Mark Hamill to return as The Joker for animated take on 'The Killing Joke'

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha … FOOLED YOU!

Four years ago, Mark Hamill announced he was putting The Joker behind him after 18 years voicing the Clown Prince of Crime in assorted DC animated TV shows, movies, and video games, but 2015 will be the year objects in his rearview mirror prove to be closer than we thought.

Not only does he reprise the role of The Joker in the new video game Batman: Arkham Knight, but he will voice the cackling villain in an adaptation of one of the character’s most disturbing comic-book tales: an animated take on 1988’s The Killing Joke, sources close to the project confirm to EW. (Reps for Warner Bros., which is producing the film, did not immediately reply to requests for comment.)

Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland, The Killing Joke is famous for being the book that dealt an especially cruel fate to Batgirl Barbara Gordon. The story involves The Joker taunting Batman after capturing and torturing her. It is not a tale for the faint of heart, and the disability she suffered at the hands of The Joker led to a radical reimagining of her character in subsequent DC tales by husband-and-wife writing duo John Ostrander and Kim Yale, who turned her into the super-hacker Oracle.

Shortly after announcing his retirement from The Joker in 2011, Hamill said that an animated take on The Killing Joke might be one of the projects that might make him return to the role. Collider, which originally reported the news, said he has already recorded his dialogue for the movie, which was announced earlier this month at San Diego’s Comic-Con and is due out next year.

Hamill is also, of course, returning to another famous character he thought he was finished with forever. Luke … somebody. A little film called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That sound familiar at all?