(WARNING: This book contains mature issues. If you're looking for a Batman comic that's very good but not quite as frightening, I would highly recommend Mad Love. Also, if you are a fan of the Animated Series, be forwarned that the Joker's comic origin is not the same as his "Jack Napier" one.)


Brooding and mean-spirited addition to the Batman myth   July 13, 2002
 8 out of 21 found this review helpful

Please don't call me a "wimp," but I am tired of the current trend in comicdom to turn Batman (and his enemies) into sympathetic and oh-so-neurotic souls. The Joker, while always a fruitcake, gets a makeover here, and is revealed to once have been a family man. OK, so what? Is that supposed to elicit a tear from the reader?

Then, in the same story, he commits a crime so heinous to both Commissioner Gordon and daughter Barbara that the empathy one may have had for the fiend evaporates almost as soon as it appeared.

Mind you, I don't like the non-Tim Burton-directed movie versions, either. And the 60's high camp of Adam West's series didn't add much.

Only did the 90's animated version get the characters correctly.

I, honestly, didn't find the "joke" worthy of my expenditure.

Obviously, the majority of others represented here have different opinions...but, to each his own.


A review on the 20th Anniversary Deluxe Hardcover version   March 28, 2008
 8 out of 10 found this review helpful

This is a review for the deluxe version of The Killing Joke released on March 19th 2008, not the differently colored version originally released in 1988 that went on to be a sequential art classic.

It's nice to see The Killing Joke in hardcover and in a bigger page format. The crisp line work of Brian Bolland shines even more on a wider, longer page. His legendary hatching and feathering technique deserves the industry version of "widescreen". This is where my compliments on this edition mainly lie. The recoloring brings out a very different response in me.

The recoloring by penciller Brian Bolland for this edition was a mistake. Gone are the atmospheric tints and lighting effects from John Higgins. Gone are great effects like raindrops on The Joker's shoulder when he appears in the story for the first time. Gone is an important component of the story that stood along Moore's script and Bolland's fine penciling as something that made The Killing Joke a visual tale to be remembered by Batman and comic book fans alike.

Bolland's recoloring job for the most part looks like he turned white lights onto every scene set in the story's present narrative and therefore effectively kills the disturbing mood that Higgins colors had substantially helped inject into the story. Instead of the original presence of emotion and horror, this version takes on some visual blandness. The scene between Alfred and Batman in the Batcave loses its somber tone. The attack on Barbara Gordon loses some of the terror of the original. Where has the strong mood of this story gone DC? I can see adjusting the intensity of Higgins original color palette to some degree like the method they chose with his coloring when they released an Absolute Version of Watchmen. It sophisticated his coloring job without changing the tone of the original. Production services at DC Comics should have just ignored Bolland's plea to recolor it altogether and let John Higgins go back and tweak his original job. I could even see Bolland and Higgins collaborating on a new recoloring but not Bolland by himself.

The flashbacks in the "possible" Joker origin have been changed to black and white with emphasis certain objects that are colored. This seems to work in a foreshadowing sense and it is disquieting to see what is chosen to be labled crimson. However, the flashback's black and white could have used more grays or a darker tint overall on these sequences (with the exception of the red objects). The Killing Joke is a very dark tale and a nice retro feel should not take the place of overall atmospheric disposition. If it was originally done as a play or film a good lighting designer or cinematographer would acknowledge the original intention through the lighting methods, but not dilute the story being told.

I loved the back up 8-pager, "An Innocent Man" when originally printed as a black and white tale for the 1996 Batman: Black and White anthology. However, I don't believe stories originally intended to be printed in black and white should get colored reprintings and vice versa. The only reason it seems to be included it because it is another Batman story by the same artist as The Killing Joke. I would much rather have seen more Joker sketches and covers that Bolland has done for fanzines, conventions, commisons and DC over the years--after all this book is supposed to focus on the Joker.

Alan Moore would not have approved of reprinting any script excerpts but that hasn't stopped DC Comics from going against his wishes as they have in the past. Fans would have loved reading the original script--even just one or two pages! This collection is aimed at fans of the Killing Joke. Give them a decent amount of extras DC! I realize that most of the original penciled and inked pages from the Killing Joke are hard to track down. Still, DC has plenty of Joker covers and art from Bolland that could have filled out the extras section very nicely. Batman: Year One, Dark Knight Returns, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth have all had satisfying deluxe reprintings but it seems Killing Joke, a story that is certainly in the same league as those others, has gotten inferior anniversary treatment.

Before buying this edition, one should seek out examples online of side-by-side comparisons of pages from the original and recolored editions of the Killing Joke. Compare the examples and see which version you think you would like best. Normally, I'd give this The Killing Joke five stars but this deluxe edition could have been so much better. All the previous printings are worth hunting down.


Not Just Another Comic Book.   April 10, 2002
 7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Comic books are often dismissed by many people as having no real value. They are usually looked upon as a hobby for boys and nostalgiac entertainment for men who have never really grown up. However, comic books can be and are often much more. At their best, comics can become a moving work of art and a powerful piece of literature all in one piece. Such is the case with BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE.

THE KILLING JOKE has become a comic classic for a variety of reasons. The book's illustrations have influenced a generation of Batman artists. The book offered insight into the Joker's personality. It changed the Batman universe (by what the Joker does to Barbara Gordon). It illustrated the strong bond between Batman and Joker and displayed the differences in world view that make the men who they are. It helped inspire a major motion picture.

However, the comic is much more than a story about the possible origins of the Joker and how he and Batman are so strongly bonded together. The story is a reflection of two very distinct views of life: the tragic and the comic. The Joker, ironically, views life tragically believing that all it takes is "one bad day" to transform the most normal person in the world into a psychotic maniac. His is the world of chaos and injustice. He holds onto this belief even though he knows (as the last pages of the comic show) it is false. On the other hand, there is the world view of Batman. Batman's life was changed too, by "one bad day". However, Batman's view is comic. He had one bad day, too, but it turned him into a hero. His is the world of order and justice. In the end, good triumphs over evil and the tragedians are forced to laugh at all the comedy. Life truly is beautiful. I bet you believed a comic could never be so thought-provoking.