Batman’s finest moment

Often hailed as the single best Batman story ever produced, The Killing Joke, Alan Moore's short-but-razor-sharp tale anchored on The Dark Knight's arch-nemesis The Joker has lost none of its brutal potency since its original publication in 1988, when its impact was quite extraordinary. It remains debatable as to whether superheroes like Batman can/should bear sheer psychological weight as here - notably, Moore himself thinks not - but what is indisputable is that Brian Bolland's artwork (digitally re-coloured for this new edition) is an absolute tour-de-force. Bearing staggering detail and supreme dramatic power, Bolland's version of the psychopath - his physical grotesqueness, unrestrained evil and, most vitally, his pathos - grandly captures the character's extreme insanity in a way that is as yet unequalled.