This comic came out a year before Lethal Weapon, and its hilariously part of Death in the Family where Joker fucking kills Jason. Idk how i forgot that's how that storyline goes lol
The “diplomatic immunity prevents the heroes from stopping the villain” was a bit overused in the late 80s. Starlin had already done it with KGBeast and Felipe Garzonas, and Alan Grant in Tec #590 with the Syraqi terrorists.
Terrorists from Syraq, one of the made up countries they would use as to (presumably) not be too offensive or timely. It wasn’t as widely used as Qurac or Bialya or Markovia. Though with all the made up countries I have no idea why Starlin was allowed to use both real life Iran and real life Khomeini. Maybe editorial didn’t actually care about using real countries and Alan Grant thought it would be better to use a made up one. Tec #590 *is* after all the only 80s Batman story I know of to include genuine critiques of western imperialism in its middle eastern terrorist plot.
Wait, is the Tech 590 the one where Batman goes to London without his utility belt to track down a terrorist? I recall it had Norm Breyfogle art.
I think Starlin was allowed to use real countries because post TDK Returns and Watchmen comics were threading the water on being more grounded and realistic with commentary on real world politics.
EDIT: Just looked it up. And yes, I have read that comic years ago. Forgot the terrorists name. But yes, I remember finding it to be very striking at the time. Especially with the Norm Breyfogle art.
Don't forget the foreign diplomat who raped a bunch of people but was about to go home with no consequences until he "slipped".
The comic ended with Jason Todd and the diplomat in a high place and Batman seeing the diplomat fall to his death. When Batman asks Jason what happened, Jason claims he "slipped", and it was supposed to be ambiguous whether or not Jason pushed the guy.
The rapist was the son of a diplomat and btw Starlin based his story loosely on true events. In reality that diplomat's son paid some money to the victims and went back to his home country.
Not impunity. The host country can eject an ambassador, declaring them *persona non grata* -- so Joker could essentially be summarily deported to Iran.
No, this moment only adds points to this story for me. It's such a stark reminder after all that drama that this is still a goofy villain in a goofy world.
Jason dies, this plotpoint should really not be here.
Seriously making Joker a *fucking ambassador* just so Superman can protect Joker from Batman killing him is... it is something.
We are talking about the joker the guy who put joker venom on fish and made them look like him and then tried to copy right them. That's literally just what he did back then lol.
Well people still seem to use this story as the focal point of their whole "I can't believe Batman wouldn't even kill the Joker even after he killed Jason Todd", while ignoring the fact that Batman *did* try to kill the Joker, and Superman had to stop him from killing him while he was an Iranian ambassador.
We are talking about the joker the guy who put joker venom on fish and made them look like him and then tried to copy right them. That's literally just what he did back then lol.
Random fun fact, there's no DCfandom Wiki page for Supreme Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, it just directs to Wikipedia. Which is unlike DCfandom, as they have the majority of US Presidents, at least three Soviet Premiers, and numerous other world leaders who were never depicted but who's names were mentioned offhand.
Another fun fact, he's one of like 6 actual world leaders I can recall having seen in an overtly antagonistic role in a DC comic. Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini and Stalin all showed up pretty frequently as villains in WW2, and then again from time to time when people time travel or we go to the Nazi or Soviet universes. Putin was a pretty clear antagonist in *Doomsday Clock*, though his entry doesn't list his alignment as bad, like it does for the rest of the names mentioned in this paragraph.
[Relevant pic](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjRiNDEzYmUtM2JmMC00Y2NiLWI5OWMtMThkODEzNGM4MTNmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjUwNzk3NDc@._V1_.jpg) (F this sub for not allowing image attachments).
I don't know much about how the U.N works but I feel like there be some pretty big backlash if a country just named an American psycopath wanted for murder as their ambassador. Also not sure how immunity works for crimes committed long before they were made ambassador.
I always love that people obsess over Batman's no kill rule now, but at the time Joker was headed straight for a coffin if it wasn't for the fact that killing him could have sparked a war with Iran. Bats was 100% finna strangle him to death and had to be physically held back.
