The maniacal Joker in ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’ by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland tries to make Commissioner Gordon snap mentally by giving him physical and mental torture, while proclaiming that ‘All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.’ It’s one of the most disturbing yet realistic Batman comics I’ve read so far. While Gordon didn’t snap as he expected, what the Joker did almost did snap him.
Perhaps the Joker wanted empathy from the world, to make all realise that he isn’t very ‘different’, that he too suffered greatly, which is why he snapped. This story offers one of the earliest possible origins of how the Joker came to be the way he is. It does invoke empathy in the reader too. In a sense, the Joker is disturbingly right – that some of us are just one bad day away from losing our minds. We must practise the Dharma well, while we are well and sane – so that if one bad day ever strikes, we will remain spiritually sound!