When the Joker started killing again, his stories still observed some constraints. His methods were varied but quick, and his victims were no one the reader knew that well. In “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge,” he targets his own ex-henchmen. In “The Laughing Fish” (Detective Comics #475, 1978), he poisons copyright-office bureaucrats. Now and then, he’d try to kill Batman, Robin, Alfred, Commissioner Jim Gordon, and/or Jim’s daughter Barbara as Batgirl. But those attempts were more showy than effective (as in “Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker,” Batman #321, 1980).
But in the later 1980s, comic books entered their R-rated Dark Age, and the last of the kid gloves came off. Two influential stories saw the Joker brutalize Batman’s closest associates. Could any humor survive such ugliness?
(Consider this a content warning: there’s no way to discuss these stories without getting into some lurid detail.)
In the long-bestselling The Killing Joke (1988), the Joker attacks the Gordon family—crippling Barbara and photographing her in wounded undress, then forcing the images onto Jim, trying to drive him insane. This was done not out of revenge, but to “prove a point…All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy!”
This thesis would often come up in later treatments of the character (especially the 2008 Heath Ledger film). What's less remembered is that this Joker “seasons” his horrific acts with well-crafted jokes—an extended metaphor about book preservation and a musical number with intricate rhymes. That craft adds to his charisma, even if what accompanies the jokes leaves the reader too disturbed to laugh.
“A Death in the Family” (Batman #426-429, 1989) was published and set soon after The Killing Joke, but it finds the Joker in a more practical mood. While TKJ’s Joker reflected, “Money isn't really a problem,” this Joker once more seeks financial gain, not psychological games.
Again the Joker strikes at Batman’s loved ones, beating and killing the second Robin. (Technically, Robin survives this beating, but the Joker believes he doesn’t, and it’s moot because Robin dies soon after.) But unlike his attack on the Gordons, this is a spur-of-the-moment action into which he puts little artistry. He tells only one (well-worn) joke before the act, and no jokes during or after!
Even more startling: instead of using this crime to further his game with Batman, he wants to destroy all evidence linking him to it and run away.
His survival instinct triumphs over his ego, at least for now. He won’t rub this kill in Batman's face until later, when he believes himself protected by international law.
One could read this as a sort of “anti-comedy,” built on subverting expectations. Up to then, the Joker loved advertising his misdeeds, especially when doing so infuriated Batman, and his tools were “practical jokes gone bad” like acid-squirting lapel flowers and exploding cigars (even TKJ used those). So if that’s what the audience expects, why not instead use a crowbar and deny everything?
Still, this money-minded, somewhat cowardly Joker seems smaller and weaker than the strutting figures of The Killing Joke and “Five-Way Revenge.” And that's related to how often and zestfully he jokes. Although both TKJ and “Death in the Family” have their controversies (over-the-top, sexualized violence and weird political satire, respectively), overall, TKJ is the better-reviewed, better-selling story.
This comparison seems to favor the idea that the Joker’s better when he’s funnier—or at least when he’s joking. The same could be said for comparing the “Five-Way Revenge” Joker to his 1969 appearances or comparing the madcap 1952 version to the clever, humorless 1940 one. Though some sobering of the character was inevitable as the comics got darker, he was at his most dynamic when he seemed to be enjoying himself more.
After 1989, though, the most influential versions of the Joker were on screens, not paper. Next time out, we’ll turn our attention to those.
It's been a while since I've read Jim Starlin's run on Batman, so I may be doing it a disservice, but I didn't care for his take with the characters very much. Starlin's a gifted writer, but sometimes he just didn't gel with a series, and this was one of the occasions.
As you said, it was the 80's, and Frank Miller's influence was fresh. Under Starlin, the Joker allied himself with Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini. He co-created the KGBeast, who was presented as such a threat that Bats sealed him within a room, leaving him to die, rather than risk his life in a battle he might lose. It... wasn't a good time.