"...I've been thinking..."

Last week I read something very odd... it was an interview that Grant Morrison did last year talking about the ending of Alan Moore's Batman story, The Killing Joke;

"No one gets the end,” the writer says, “because Batman kills The Joker. [...] That’s why it’s called The Killing Joke..."

Hang on a minute...? What? I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to take umbrage here... No-one gets the end...? I remember getting The Killing Joke fairly soon after it was published, and to me it was always quite clear that once the Joker's told the asylum joke, and the pair of them laugh that Batman killed the Joker... 

Yes, it occurs off-panel, and yes it's done in such a way that it could be read another way if you were so inclined. But, really, I'd thought the death interpretation would have been by far and away the prevalent opinion. The sudden cessation of laughter would surely point to that, too?

I mean, the whole thing kicks of with spiel from Batman in which he explicitly states that the only way the relationship between the pair of them will end is if one of them kills the other. I mean, how more obvious could it be that it's ending with the Joker's death? 

It's, really, the only logical explanation for the ending. Batman kills the Joker... 


I mean, whatever next; Gwen Stacey's not dead?