After reading Garth Ennis' story, Thor:Vikings, I was a little skeptical of the notion of a "mature" comic book writer being able to reinvent a super hero comic. Cussing and cussing do not make a mature comic out of super heroes pounding super villains.

Reading the Batman story "The Killing Joke" showed me that making a mature super hero story is possible, when the writer is Alan Moore. It's as interesting to note what Alan Moore doesn't do in this story: he doesn't slaughter people indiscriminatly. He doesn't use any swearing. He doesn't attempt to portray the superhero as a needlessly brutal figure.

The story uses other things to provide an atmosphere where the violence is a little more vivid than in a general market comic book: he uses pacing, dialogue, atmosphere (the art sacrifices some realism in using color schemes to present the mood of a scene), and showing that the seemingly random violence comes from some believable psychological motivations of the characters, especially the Joker.

One example of something that Alan Moore did skillfully that a lesser talent would have probably ruined, is his portrayal of the captivity of Comissioner Gordon, the staid police chief that is Batman's oldest ally. When the Joker captures him, he places a dog collar on his neck, which hints at S&M practices. A writer wishing to do nothing but shock people would probably make the references overt, with open usage of sexual talk. However, Alan Moore leaves you to draw the connection in your own mind.

This is also the series where Barbara Gordon is wounded, leaving her paralyzed for life. It is fairly easy to pile bodies up in mounds in comic books, and in adult comics and modern comic books, it is acceptable to do so in very graphic ways. But by wounding Barbara Gordon, Alan Moore does something that very few comic book writers have dared to do: he makes the violence meaningful by making it permanent. Sixteen years after this is released, DC Comics still has Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair.

Another difference between this and other deconstructionist takes on the genre is the fact it does not attempt to paint a picture of the hero as a raving psycho no better than his opponent. Batman and Comissioner Gordon both keep their moral and ethical ground, and in fact, the story states that them keeping it is the only way they can defeat the Joker. The final panels of the story even suggest that Batman has some sympathy for the Joker. Since the story shows us how the Joker came to be, we end up having some sympathy for him too.

On the rather long list of people who have attempted to make super hero comics serious, Alan Moore is one of the few I would say succeeds almost totally.