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| Batman: The Killing Joke | 
 enlarge | Authors: Alan Moore, Brian Bolland
Publisher: DC Comics
Category: Book
List Price: $17.99
Buy New: $9.66
You Save: $8.33 (46%)
New (45) Used (11) from $9.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  173 reviews
Sales Rank: 283
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Deluxe
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 64
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 11 x 7 x 0.5
ISBN: 1401216676
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9781401216672
ASIN: 1401216676
Publication Date: March 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New! Save 30 - 50% off of retail prices on our wide selection of comic book graphic novels, manga and anime, role playing games, DVDS, Osprey military history books, and more!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Batman: The Killing Joke defines Batman's and Joker's bond! March 4, 1999
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
Batman: The Killing Joke is the greatest story ever told about the origin of The Joker. What make this story so brilliant is how Batman, by accident, created his greatest foe. The art in this story is perhaps Brian Bolland's greatest achievement. (No one can draw The Joker better than Bolland. ex: The cover of the Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told). Alan Moore delivers a dark story about Batman and his relationship with the Joker. From the first page when Batman visits The Joker at Arkham Asylum on a dark stormy night, to exactly 24 hours later when Batman confronts The Joker at an abandon carnival is brillantly told by Moore in the format of The Dark Knight tradition. I thought it was brillant to begin and end this story with the same panel (rain falling on the ground) which shows no matter what fates happen to everyone else, Batman and The Joker will always end up where they started..."There were once Two men in a lunatic asylum..." This one-shot format for mature readers is also exceptional how it can merge two stories (Joker's origin and Batman's hunt for him) together. For example, When the Joker's hand is outstreched toward's the clown in fortune teller machine, the panel before shows The Joker reaching for his wife, with the same expression on her face...while his expression is reflected in the backround. It is almost as if he were having a flashback to his orgin. It is also interesting to see Batman confront The Joker and offer to help him, despite all The Joker has done. On the panel where The Joker glances at Batman before he says no to Batman's help is very scary in the fact that The Joker is actually considering to accept help from Batman. I guess the best example of Batman's and The Joker's relationship is on the back cover, with both of them on the same playing card...Forever together and forever apart...like different sides of the same coin...
 Sympathy for the Devil April 11, 2002
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
The Killing Joke is one of the few Batman stories where you actually feel for the Joker as a character. In most stories he either comes off as a charicature of a killer or a sinister and dispicable murderer who you can't have any sympathy for. One of Alan Moore's masterpieces, it even has a song that you can sing. Its funny, but the tune just comes to your head. You automatically know how you should be singing it. The pacing is very cinematic and it is not overburdened with words. Wordless captions make the story more fast paced.
Bolland (why doesn't he do more interiors these days?) is the best Joker (and Batman) artist of all time. The expressions of dispair that he draws on the faces of Barbara Gordon, the Joker, Commissioner Gordon and others are among the most realistic I have ever seen.
Should NOT be so Expensive!!!! December 14, 2005
15 out of 20 found this review helpful
I bought this as a present for a friend and myself back in 1988 and while the story is no doubt one of the best ever written GNs to expound upon the Joker, it doesn't warrant these price tags. This graphic novel has been REPRINTED 6 TIMES!!!! I'm just shaking my head looking at what these vendors are asking. "Price-gouging" is the word that comes to mind. I'm into collecting comics as much as the next guy, but this is classic artificial demand placed on this comic due to the success of the Hollywood film Batman Begins. A CGC graded Killing Joke may be worth the $35.00 you'd pay for it, but these aren't even graded.
In the end, I concur with every review written, this graphic novel is one to add to your collection if you can find it at a reasonable price.
I would, however, strongly suggest to anyone considering purchasing this graphic novel to consider the upcoming "DC UNIVERSE: THE STORIES OF ALAN MOORE" being released Jan. 11, 2006 which will include for the first time ever in trade paperback, The Killing Joke along with many other fantastic Alan Moore stories.
The Dark Knight vs. The Killing Joker November 11, 2000
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
This graphic novel is about the Batman, a very dark hero against very evil villains, in this case the Joker. The mood in the comic is very intense, as the rivalry of The Dark Knight and an insane killer escalates. The growing emotional drama between these two is very evident in this story. It also focuses in on the darker side of the human soul. I saw a hero, who is himself plagued with personal demons, having to face a villian who became a devil, through extreme circumstances, after his life was incredibly taken away from him. The comic tells us the origin of the Joker and it tells us how he became this evil force. Being set up to commit his first crime, he pays the ultimate price during his first encounter with the Batman, and as a result, he plummets into a vat of chemicals disfiguring him which causes him to lose his mind. Becoming a crime boss himself he mercilessly kills people for his own personal entertainment, like a private sick joke. He kidnaps Commissioner Gordon and his daughter after permanently crippling her with a gun shot to her spine. Batman goes in after them in the Joker's lair and attempts to rescue them. For a comic book, it is quite suprising how involved the story can get, therefore I reccomend this book to any mature person who likes good literature.
The greatest Joker story ever. March 2, 2002
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I remember first reading this astonishing book about ten or so years ago around when I first got into comic books. Up until that point I had just read typical mainstream super-hero fare with stories where a bad guy is introduced, commits his crime, and the good guy takes him out. status quo remains in place and everybody goes home happy. Then I chanced upon this book, not even yet knowing who Alan Moore or Brian Bolland were and was completely blown away! This was a story that mattered. The event's of this book changed the character's in ways that they could never go back, and that's a very rare and good thing in comics. Never has a comic book so brilliantly dug so deep into the nasty bowels of the Joker's mind like this. You see the events that lead up to him going over the top and becoming the criminal who would one day be Batman's arch foe. Then we have Joker's confrontation with Batgirl which would forever change the character's in the Bat books and go on to really show just how insane and demented the Joker actually is. Personally, every time I read it, I can't wait to get to the end of the story when Batman get's his hands on the clown for one of my favorite fight sequences ever! You know a man can write when he get's you feel that much hate for a fictonal character! A first rate story, from a first rate creative team. This story is only second to The Dark Knight Returns.
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