So a gigantic storm blowing through my neck of New York has my electricity going in and out, which means I haven't had a continuous block of time - one not interrupted by my power dying and me screaming profanities - to write up tonight's blog post. Rather than risk losing any work, I figure I'd post something from the vault of the old IGN days. In this case, with Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo ready to unleash their highly anticipated Joker story, "Death of the Family," it seemed like the perfect time to revisit my article on the greatest Joker stories of all time for IGN's Ultimate Bookshelf feature. Keep in mind that the article is a a few years old at this point, and I'd probably add Morrison's Batman RIP onto this list if I were to update it.
Anyway, Enjoy. We'll resume our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.
The Killing Joke
Written by Alan Moore
Art by Brian Bolland
Originally Published in 1988
Original Graphic Novel
If you're looking for the definitive Joker tale, look no further than Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's 1988 masterpiece, which redefined the Joker for the modern age and added entirely new levels of humanity and madness to Batman's greatest nemesis. The central premise of the story is a brilliant one: all it takes is one bad day to send a person spiraling down a path of lunacy.
The story juxtaposes two narratives – the first details the Joker's transformation from a struggling stand-up comedian into the twisted lunatic we've all come to know, love and fear, and the second follows the Joker's attempt to prove his "one bad day" hypothesis with Commissioner Gordon as his test subject. To do so, The Clown Prince of Crime shoots Barbara Gordon (permanently paralyzing the former Batgirl) and kidnaps the Commissioner. After imprisoning Batman's ally in a deranged carnival, the Joker then proceeds to torture Gordon and force him to view pictures of his naked, dying daughter. Gordon never cracks, and even stops Batman from finally putting the Joker out of his misery. Still, in many ways, the Joker succeeds in making his point, and we're left with the unsettling notion that the Batman might be as unhinged as his most deadly foe.
Batman: The Man Who Laughs
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Doug Mahnke
Originally Published in 2005
Original Graphical Novel
In 2005, writer Ed Brubaker took on the arduous task of writing a direct follow-up to not only The Killing Joke, but also Frank Miller's seminal Batman: Year One. Astonishingly, the end result nearly lives up to the groundbreaking works it builds upon. The narrative picks up shortly after the events of Year One and details the Joker's first post-acid-bath crime-spree, a murderous binge that brings Gotham City to its knees. Brubaker pays homage to a number of classic Joker stories, with the Prince of Knaves hijacking Gotham's television airwaves to threaten a number of the city's aristocrats – Bruce Wayne included.
In typical Joker fashion, these seemingly random acts of terrorism disguise his true motive – to poison the city's water supply and murder its citizens with the same chemicals that transformed him into a disfigured clown. In the end, Batman, Commissioner Gordon and Gotham are all left with the disturbing realization that they're up against an entirely new, deadlier brand of criminal.
The Dark Knight Returns
Written by Frank Miller
Art by Frank Miller
Originally Published in 1986
Dark Knight Returns #1-4
No single comic has had a greater impact on the Batman character than Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, which re-imagined the Caped Crusader as an aging, tormented alcoholic unable to cope with retirement and a city that's been overtaken by its own demons. Over the course of reinventing Batman, Miller also put forth one of the most harrowing takes on the Joker ever seen, and provided a fittingly gruesome finale to the Batman/Joker feud.
Having been dormant in his Arkham cell for years following the retirement of his greater foe, The Joker is reinvigorated by the news of Batman's return to crime fighting. After faking his "rehabilitation," The Joker stages his coming home party at an ill-conceived appearance on David Letterman, where he proceeds to kill the crowd and the gap-toothed host with his deadly brand of laughing gas. The Dark Knight then hunts the Joker down, and what follows is an appropriately brutal fight to the death between the two heated adversaries.
Arkham Asylum
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Dave McKean
Originally Published in 1989
Original Graphic Novel
If Frank Miller and Alan Moore can be credited for giving birth to the modern Joker, than Grant Morrison is responsible for raising him into the complex, deranged lunatic found in today's comics. After all, it was Morrison who first dove past Moore's "one bad day" hypothesis to take an in-depth look into the twisted mind of the character back in 1988's Arkham Asylum.
In this chilling tale, the Joker and his fellow Arkham inmates take over the Asylum, hold its staff hostage and demand Batman as an audience. This deeply disturbing psychological thriller re-imagined a number of the Dark Knight's greatest foes, but it's Morrison's take on the Joker that resonates most to this day. Here, Morrison first proposed his theory of the Joker as a complex super-ego capable of reinventing his persona at whim, which calls into question everything we know about the character's past.
Joker (Original Graphic Novel)
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Lee Bermejo
Originally Published in 2008
Original Graphical Novel
A more recent addition to our list (and published after this article first ran on IGN), Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo's Joker isn't just a first-rate graphic novel about the Clown Prince of Crime, it's a one of the best character studies we've read... period.
It's tough to really describe the project better than our review did... perhaps you should just head over there: IGN's Joker (Graphic Novel) Review
The Clown at Midnight
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by John Van Fleet
Originally Published in 2007; Collected in Batman and Son
Batman #663
Nearly two decades after he first left his trademark stamp on the character, Grant Morrison returned to the Joker in a bold, all-prose issue of Batman's flagship series. If you're looking for a Joker story to inform the modern, horrific approach to the character taken by director Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger in the upcoming Dark Knight film, this might be the best place to turn, because it's here that Morrison ushers the character into his most recent and most terrifying iteration – scarred grin and all.