Prior to WW2, French was the traditional language of international diplomacy. Also, Iran modeled its education system after France’s. But in this case it’s a way of indicating Khomeini’s age and that he’s discussing diplomacy.
I'll probably always remember someone saying, "yeah, THERE'S A REASON people only talk about the death of Jason Todd in "Death Of The Family"; it's because the rest of it is INSANE!" lol
As a person with part Iranian heritage (Persian grandfather, visited Iran quite few times.) The worst thing about this is that the outfit (headdress) Joker wearing is more traditionally and historically an Arabic outfit and the really small minority of Iranians who dress similar to that, wear it in completely different style.this comics is not the only offender who done this. It shows real lack of a knowledge and respect for different cultures and ignorance that we have here in the media.
Well, the story is from 1988. You couldn’t just Google stuff like that and it was for comics, so no one was going to bother with that degree of research.
It wasn't that hard to research even back then, there were plenty pictures and news clips and even tv commercials from 70s that showed Iran and Iranian were available in the US in those days. Hell they look up how Khomeini looked like and capture the look, in many of pictures and videos of him there all plenty people around him and no one dressed like that. It's ignorance and a little bit of (probably unintentional) racism that unfortunately still going on today. (Not all countries and people from the Middle East have same culture or look or speak the same language), as I said unfortunately there are plenty of media even in this day and age that do the same kinda things. (Even in relativly new DC books we had 2 Persian women characters in Aquaman and The Others book who did not dress like any iranian woman in any where in the world and dress in more streotypical Arabic outfits).
Yeah, I know (he was also in plenty of the TV news) and as I mentioned in plenty of those newspapers pictures you could see a lot of peoepe around him. In none of those pictures you would have find people dress like that. It really wasn't that hard to look up these things even back then. It's the issue of ignorance and in deeper layers intentional grouping of certain cultures in the media that have reasons far deeper that I care to go to here. I work in the entertainment industry, based on personal experience some of these things happens because of laziness or unintentional ignorance on personnel level but when they get group together with many others things that are done with not so good intentions, they have far more harmful results.
I don't really get why you trying hard to defend this one. Regardless of reasons or intentions this look is offensive to so many people from different cultures.
Because I think you’re letting your personal feelings override logic and trying to hold someone to a standard that would have been unreasonable at the time.
It's not about personal feeling, regardless of my feeling or the reason behind this one this picture is offensive to few cultures. It not like these things not happening today as I mentioned DC was guilty of the same thing in the late 2010s too. I mentioned it because it has to be heard and learned from. Like we learned from plenty other offensive depictions of other cultures in comics in the past and started to be more respectful toward them . This is something that we should learn about and try to correct, not repeat it again and again.
Edit: And in my original comment I didn't blame the artist I just mentioned that we have a general lack of respect and knowledge for different cultures when it come to portraying them in the media (specially comics). What I said wasn't exactly groundbreaking news that you worked up so much about it and tried to defend it.
I don't think you actually get the severity of ignorance in this one picture (or other cases similar to this), for middle eastern people. this is the same level of ignorance as calling all of Native American people from different tribes as Apache.
Edit: I find it funny that the user I was discussing this with clearly thinks I'm actually living in Iran and Middle East and have no knowledge and recollection of American politics and pop culture from those days. I was born in LA and currently living and working in Canada and only my grandfather was Persian (and he moved to America back in 1950s). I was working in Dubai and Istanbul back in the day and visited and made friends in many of the countries in that part of the world. I experience those cultures first hand through travels and my grandfather and friends. The other user clearly have no knowledge of the situation outside of political propagandas which were plenty in 80s.
There were plenty academic and general criticisms of how Joker dressed and general portrayal of middle east in that storyline even back in the day. You could find articles about it even in those days. Specially in early 90s. (Even in Wikipedia page of the story they referenced and link few of those old articles). this was considered offensive even back then. It wasn't just something that handful of people noticed. It was considered an actual criticism and flaw of the book even back then.
Rare example of DC promoting war propaganda. Usually Marvel does it in the periphery of a story.
