So a long time ago on this site, when my blog was just barely four months old, I wrote a post outlining why the ending of Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke could be interpreted as Batman killing the Joker. I laid out my reasons, got a few comments (on the now-defunct Haloscan service I used to have on my site), with some folks thinking it was interesting, some others fully onboard, and a few who thought I was way off base. And, fair enough — I said right there in the body of that post “I may be reading too much into this,” and that’s fine. We’re all just having fun.
About nine years later, in an interview, Grant Morrison comes out and says “Batman kills Joker at the end of The Killing Joke,” and because they’re a person who had slightly more fame and influence than a comic shop employee with a blog, everyone was all over this “sudden revelation” that I also had like a decade earlier.
In fairness, a few kind persons here and there piped up and said “hey, this Mike guy said the same thing a long time ago,” but again, comic shop dude, blog, no traction. But it was nice to be remembered.
I didn’t see at the time of the Morrison thing this solid refutation of the “Batman Kills Joker” idea, written by my now-pal-on-Bluesky John. Had I seen it back in 2013, would I have jumped into his comments and declared “NO, YOU’RE WRONG, BATMAN TOTALLY KILLED JOKER! READ MY POST!”
No, of course not. As I said above, we’re all just having fun, and as I note in my 2013 post, it’s just an interpretation, and not any sort of “proof” of authorial intent.
And besides, in a recent Bluesky discussion on a related topic, comics artist Chris Weston reveals
Thus does the long “Killing Joke‘s ending” saga come to its…well, end. Brian Bolland, literal Co-Creator of the Story, sez “negatory.”
Does that mean we can no longer read the ending of Killing Joke as the Joker’s death? No, of course not. Once art is out there, its meaning can be unmoored (er, so to speak) from the creators’ intentions, and anyone can see whatever they want to see in it. Even if it’s entirely…well, I hate to use the word “wrong,” but…wrong. Not all ideas are equally supported or of equal merit, but you can’t stop people from seeing what they see, feeling what they feel.
And that’s kinda that. I had a wild idea about Killing Joke, threw it out into the universe, and it met either approval, disapproval, or indifference. I felt no need to run around defending the idea against every naysayer, because I knew full well it was just an interesting way to read the end of that story. Plus, it’s not like I was necessarily the first to come up with it in 2004, 14 years after the comic originally came out. (And it’s coming out again in a fancy new facsimile edition on the 28th of this month, so you can read it yourself and see if me ‘n’ Grant are right!)
Why do I bring all this up? I mean, other to show off how great and clever I am?
It’s because another of my Bluesky pals mentioned in passing that there was someone out there challenging people who dared not to take his Watchmen theory seriously. That caught my attention, because as longtime readers of this site know, I do love me some ancillary Watchmen stuff, the sillier the better.
Well, said pal explained the theory to me, to which I reacted “huh, interesting, not really supported by the text, but whatever.” My ultimate conclusion in my response was that this was proof of the comic’s complexity and depth, allowing for such differing interpretations. No, I didn’t agree with the theory’s conclusions, but I believed I was even-handed enough in my reply.
In what is now an unsurprising turn of events, the proponent of this theory appeared in our discussion after presumably term-searching, initially thanking me for calling the theory “interesting,” but telling me to spend for than five seconds thinking about it to see that he’s right. Then the challenges began, demanding that anyone who denies his theory “prove him wrong.” The interactions become increasingly offputting, with his continual assertions that only he sees the truth and everyone saying otherwise just hasn’t put the proper effort into reading the comic.
I’m paraphrasing and generalizing, but the arguments come down to “he’s right, everyone else is wrong, debate me.” I eventually told him straight out “your theory isn’t the reason no one wants to talk to you about this.”
And that’s kind of the point of all this. Not that the theory is “wild and out there.” I’m perfectly fine with this guy having this interpretation of Watchmen. Like I noted on Bluesky, the text does not support it, and in fact almost explicitly counters the idea, but whatever, man. We’re all just trying to have fun, and as I said above, art is there for personal interpretation, even if it can be way off base.
That’s all well and good. But being pushy and aggressive about it is not the way to sell it to anyone. Here’s the theory (NOTE: please don’t harass the fella there or in the comments here), with illustrations, as he outlines it on Bluesky. He kicked it off with “Am I delusional? You tell me!” and then people told him and he didn’t like it. You can see his response to skeptics in his main feed, accusing others of “running away” when they dismiss his idea, thinking it’s because they can’t challenge his logic, when actually those folks didn’t see any need to deal with him.
Here’s a Reddit thread from some months earlier where presumably the same person got a better reaction to his ideas. You can see, though, the anger at the deniers creeping in there, and if this is the same person, I can imagine months of his theory not going over becoming more and more of a burden on him, resulting in his behavior on Bluesky.
And like me not being the first person with my Killing Joke idea, when I presented this theory to a friend who actually wrote a book on Watchmen, his reaction was 1) nah, and 2) he’d actually heard this years ago. Now was it from the same guy, or just parallel evolution in Watchmen theories? I don’t know.
Ultimately, I’m sympathetic to the guy, at least regarding this topic. I’m all for new ways to look at established works. I even particularly like his thought that maybe Moore was trying to prove that a “secret identity” in a comic could work on fooling readers in The Real World. Except, first, this level of theorized effort would seem to run contrary to Watchman’s ultimate metatextual purpose. Second, Moore already kinda does this with Rorschach in the early issues.
What was missing from all this is a little humility. Saying that only you know the truth and everyone else has missed it, and being kinda weird about it, doesn’t inspire debate. It inspires abandonment. Nobody wants to be browbeat about not reading comics the “right” way. To repeat a piece of advice I offered to this gentleman, one that I benefited from given my earlier more-uptight-about-my-hobby days: mellow out, dude.
