Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Alan Moore, Batman, brian bolland, Comics, dc, killing joke

When Brian Bolland Revealed What Happened Between Batman And The Joker – And The Full Killing Joke Script

So there's one thing we've been talking about this weekend. And now the full script to The Killing Joke has gone online. You can find it in its entirety here.

But, with the discussion earlier, there was one page we wanted to especially see… Page 42. Would we get an explanation for why Batman is staring at his glove? Had he picked up a Joker needle? Was it the device he'd use to kill The Joker?

If so, it's not in the script. He's just straightening his mask.

So, is the whole Batman-kills-the-Joker interpretation bunkum? There's nothing in Moore's script to suggest it. Would it really all have been left off the script to sneak it past the editor and publisher? I confess, when I read the book, I saw the sirens coming to take The Joker away, ha ha hee hee ha ha, and the cycle beginning again. But I can't see anything else but the Joker dying, or both Batman and Joker dying, both poisoned. But was that ambiguity really intended? The script, so verbose about intention, leaves that aspect out.

There's another solution of course. That the death of the Joker is there, intentionally, but it's not from Moore. It's from Bolland. From the 2008 recoloured remastered Killing Joke afterword…

Few people give Bolland the credit for being as masterful a writer as he is an artist. What could he have added..?

We await the interviews…

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