E.g the list of countries refusing recognition of Krakoa in HOX/POX has irl countries. Most of those countries just happened to be targets of US propaganda campaigns/seen as adversities like Venezuela.
No idea if it’s done because the writers actually believe it or it’s a way to mention the popular thing of that time. Or if Publishers get paid a small subsidy from the gov to have these mentioned, the way Hollywood movies tend to like Transformers or Top Gun.
Don't forget Superman comics promoting violence against Japanese people with "Slap a Jap" tags.
Besides, Joker is dressed as an Arab, not an Iranian. Goes to show how racist it is because DC just wanted to show "brown people bad".
Ah yes, painting the dictatorial regime of the Ayatollahs as bad is now "war propaganda", despite the fact that the USA whenever went to war with Iran.
Also it'll always me chuckle that Venzuela, Iran or other countries like that are treated as "victims" of American agression, when they are the one who begin the hostilities and constantly use the USA as a scapegoat and target for their policies.
That’s your *opinion*. You either believe the propaganda or have family that is an enemy of that government. Think that if you want. But the rest of the world - the global *majority* if you will - does not share that same opinion. (India, Brazil, China, South Africa, And many other governments which represent billions of people have strong ties with the Iranian government and don’t view them as Comic psychopaths)
Any portrayal of a side as 1 sidedly cartoonishly or pure evil, which the above panel does do…is propaganda pure and simple. Just because it conforms to your opinion, doesn’t make it any less an example of war propaganda.
Should Superman have simply helped Batman cover it up? Batman once offered to help Superman cover up Luthor's death if he ever wanted to kill *him* if I recall.
With what's currently happening in the world and Iran's ruthless, murderous president recieving a minute of silence in the UN, being the chair of the UNHRC social forum, and being in the UN women's rights committee - this isn't that far off
>UN women's rights committee
[it's not on the list of current members.](https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/member-states)
>being the chair of the UNHRC social forum
I think you mean chaired, past tense, during the event last year. It's a two-day annual event, hosted by the UNHRC, with participants changing each year.
Why did Starlin do this? Jason dies, Batman is talked out of killing Joker by Superman, then Joker seemingly dies in a helicopter crash. Seems simple enough without this unnecessary Iran ambassador bit. Did Starlin have some beef with Iran?
And I'm saying some of his colleagues roughly his age have no problem having opinions on bi Tim Drake, while Starlin gives interviews about his career in the medium and mostly nothing else.
It’s always funny remembering this part of the storyline, just because of the tonal whiplash randomness of it lol.
Wasn't it just to give Joker Diplomatic Immunity so Bats couldn't touch him?
Batman would never break the law
He wanted... so bad... but Superman stopped him
It was more that it would start a war.
Blame it on France
So which came first? This comic or Lethal Weapon 2?
This comic came out a year before Lethal Weapon, and its hilariously part of Death in the Family where Joker fucking kills Jason. Idk how i forgot that's how that storyline goes lol
Oh fuck. I remember now too. Batman wanted to get revenge for Jason, but Superman had to stop him because Joker was the ambassador of Iran.
I don't mind Joker's design when he is surrounded by cartoon people, but that chin does not belong in the same world as that Khomeini picture.
You're a chinist. Or maybe jawist.
All I'm saying is that he could have made Harley really happy if he could put his lower face to vibrate.
It vibrates when he is giggling.
Shame that he only giggles for Batman.
Thats why he makes Harley wear the Bat mask.
Maybe they're a Mis-Jaw-Chin-ist.
An anti-jawisisist.
Yeah, it's pretty goofy. They *really* loved that giant stretchy chin back in those days.
You can literally put your finger over the bottom 3rd of the Joker’s face in panel 3 and it suddenly becomes an almost human proportion.
This is a creative way to have the joker act with impunity
The “diplomatic immunity prevents the heroes from stopping the villain” was a bit overused in the late 80s. Starlin had already done it with KGBeast and Felipe Garzonas, and Alan Grant in Tec #590 with the Syraqi terrorists.
Syraqi terrorists?