Well, it’s certainly a theory.
I don’t want nor do I need your sympathies.
What I WANT is to be proven wrong. That’s literally it.
I BEGGED you to prove me wrong.
“Your theory isn’t supported by the text.”
Okay, I’m listening! Go on!
“……..”
And then you blocked me.
You simply saying “That’s not supported by the text” doesn’t mean that my theory isn’t supported by the text. In fact, the text conclusively proves my theory true.
I asked you
“Explain the 8 prints, why Larry isn’t handling the money, why HJ doesn’t go to the wedding, the movements of Eddie/Sally matching leading up to Larry/HJ raging, etc etc”
You didn’t care to explain.
You didn’t care to have a conversation.
I doubt you’ll print this but that’s okay because I don’t need you to.
You being UNABLE to refute anything by explanation tells me everything I need to know.
I am right.
Hopefully one day soon you’ll reread Watchmen, and when you do, really ask yourself:
“Why isn’t Larry getting a print of the photograph?”
“Why isn’t Larry handling the money at the photo op? Why isn’t Larry AT the photo op?! This is his literally his only job!”
These two things, along with the thematic symmetry between Eddie and Sally’s movements, are important.
My theory also doesn’t contradict any of Moore’s themes.
All of Moore’s themes stay intact with my theory.
Unfortunately, I suppose I’m doomed to spout out this theory to anyone who will listen because no matter how hard I try, how much I BEG, absolutely nobody on the planet has been able to refute the theory for six months.
Unable. You saying “Not supported by the text” doesn’t explain why Larry doesn’t get a print, and all the rest.
Cheers!
It’s this kind of unpleasant interaction that leads to being blocked on Bluesky.
You got me there. That is truth.
“This guy is unpleasant.”
I’ll nod to that.
It’s when ya’ll veer off into mistruths that I have a problem with.
“The Watchmen text doesn’t support the theory.”
Untrue. In fact, it’s the opposite.
When given the opportunity to explain why the text doesn’t support the theory, Mike doesn’t explain.
He runs away, blocks, and I suppose writes up a whole blog where he STILL doesn’t explain how the text doesn’t support the theory.
Am I unpleasant? Perhaps, but that doesn’t explain why Larry doesn’t get a print.
My being unpleasant doesn’t explain why Larry isn’t at the photo op doing his job.
It doesn’t explain the thematic symmetry between Eddie and Laurie’s movements that lead up to Larry/HJ raging.
So call me unpleasant all day. But what you are UNABLE to do is refute the theory.
Cheers!
what im still trying to figure out is why it’s so all-consumingly important that this idea is so important. (yes, that’s the way i want to say it, grammatically clunky or not) ive read it and re-read it several times and it doesn’t pass the Peter David “Yeah, So?” test either.(anyone remember his CBG columns?)
Fan theories have this incredibly common component of self importance. It’s grating and tiring.
As for the killing joke, it never occurred to me that batman might have killed joker since….batman does not kill. when someone pointed it out all that time later, i was…”oh, ok. makes sense”
Except it didn’t make sense because by the time i was exposed to that theory barbara was Oracle, a direct result of being shot by joker, and joker was still around, so any theories between original publication and A) Barbara being crippled and B) Joker still around are moot, since “continuity” says nope, joker alive and well at the last page. And why do we care what morrison said, since moore wrote it? Isn’t that just morrison’s own fan theory?
Why isn’t it important? In relativity to comic books.
If this is true, and it is true until someone can explain to me why it’s not, then for the past 40 years Alan Moore has made a laughing stock of all of comic book fandom.
Literally no one could figure out that Clark Kent was Superman. Hell, it took me 25 years after rereading about 4 or 5 times in that period.
Why isn’t that important to you?
I think it’s amazing.
But two things
1) I applaud Alan Moore for this. Being able to pull this off for forty years is mind blowing.
Of course he had help. Without the lies of Hollis Mason or the RPG’s/Companion books, a lot of people would’ve figured it out long ago.
2) It’s time for the joke to end and to be revealed. 40 years is a long time to make fun of all of comic book fandom.
However, seeing the reaction to my theory in the last six months…
I’ve had people tell me to eff off, tell me to take my pills, tell me to kill myself, laugh at my dead mother, make homophobic jokes about me, etc etc etc
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you do deserve to be laughed at.
Regardless, if you don’t see the importance of a writer tricking his readers for 40 years, then I can’t explain it to you.
Mike, this message is for you.
I’m headed to work soon and won’t be able to reply to any comments (but I’ll be back!).
My theory makes sense. It fits. Literally, thematically, everything.
In the future, if you choose to reread Watchmen, I implore you to not ignore the photographer when he tells the publicist that eight prints will be available in a week.
8 heroes + Larry should be NINE prints.
Oh wait, did I say “when the photographer tells the publicist”…
I forgot, the photographer told Nite Owl. For whatever reason, the publicist isn’t there at the publicity event. Nite Owl is doing Larry’s job for, again, “whatever” reason.
Don’t just skip over that part. It is a disservice to Alan Moore by not paying attention.
Cheers!
WTF – Clark Kent is Superman?!?!?!?
I had a similar experience recently on Reddit, which I was a stranger to. Having just read Infinite Jest, a book which demands its readers theorise what happened by placing only clues within, and having found the Reddit group for it incredibly useful, I shared my thoughts on the book. Particularly my frustration with one character’s final appearance which, in my view, flailed towards connection with several strands of the plot while not managing to really work with any. Whereupon a proponent of a theory which, like that Hooded Justice one, isn’t entirely impossible based on the text but there certainly isn’t evidence to support and seems to go against authorial intention seemed instantly angry with me for not seeing how right it was. Ultimately they’re all just theories. Insisting they’re right only makes it about your insistence.
