn't exist without my Joker story (1988's Batman: The Killing Joke) but three months after I'd written that I was disowning it, it was far too violent -- it was Batman for Christ’s sake, it's a guy dressed as a bat."
He then went on to say that he thinks Adam West is the best version of Batman that we’ve seen, saying:
"Increasingly I think the best version of Batman was Adam West, which didn't take it at all seriously.”
The then went on to talk about superhero films in general and bluntly shares his thoughts on how they have had a severely detrimental effect on movies and culture. He explains:
"Most people equate comics with superhero movies now That adds another layer of difficulty for me. I haven’t seen a superhero movie since the first Tim Burton Batman film. They have blighted cinema, and also blighted culture to a degree. Several years ago, I said I thought it was a really worrying sign, that hundreds of thousands of adults were queuing up to see characters that were created 50 years ago to entertain 12-year-old boys. That seemed to speak to some kind of longing to escape from the complexities of the modern world, and go back to a nostalgic, remembered childhood. That seemed dangerous, it was infantilizing the population."
That’s certainly an interesting way to look at what superhero films are doing to film and culture. For me, I like watching them because I enjoy a good story! It doesn’t change things for me just because the movies are based on comic books. Also, one of the reasons why people do go to the movies is escapism, sometime we just need a break for the complexities and insanity of the world! A story is a story, and if he’s not watching them, then he has no idea what kinds of stories these films are telling.