The scribe once again dives directly into the perverse psyche of the Joker and supplies a snapshot of his mind that's simultaneously chilling and hilarious. Morrison's punchy prose itself reads like something from a hard-boiled crime novelist on mescaline, so it's not at all surprising to see him slip so effortlessly into Joker's voice. Describing the many things that make Mr. J laugh, Morrison supplies quite a diverse list that includes, among others: "AIDS, pencil cases, brunch, landmines, geniuses suffering irreversible brain damage, and sombreros." Really, what's left to say about the character after that?
Mad Love
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Bruce Timm
Originally Published in 1994
Original Graphic Novel
Leave it to the architects of the brilliant Batman: The Animated Series to prove that you don't need to dive into adult-level violence and gore to tell a top-notch Joker story. While in the midst of producing their ground breaking television show, writer Paul Dini and artist Bruce Timm set pen to paper the old fashion way and delivered what is now widely considered one of the funniest and most spot-on Joker stories ever conceived. The result was Mad Love, an exploration of the warped love affair between Mr. J and Harley Quinn, a former Arkham Asylum psychiatrist who fell head over heels for the institution's most insane and violent inmate.
Believing the only way to win the Joker over is to kill the Batman herself, Harley sets about concocting a scheme that she thinks would make the Joker proud. Turns out, Mr. J isn't at all impressed with her murderous punch line, and sets about teaching her how a deadly comedian should truly go about killing the only audience that matters – the Bat. The Harley/Joker dynamic has never been so hilarious and revealing, and this Harvey and Eisner Award-Winning one-shot is a must have for fans of the characters.
Going Sane
Written by J.M. De Matteis
Art by Joe Staton
Originally Published in 1994
Legends of the Dark Knight #65-#68
What's left for the Joker after he delivers the ultimate punch line and finally offs the Bat? Writer J.M. De Matteis (Justice League International, Spiderman: Kraven's Last Hunt) and artist Joe Staton (Green Lantern) attempt to answer that very question in 1994's "Going Sane", a four-part arc from Legends of the Dark Knight. The answer, as it turns out, is pretty unexpected.
Believing he's finally killed Batman once and for all, the Joker, as the title suggests, decides to move on with a normal existence. After getting plastic surgery, the Joker's warped mind begins to deny its murderous side, and an amnesiac Mr. J wakes up one day with a new identity (Joseph Kerr…get it?) and no knowledge of his previous life. He even embarks in a normal romantic relationship with a small town woman, a romance that ends disastrously after his homicidal nature slowly begins to unravel. It's an intelligent, deep and poignant psychological examination of the character that's as insightful and sympathetic as Moore's more-heralded Killing Joke.
Death in the Family
Written by Jim Starlin
Art by Jim Aparo
Originally Published in 1988
Batman #426-429
Call it the Joker's greatest hit – the most lasting achievement in his long career as a killer comedian. Because, when it comes down to it, no single tragedy besides the murder of his parents has had as profound an impact on Bruce Wayne as the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin.
The controversial story kicks off with Batman's rebellious young sidekick running away to track down his biological mother, an overseas relief worker who gets wrapped up in the Joker's scheme to hijack a nuclear weapon. The inexperienced Todd of course takes it upon himself to try and save his mother and the world from Batman's most deadly foe, and in doing so, finds himself at the butt end of Mr. J's crowbar. Incinerated in an explosion that kills his mother, Todd ends up dying in the arms of Batman, who arrives on the scene a moment too late. From there, Bats swears to take down the Joker for good, and, perhaps more so than ever before, we're left wondering whether the Dark Knight should just kill the bastard once and for all.
Robin: The Joker's Wild
Written by Chuck Dixon
Art by Tom Lyle
Original Published in 1991
Robin II #1-4
After introducing the third Robin to the world, writer Chuck Dixon was faced with the challenge of proving Tim Drake's worth as Batman's sidekick. To do so, Dixon removed Batman from the picture altogether, and tossed the inexperienced Robin directly to the top wolf amongst Batman's rogues, The Joker.
Faced with patrolling Gotham alone while Batman attends to an adventure abroad, the rookie Robin is soon horrified to learn that the Joker has once again escaped from Arkham. The Joker, in turn, is equally horrified after his newest murderous spree fails to win the attention of his hated adversary. Watching Tim cut his crime fighting teeth against the man who killed his predecessor would be gripping enough, but Dixon and Lyle also manage to deliver a Joker that's appropriately hilarious and menacing. The bits involving The Joker's dismay at Batman's apparent apathy are particularly entertaining. This one's a must for any fan of Tim Drake or the Joker.
The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told
Written by Various
Art by Various
Originally Published in 1988
Collects various issues
No Joker fan's bookshelf would be complete without this collection of the Joker's earliest appearances. While some of the stories don't last the test of time, it's amazing to watch the essence of the character develop and evolve over the span of decades – The Joker debuts in 1940 as a murderous psychopath, transforms into a rather harmless prankster in the '50s and '60s, then returns to his murderous roots in the '70s thanks to groundbreaking writers like Dennis O'Neil and Steve Engleheart.
It's O'Neil (along with artist extraordinaire Neal Adams) who first ushers the Joker back into the spotlight with the character's original flair for death and violence in 1973's "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge", a landmark tale that sees Mr. J bust out of jail and immediately set about offing the henchmen who ratted him out. The second prized gem of this collection comes with Englehart and artist Marshal Rogers' brilliant 1978 story, "The Joker Fish," in which Mr. J mutates Gotham's fish after his own trademark grin and then attempts to copyright the product for his own profit. It remains one of the single greatest Joker stories of all time.
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