10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Commissioner Gordon

4. The Killing Joke

Commissioner Gordon Batman.jpg
DC Comics

It is impossible to have any examination of the integrity of James Gordon without looking at Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.

It was a quiet night at Gordon’s apartment when Joker knocked on the door. Barbara Gordon answered it and the clown shot her through the spine, paralyzing her. As his henchpeople kidnapped Jim, the Clown Prince undressed Barbara as she lay bleeding on the floor.

Joker’s small army of fat ladies, dwarves, rubber men, and other circus sorts took James to an abandoned amusement park, stripped him naked, attached a chain and collar, and locked him in a tiny cage. When the Jester of Genocide arrived, he forced the Commissioner to ride through a “Fun House” filled with nude and suggestively posed pictures of Barbara’s brutalised body. The Joker’s idea was that even the most stable man needed only one bad day to drive him over the edge.

When Batman arrived, he quickly dispatched the Harlequin of Hate’s group of freaks and geeks and freed James Gordon, but the Joker fled into a Hall of Mirrors. Gordon made the enraged Dark Knight promise that he would bring the Clown in “by the book.” Jim told Bruce that, no matter what, they had to prove that “their way worked".

Contributor
Contributor

John Wilson has been a comic book and pop culture fan his entire life. He has written for a number of websites on the subject over the years and is especially pleased to be at WhatCulture. John has written two comic books for Last Ember Press Studio and has recently self-published a children's book called "Blue." When not spending far too much time on the internet, John spends time with his lovely wife, Kim, their goofy dog, Tesla, and two very spoiled cats.