The Joker vs Doctor Octopus

People who know me, when they think of me and comic books in the same thought, will think of one of three comic books: Uncle Scrooge, InuYasha, or Batman, these being the three comic books which I list as the greatest comic books ever made. One would think I was a huge Batman fan. It certainly looks like I'm a huge Batman fans. You know what? I hate Batman. I can stand Bruce Wayne. I've never liked Batman in the slightest, and yet, I grab every issue of Batman that crosses my path. This baffles people, until they take a closer look at my Batman issues. They all have a common thread: they are always Joker issues. I hate Batman, but I love the Joker.

I'm a huge life-long fan of the Joker. The Joker ranks as one of my "obsessions". I've loved the Joker since way back in the old "classic Batman" days, and the H&B cartoons, and of course, the comic books (which is how I got started liking him to begin with.)

The Joker was the first comic book character to actually kill someone in a comic book, which caused all kinds of complaints and had folks wanting the comic book banned (can't remember the year, I think it was in the 1940's). He has a reputation of being the meanest villain ever created.

Why do I love the Joker? I have no idea. I just do. Maybe it's the green hair? The crazy purple suit? The way he turns everything into a practical joke? The fact that he isn't happy unless you die happy and thus make certain that you'll die laughing? Or maybe it's just that laugh, which cackles across the pages, page after page, even after he's walked away, and the stream of laughter is still scattering across the pages.

Than again, who wouldn't love an escaped psychopath?

Well, me knowing him from the comic book, meant that though I liked the TV show and cartoon versions of him, I was always disappointed by the way they changed him, from his outright evilness and made him "too nice". Dark Knight, however, kept him true to the comic book, making it one of my top fave movies ever.

I never really got interested in Spider-man. I guess I always thought of him as too much of a wimp when compared to other super-heroes. Of course, in spite of my mountains of comic books, I never became a fan of any of the super-heroes at all (except Wonder Woman). I was too busy being fascinated by all of the super-villains to pay any attention to the heroes themselves. So as a kid, when other kids were talking about Superman and Captain America and all the other super heroes, I was talking about the Joker and Doctor Octopus instead.

I only ever read the Doctor Octopus issues of the Spider-man comics, and I only started watching the Hanna-Barbara cartoon, when I found out they were making a Doctor Octopus episode. Likewise, when the Spider-man movies came out, I passed off #1 as uninteresting and was bored with #3, but #2 became one of my fave movies. Can you guess why?

I always fall for the mad-scientist, but WOW! Doctor Octopus is the greatest mad-scientist of them all!