Ravenous

So I'm not a huge comic book fan but I have been having an itch to read some batman/joker related stuff. I love the Joker (Thanks to the animated series) and Ive always heard about "The Killing Joke" so as I was doing my research I read that "Death of the Family" is another I should get. I did read that an 75th Anniversary anthology of Joker stories was released but reviews state that some stories are incomplete (like a part 2 out of 4 is the only included piece)

So I thought Id come here and ask you fans here, what Joker focused Batman collections should I get?

The Killing Joke
Death of the Family

majorjoe23

Mad Love

Joker by Brian Azzarello

The Man Who Laughs by Ed Brubaker

taffer

Do you mean Death of the Family or Death in the Family?

They're two different stories. The latter is considered a classic, but definitely not the former.

The latter is a classic, but it's also quite dated and not in a good way. Parts of it are quite campy, especially the ending. A new reader likely won't like it much because it is so dated.

The former is a story for the New 52, and honestly it's not very good. It's dark and gritty just for the sake of being dark and gritty. It also involves the entire Batfamily so I question how new reader friendly it actually would be.

The best Joker collection would be a trade paperback from the 1980s called The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told. It's long out of print, and I don't know how much it actually sells for nowadays. It is very good though. It contains Joker stories from the 1940s through the early 1980s. The stories from the 1950s and 1960s are of course very campy like the Adam West TV series, but the other decades have some of the best Joker stories ever written. Specifically it contains Batman #251 which is called Joker's Five Way Revenge which is widely regarded as the best Joker story ever written. It was written by Denny O'Neil in the early 1970s. This is the period when O'Neil was revamping Batman by bringing him out of the Adam West era camp and turning him into the modern day Dark Knight Detective. The trade paperback also contains a two-part Joker story written by Steve Englehart in the 1970s called The Laughing Fish which is another story widely regarded as the best of the best. The Laughing Fish was also adapted into an episode on BTAS.

Edit to add:

I just looked up the Greatest Ever Told trade.

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Joker...=9780930289362

That's the one you want. There are later printings but evidently they contain different Joker stories, and they don't include the O'Neil story mentioned above. To me that is just plain wrong because the O'Neil story is the definitive greatest Joker story ever told.

Ravenous

Yea I meant the one for the New 52. I was in a comic book store uesterday and they were selling it with a mask for $40. I was gonna jump but space is limited lol.

But I dig the suggestions guys. Im gonna just binge and spend $50 (or less I hope) on a few books.

kodave

Shop at instocktrades.com if you want a discount / be able to buy more books. $50 of books at IST also gets you free shipping.

The Man Who Laughs, The Killing Joke, and Azzarello's Joker are the main / best known Joker titles as others have said. Definitely start with those. Death of the Family from the current Batman run is okay at best. I would just stick with the main book and not the "The Joker: The Death of the Family" tie-in collection.

If you can find it / afford it, Stacked Deck: Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told Expanded Edition is a really nice fancy looking book, especially if you can find an edition with gold leaf page edges.

mrhan

The Dark Knight Returns should also be on your reading list.

PhantomStranger

I forget the issues but there is the Emperor Joker storyline, where he became an omnipotent being.

Ravenous

Ok Guys I finally got The Killing Joke, and Azzarello's Joker. Don't know which one I'll read first but by thumbing through it, they look great!!