But your core tenet seems pretty flawed.
You claim that Alan Moore is making a joke on the Superman-glasses paradigm. This shapes your argument in two ways. First, you use it to beg the question: you take for granted that Moore must have intended the ‘real’ identity of Hooded Justice to have direct significance within the narrative (as opposed to gesturing at the larger world outside of the direct confines of the story). But second, and more importantly, referring to this as a ‘joke’ is your only argument for how this reading enriches the comic. (See: “if you don’t see the importance of a writer tricking his readers for 40 years, then I can’t explain it to you.”)
I don’t want to get into the realm of textual evidence, because you’re repeatedly asking people to meet the impossible standard of proving a negative.
Instead, I just want to get at the idea of the joke you refer to. Because while the idea that nobody recognizes Superman is certainly funny, it hinges entirely on the fact that Superman doesn’t wear a mask. (There’s a reason there are far fewer jokes about people not recognizing Bruce Wayne–and basically no jokes whatsoever about people not recognizing Spider-Man, whose face is entirely obscured.)
The idea that Moore would use a hooded character, whose very name underscores his concealed identity, to make a joke on the Superman paradigm just doesn’t make sense, either in a vacuum or as a reflection of Moore’s well-documented sense of humor.
Oh snap, I really shouldn’t be posting as I need to go but I can’t help myself…
Luke. I’m not asking you to prove a negative.
I’m asking for explanations.
What is your explanation for eight prints? I’m willing to listen. I am. 8 heroes + Larry = Nine prints. Why doesn’t Larry get a print? He’s the publicist.
I’m not asking you to prove that Schexnayder isn’t HJ, what I’m asking is for you to explain why Larry doesn’t get a print. Why?
I can explain it easily. Can you?
How about why is Nite Owl doing Larry’s job? Why isn’t Larry at the photo op? Why isn’t Larry handling the money? Why is Nite Owl doing these things? Why isn’t Larry doing Larry’s job?
Again, I can explain all that with one sentence. Can you explain it? At all?
How about the thematic symmetry between the movements of Eddie in 1940 and Laurie in 1950, both scenes culminating in someone hovering above them both while raging?
Why are the movements exactly the same and culminate into the same thing?
I can explain it with one sentence. Can you explain it?
Again, I’m not asking you to prove that Schexnayder isn’t HJ.
I’m asking you to explain certain situations IF I’m wrong.
And I would LOVE to be wrong. Would it be embarrassing that I wasted six months on this? Sure, but it’d be over.
As it is, NO ONE can come up with a suitable explanation for these things.
I absolutely invite you to try.
Really gotta go now, I’ll be back tonight if Mike permits it.
Cheers!
Oh snap, well Mike, you made me come back one last time.
You’re going to delete my responses on here? So you say on BlueSky?
People are literally asking me questions about it and I’m answering.
Why are you afraid of discussion?
Why even have a blog if you’re afraid of discussion?
Feel free to answer my queries.
I’m not afraid of being wrong.
Explain why Larry doesn’t get a print, why Nite Owl is doing Larry’s job, and I’ll listen.
What do you got?
Mike, please feel free to delete this when/if you delete Matthew’s messages.
Matthew, you’re a jerk, and a confrontational one. And, apparently an egotistical one. You come off as incredibly rude and abrasive.
I don’t care about the Hooded Justice’s identity. What I do care about is your incredibly antagonistic interaction style.
“Debate me, bro!” No, no I will not. Go away.
I know I am going to regret this but…
Larry doesn’t get a print because Larry doesn’t get a print. There. The end. I mean, why would he? Okay, he’s the publicist. So what? Why does that mean they would give him one? Maybe they decided that they only wanted the members of the team to have one. There’s your explanation, in one sentence.
I think your theory is plausible, and somewhat interesting. I also think it would be, at best, a cute little easter egg. I don’t think it indicates that Alan Moore has been laughing at his readers behind their backs for 40 years. Of all the many, many things that Alan Moore has thought about Watchmen over time, “no one guessed that the publicist was Hooded Justice” is way down on the list.
Lastly, just a piece of advice…you really should chill out about this. You’ve alienated pretty much everyone who might be interested in engaging with you about it. I know you’re not going to do that, because you seem hell bent on being right, but short of flying to England and knocking on Alan Moore’s door I don’t see how that happens.
Well I suppose I’ll just be doing this and working.
Mike, if you delete my messages, then you might as well delete this specific blog text.
Because you aren’t interested in discussion, you’re only interested in making fun of me with your buddies with no pushback.
Despite you and others commenting on what a jerk I am, how many times have I called YOU names?
Never. I’m not here for name calling. I’m here for discussion.
If you’re blog isn’t for discussion but rather to be King with no pushback, then delete the messages.
Or
Feel free to answer my queries.
I will be back periodically throughout the day but only IF this blog is meant for discussion and not some circle jerk.
Cheers!
Ken Raining
“Larry doesn’t get a print because.”
Okay. That’s allowed.
It certainly doesn’t convince me because clearly the publicist should have a print to publicize with but hey, if you feel comfortable with that, good for you?
“Explain why Larry doesn’t get a print, why Nite Owl is doing Larry’s job, and I’ll listen.”
I’ve read the book no less than 8 or 10 times, and it’s never, not even once, occurred to me that this might have any greater meaning. about anything. at all. it’s a throw away bit of paneling to transition from one section to another.
it’s either a mistake, filler, or…
…and since you really, really, REALLY want this bit of nothingness explained…a misremembered memory. Either way, the print, or lack of it, plays no further part in the entire story. nothing changes if larry gets a print, nothing changes if larry pays for it, nothing is impacted by that panel at all. ever.
if you’re the kinda person that loves hobbyist analysis, excellent, go for it, but cmon man. has anyone backed you up on this? you’re coming across as very, very self important
Matthew, DOZENS of people have offered refutations. Your tactic is to simply dismiss any and scream louder. This is an object of RELIGIOUS BELIEF for you at this point, not a theory.
