10 Comic Books Where Evil Won

Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo's Joker released in the midst of The Dark Knight and that's pretty apparent once you read it.

Bermejo's Clown Prince seemingly takes a number of cues design-wise from Heath Ledger's depiction, while Azzarello's script casts the character in a less comedic light. This version of Joker is brutal, uncaring and exists in a version of Gotham that is bleaker than bleak, and that naturally translates into the comic's finale, which ends with small-time crook and reader surrogate Johnny Frost taking a tumble into the Gotham river after being scarred by his chaotic associate.

Joker may still be a Batman comic at the end of the day, but the Caped Crusader doesn't stand in the way of his arch-nemesis' rampage until the final act, where he's able to manipulate the clown into having one of his trademark outbursts.

Sadly, said outburst is what leads Frost to his doom, capping off a thoroughly miserable and exploitative journey that involved Joker flaying a man for looking at Harley Quinn too long, and also raping Frost's ex-wife.

Truly, we live in a soci-edgy.