Quote Originally Posted by RubberLotus View Post
I personally don't think that TKJ should be made into an animated feature, mostly because I think that further endorsement of the thing as a standalone work is not the right path to take.

Pretty much every site I've been to hails it as the ultimate Joker story, which it is on many fronts. But that's the thing: it's ultimate. It should be read last, not as an intro to the Joker.
It's considered the ultimate Joker story because Moore was able to make the Joker into a truly complex and frightening individual. A far cry from Ceaser Romero camping it up in the 60's, nor in the 40's talking about boners. You can now take him seriously as a threat because of it.

On a purely plot basis, TKJ doesn't tie in with any particular Joker story before it, but thematically, it's a total analysis and deconstruction of the Joker as the Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, and even DKR portrayed him. When TKJ first came out in March of '88, no Joker story before had ever portrayed the Joker as such a petty, disgusting, and downright pathetic individual. The three "ages" typically focused on the "glamor" side of the Joker, and his feud with Batman; both men seemed to enjoy their duels of wits more than anything else, and all those civilians caught in the middle? Well, who gives a **** about them? Even DKR, which arguably kicked off the whole "Joker has a body count the size of Texas' population" trend, portrayed him as a respectable, near-mythical figure - intelligent, charismatic, and a legend among Gotham's criminals even after ten years of vegging out.

Moore drives a bulldozer through all that, basically going "He's a murderer, for God's sake. He should be hated, or perhaps pitied, but not respected or hailed as some kind of badass." IMO, TKJ is very much a rebuttal to the previous four-and-a-half decades of Joker stories, and it needs to be read in that context to be fully appreciated.
But that's the thing. Society, especially in the 1980's, was keen on badasses who racked up the body count. That's why the top films in that decade, nine times out of ten, featured a badass killing machine. Hell, the horror genre exploded because of psychos who were going around hacking people up, left and right.

So... I retract my initial statement. A direct-to-video release might work... but it ought to be packaged with a selection of Joker episodes from DC's various animated properties (from the 80s cartoons to BTAS to Brave and the Bold) for a similar effect to the one described above.
Of course that would happen. Probably episodes like "Christmas With The Joker", "The Joker's Millions" and "Wild Cards". Plus a featurette chronicling the Joker's introduction and evolution from his 70 year history. As well as a look at why that one story was important.