A humorist whose name I can’t recall, once said that if nobody in the history of cuisine has put mint in scalloped potatoes, there is likely a reason for this.
It applies to this theory as well. It’s just…silly. It only adds to the themes in your opinion based on what seems to most of us to be a gross misunderstanding of what the story is about.
But ultimately, NONE of that matters. What matters is that your odious personal behavior has forced people to stop bursting into their virtual living rooms demanding discussion of something that is of NO interest to them.
You demand they block you, and when they do, you lose your damned mind about it.
I say this with actual genuine love for a fellow person–you need some help. This is not how scholars behave. This is not how an impassioned holder of a belief tries to win people.
This is how a person looks in a spiral of psychosis. Please talk to someone in meatspace.
Sorry. Typo. That should read “forced people to demand you stop bursting into their virtual living rooms.
Adrian…
Alan Moore made a mistake. If we’re going with that, and it’s possible, then he didn’t just make one mistake. He’s made two. Wrong number of prints mentioned and Nite Owl doing Larry’s job.
My theory brings Moore’s brilliance to another level. You argue that rather Moore made several mistakes in the same scene.
Okey dokey then. I will never bother you personally about this again, Adrian, because you could be right. Maybe Moore is just a bad writer after all.
Is anyone else sticking with “Moore sucks at writing” ? I’ll leave you alone too if that’s your answer.
….
Some Guy
Feel free to link any past arguments and we can go over them together.
“The publicist doesn’t do publicist things” or “Even though Larry was instrumental in the creation of the Minutemen, Larry isn’t intimate enough with them to go to Christmas parties” are interesting arguments so let’s go over them together.
Which one would you like to go over first?
So anyway, you guys think the Hulk could beat Thor?
Ignore me too!
That’s allowed. Just stop with the smack talk.
Peace!
Matthew I think you’re missing the bigger point here:
Right or wrong, your theory does not matter. It has no meaningful impact on Watchmen, the people who have read it, or as you said, the themes of the work itself.
Every moment you spend arguing this is time better spent in service of your neighbors, your community, and the future of our fractured country.
I looked at the theory and while I know little about Watchmen the parts strictly about Hooded Justice seem plausible but I think the Moore/superman thing is irrelevant and seeing “H” and “J” in some horizontal wrinkles above Larry’s glasses is a bit of desperate apophenia.
Okay, everyone settle down. I’m not going to delete Matthew’s comments, but I’m going to need everyone to remain civil to each other, please. I may lock this comments section early if it appears nothing else is to be gained.
And now, the punchline:
Travis Bickle is dead at the end of ‘Taxi Driver’.
Well, that was … an interesting series of comments.
FWIW – Dude also doesn’t seem to understand how clients, photographs and negatives work. You can print a virtually infinite number of copies at different times and give them to different people. He‘s acting like the negative is a Mission Impossible assignment tape or something.
Let’s get this out of the way first. The crack at the end of THE KILLING JOKE was Batman’s bursitis acting up.
Regarding everything else, there was going to be a MINUTEMAN book, maybe this was going be a little surprise by Moore. Does this make a bit of sense, I don’t know that people might have seen a repeat of the same scenes in MINUTEMAN.
In regards to the number of photos. I know professional photographers. They don’t need copies unless it is for a portfolio. Which likely would not be a posed shot. They want a photo they can show off, not oh here’s the Minutemen, rather than here they are fighting in a battle. Or Dollar Bill dead in a revolving door.
And Batman has had bursitis since 1986. At least.
The piece of evidence I find strongest in Matthew’s favor is that the pose of HJ over Laurie and the publicist over Laurie really do seem similar. Watchmen obviously works a lot with visual symmetries, so I wouldn’t say that’s nothing, but it is striking.
Ultimately though, the theory is wrong because we all know that HJ and Dollar Bill ran off together and are the gay couple at Dan and Laurie’s dinner.
I always thought Moore’s version of “Batman kills Joker” in Killing Joke was a riff of some kind on Miller’s “Batman kills Joker” in DKR (Joker snaps his own neck)
But of course there’s always that title. hmmm.
Donkey – Okay. You don’t think the theory matters. That’s always been allowed. Why are you here then?
This discussion isn’t for you if you have no interest in it. Full stop.
….
Jon H – I truly believe Moore was going for a Superman comparison. Beyond just the glasses, what is Laurie’s real name? Laurel. Laur-El. House of El.
There actually IS a Laurel Kent that was a descendent of Superman’s in the pre-Crisis Legion books, though in post-Crisis they would retcon her.
Regardless, it fits. I’m glad that you could see at least *some* of what I was going for even if you can’t see the H and J on Larry’s face.
….
Mike – I will remain civil the entire time I’m here. I think the most uncivil I’ve been has been declaring that you “run away” but if you’re allowing convo here, then I’ll stop saying that.
Being assertive and confident in my theory is not being a jerk. I invite criticism, I’d love to hear some.
….
Hal and Wayne – Sure, Larry can get a print whenever he wants. Why not just get one when the rest of the team is getting one?
The Photographer has exactly one line and that line doesn’t correctly number the amount of people who need prints.
….
Wayne – EXACTLY! I’ve been saying this myself. Do people really think Moore didn’t have any revelations planned for his prequel?
I keep saying that Moore has been tricking people for 40 years but really I’m sure he would’ve revealed this in his prequel.
….
Joe – And the symmetrical movements by Eddie and Laurie to get us there.
Cheers!
John Trumbull – It’s kind of hard to have a conversation when I’m blocked but we’ll make do.
