It was an okay book for me though. You get the origins of the Joker. who I think is one of the best villains ever. Great to see Batman approach his adversary as a human being..., but it was so short, the end of the story was not satisfying at all.

HOWEVER, there's this little 8 page comic at the end called "Innocent Guy" that i really liked it.

“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”

Batman - A Piada Mortal, é uma das principais histórias do homem morcego nos quadrinhos por contar a origem do seu vilão mais conhecido, o Coringa.

Na HQ o vilão quer provar que basta um dia ruim na vida de alguém para que essa pessoa enlouqueça, como aconteceu com ele e como ele presume que tenha acontecido também com o Batman (e aqui tem um plot twist especial já que nessa parte da teoria o Coringa está completamente certo, pois nós leitores sabemos muito bem que a morte dos pais do Bruce, Thomas e Marta Wayne, foi o que fez ele se tornar o Batman).

Para provar sua teoria pro herói, Coringa machuca severamente Barbara Gordon, filha do comissário Gordon, e faz o policial passar por uma situação extremamente traumática para que o dia ruim dele acontecesse. Mas será que ele consegue?

A história é repleta do ponto de vista do vilão, assim como flashbacks que contam seu passado e como ele virou o que é, o final é ambíguo e deixa o leitor com vontade de recomeçar a leitura, pra não perder nenhuma nuance.

Mais um grande acerto do Alan Moore (autor de Watchmen, V de Vingança, O monstro do Pântano e etc) e com uma arte lindíssima do Brian Bolland, A Piada Mortal não é um clássico a toa.

I actually didn't expect this comic to be so disturbing. This is a very dark, bleak and just a disturbing comic, I'm not even sure where the 15-year-old rating came from. It's not just what The Joker does to Babs, (Which is just as terrible, btw.) Just the imagery itself is disturbing.

While, I did enjoy it though from an artistic view, not from the view where it upset me. It's a greatly written story that I can understand how it got so popular from fans. Maybe if I didn't love Barbara Gordon so much I would've given it a higher rating.

I love anything Batman and Joker related so it’s kinda funny it took me so long to finally read this popular graphic novel.

Great writing (and puns), re-colouring and a superb plot. It’s nice getting to see The Joker’s backstory and Oracle’s origins.

Psyche of a mad man

Brilliant effort from Allan Moore, seemingly making two iconic characters feel fresh and new. Revealing the dark complexities of psychopath's motives is interesting...will you feel sympathetic...the storytelling here does definitely allow the reader to question their thoughts on The Joker.

(1992)
(8 December, 2017)*

*Batman came into being because of violence, specifically, random, senseless violence. The Joker epitomises exactly that, sure he might have a goal in mind (at times) but his is a thought process warped by madness, by insanity. In ‘The Killing Joke’ Joker tries to drive Commissioner Gordon insane with deranged pictures of a terrible crime. The victim? Gordon’s daughter Barbara. A scary thought emerges towards the end: how close was he in succeeding?

Joker would have us think that anyone and everyone is one bad day away from lunacy, one bad day away from the madness that he represents. If we are to take the little story at the end at face value, Joker is wrong, some of us, sans ‘bad day’, would gladly embrace it, even if only for a moment.

If (a big ‘if’) ‘The Killing Joke’ was ever intended as being outside of Batman canon, who knows? Perhaps Batman did succumb and crossed the only line he would never cross. The ending is ambiguous and the possibility of it is a terrifying thought…