Batman: The Killing Joke (1988 / 2008)

Batman: The Killing Joke (1988)

The Deluxe Edition (2008)

Author: Alan Moore | Illustrator: Brian Bolland | Page Count: 64

The Killing Joke is arguably the most famous Batman story of the modern age, regardless of whether it deserves that accolade or not. Some Batman fans love it. Some Batman fans pretend to love it, lest they lose the respect of their 'loftier' peers. Some Batman fans consider it overrated. And some Batman fans, as you'd expect, outright hate it. Every work of art worth its salt splits opinion in such a manner.

My view is simple, and is what this entire page will reflect. It might be different to yours. That's fine. It's a personal response, with no outside influence other than what's mentioned by way of relevancy. [1]

And for the record, the edition that I'll be referring to most is the reissued and recoloured hardcover Deluxe Edition (2008) because that's the one that I currently own. I'm not claiming that it's the best one to get.

With one major exception (see below), I was underwhelmed, initially, and largely indifferent to much of it. I started to think that I must've missed something crucial, given how much praise it had received by so many other readers.

In addition to that, I know from experience, having read a number of other books by Moore, that I tend to nearly always enjoy his works better —  and appreciate them more fully — on subsequent readings, so I read TKJ again about six months later. Sure enough, I enjoyed it more the second time, thanks largely to the foreknowledge that I had from the first reading. In other words, for me, enjoyment wasn't just heightened by a second read through, it actually required one.

While many of the important parallels are signposted by the art, some of the more weighty ones are wholly subtext; some are even unspoken, existing solely as inferences between words - like in some of Moore's later works, what's unsaid is as important as what's said, and it's easy to miss those kinds of things when reading a text for the first time.

What struck me both times is that the first two-and-a-half pages of the book have no spoken dialogue whatsoever, but the narrative storytelling at that time — communicated through carefully arranged imagery and a deft sense of motion — is phenomenally good. I don't know if it was Moore's direction or Bolland's own skills that were most responsible; perhaps it was a combination of the two together. A brief recap for anyone that knows what I mean:

• I love how the concentric circles caused by rain drops splashing on wet ground at the entrance to Arkham Asylum presage the direction certain events take thereafter;
• The slow pace of falling leaves adds an additional dimension;
• Batman's shadow looms large before him as he enters through Arkham's spiked gates;
• The POV shifts from in front of him to behind, exposing the actions of Gordon as the Bat approaches. I love the way Gordon then dutifully follows Batman, even though the Police Commissioner is the official power there;
• The response of the secretary to them both;
• Gordon's hurried pace as he keeps up with Batman's determined stride;
• The perfect split of the bars in the window that frames Harvey Dent/Two-Face, and the shift to his dual/conflicted POV as the duo go past;
• Then to the gruff-faced cell guard, with keys on one side of his person and a handgun on the other - the grimace turns to a grateful smile when Batman goes into the unnamed prisoner's cell;
• Ending with the cell door closed, Gordon and the guard on the outside, Batman and the prisoner on the inside, beautifully lit, a Joker card among the playing cards laid on a small table, suggesting that the deadly game has already begun...

Frankly, while some of what follows the opening pages is good or great, the book never hits those kind of heights again. They're my favourite pages in the entire publication.

A fairly large portion of the book thereafter offers what may or may not be an origin story for the Joker, told in flashback; the ambiguity surrounding the events in question is intentional, which is itself made clear in the text. It's intercut with present day Joker attempting to send Commissioner James Gordon into madness. The phrase 'one bad day' that DC has used countless times since has relevance to the act, with Joker suggesting that all it takes to turn a normal, sane individual into a crazed lunatic (like himself) is one bad day - an unbearable tragedy that forces the sane mind to retreat, to protect itself from a horrible reality that's too monstrous to bear.

It explores whether or not there's a kind of solace in the broken state of the criminally insane, and functions as a twofold commentary on culpability and reproach, among other things.

The violence that Joker subjects Gordon to is severe. The book certainly isn't for kids.

If I was asked to pick a single word or theme that I felt best described the story in its entirety, it would be juxtaposition, most overtly in regards Batman and Joker, each one the nemesis of the other, the personification of the reason for their continued existence, etc.

The single large panel that follows the sequence of events that I described above, i.e., the second half of the third page, is a perfect example of such, showing how a simple phrase, a singular moment in time, can be perceived from opposite ends of meaning:

• Inside the cell, Joker sits at the table playing a card game by himself.
• Batman drags an empty chair from the side of the room as he makes his way toward the table.
• In the top left of the panel are nine words, structured like the beginning of a joke: There were these two guys in a lunatic asylum...

One expects the next line to be something like, 'One of them says to the other...', before culminating in a funny or ironic punchline. As opening lines go, it doesn't seem particularly dazzling, but it functions as both a literal commentary on what's happening in the panel and it foreshadows something that occurs later. The thought process that's instilled in the reader is a masterful stroke: in expecting the closure and sense of realisation that comes from a carefully worded punchline, it creates anticipation and seeds an essential element for later retrieval.

I've tried to keep my musings relatively spoiler-free, but it was necessary to go into the kind of detail that I did in the bulleted lists in order to highlight the point I was trying to make. If I may offer one more thought that I feel benefits a close reading of the text, I would urge a reader to keep those opening, dialogue-less panels in mind at all times.

[1] TL;DR: I enjoy TKJ. I don't love it. I don't hate it. When words, silences, and art come together as one entity, it excels. But I needed a second readthrough to come to that conclusion. As a story it has merit. As a talking point among fans it has equal merit.

In closing, a word on the pictured Deluxe Edition versus the original comic from 1988. The later version has been recoloured by Bolland, whereas the original was coloured by John Higgins. The image below shows a comparison between the two:

As you can see, the colour palette chosen greatly affects the tone of the story. Higgins' colouring is bold, in your face, and dramatic, whereas Bolland's feels more serious, more realistic, but also more modern and in some respects pulls the story out of its era. A reader might therefore want to consider what their preference is when choosing which version to read for the first time.