The Bad Guys

It has recently occurred to me that most ongoing storylines record the successes of the antagonists nearly as often as those of the heroes.

I'm sure you've noticed the cyclical nature of such tales. Take most ongoing comics, or movie series', or nearly any story dealing with some sort of good-verses-evil struggle. What tends to happen is that there is a protagonist, or sometimes an anti-hero, who the reader/viewer/listener is conditioned to cheer for. The hero will experience some sort of problem, such as a victory of his enemy, before rallying and ultimately emerging victorious at the end. But what if the order of such sagas were reversed?

Take Batman. His arch-nemesis is the Joker. In the comics that involve the two, usually the Joker hatches some plot, kidnaps some politician, blows something up, etc. Then Batman foils the Joker's plan, beats up all his flunkies and saves the day. And in the following comic, the same thing happens; Joker does something nasty, but Batman eventually wins. And in the next comic; repeat. But what if the order was swapped?

Let me try and explain. So in Issue #1, Joker wins, then Batman wins. In Issue #2, Joker wins, then Batman wins. But what if they released a comic which contained the last half of issue #1, and the first half of Issue #2? Then it would seem as though Batman defeats the Joker, but in the end, the Joker pulls ahead and emerges victorious. Either way, the same events are happening, and it turns out that the only reason Batman always wins is because that's the segment of time that the author chose to depict in his comic.

In reality, both parties tend to succeed just as often as not; the Joker wins just as often as the Batman. For without this back and forth conflict, what would they use to fill the comic book pages?