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Batman: The Killing Joke, Deluxe Edition Hardcover – Deluxe Edition, March 19, 2008

by Alan Moore (Author), Brian Bolland (Author)

954 customer reviews

in DC Comics & Graphic Novels

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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Presented for the first time with stark, stunning new coloring by Bolland, BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE is Alan Moore's unforgettable meditation on the razor-thin line between sanity and insanity, heroism and villainy, comedy and tragedy.

According to the grinning engine of madness and mayhem known as The Joker, that's all that separates the sane from the psychotic. Freed once again from the confines of Arkham Asylum, he's out to prove his deranged point. And he¿s going to use Gotham City's top cop, Commissioner Jim Gordon, and his brilliant and beautiful daughter Barbara to do it.

Now Batman must race to stop his archnemesis before his reign of terror claims two of the Dark Knight's closest friends. Can he finally put an end to the cycle of bloodlust and lunacy that links these two iconic foes before it leads to its fatal conclusion? And as the horrifying origin of the Clown Prince of Crime is finally revealed, will the thin line that separates Batman's nobility and The Joker's insanity snap once and for all?

Legendary writer Alan Moore redefined the super-hero with WATCHMEN and V FOR VENDETTA. In BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, he takes on the origin of comics' greatest super-villain, The Joker —and changes Batman's world forever.

Stunningly illustrated, BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, THE DELUXE EDITION has been lushly re-colored by artist Brian Bolland, presenting his original vision of this modern classic for the first time.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Killing Joke, one of my favorite Batman stories ever, stirred a bit of controversy because the story involves the Joker brutally, pointlessly shooting Commissioner Gordon's daughter in the spine. This is a no-holds-barred take on a truly insane criminal mind, masterfully written by British comics writer Alan Moore. The art by Brian Bolland is so appealing that his depiction of the Joker became a standard and was imitated by many artists to follow. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

This classic, infamous story in the Batman saga has been recolored with a more effectively cooler palette and set into context with an introduction and an afterword. Escaped from Arkham Asylum, villain deluxe Joker shoots Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon as part of his plan to drive her police commissioner father insane. Intending to prove that anyone can go mad after "one bad day" as he describes in his putative origin story, the Joker also kidnaps and torments Commissioner Gordon. But Gordon remains sane, and Batman recaptures the Joker—the two actually share a laugh at the ambiguous ending. With Barbara Gordon now a paraplegic, the story stands as a chilling profile of madness. The Killing Joke provoked fury among many readers who lamented the disposal of Barbara Gordon as a mere pawn to testosterone; yet Gordon reinvents herself later as superinfohacker Oracle, poster girl for disability empowerment (see Birds of Prey, LJ 7/08). A bonus story at the end paints the quieter, equally chilling madness of a Batman fan fantasizing about killing the superhero—a perfect foil for the publicly gaudy Joker. For adult collections.—M.C.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: DC Comics; Deluxe edition (March 19, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401216676
ISBN-13: 978-1401216672
Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.4 x 11.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (954 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Publishers > DC Comics
- #1 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Superheroes
- #33 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy

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Customer Reviews

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4.6 out of 5 stars

5 star		75%
4 star		16%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

270 of 290 people found the following review helpful

One REALLY bad day.

By trashcanman VINE VOICE on July 14, 2008

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Length: 2:37 Mins

"The Killing Joke" is widely considered to be the be-all-end-all of Joker stories, so what better way to pay homage to the greatest comic book villain of all time near the eve of his re-unveiling in The Dark Knight than by reviewing his definitive story? This is the comic that (sort of) revealed the origin of The Clown Prince of Crime, humanizing him to an extent never before, and truly examined -with pictures rather than words- the antagonistic symbiosis that exists between Joker and his arch nemesis, The Batman. A beloved Gotham regular will never be the same and another will be put through hell before this story is done. Oh, and there are creepy little henchmidgets as well. Gotta love the henchmidgets.

The art is outstanding, the storytelling superb, and the character examinations are vital to understanding both combatants. The "one bad day" premise highlights the "two sides of the same coin" argument that Batman and Joker are in fact more alike than dissimilar. As if Bruce Wayne took a right when his arch-nemesis took a left. The controversial ending leaves little doubt as to Alan Moore's take on the debate, and I like it like that. While many critics have strongly resisted both the comparison and the somewhat sympathetic look at The Joker's past, the truth is that every great character -villain or hero- needs that sort of intricacy to their story to remain relevant in the world of modern fiction. Comics are no longer for children and adults realize that the world is seldom black and white, that all monsters were once men, and that unspeakable darkness and insanity resides deep inside each human mind.Read more ›

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48 of 55 people found the following review helpful

Batman: The Killing Joke defines Batman's and Joker's bond!

By A Customer on March 3, 1999

Format: Paperback

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...

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36 of 43 people found the following review helpful

Sympathy for the Devil

By TheIntruder on April 11, 2002

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

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.

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23 of 28 people found the following review helpful

A review on the 20th Anniversary Deluxe Hardcover version

By Not Enough Time to Read on March 28, 2008

Format: Hardcover

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.Read more ›

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It says "Deluxe Edition" and the opening pages relay that it contains both versions of the book, yet it does not.