You said it yourself. Sally says “real photo sessions!” Who says that about a personal private portrait?
I find it more likely that the reason they were never published (IF that’s even true) is because that was the same day Eddie attempted to rape Sally and the day he was kicked out of the Minutemen.
Logically, why would the team publish a photo that not only represents that day but also includes a member that was no longer on the team?
Again, going back to what Sally said “Real photo sessions!”, plural. This was not a one stop shop private portrait.
If you care to respond on BlueSky, I will respond here.
Cheers!
John Trumbull – Let it also be noted that you and a lot of others continue to insult me with name calling on Mike’s BlueSky thread while all I’ve ever wanted to do is discuss a comic book theory.
Continue to call me a doofus and whatever other names you want to throw my way but I find it in extreme poor taste.
I hope to keep the discussion going about what Sally refers to as “real photo sessions” if you wish but if not, I’ll ask that you stop with the insults about “ruining my life” and the like.
Thanks!
John is pretty clearly right about the photo session. There’s nothing to suggest that it was anything other than a private photo, not a publicity shot. Sally’s comment about it being a “real photo” is simply because they hired a photographer to take it. Your suggestion that they didn’t release the photo because of the assault that happened afterwards inadvertently points to something that has always bothered me about that; why would SALLY keep it? Wouldn’t it remind her of that day? The answer, of course, is that is does. Which is pretty twisted, but Watchmen is a pretty twisted comic.
Anyway, this is all pretty circular logic. Could be interpreted one way, could be interpreted another. But there’s one crucial thing about Hooded Justice that you haven’t mentioned: he was gay, and in a relationship with Captain Metropolis. It’s a very prominent piece of information in the back matter. I was wondering why you didn’t mention that. Had I missed it? So I looked at your old Reddit posts, and someone had brought that up right away in debunking your theory. What I had not remembered about that tidbit was that it comes in a letter to Sally…from Larry!
I’m sorry, but that pretty much convulsively disproves your theory. It puts Larry in the same room with Hooded Justice. Why would he write a letter to her referring to himself in the third person? Why would Moore include that clue about Hooded Justice? I am sure you can come up with lots of conjecture about Moore trying to throw us off the scent, but I think the simplest answer is correct: they are two separate people.
I like your theory. I think it’s fun and clever. But at the end of the day it’s just not supported by the text.
There’s more than one reddit post about this.
This is from one two months ago:
“I already know Larry is HJ. I know it. 100%.
I also know Mothman was banging Rorschach’s mom. I know The Twilight Lady works at Sally’s retirement home and we see her giving Sally a pedicure. I know Sally helped kill HJ. I know Sally betrayed Eddie and gave his address to Veidt. I know lots of other little things but I’m too stupid to put it all together.
The politics of the time completely go over my head, and if I had a better grasp of that, I believe I would understand the story a lot fuller.
As it is, it is important for me to spread the Larry Gospel (with the other Revelations) so someone smarter can one day come along, take “my work”, and greatly improve upon it.
Maybe that person will be able to explain all of the questions I’m unable to.
Basically, I want to know the ultimate plot of Watchmen. I’m 99% sure that the 1985 America we see is already deep into fascism and I’m also pretty sure that the Minutemen had a heavy hand in that but I ultimately don’t know.
So basically, I have all (or most) of the musical notes but I can’t make a song out of it. I need someone to make the song.”
Ok, let’s play by Matthew’s rules. Explain this away. If HJ and Larry are the same person, and that’s why he didn’t need a separate print, why are HJ and SS getting two separate prints if they are a couple? There should be seven prints I tell you, seven!
Matthew,
It’s a neat idea but presented in an unappetizing fashion.
BTW, you missed an obvious connection: if you rearrange the letters of ‘schnexnayer you get ‘hooded justice’ (almost). Just like Tom Piddle and Voldemort
I remember when the “Hooded Justice is Larry” theory first started making the rounds several years back. I think I first ran across it in the mid 2010s or so.
I thought it was interesting at the time, even though, as Mike rightly points out, the text doesn’t support it and, in fact, largely negates it. And I STILL think it’s interesting, if flawed, because I applaud anyone with out-of-the-box thinking. Much like Mike’s “Batman kills the Joker” theory, which I embrace and had always assumed was how that story ended as well, it’s a fun fan interpretation of the story.
The thing about fan interpretations, though, is that they’re just that: fan interpretations. It’s great to be enthusiastic about a unique interpretation, because hey, kudos–extra points and a gold star sticker for cleverness.
It doesn’t mean the theory is correct, though, and it doesn’t mean anyone else is required to debate the theorist on it, nor that anyone else should be belittled for not seeing the brilliance of it. The moment someone acts that way is the moment most people choose to exit the discussion train, and understandably so. Who would want to debate anything with The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy?
Before I went into publishing (even wrote a book about Watchmen, as it happens), I was a high school English teacher. And while I was studying to be a teacher, I provided a student lesson in my methods class on Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” I talked about how for any work of art, an author’s intent might not always match a reader’s interpretation, and that it was totally fine if it didn’t.
I went around the room, asking my fellow teachers-in-training to read the poem aloud, but with a different feeling as they did so: “Please read it while thinking about how happy you are with the choices you’ve made in your life.” And “Please read it while thinking about how unhappy you are with the choices you’ve made in your life.” And “Please read it while thinking about how unsure you are about the choices you’ve made in your life.”
As each person changed their inflection, and as the rest of the class heard the poem after having heard my instructions on how to read it, the meaning of the poem changed. Suddenly, “The Road Not Taken” was about someone who is relieved he took a divergent path others weren’t taking… no, wait, it was about someone who REGRETTED that he’d taken a divergent path others weren’t taking… no, wait, it was about a guy who really wasn’t sure how he felt about having taken that path.
