An original hardcover graphic novel that tells the story of one very dark night in Gotham City—from the creative team behind the graphic novel Lex Luthor: Man of Steel.  The Joker has been mysteriously released from Arkham Asylum, and he's none to happy about what's happened to his Gotham City rackets while he's been "away." What follows is a harrowing night of revenge, murder and manic crime as only The Joker can deliver it, as he brutally takes back his stolen assets from The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face, Killer Croc and others. Brian Azzarello brings to The Joker all the visceral intensity and criminal insight that has made his Vertigo graphic novel series 100 Bullets one of the most critically-acclaimed and award-winning series in all of comics. Batman’s preeminent foe comes to the fore, and the Caped Crusader makes only a fleeting appearance at the end in this graphic novel scripted by hard-boiled crime-comics author Azzarello that sees the Crime Clown, newly released from Arkham Asylum, attempting to take Gotham City back from the underworld figures who have carved it up in his absence. The story is told from the perspective of a small-time hood who stumbles into being the Joker’s henchman. Azzarello’s Joker hews closely to Heath Ledger’s portrayal in the film The Dark Knight. He’s a genuine psychopath, whose unpredictability is his strongest weapon. Chillingly cruel and criminally insane, he still isn’t so outré that he couldn’t conceivably exist in a non-comic-book world. Two-Face, the Penguin, and the Riddler are here, too, similarly muted compared to their usual comic-book personae and active in the most squalid version of Gotham City ever put on paper or celluloid, a sleazy milieu that Lee Bermejo’s deliberately ugly artwork, aided by a muddily muted color scheme, well realizes. --Gordon Flagg “Disturbing, violent, oddly psychological and insanely wonderful.” – USA WEEKEND “If you liked “The Dark Knight,” Joker is a must-have for your bookshelf." – MTV.com “Terrific and disturbing.” – THE VILLAGE VOICE “One of the best written and illustrated comics to come out of a major publishing house this year.” – THE SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS Brian Azzarello has been writing comics professionally since the mid-1990s. He is the author of Jonny Double, Batman: Broken City , and the Harvey and Eisner Award-winning 100 Bullets , all created in collaboration with artist Eduardo Risso. Azzarello’s other work for DC includes Hellblazer and Loveless with Marcelo Frusin; Dark Knight III: The Master Race with Frank Miller, Andy Kubert, and Klaus Janson; Superman: For Tomorrow with Jim Lee; Joker and Luthor with Lee Bermejo; Sgt. Rock: Between Hell and A Hard Place with Joe Kubert; Filthy Rich with Victor Santos; and most recently the all-new ongoing series Wonder Woman with Cliff Chiang. Lee Bermejo began drawing comics in 1997 for WildStorm Studios in San Diego at age 19. He collaborated with acclaimed writer Brian Azzarello on the graphic novels Joker and Luthor , and worked with writer John Arcudi on the Superman feature in Wednesday Comics . He has also worked on Hellblazer with Mike Carey and Global Frequency with Warren Ellis. Bermejo has illustrated the covers to the line of Vertigo Crime graphic novels, beginning with Filthy Rich , written by Brian Azzarello, and Dark Entries , written by Ian Rankin. Bermejo has lived in Italy since 2003.