The Greene Knight

            As I read Graham Greene’s ‘The Destructors,’ I could not help but notice that Trevor (or T as the gang takes to calling him) had extremely similar qualities to the terror of Gotham City: the Joker.

Why doesn't the Joker want to kill Batman?

            Despite the graveyards he has filled in his career, despite brutally murdering Jason Todd (the second of Batman’s sidekicks), and despite committing any and every atrocity he can to torture Batman to the point of breaking, the Joker does not hate Batman. In fact, the opposite is true. Without Batman, the Joker would not have a purpose. At the beginning of ‘The Destructors,’ Greene describes T as a relatively boring member of the gang. T “never wasted a word” (382), and when he did speak, his “words were almost confined to voting ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the plan of operations” (383). However, Old Misery not only sparks T to speak, but to take charge and become leader of the gang. As Blackie and T burn Old Misery’s money, Blackie feels that the only reason T would do what he was doing was because he hated Old Misery. However, T says that he does not hate him, and that it would be “no fun” (389) if he hated him. 

Without Batman, crime has no punch line.

            T also knows that he needs Old Misery, as much as the Joker knows that he needs Batman. When he designs his plan to destroy the house, he bases it solely on the fact that he knows Old Miserly would be away during the destruction. When they lock Old Misery in his loo, an unknown voice provides him with a blanket and food. I would like to argue that it was, in fact, T who did this. Old Misery had provided him with the means to gain power, and he wanted to see Old Misery’s reaction to the destruction. Despite having had opportunities to kill Batman in the past, the Joker chose not to. The fact of the matter is that they complete each other. In Batman: The Animated Series, Batman fakes his death in order to track down drug dealers. When the Joker thought that Batman really was dead, he stopped committing crimes, because “without Batman, crime has no punch line.” Nobody would be there to appreciate his work, and grieve at the end result. And, simply put, that’s no fun for anybody.

            One mystery throughout ‘The Destructors’ is T’s motivation to destroy Old Misery’s house. When he first suggests destroying the house, T says that he does not want to steal anything. He didn’t want to increase his wealth or the wealth of the gang. Once inside the house, he and Blackie burn Old Misery’s money, further enforcing this point. As mentioned above, he does not claim or show to have any animosity or hatred towards Old Misery. He does not dislike the house, and in fact says that it’s “beautiful” (384). Through the events, he briefly gains power in the gang, but if his intention had been to gain power, why had he never shown any indication of this desire in the past? In fact, all that anyone knows about T is that his father was formerly an architect and now worked as a clerk, his mother was arrogant, and he was born sometime before 1954. The Joker, as well, does not have a clear past. Since his emergence in 1940, the Joker has provided dozens of backstories. In 'The Killing Joke' by Alan Moore, the Joker says that "If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!" Though some possible motivations might emerge because of his past (i.e. rebellion against his father’s architecture or psychological trauma caused by the war), T does not claim any of them. And, in fact, that's the Joker's whole point. It's not the past, where he came from, or who he is that matters. As Bruce Wayne struggled to find out everything he could about the Joker, Alfred suggests the possibility that the Joker is not trying to gain anything through his actions. “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” T says something to Blackie that almost mirrors this. "All this hate and love, it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things, Blackie" (389).

            In searching for T’s method, I think the best thing to look at is the theme of destruction. After declaring that there are only things, T looks around the room at the “shadows of half things, broken things, former things” (390).  This is one of the points that the Joker seeks to make to the people of Gotham. He believes that everything can be destroyed, and therefore is not real or important. Laws can be broken, so they mean nothing. Justice can be destroyed, so there is no justice. As T looks around the house that he once called beautiful, he sees things that once were beautiful, now destroyed. If nothing is real, and everything can go, then life is just one big joke. The Joker puts it best in two simple words: “Everything burns.”

I feel like I could keep going on and on about this, but I'd like to instead pose the question to you guys. Below, I'm going to post some more pictures and video clips that, I think, can further relate the Joker to T. How do you think these scenes relate, or do not relate, T and the Joker?

From 'Batman Confidential #12'

From 'Batman #686'

From 'Batman and Robin #14'

From 'Batman #663'

From 'The Killing Joke'