It wouldn’t be the first iconic comic book story to get a follow-up tale many years after the original, but it certainly would’ve been big news: according to the original artist behind the seminal Joker/Batman story The Killing Joke, DC were planning a full-fledged sequel. But now the project may never happen.
The news comes direct from original Killing Joke artist Brian Bolland himself, who, speaking at the KomMissia comic convention in Moscow, said that DC had approached him about a potential follow-up to the Alan Moore-penned tale within the last few months. According to Bolland, the comic itself would be written by 100 Bullets writer Brian Azzarello, but the artist turned down the chance as the rigor of drawing a long comic book was too much at his age. He further added that he believed DC were not actively seeking a replacement for him on the project, meaning there could be a chance the sequel never comes to light.
Not only would The Killing Joke 2: Joker Madness Boogaloo not be the first old comic story to get a new sequel years later, it wouldn’t even be all on it’s lonesome in that regard lately — DC recently announced that Frank Miller would return to create a third entry in the Dark Knight Returns saga, titled The Master Race.
Still, even if the project hadn’t fallen through, a sequel to the story today would probably not go down all that well. In 1988, The Killing Joke was as an iconic watershed moment in the Joker’s long evolution from long time villain to Batman’s most personal foe, but today it’s perhaps more frequently remembered for its poor handling of Barbara Gordon’s character. Given the recent furore over a Killing Joke-inspired variant cover for the Batgirl ongoing series, a sequel could have faced some pretty heated backlash.
[Via Bleeding Cool]
