The Joker is out of the asylum, but despite his smile, he’s no fun at all. During his absence, his former subordinates have stolen every last crumb from the owner’s pie, and the Joker himself has been written off, thinking that he will never come back. But he’s back on the loose and bent on drowning Gotham in blood more than ever.
In his long ramble through the Twilight Zone, he’ll be joined by the likes of Penguin, Two-Face, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, Enigma and, of course, Batman…and God help them all.
The Joker’s story, told on behalf of his loyal, though naive sidekick named Johnny Frost, is a classic crime noir, a chiseling trip through a city of rain-soaked streets, dirty laundry and utter frustrations.
It’s perhaps the most important Joker story, and it’s all the more amusing because it’s written by an author who has been destroying the superhero myth for no small part of his career. The Joker’s origin story has always been a mystery, a mystery more befitting an envoy of Chaos. DC has repeatedly stressed that this comic shows only a version of what could have happened. And yet “The Killing Joke” is based on the stories about the Joker by Tim Burton, Todd Phillips, and numerous writers of the “main” DC universe.
Moore, in his uniquely poetic and filigreed style, tried to draw a line under the timeless story of the confrontation between good and evil in Gotham – suggesting how it might end. What would a villain have to do to force Batman to cross the line he swore not to cross? Not the most intricate plot about this couple, but it’s a game-changer. If you want to know where the modern-day Joker came from, you’re right here.
Superhero comics don’t often show the world through the eyes of everyday people. Usually ordinary people scatter in fear, become hostages or victims. Here we see real police work: investigations, interrogations, conflicts. This is exactly what the “Gotham” series was supposed to be – a fusion of “The Dark Knight” with “The Wire”, not a circus with a brothel.