I decided it was fast time for me to look back into some of the comics that influenced Dark Knight. My first stop was The Killing Joke as it is the book quoted by both Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger as the main influence for their very different portrayals of The Joker. It is also the book that is universally lauded as the best Joker story ever written.
The Killing Joke opens with Batman paying a visit to Arkham Asylum for a quick heart to heart with his old nemesis The Joker. It seems Batman is concerned with the way their 'relationship' is progressing, and wants to make sure he at least tries to talk out their differences before it ends with one of them killing the other. The problem quickly becomes apparent that The Joker in this cell is a fake, the real deal has once again escaped captivity and who knows what horrendous actions he's got planned this time.
Well The Joker's first step after escaping Arkham is to acquire himself a derelict theme park, no longer safe for public amusement, but positively perfect for Joker's fun and games.
The next step is to pay a visit to the home of the Commissioner of police Jim Gordon. Gaining access to his house Joker shoots Gordon's daughter Barbara (formerly Batgirl) through the spine, makes a few jokes about her condition and then kidnaps Gordon himself. Barbara is found hours later dying, stripped completely naked with no signs of sexual assault. The only clue left by the perpetrator being a lens cap discarded at the scene of the crime. The doctors are able to save her life, but she'll be left physically crippled for the rest of her life.
When she finally does wake up Barbara is able to confirm that The Joker was the shooter who took Commissioner Gordon, but the only motive she could get out of him before passing out was that 'he wants to prove a point.'
This story is interspersed with a flashback event as The Joker reminisces about his own past. Back to a time when he was a simple failed stand up comedian desperate to provide for his pregnant girlfriend. He get's mixed in with the a major job for an unidentified mob family, but is unable to get out of the job after his girlfriend dies during child birth. All in all he ends up having a really crappy day that ends with him becoming a permanently disfigured psychopath. Now, all these years later he feels the need to prove to the world that all it takes is one really bad day to turn a good citizen into himself, and he's willing to push Commissioner Gordon to his very limits in order to prove this.
So the question really remains, why is The Killing Joke considered so good by pretty much everyone who's ever read it? There's a fairly simple answer really, and that is that The Killing Joke is a complicated story that isn't afraid to mess with your head. There's very little Batman in this tale, appearing very briefly at the beginning and end respectively, but otherwise leaving The Joker to take center stage in his own book. A fact that only works so well because The Joker really is the most twisted sociopath in Batman's rogues gallery, possibly even in comics as a whole.
I'd love to say that his murder of the fairground owner at the start of the book was a highlite, but really that was just Joker being Joker. The shooting of Barbara Gordon however was incredibly jarring. Mainly because the first time I read the book I didn't know it was coming, and she was such a big part of both Batman and Gordon's life prior to the incident. The way her shooting was used was what startled me the most though. Not just the way Joker proceeded to mock the dying girl, but as he later used photo's of Commissioner Gordon's only daughter naked and dying in his torturous games really highlited how sadistic a villain The Joker is.
That is the secret to the books success. The way the story attempts to give you a look into The Joker's head. It does provide The Joker with a sympathetic backstory, but by juxtaposing this story with some of The Joker's most heinous crimes writer Alan Moore (V For Vendetta) ensures that Joker never feels like a Two Face type of tragedy. Instead you're treated to a look into the thinking process of pure evil. The whole point of the story being that Joker considers himself the Yang to Batman's Yin, mirror images of the same damaged psyche who have reacted to their psychoses in very different ways.
You had a bad day once, am I right? Why else would you dress up like a flying rat?
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Says Joker when he and Batman are finally reunited, thereby showing the sinister motives behind his most recent crimes. To push Jim Gordon to the very edge of insanity and see how he reacts, and maybe even, if he's lucky, push Batman far enough to finally take his life. To prove to the whole world that Batman is the killer that everyone already knows The Joker is.
It's worth noting that while this book does present one possible origin for The Joker, that the book itself presents Joker as an unreliable narrator. He openly admits at one point that he sometimes remembers things very differently, as he prefers to keep his history multiple choice. However this is the Joker origin that seems to have become the most widely embraced. Possibly because of the tragic loss of an innocents family so closely mirrors the origin of Batman himself.
Luckily, for a story as dark as this the artwork has held up incredibly well. First published in 1988 Brian Bolland's pencil work still looks as good as some of the comics released in the last few years. Some of the imagery he evokes feels genuinely unsettling, not least of which would be the creepy reveal of the disfigured body of the fairground's former owner after the Joker negotiated a 'free' exchange. It helps somewhat that Bolland has touched up his coloring for the latest release, presenting the flashbacks in black and white and cleaning up the colors of certain shots. I've never actually seen any of the earlier releases for comparison, but the dark coloring of this release is absolutely fantastic.
So, will The Joker succeed in proving his point? Will he turn Jim Gordon into a killer? Will he be able to push Batman far enough to kill him this time? IF you want to find out then it's definitely worth picking up the book to do so. It's one of the most intriguing stories in the Batman library and is a must read for anyone who's even remotely interested in the character of The Joker. If nothing else the impact this one shot has had on the DC universe with the crippling of Batgirl makes it a must read. I'd have to say it's a tad too dark for the munchkins though.
You should also be forwarned that anyone looking for a simple High adventure/murder mystery Batman story is going to find that not all that much happens in this story.