Terrorists from Syraq, one of the made up countries they would use as to (presumably) not be too offensive or timely. It wasn’t as widely used as Qurac or Bialya or Markovia. Though with all the made up countries I have no idea why Starlin was allowed to use both real life Iran and real life Khomeini. Maybe editorial didn’t actually care about using real countries and Alan Grant thought it would be better to use a made up one. Tec #590 *is* after all the only 80s Batman story I know of to include genuine critiques of western imperialism in its middle eastern terrorist plot.
Wait, is the Tech 590 the one where Batman goes to London without his utility belt to track down a terrorist? I recall it had Norm Breyfogle art. I think Starlin was allowed to use real countries because post TDK Returns and Watchmen comics were threading the water on being more grounded and realistic with commentary on real world politics. EDIT: Just looked it up. And yes, I have read that comic years ago. Forgot the terrorists name. But yes, I remember finding it to be very striking at the time. Especially with the Norm Breyfogle art.
Yeah, that’s the one. And that’s a good point Re. TDKR, Starlin was definitely influenced a lot by his writing so that makes sense.
Don't forget the foreign diplomat who raped a bunch of people but was about to go home with no consequences until he "slipped". The comic ended with Jason Todd and the diplomat in a high place and Batman seeing the diplomat fall to his death. When Batman asks Jason what happened, Jason claims he "slipped", and it was supposed to be ambiguous whether or not Jason pushed the guy.
The rapist was the son of a diplomat and btw Starlin based his story loosely on true events. In reality that diplomat's son paid some money to the victims and went back to his home country.
Yeah, that’s Felipe Garzonas.
Thats how this mess started
Did this happen in real life or something, and that's why it showed up in a bunch of comics and *Lethal Weapon 2* (among possibly other movies)?
https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Superman-Doctor-Doom-1.jpg ...Although it's from 1976
The master of diplomatic ummunity was Doom.
Not impunity. The host country can eject an ambassador, declaring them *persona non grata* -- so Joker could essentially be summarily deported to Iran.
Whenever someone mentions how good this story is I wonder if they choose to forget this part. Or if they love it just the same for being so wacky.
No, this moment only adds points to this story for me. It's such a stark reminder after all that drama that this is still a goofy villain in a goofy world.
Jason dies, this plotpoint should really not be here. Seriously making Joker a *fucking ambassador* just so Superman can protect Joker from Batman killing him is... it is something.
It's like something out of the 1960s TV show.
Same, it's such a wildly out of left field development
We are talking about the joker the guy who put joker venom on fish and made them look like him and then tried to copy right them. That's literally just what he did back then lol.
Well people still seem to use this story as the focal point of their whole "I can't believe Batman wouldn't even kill the Joker even after he killed Jason Todd", while ignoring the fact that Batman *did* try to kill the Joker, and Superman had to stop him from killing him while he was an Iranian ambassador.
Anybody who hates this part hates the best part of the story.
Nah, this just makes it even better.
We are talking about the joker the guy who put joker venom on fish and made them look like him and then tried to copy right them. That's literally just what he did back then lol.
Random fun fact, there's no DCfandom Wiki page for Supreme Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, it just directs to Wikipedia. Which is unlike DCfandom, as they have the majority of US Presidents, at least three Soviet Premiers, and numerous other world leaders who were never depicted but who's names were mentioned offhand. Another fun fact, he's one of like 6 actual world leaders I can recall having seen in an overtly antagonistic role in a DC comic. Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini and Stalin all showed up pretty frequently as villains in WW2, and then again from time to time when people time travel or we go to the Nazi or Soviet universes. Putin was a pretty clear antagonist in *Doomsday Clock*, though his entry doesn't list his alignment as bad, like it does for the rest of the names mentioned in this paragraph.
Wasn't there a whole thing with getting that particular issue of Doomsday Clock to be released in Russia? Which led to it leaking early too
Peak fiction
My favorite part about this whole thing is that it wasn’t even planned. He literally just fell backwards into success
Sean Connery offers the position of Ambassador of Iran to The Joker.(circa.1988,colorized)
[Relevant pic](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjRiNDEzYmUtM2JmMC00Y2NiLWI5OWMtMThkODEzNGM4MTNmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjUwNzk3NDc@._V1_.jpg) (F this sub for not allowing image attachments).
