I reread The Killing Joke last night (I've been hungering to study Brian Bolland's inking lately) and in the past, when I was a younger man, reading this page and panel I took it as Batman was strangling the Joker. Joker's body posture looks very much like Batman is pushing Joker back, and with the placement of his arm, it made me think Batman was strangling him. But reading it last night and studying it much closer, it's obvious that Batman's hand(s) are nowhere near Joker's neck. It looks like his hand is simply on Joker's arm or shoulder. Bolland is always dead on with what he draws, so I don't think it's shoddy draftsmanship on his part.

So here's my current thoughts on this.

If Batman is strangling Joker, then Joker was right. Batman cracked and lost everything that he was about. If Batman is NOT strangling Joker, and is just having a good laugh with him, then all the terror and evil that Joker just did against Gordon and his daughter seems like a lighthearted jaunt thru Gotham, and in the end, all is well. No harm done (figuratively speaking). Everyone goes back to there little caves, cells... Oh, except Barbara. But so what? She's just thrown in there to be treated like a piece of meat. A plot device to make a joke.

I guess what I'm getting at is that altho it's an OK read, to me it just doesn't hold up. The story is very unsatisfying and, IMO has an unforgivable ending.

Lastly, I can't see how ANY interpretation of this story could have, and should have, been mistaken for continuity. The characters are so damaged at the end either way you view this, I just can't see how any of them could go back to doing what they were doing.

Anyway, Bolland's art rocks in this book. And it's the only redeeming thing to it for me now.

I like to think that Batman is beating the snot out of the Joker and dragging him back to Arkham - the whole "Joke" scene is only playing out in the Joker's head - it's a defense mechanism for when he is getting the crap kicked out of him

Ross, that was pretty good.
Are you a defense attorney by any chance?

I hope not. If there's anything this board has too many of, it's attorneys.

I thought I'd read in a number of places that THE KILLING JOKE was never intended to be in continuity, so Moore went as crazy as he could with the characters. That would allow for Batman to share a laugh with his wacky pal and Babs to be permanently crippled without making much of a splash. It was only later that the DC brass decided to make it official.

Am I mis-remembering?

Yeah, the ending really ruins an otherwise decent Batman story. Remember, it's one of the stories Alan really didn't like.

You are correct, sir.

DC editorial seems to suck balls.

In general.

And I'll concur. I guess the statement I was trying for was more a "...why would/should anyone ever think this should be in continuity..." But yeah, you're right on.

Hey, I like that as well.

Not to point fingers, but is John Ostrander to blame for the permanence of Babs in the wheelchair? He was the one who incorporated her post-TKJ status into continuity in SUICIDE SQUAD, as I recall.

And come to think of it, is there anything else about TKJ that has been specifically referred to in continuity? Jim Gordon's torture? The shared joke in the rain?

I haven't kept up with Batman books, so I'm really asking.

Actually, all good points.

Probably a visual cue to their real feelings for each other. What evil lurks in the hearts of bat-men, only the shadow knows.

Moore's misstep was in making a non-continuity elseworlds that was an almost spot-on double of DC's regular continuity. By doing this in the era of reboots, he made it extremely easy for DC to fold it into continuity (even though it wasn't his intent).

I believe that the first reference to TKJ in the regular Batman books was in A Death in the Family, and again later when Joker next appears in Batman #450.

There's actually a fairly prominent in-story signifier that This Is Not An In-Continuity Story, right near the beginning - an autographed picture of the '50s Bat-family in Commissioner Gordon's desk, complete with Kathy Kane Batwoman and Batmite, the latter of whom was unequivocally non-canonical at the time of publication.

One can - and I do - blame Moore for writing a fairly shallow, intellectually-flat story. But the crippling of Barbara Gordon really, truly isn't his fault.

Up till this point Moore had usually had a decent respect for DC heroes. His versions were occasionally not very bright but they were always noble. At the end of TKJ he depicts a Batman as twisted as the Joker, not the hero we'd come to know at all. That idea that Batman is crazy had been all over fandom for years but DC had the common sense to keep it out of the comics for the most part. But with the success of DKR they let Batman darken into the nut case we know and reputedly love today. I think editorial was in awe of Moore's technical facility (and sales) and let him get away whatever he wanted. Now even Moore thinks TKJ isn't very good.

I'd be happy to explain it all
with detailed footnotes and references,
but I'd get halfway there.
and you'd turn off your flashlight.
You bastard!

To this day, I still think it's a shockingly brilliant story that, with A DERANGED, HOMICIDAL, maniac, like the Joker, it all makes perfect sense and I'm surprised we hadn't seen even more of that behavior sooner. The only thing that's ridiculous is the last page. A shame there couldn't have been some indication of some small trail of Joker gas visually evident that they could blame Bats' laughing on that. That last page is totally out of character for Batman and kind of ruins the story.

In Ostrander's defense, when Killing Joke came out DC billed it as the last Batgirl story and put her into Limbo.. Ostrander's creation of her as Oracle was a genius move at the time of salvaging a character that TPTB had just chucked down the drain.

I think Jim Gordon's torture was referenced during the No Man's Land event after the Joker killed his wife, he went down a laundry list of things Joker has done to this family and the torture and Bab's shooting were on it. And, of course, Batman talked him out of putting a bullet into Joker's brain by the usual trite phrases "You're better than him. You'll become just like him. Blah Blah Blah."

TVTropes.com has a lot of fun with the "you can't kill him, you'd be no better than him" trope.

If I ever became a DC writer, they'd have to make official that The Joker has a regenerative factor that keeps him alive because after all of the crap he's pulled, Jokerizing the Earth for instance, I would illustrate just how many people would want to put him down like a rabid dog. Any conscientious Mafioso would do it just as a good business decision.