BK FEATURE: Your reading homework for The Dark Knight

In the same way that Batman Begins was even more relevant and interesting after reading Batman: Year One, then The Dark Knight will be equally rewarding after you've read the following graphic novels on this list.

1. Batman: The Killing Joke

At the risk of running headlong into a Harvey Dent metaphor, Batman and the Joker are really two sides of the same coin. If you take The Killing Joke's version of the Joker origin story – and let's assume you do, because it's the most interesting and generally accepted – the Joker suffered random, violent personal tragedy, and became something terrifying and abnormal in order to cope with it. 

The Joker's wife and unborn child die in a completely stupid, random household accident. Batman's parents are stupidly, randomly killed by a mugger. The Joker accidentally falls into a vat of chemicals and becomes a sociopathic maniac who laughs at everything in order to avoid the pain of losing those close to him. Bruce Wayne adopts the persona of a bat in order to get over the murder of his parents. Batman and the Joker go through very similar circumstances, but deal with them in totally different ways due to mere chance. This is what the Joker (and possibly Alan Moore) tries to prove throughout the entirety of The Killing Joke: that anyone could turn into a "crazy" murderer if their world cracked and splintered in just the right ways.

Plot-wise, The Killing Joke is deceptively simple, but incredibly potent. Batman heads to Arkham to have a heart to heart with the Joker, only to find that he's escaped. The Joker has a very specific plan: kidnap Commissioner Gordon, drive him insane through certain horrific, disturbing means, and thus prove to Batman and society at large that anyone could go as crazy as him given the right circumstances.

Even ignoring the great Joker origin story revealed throughout The Killing Joke via flashback, we get to see the true depth of the relationship between Batman and the Joker. They hate each other, but almost rely on one another's existence; the Joker escapes from Arkham just to prove something to Batman, and Batman even headed down to the Asylum just to have a conversation with him. The rivalry between the two foes is not some simple yin/yang relationship like you'd see with Lex Luthor and Superman – it's one of unintentional familiarity. Batman and the Joker know literally nothing about one anothers' personal lives, yet they hate each other with a terrifying intensity.

Once you've read The Killing Joke, you'll understand just how frequently and closely the two men's personalities clash and interweave, and you'll know where they eventually end up, to some degree. In The Dark Knight, we'll see the birth (and possibly death) of their rivalry; while I have ultimate faith in Christopher Nolan to make their relationship a frightening and memorable one, I can only assume that the two mens' personal battles will be that much more epic and poignant with the context The Killing Joke affords. Plus, if this should be the last movie the Joker stars in, and if most of the film is really about Harvey Dent (as Aaron Eckhart has stated), then you'll want and/or need all the Joker/Batman relationship context you can possibly get.

That's it. That's all you need to read. There's no number two on this reading list.