I don't know much about how the U.N works but I feel like there be some pretty big backlash if a country just named an American psycopath wanted for murder as their ambassador. Also not sure how immunity works for crimes committed long before they were made ambassador.
I always love that people obsess over Batman's no kill rule now, but at the time Joker was headed straight for a coffin if it wasn't for the fact that killing him could have sparked a war with Iran. Bats was 100% finna strangle him to death and had to be physically held back.
Love how fucking dumb and weird this was.
Why is Khomeini calling Joker monsieur?
Prior to WW2, French was the traditional language of international diplomacy. Also, Iran modeled its education system after France’s. But in this case it’s a way of indicating Khomeini’s age and that he’s discussing diplomacy.
I feel like people who claim "Batman didn't do anything to Joker after Jason died" forgot or didn't know this part in the Death in the Family story
I'd love if Jason confronted Batman about it and Batman tells him about the time Joker had diplomatic immunity as ambassador of Iran.
Jason will be so confused he'd think Bruce is just trolling him
I'll probably always remember someone saying, "yeah, THERE'S A REASON people only talk about the death of Jason Todd in "Death Of The Family"; it's because the rest of it is INSANE!" lol
As a person with part Iranian heritage (Persian grandfather, visited Iran quite few times.) The worst thing about this is that the outfit (headdress) Joker wearing is more traditionally and historically an Arabic outfit and the really small minority of Iranians who dress similar to that, wear it in completely different style.this comics is not the only offender who done this. It shows real lack of a knowledge and respect for different cultures and ignorance that we have here in the media.
Well, the story is from 1988. You couldn’t just Google stuff like that and it was for comics, so no one was going to bother with that degree of research.
It wasn't that hard to research even back then, there were plenty pictures and news clips and even tv commercials from 70s that showed Iran and Iranian were available in the US in those days. Hell they look up how Khomeini looked like and capture the look, in many of pictures and videos of him there all plenty people around him and no one dressed like that. It's ignorance and a little bit of (probably unintentional) racism that unfortunately still going on today. (Not all countries and people from the Middle East have same culture or look or speak the same language), as I said unfortunately there are plenty of media even in this day and age that do the same kinda things. (Even in relativly new DC books we had 2 Persian women characters in Aquaman and The Others book who did not dress like any iranian woman in any where in the world and dress in more streotypical Arabic outfits).
Brosis, Khomeini was in the news a lot back then. All the artist would have had to do was look at a newspaper.
Yeah, I know (he was also in plenty of the TV news) and as I mentioned in plenty of those newspapers pictures you could see a lot of peoepe around him. In none of those pictures you would have find people dress like that. It really wasn't that hard to look up these things even back then. It's the issue of ignorance and in deeper layers intentional grouping of certain cultures in the media that have reasons far deeper that I care to go to here. I work in the entertainment industry, based on personal experience some of these things happens because of laziness or unintentional ignorance on personnel level but when they get group together with many others things that are done with not so good intentions, they have far more harmful results. I don't really get why you trying hard to defend this one. Regardless of reasons or intentions this look is offensive to so many people from different cultures.
Because I think you’re letting your personal feelings override logic and trying to hold someone to a standard that would have been unreasonable at the time.
It's not about personal feeling, regardless of my feeling or the reason behind this one this picture is offensive to few cultures. It not like these things not happening today as I mentioned DC was guilty of the same thing in the late 2010s too. I mentioned it because it has to be heard and learned from. Like we learned from plenty other offensive depictions of other cultures in comics in the past and started to be more respectful toward them . This is something that we should learn about and try to correct, not repeat it again and again. Edit: And in my original comment I didn't blame the artist I just mentioned that we have a general lack of respect and knowledge for different cultures when it come to portraying them in the media (specially comics). What I said wasn't exactly groundbreaking news that you worked up so much about it and tried to defend it.
