Batman At 80 - The Killing Joke

So having been brought into the world of Batman by the Adam West and Tim Burton films, it was time to get into the world of comics. That entry into the comics realm was prompted by a stalwart of British comics publishing…

I’ve written before about my gateway into the world of comics collecting being 2000AD so it really should come as no surprise that my entry point into the world of Batman comics would be one created by an artist and a writer who both got their start working over here for the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic.

What’s Good About This One?
The mid-80s saw a shift in the American comics landscape. Year One and The Dark Knight Returns had redefined the sort of story that could be told in mainstream comics accompanied by Watchmen, a deconstruction of the traditional view of superheroes by English writer Alan Moore. This was the beginnings of a steady pilfering of comics talent nurtured in the pages of 2000AD before being poached to either work on traditional superhero comics or their own more adult oriented and eventually creator owned titles (the soon to be started up Vertigo line and Image comics pushing this forward).

Into this comes the afore-mentioned Alan Moore accompanied by former Judge Dredd and Nemesis The Warlock artist Brian Bolland with a modern reimagining of the Joker’s origin (as first presented back in 1951) - a tragic tale told in flashback about a struggling stand-up comedian who finds himself caught up in a robbery gone wrong combined with a modern era tale of the Joker’s torture of Commissioner and Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) in order to prove that it all it takes to be the Joker is one bad day. 

For me, this was a revelation. I didn't know that superhero comics could be like this and I was immediately hooked into the world of Batman comics (helped along by already being a fan of Bolland’s art on both Dredd and Nemesis). Curiously, my affection for this tale (which admittedly does feature some problematic treatment of Barbara Gordon) is not shared by the tale’s author, Alan Moore, who doesn’t rate it as a particularly good book.

From there, I was into the recognised classics of the time like Year One, The Dark Knight Returns and Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum and, before I knew it, was buying monthly books...