The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade

[cyberghostface]

"Alan Moore and I once had about a six-hour argument about the Joker, back when he did comic books -- because he believed that the Batman and Joker were almost parallels that were separated at birth. Alan had a much more, a sort of attitude of moral relativism about what was good and what was evil. I took a much more arched view, because I believe that the Joker is not so much insane as satanic. He's evil incarnate, and he's so malicious that it goes beyond anything we could understand. That's what's so terrifying about him, is that he simply wants to do as much harm and damage as he possibly can." - Frank Miller

Honestly not sure what to make of this. It doesn't really feel like a Joker story and it ends... well, see for yourself.

Comments

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Hmm.

Alan Moore wrote the Killing Joke. I doubt anyone can even name a Joker plot from Frank Miller that's not connected to Dark Knight.

I think Moore won.

[angelophile]

Oh god, don't let me live in a world where The Killing Joke is considered a victory.

If...

[arthur_wynne]

...unreservedly loving The Killing Joke (while acknowledging that what is done to Barbara in it is textbook fridging and had awful effects on later comics when it was canonized, because I'm not an idiot) is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

I feel the trouble with The Killing Joke is mainly the thing that Moore himself has complained of with regards to DC -they insist on revisiting and elaborating on what he intended to be standalone stories, even decades after the fact.

[cyberghostface]

Why not, it's a great story?

[silverhammerman]

Can anyone name a Joker story from Moore that's not TKJ? They both wrote one Joker story back in the day.

And while TKJ is (for better or worse) pretty much the definitive Joker story, I'd actually say that Miller "won" the debate if we're going to look at what followed. Aside from a few isolated stories, the modern take tends to be Joker-as-supreme-mass-murderer, which owes way more to Miller than to Moore.

[lego_joker]

"The Joker's stopped laughing" from Swamp Thing #31 might not be a story, but it kicks ass all the same.

[cyberghostface]

Well the difference is TKJ is unabashedly a Joker-centered story. Miller (not counting this, which isn't really about the Joker but more about Bruce and Jason) has never written a story that's about the Joker but stories where he features as a supporting character.