Has DC killed Batman and the Joker?

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/30/has-dc-killed-batman-and-joker-endgame-scott-snyder

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Scott Snyder’s run on DC Comics’ Batman has already garnered its fair share of controversy as well as plaudits. They will probably fade in comparison to the twist in the final part of Endgame, in issue #40, which appeared yesterday.

There had already been some consternation at Snyder’s rewriting of the Joker. At the end of a previous arc, Death of the Family, where the Joker seemingly knew the secret identities of Batman and all his allies, Bruce Wayne bested his nemesis by whispering that he knew the Joker’s true identity as well.

In Endgame itself, there were constant hints that the Joker was not just a psychopathic man, but an immortal, legendary figure with supernatural powers, a “Pale Man” haunting Gotham’s history. Certain groups of fans bridled at this swerve towards the magical. Equal to the Joker’s mysteriousness has been the sense that he is nonetheless just as mortal, just as lacking in superpowers, as Batman. The previous issue, in which the Joker lopped off Alfred Pennyworth’s hand, seemed to show that all bets were off in terms of game-changing developments.

But none of this prepared readers for the twist in the final part. There was always going to be a climactic battle – and it is one of the most gruesome in the comic’s recent history, with a highpoint being the Joker being skewered by the ears on Batman’s costume. Exhausted, both wounded, it ends with the two of them lying on a cave floor. “I’m just going to rest here a little while with my friend,” says Batman. Then the roof caves in. Snyder has confirmed what readers inferred, speaking to website IGN: “So what I’m saying is, yes, they’re dead – and they went into it ready to die; so there’s no trick to it”.

With a new robotic-suited Batman already having debuted in the Comic Book Day giveaway Divergence – supposedly with Jim Gordon operating it – is this really the death of two characters who’ve slugged it out over 75 years? Snyder admits that death is rarely a finality in comics; hence the rather snarky term “dirt nap”, often used in reference to the second Robin’s death (at the hands of the Joker) and resurrection.

Batman too has “died” before: Grant Morrison killed him off in Batman RIP and Final Crisis, although death in this instance meant “hit by Darkseid’s Omega Sanction and transported to the distant past”, returning to the mainstream comics a year later.

Killing Batman and the Joker is certainly bold. But the big question is how long will they stay dead for. Somehow I don’t think they’ll manage Barry (the Flash) Allen’s 23 years away from the page after his1985 “death” in Crisis on Infinite Earths.