the killing joke

Exactly 10 years after the Massacre, Gotham faces a new wave of crime orchestrated by the criminal known as The Joker.

For a decade, the Clown Prince of Crime remained confined in solitary at Arkham Asylum, where he carefully and coldly planned the greatest joke he has ever told. Ten years ago, he made the setup, and now comes the punchline.

During that time, the clown maintained contact with only one person, a teenage fan who idolized him, Alexis Kaye, who, through letters, kept him informed about how Gotham had been shaped by his presence. Joker slowly manipulated her into initiating a mass breakout at Arkham Asylum, during the inauguration ceremony where Dr. Hugo Strange took control of the institution, assuming the position once held by Jeremiah Arkham.

Very different from what happened in the past, when he escaped with the help of his therapist, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, who encouraged him to begin his crime spree, yet still close enough for him to mirror that influence and guide young Alexis into discovering her own masked persona through the Quinzel Method, proclaiming herself as Punchline.

THE PLAN

 Batman discovered the beginning of the plan after being alerted to a cemetery invasion in Gotham during the early hours, where several bodies were exhumed and graves desecrated, all belonging to victims of the Massacre.

Within hours, civilians connected to those deaths began receiving photos, videos, and threats, directly referencing their loved ones:

• Alfred Pennyworth, the butler, was stalked and received audio recordings from his close friend Leslie Thompkins, containing old phone calls she had made while alive, wishing him happy birthdays, happy holidays, or venting about her daily life. Additionally, the Church of the Sisters of Charity, a group Leslie belonged to, received a time bomb, which Batman had to defuse.

• Commissioner James Gordon was the second victim, receiving a series of letters from his son, the sadistic James Gordon Jr., all addressed from his cell in Arkham Asylum but never sent. He also received X-ray scans taken of his daughter, Barbara Gordon, hours after she was shot by Joker during the Massacre. Gordon became the first hostage to be abducted, when Joker’s gang began taking over the city. At that point, Barbara was already in Gotham, but she chose to prioritize someone else instead of her father, and fears she may regret that decision.

• Lucius Fox, accountant and businessman of Wayne Enterprises, vanished overnight, but photos of him unconscious were sent to his youngest son, Luke Fox, along with threats stating his father would soon join his brother. The threat does not refer to Jace Fox, Luicius' oldest son, but to Duke Thomas, Luke’s twin brother. The two were separated in the orphanage; Lucius later sought the boy out to inform him of his brother’s death and to adopt him, raising him as his own to keep him safe. Luke then decides to follow his own investigative path to find his father, wearing a red hoodie with the Robin symbol as a mantle.

• All the true survivors of the Massacre, the Robins, were kept out of the city at Batman’s request, as he dismissed everyone’s help except Oracle’s. Following the list of Joker’s next possible targets, Batman visited Sheila Haywood, biological mother of Jason Todd, only to find her dead in her living room, shot in the middle of her face. Around her were documents of a million-dollar transfer she had received nearly a decade earlier, enough money to make her reveal her own son’s location, who was later found dead days afterward.

• Beside the body, Batman also found documents that could change everything, proving that the mutilated body buried near Joker’s last known location never belonged to Jason Todd, but to a boy of similar age who died in a car accident in a nearby town. Sheila’s death did not follow the pattern of the others. She was not abducted as part of the game, she was executed as part of a personal revenge.

 Jason Todd is alive.

• In a college apartment near Gotham Academy, Joker wears a tourist outfit as he heads toward a specific room, where he would find the girl he had been searching for months, a misplaced comma that could ruin his perfect joke.

• When he rings the doorbell, he hears the handle turn. In front of him stands the girl, as if not a single day had passed: the red-haired teenager with thick glasses and freckles, Carrie Kelly. He points the gun at her stomach, but the shot is deflected toward the ceiling when his arm is forced upward by a metal staff. Standing beside the door is Barbara Gordon, in a wheelchair, disarming Joker with her tactical batons and knocking him out as she slams him against the door.

• Carrie hugs her, grateful. Barbara was the only person she kept in contact with since her “death,” as she and Batman ensured she was protected under a new identity, giving her a chance at a normal life. It was worth it.

• Batman tracks Joker’s men to the abandoned and decaying Joker’s Funland, where they take Alfred Pennyworth, who allowed himself to be captured to serve as a trail for Batman.

• There, the Dark Knight encounters Luke Fox, who claims to have located where the hostages are being held, chained inside the Tunnel of Love. Batman and Luke storm the location and easily overthrow Punchline, who was leading Joker’s army like a despot. After safely freeing the hostages, everything builds toward the final confrontation, when Barbara announces that she and the police have arrived at Joker’s Funland, bringing Joker detained inside a police van.

THE END

Batman and Joker stand face to face. The detective asks for a few minutes alone with the clown.

Then, Joker tells one final joke, about two lunatics escaping an asylum together. It isn’t funny, but Batman laughs. He laughs hard.

Because after a decade, he finally stopped him.

Joker is sent back to Arkham Asylum, and Hugo Strange promises Batman that things will be very different under his command. The first change: no more solitary confinement.

Joker is transferred to another facility, where he will be part of a program led by a familiar face, Harleen Quinzel, who intends for him to be the first to undergo treatment under a new and ambitious plan sponsored by Lex Luthor and his Legion of Good.