The Killing Joke - For The Thrill of It (The Joker)

Barbara Gordon Batgirl, The Joker Clown Prince of Crime, The Batman Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon.

The Joker kidnaps Gordon, shoots and paralyzes his daughter Barbara (a.k.a. Batgirl), and imprisons him in a run-down amusement park. His henchmen then strip Gordon naked and cage him in the park's freak show. He chains Gordon to one of the park's rides and cruelly forces him to view giant pictures of his wounded daughter in various states of undress. Once Gordon has run the maddening gauntlet, the Joker ridicules him as an example of "the average man", a naïve weakling doomed to insanity.

Batman arrives to save Gordon, and the Joker retreats into the funhouse. Gordon's sanity remains intact despite the ordeal, and he insists that Batman capture the Joker "by the book" in order to "show him that our way works." Batman enters the funhouse and faces the Joker's traps while the Joker tries to persuade his old foe that the world is inherently insane and thus not worth fighting for. Eventually, Batman tracks down the Joker and subdues him. Batman then attempts to reach out to him to give up crime and put a stop to their years-long war; otherwise, the two will be eternally locked on a course that will one day result in a fight to the death between them.

The Joker declines, however, ruefully saying "It's too late for that...far too late." He then tells Batman a joke that was started earlier in the comic, making both the Joker and Batman laugh together. They continue to laugh as the police approach. As the comic draws to an end, the art shows the shadows that the Batman and Joker cast getting closer and then blending as one, but it left ambiguous what the Batman is doing to the Joker.

art/story - Alan Moore, Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, Brian Bolland.
Audio - La Roux