I used this as a way of showing that as teachers, we need to focus on getting students to think about how they perceive a work of art, not just on the art itself as something that has only one interpretation. Our own personal experiences shape how we perceive everything, and there is often no objective truth to be found. What matters is that we use our brains and THINK.
All the class were fascinated at how the poem changed its meaning depending on the life experiences I imposed on those reading it. All, that is, except for one student in my class. She was intelligent. She was passionate about her opinions. She was well-spoken. But she was also arrogant, closed-minded, and capable only of seeing her own interpretation as valid. And she challenged me with such condescension in her voice, saying that she KNEW the author’s intent, and that this made my entire lesson wrong. Only the author’s intent mattered to her, and she adamantly acted as the arbiter of that intent.
Once my lesson was over and the class was expressing their approval of it, that disagreeable student sat there petulantly annoyed that no one agreed with her “My interpretation is the correct one, and the rest of you don’t really know or understand ‘The Road Not Taken’ or how poetry works if you don’t agree” attitude. Her closed-mindedness turned everyone off and made her look like a jerk.
The professor’s next lesson, interestingly, was on how important it is for an English teacher to have an open mind when reading students’ papers, and not to assume that our own personal interpretation must be correct.
So what has this to do with Watchmen? Well, here we have an interesting fan interpretation, one I’ve seen crop up online a few times throughout the years, going back a decade or more. In the past, I’ve seen the people who have proposed the idea admit “This is something cool I’ve noticed, and it’s MY personal interpretation, but hey, it certainly could be wrong and that’s fine.” Their approach matched Mike’s approach when it came to The Killing Joke.
That is the right approach, and when people disagreed with it, those past proponents of the theory listened to what the detractors had to say instead of getting angry that people weren’t buying their Clever Idea of the Century(TM) and awarding them a thousand extra points and a thousand gold star stickers. I recommend anyone currently pushing this same interesting but not text-supported theory keep that humbler approach in mind. And now I yield the conch.
Also, I forgot to mention that this comment from Mike packs a lot of wisdom. One would be wise to reread it a few times:
“What was missing from all this is a little humility. Saying that only you know the truth and everyone else has missed it, and being kinda weird about it, doesn’t inspire debate. It inspires abandonment. Nobody wants to be browbeat about not reading comics the ‘right’ way. To repeat a piece of advice I offered to this gentleman, one that I benefited from given my earlier more-uptight-about-my-hobby days: mellow out, dude.”
“Ok, let’s play by Matthew’s rules. Explain this away. If HJ and Larry are the same person, and that’s why he didn’t need a separate print, why are HJ and SS getting two separate prints if they are a couple? There should be seven prints I tell you, seven!”
Mic drop!!!
Larry doesn’t get a print because he’s not a member of the team.
Nite Owl pays because Larry isn’t there. Why isn’t he there? Because he’s not a member of the team.
The joke that Alan Moore is playing on readers is convincing them that every single thing in Watchmen is a deep mystical layered symbol.
Personally I like the HBO Watchmen take on HJ. It’s about 1000 times more interesting than the Larry Theory.
There’s more textual support that DOCTOR MANHATTAN is Larry- he can travel through time, change his appearance, and we know he likes banging members of the Jupiter family. That’s how he knows who Laurie’s father is, he’s Larry and knew back in the 1950’s. Otherwise, how does he know? At what point in Jon’s timeline is he presented with this information? He helps Laurie figure it out. But how does HE know?
Let’s do these one by one
Ken
You keep saying it singular. Photo session. Private photo.
No, Sally clearly uses the plural. Photo sessions. Sessions.
This was just one of many photo shoots they were going to do to in order to publicize the Minutemen. We see that by Sally’s plural usage.
Unless you plan to argue that this was just one of many PRIVATE photos that they wanted to take. I’m not sure if that’s what you’re suggesting?
Sally wanting to keep the photo has no bearing on whether or not the Minutemen would release it publicly, again the photo featured a person that was no longer on the team.
As it is, you didn’t actually argue that point at all, and so I suppose we agree there.
Yes, HJ was gay. And as Larry points out in the letter you mention, HJ and Nelly were having serious problems with one another at the time.
As for Larry being gay himself, he certainly never loved Sally. She was just a beard for him, as she was for HJ for 10 years, and he only ever wanted a child from her.
Laurel. Laur-El. Did you know that there was a Laurel Kent in pre-Crisis Legion history, a descendant of Superman? Did you also know that Alan Moore LOVES the Legion of Superheroes? I didn’t know any of that until researching this topic but wowsa.
Larry wanted an heir. A legacy. And upon finding out that Laurel wasn’t his daughter…we would never see/hear from Larry Schexnayder or Hooded Justice ever again.
It compliments the Superman theme that Moore was definitely going for.
About that letter, Larry writing about HJ as if he were a different person does NOT put them in the same room together. I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion.
You ask “Why would Larry do this?”
Let me answer a question with a question – Why does Clark Kent constantly tell people (Lois, Jimmy) “So I just spoke with Superman and…” ? Same exact thing.
Clark Kent publishing an interview that he had with Superman does NOT mean that the two of them shared a room together. And Larry writing about HJ as if he were a different person also does NOT mean that the two of them shared a room together.
So no, it does not prove my theory wrong at all.
Daniel – Thank you for quoting me.
I am desperately looking for someone smarter and with thicker skin to take on this cause.
I’m constantly being made fun of, it is almost a burden to do this.
OR
I’m looking for someone to finally prove me wrong.
Neither has happened :/
Andrew – ……….
If you don’t care about the theory, you don’t have to subscribe to it.
Many people seem to not understand this but on the final page of Watchmen, Alan Moore assumes the role of the Editor and the reader assumes the role of Seymour.
Alan tells you to run the story you want.
You reply “But which one?”
