The Killing Joke/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Complete Monster: Joker. This work was pretty much the point where making the Joker a heartless psychopath started to become popular.
    • Ironically Deconstructed at the end: the Joker knows he's past the Moral Event Horizon, and by the end, he actually DOES recognize that he's done monstrous things, but is so resigned to his fate that he admits there's nothing that he can do. Thus establishing BOTH characterizations of the Joker as a Complete Monster and Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who is overall well past the point of no return.
  • Fridge Brilliance: There is much to praise in Brian Bolland's art. In each panel Joker is in, he is fully capable of smirking maliciously. But when he smiles, it never reaches his eyes.
  • Iron Woobie: It's easy to feel awful for poor Jim Gordon due to the psychological terror and torture that Joker puts him through, but you also have to admire the man even more when he proves that he's refused to let the experience break his sanity and morality, thus proving Joker's "one bad day" philosophy entirely wrong.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Believe it or not, the Joker in the final scene. Physically and psychologically defeated, he kneels on the ground, listening to Batman's offer of rehabilitation and, in one Beat panel, appearing to seriously consider it, before saying sadly that it's "too late for that. Far too late," suggesting that there's a grain of sanity and humanity in there somewhere, albeit not enough to make a difference. Thus, the work shows the Joker at his single most sympathetic and humane moment.
  • Misaimed Fandom: There are those fans who, even if they think he is still a Complete Monster, believe the Joker when he says that one bad day is all it took to drive him over the edge (and by extension, that one bad day could drive anybody over the edge). Not only is this disproved by the end of the story, since he fails to break Gordon (Your Mileage May Vary on whether he's right about Batman being crazy), its pointed out that his failure and behaviour mean that he's not even right about himself- he was never a perfectly normal human being, because perfectly normal human beings do not react to tragedy by becoming violently psychotic Monster Clowns. In other words, he needed help long before his Trauma Conga Line. That's not even getting into his Multiple Choice Past claims.
  • Moral Event Horizon: What the Joker does to Barbara. Of all the crimes the Joker has committed - even the murder of Jason Todd - this is the one that haunts the whole DC Universe.
  • Nightmare Fuel: You betcha!
  • Tear Jerker: This is one of the very few Batman stories that can make one feel sorry for The Joker, even after the horrible and nightmarishly evil things he's done this time.
    • Especially the scene towards the end, when Batman chases him. The Joker's face as he asks "Why aren't you laughing?" just breaks ones heart.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Line Art: Brian Bolland's opinion on the original version. He subdued the color palette considerably for the 20th-anniversary edition.
  • The Woobie: Barbara Gordon.
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