New 'Dark Knight' Comic Shows Joker Working to Get Donald Trump Re-Elected
A new “Dark Knight” comic shows comic universe supervillains working to re-elect a president who looks and sounds suspiciously like President Donald Trump.
The comic portrays Joker as scheming with the evil Darkseid to win a new term for an unnamed president, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
However, as The Hollywood Reporter described it, author Frank Miller did not even try to cover up his political views:
“The president isn’t directly named in the comic, but he doesn’t need to be; his likeness is used on multiple pages; dialogue from the president is heard at one point and is distinctly Trumpian (‘It’s going to be beautiful! You’re gonna love it! You’re gonna love every inch of it! I’m talking streets so safe you can let your kids go play and not even think about ’em!’); and the Joker’s jacket, made of the U.S. flag, has the words ‘I Really Don’t Care, Do U?’ scrawled on the back.”
“Subtle, it’s not,” The Hollywood Reporter noted.
I have no idea how to feel about this. I’m either gonna hate it with a passion or be very pleasantly surprised by the commentary.
Joker campaigning for Trump. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/D0baO43Vc8
— TheBatFamily ? (@TheBat_Family) December 10, 2019
In the comic, Darkseid believes that if he employs Joker to get the president re-elected, it will be easier to take over all humanity.
“For those wondering why the two are working together for this purpose, Darkseid has recruited the Joker as an ‘agent of chaos’ to promote Trump’s election, with the ultimate goal of destroying humanity’s faith in itself and thereby being easier to conquer,” THR explained.
But DC Comics’ decision to be directly anti-Trump may not come without a cost. Getting political has proven risky in the business.
Marvel Vice President David Gabriel said in 2017 that the company’s sales were negatively affected by diversity, according to the comics trade magazine ICV2.
“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity,” Gabriel told the publication. “They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not.
“I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales. … Any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up.”
However, Marvel will still be including diversity in its upcoming “phase” of movies, according to the entertainment website Uproxx.
The development caused a stir at the San Deigo Comic-Con, Uproxx reported:
“It became quickly evident that — along with news of Doctor Strange and Thor sequels — one thing distinguishes the next batch of superhero movies from the previous three: They’re incredibly diverse, with major roles going to women, to people of color, to people of many ethnicities, and to the LGBTQ+ community.”
Real-world politics have been known to intrude on the comic business. Now, The Hollywood Reporter noted, the world of comics might be on its way to becoming as polarized as the real world.
“If 2020 proves to be as ideologically divided as it appears it will be,” the article stated, “partisans will find it easy to choose a comic book publisher based on their beliefs headed into the next election.”
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