Alan says “Honestly? I’m sick and tired of holding your hand. You figure it out. Run whatever story you want.”
You can choose to ignore Schexnayder, that is allowed.
It is when people choose NOT to ignore but rather they say “Nah no he’s not” when I start to involve myself.
You can ignore Schexnayder. You can’t refute him, though.
Randal – Apologies, I went out of order.
You’re forgetting that HJ and Nelly were also a couple, so they and Sally should be sharing a print! It should be six prints?!?!
Haha, that was fun.
Anyway, if you have any serious questions or comments, feel free to share.
Rich – I am allowed to be confident and assertive. I am. You are, too, in fact.
From my point of view, Larry Schexnayder is 100% Hooded Justice just as the sky is blue.
So when someone tells me “Nah the sky is pink”, I’m going to say “Eff no it is not” and I will do so confidently and assertively.
Why do you have a problem with that?
As for this theory being around for awhile…
AWESOME! That’s fantastic news!
I thought I was living a Twilight Zone episode being the only person on Earth to figure this out.
Awhile back on Google, I searched for Larry Schexnayder, then searched for him before the year 2020, then went before 2000…
Absolutely nothing. Nada. No results whatsoever. So I’m pretty psyched to know there are others who see it too.
Since I had zero luck trying to find another Larry truther, would you be able to link me to these articles you’ve read or however you came across the theory before?
DK – Convincing millions of people that the racist Nazi behind Hooded Justice was a black man is nearly on par with Moore’s own joke. Lindelof literally got people to dress up as a Klansmen for Halloween because he convinced people that the Klansmen was black. Hell it may be a better joke if not completely nefarious.
I enjoyed 2019 Watchmen as well. In fact, it was rewatching 2019 six or seven months ago that brought me back to the comic, which in turn brought me to Larry.
As for all the print stuff, I agree. That’s exactly why Larry doesn’t get a print. He’s not on the team. It would be like giving Clark Kent a Justice League communicator. You don’t give that to Clark Kent. You give it to Superman. Clark Kent isn’t on the Justice League. Superman is.
See? I can be silly too.
If you ever want to seriously discuss beyond “cuz he’s not on the team”, feel free to share!
I think the “Larry = HJ” theory is interesting. And I wouldn’t put it past Moore to pay off close reading with the answer to a minor mystery.
But there are other theories about Hooded Justice’s identity that are equally as interesting and equally supported by close reading. And I wouldn’t put it past Moore to insert multiple answers to the same mystery to make a larger point.
That point, if I was to guess, would be something along the lines of “you can’t really know the truth,” which fits pretty well with the larger themes of Watchmen. As readers, we’re all just regular people given behind-the-scenes access to the world of the gods. Even still, we’re not privy to all their secrets.
Maybe the Hooded Justice identity mystery is a miniature version of the larger “where the hell did this giant alien squid come from?” mystery. Is the answer simply “another dimension”? Or maybe it’s much more complicated than that. And what happens when there are competing theories in the public discourse about where the squid came from, which is about to happen at the end of the book? How does that work?
Similarly, we have competing theories about who Hooded Justice is. And if multiple equally intelligent readers come to different conclusions about that mystery after reading the same text, then maybe there’s not a definitive answer. Maybe there are competing answers. In fact, maybe there are competing answers on purpose. How do we handle that ambiguity?
We may never know who Hooded Justice “really” was. He’s not real, so there doesn’t actually have to be an answer. Just like, in the world of Watchmen, regular folks may never know the real origin of the alien squid. It’s intriguing and frustrating and a little scary. But that’s okay. Because the answer to the mystery doesn’t matter. What matters is how we handle the uncertainty, individually and together.
Matthew?
None of what you are angry about is worth a single iota of the energy you are putting towards this. Speaking as the great grandma of the chronically online, I gotta say, do yourself a favor and pick a more useful hill to die on.
There’s a civil war in the streets of the USA and in plenty of other places. The world is on the verge of a new Dark Age. But you wanna waste keystrokes on all this hate and discontent? On a work that Alan Moore describes as “a bad mood” he was in decades ago?
This is not what you were put on this Earth for.
It really kinda bothers me that there’s jackboots gunning people down in the street but a guy like Mike Sterling, one of the sweetest, kindest people who ever walked God’s green earth, has to deal with your pedantic browbeating.
Get a grip, get a sense of perspective, and try to remember that comic books do not matter. You can’t eat them, they won’t treat cancer, and they can’t protect you from ICE’s bullets.
–m4
Hey Bully, remember when Hulk fought Thor that one time? And Thor put Mjolnir on Hulk’s back to pin him to the ground? And the Hulk was so angry and his healing factor was so accelerated that he stood up anyway? And Mjolnir ripped straight through Hulk’s body? And Hulk had a big ol’ hole in his torso? And Hulk just said, “Thor. Pick up your hammer”?
That was awesome.
Hey, gang. The hill I’ll die on is that Batman has bursitis. He has Advil in his utility belt. Just wait for BATMAN #1000.
But I will also say that photographers will not keep photos from every shoot. Honestly, that would be packrat shit. Or blackmail shit. Or jerk-off shit. But, seriously, no photographer keeps stills. A line of dialogue, “Oh, you should have one for yourself” is enough, you want a portfolio not loaded with stuff.
Last September, when drug boats were getting bombed, I said it was because someone had a Peace Prize. Didn’t put it on a substack or my blog from 2006 on just a writer making an observation. I left it there. A fair enough amount of people remember, but I wasn’t babbling about it whenever I did a public reading. I made an observation, as I have about any little thing that MINUTEMEN would have solved. And, also, left it at that.
