You have fan fiction, and you have fiction produced by fans that hits harder than anything official featuring the characters involved. The least you can say about The Deal, a quite disturbing Batman-story by Daniel Bayliss and Gerardo Preciado, is that this won’t be published by DC very soon. Not only is it quite specific about what the Joker and Batman are about, it is really problematic in an ongoing continuity. But it is damn good – very dramatic writing, and artwork that looks like Paul Pope on speed…
