Joker

This is an original graphic novel from DC Comics starring the Joker, Batman's archenemy, written by Brian Azzarello and drawn by Lee Bermejo, who had previously collaborated on Lex Luthor: Man of Steel. The English original, Joker, was published by DC Comics in 2008. The story begins at Arkham Asylum: the Joker has left the cell that held him for years, and he is anything but pleased. During his absence, Gotham's mobsters and his fellow "colleagues" had written him off for good and carved up his territory among themselves. So the ever-grinning king of crime returns to the rain-soaked streets to exact a long, brutal reckoning and teach the city a kind of pain it has never known. The book unfolds through the eyes of Jonny Frost, a young henchman in the Joker's orbit. He worships his "boss" and believes he understands the rules of Gotham, only to find that loyalty means nothing more to the Joker than a prop to be torn apart at will. Along the way, familiar Gotham villains appear one after another—the Penguin, Two-Face, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, the Riddler—each scheming to survive the night's chaos or profit from it, while Batman closes in from the shadows. Black-and-white panels, drenched streets, filthy sheets, and one wrong choice after another combine into a hard-boiled noir crime story that is almost suffocating. It never explains who the Joker is; instead, it makes readers look up at pure madness through the eyes of an ordinary man and see the price of keeping such company.