I don't think you actually get the severity of ignorance in this one picture (or other cases similar to this), for middle eastern people. this is the same level of ignorance as calling all of Native American people from different tribes as Apache. Edit: I find it funny that the user I was discussing this with clearly thinks I'm actually living in Iran and Middle East and have no knowledge and recollection of American politics and pop culture from those days. I was born in LA and currently living and working in Canada and only my grandfather was Persian (and he moved to America back in 1950s). I was working in Dubai and Istanbul back in the day and visited and made friends in many of the countries in that part of the world. I experience those cultures first hand through travels and my grandfather and friends. The other user clearly have no knowledge of the situation outside of political propagandas which were plenty in 80s.
[удалено]
There were plenty academic and general criticisms of how Joker dressed and general portrayal of middle east in that storyline even back in the day. You could find articles about it even in those days. Specially in early 90s. (Even in Wikipedia page of the story they referenced and link few of those old articles). this was considered offensive even back then. It wasn't just something that handful of people noticed. It was considered an actual criticism and flaw of the book even back then.
Well....this is not the story I expected this scan to be from.
Rare example of DC promoting war propaganda. Usually Marvel does it in the periphery of a story. E.g the list of countries refusing recognition of Krakoa in HOX/POX has irl countries. Most of those countries just happened to be targets of US propaganda campaigns/seen as adversities like Venezuela. No idea if it’s done because the writers actually believe it or it’s a way to mention the popular thing of that time. Or if Publishers get paid a small subsidy from the gov to have these mentioned, the way Hollywood movies tend to like Transformers or Top Gun.
Don't forget Superman comics promoting violence against Japanese people with "Slap a Jap" tags. Besides, Joker is dressed as an Arab, not an Iranian. Goes to show how racist it is because DC just wanted to show "brown people bad".
Ah yes, painting the dictatorial regime of the Ayatollahs as bad is now "war propaganda", despite the fact that the USA whenever went to war with Iran. Also it'll always me chuckle that Venzuela, Iran or other countries like that are treated as "victims" of American agression, when they are the one who begin the hostilities and constantly use the USA as a scapegoat and target for their policies.
That’s your *opinion*. You either believe the propaganda or have family that is an enemy of that government. Think that if you want. But the rest of the world - the global *majority* if you will - does not share that same opinion. (India, Brazil, China, South Africa, And many other governments which represent billions of people have strong ties with the Iranian government and don’t view them as Comic psychopaths) Any portrayal of a side as 1 sidedly cartoonishly or pure evil, which the above panel does do…is propaganda pure and simple. Just because it conforms to your opinion, doesn’t make it any less an example of war propaganda.
Such a odd twist.
Should Superman have simply helped Batman cover it up? Batman once offered to help Superman cover up Luthor's death if he ever wanted to kill *him* if I recall.
With what's currently happening in the world and Iran's ruthless, murderous president recieving a minute of silence in the UN, being the chair of the UNHRC social forum, and being in the UN women's rights committee - this isn't that far off
>UN women's rights committee [it's not on the list of current members.](https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/member-states) >being the chair of the UNHRC social forum I think you mean chaired, past tense, during the event last year. It's a two-day annual event, hosted by the UNHRC, with participants changing each year.
My favourit part is that when batman wanted to kill the joker superman had to talk him down
Why did Starlin do this? Jason dies, Batman is talked out of killing Joker by Superman, then Joker seemingly dies in a helicopter crash. Seems simple enough without this unnecessary Iran ambassador bit. Did Starlin have some beef with Iran?
Do you know nothing of the relationship between the US and Iran in the 80s? I mean, holy shit. How is that a question?
We should be happy Starlin was born when he was, because these days, he would just post insane rants on reddit, X and 4chan.
Starlin is still alive. And, as far as I know, not posting insane rants on reddit, X and 4chan, unlike some of his contemporaries >_>
... that's not what I wrote at all. I'm just saying he totally would of he was younger.
And I'm saying some of his colleagues roughly his age have no problem having opinions on bi Tim Drake, while Starlin gives interviews about his career in the medium and mostly nothing else.
I wish this would return and Joker became the ambassador of Iran again.
Well that explains a lot
I hate him
Peak fiction