My point here is that yes MINUTEMEN might have filled in blanks from 25% to maybe 75% re: what we don’t know from WATCHMEN flashbacks. And wasn’t a big deal made decades about symmetry? Is there anything to that that helps connect 1945 to 1985? Little crumbs Moore left that we should be able to find. I just think many argument seem to leave MINUTEMEN out. It *was* going to be a thing.I’m baffled by how MINUTEMEN seems to have just been forgotten.
Laurel Kent wore the red triangular cape and there was also Kent Shakespeare. I’ll die with these details in my head. (The equivalent of The Tornado Twins?)
Mike has been very kind with comments on his blog. I think the only time it got weird was during COVID-19.
Bringing up symmetry again. I just remember that being a thing after the fact. Working at the comic shop, old readers telling new readers to pay attention.
“And Thor put Mjolnir on Hulk’s back to pin him to the ground? And the Hulk was so angry and his healing factor was so accelerated that he stood up anyway? And Mjolnir ripped straight through Hulk’s body? And Hulk had a big ol’ hole in his torso? And Hulk just said, “Thor. Pick up your hammer”?”
Wait…did that really happen? If so, where? If not it should have.
Hulk Vs. Thor: Banner of War Alpha #1. Beginning of a 5-part Hulk/Thor crossover. Not 100% sure it’s in that first issue, but it’s in there somewhere. Pretty much the only thing I liked about the Spaceship Hulk storyline. And if you ask next, What’s Spaceship Hulk? Oh boy, I don’t even know how to explain.
Thom H
I agree but not? Moore gives you the option to run the story you want, however, and Moore definitely has say over me when it comes to Watchmen.
I actually think fans were on to something by calling out Rolf Muller at the restaurant in issue 1.
I think that is Rolf Muller. But that doesn’t mean he’s Hooded Justice. It simply means the reason he disappeared himself was because he was gay. As shown in the panel if we assume the other man is his husband/boyfriend.
Dave Gibbons refuted the theory and said it wasn’t what he and Alan intended but what did Gibbons actually refute?
“No, that’s not Hooded Justice, and not what we intended.”
And IF Rolf Muller is alive in 1985, then let’s go back to Mason’s book ‘Under the Hood’. If Muller is alive, then whose decomposed body appeared in Boston?
Larry Schexnayder’s decomposed body.
If you read the back material of issue 9, you’ll notice that Sally makes a slip up in her interview.
When talking about the two gay men in the Minutemen, she notes that both men are dead now. And though she doesn’t reveal who the gay men are, we know who they are and one of them is Hooded Justice.
But…how does Sally know that Hooded Justice is dead?
According to both Hollis Mason and Rorschach (and I assume the entire world) say that Hooded Justice simply disappeared off of the face of the earth.
But Sally KNOWS he is dead. She knows while the rest of the world is clueless.
I truly believe that shortly after their argument shown in issue 9, possibly even that night, I believe Sally killed Larry.
He was about to start a lot of shit with her over her infidelity but then he’s never heard from again.
Again, though, Moore is the Editor and you are Seymour.
Run the story you want, Seymour, Moore refuses to hold your hand. See more or don’t.
Mojo?
I’m not angry. Talking about Larry is great fun for me.
If you’ll notice, I haven’t insulted a single one of any of you in the last few days while you (you as in your group) CONSTANTLY puts me down.
There is a guy who TODAY had the audacity to tell Mike that I TARGET women. What in the everloving hell?
Yes, I approach both men AND women about Larry Schexnayder all the time. I type my little words on the internetz and beg to talk about my little theory.
But some people hate this theory so much that they will claim that I “target” women.
Frankly, that’s disgusting and also undermines women as a whole. Are you or I or anyone supposed to believe that any woman cannot handle being asked about a comic book theory?
And that’s not all the hate either. Ya’ll keep talking about “putting me in my place” or “let’s ruin his life!” while all I want to do is talk Watchmen and all that I do do in fact.
You may not like my tone, my confidence, you believe that makes me a jerk. That’s fine, that’s allowed. But what some of you have been saying is pretty extreme just because you don’t like a theory, holy moley!
As for “Bro, you should be protesting or blah blah”, um same back to you?
Why are you even on this forum right now? Why are you ever online? Why ever have fun? Why don’t you go fix all of the horrors in the world instead?
Listen, feel free to think I’m a jerk despite not insulting any of you while you constantly pile on me.
Feel free to ignore the theory.
But please stop asking me to fix the universe. I’m allowed my fun, too.
Wayne –
Thanks! I didn’t know that about the stills.
Everyone thinks that I believe myself the smartest person in the universe but I don’t in fact.
Just to be sure, if photographers don’t keep any of that stuff, then you’re saying Larry SHOULD have gotten a print? Because he wouldn’t have been able to get one later?
If that’s not what you’re saying, I apologize. I really am a bit slow.
Tom, Daniel, Tom again –
Lol
Feel free to discuss Hulk and Thor all day.
Just be sure to continue to ignore me, but do not insult.
I don’t want this thread taken down on account of you.
As shown the last few days, it definitely won’t be taken down on account of me.
As it is, this will be my last reply to you gentlemen unless you have questions/comments about the theory.
Enjoy your Hulk/Thor discussion!
Mike, this is specifically for you.
Truly, while I don’t appreciate the insulting comments on BlueSky or the heinous accusation made by your friend Jeremiah, I DO appreciate you allowing me to share my thoughts here.
Until next time…
Peace!
“I don’t mind most marine mammals. But sea lions? I could do without sea lions.” — Wondermark
Okay, I think it’s probably time to close up this comments section. Thanks, Matthew, for talking about your theory, despite the opposition you were facing. And I hope we all can appreciate chatting about our favored hobby without being unnecessarily confrontational over it. As someone who myself was maybe too uptight about things early on in my own comics-related endeavors, I can assure you…it’s a lot less stressful to just relax and have fun with it.