By David Hine, Scott McDaniel & Andy Owen (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3144-6
At the climax of a harrowing and sustained campaign of terror by insidious cabal The Black Hand and following an all-out invasion by the New Gods of Apokolips, the original Batman was apparently killed. Although the world was unaware of the loss, the superhero community secretly mourned whilst a small dedicated army of assistants, protégés and allies – trained over years by the contingency-obsessed Dark Knight – formed a “Network†to police GothamCity in the days which followed: marking time until a successor could be found or the original returned…
Most of the Bat-schooled battalion refused to believe their inspirational mentor dead. On the understanding that he was merely lost, they eventually accepted Dick Grayson – the first Robin and latterly Nightwing – as a stand-in until Bruce Wayne could find his way back to them…
None of that is germane to this sleek and sinisterly straightforward vigilante adventure, designed to tie-in with a videogame release (and thus deliciously free of extraneous subplot) which first ran in Detective Comics #867-870 from September to December 2010, and can be accessibly consumed as a cunning and compelling case of heroes vs. impending chaos…
It all begins with ‘Laugh and the World Laughs with You’ wherein yuppies and bored Gothamites take up the latest recreational drug and craze of the spoiled and over-privileged: snorting non-lethal, metamorphic Joker Juice before going wilding through the city.
The transformed Jokerz then indulge in liberating, conscience-free vandalism, chaos and carnage until the Juice wears off. It’s a rush but nobody really gets hurt. Not really, truly, fatally hurt…
However, the recurring, ever-expanding “mad mobs†are actually being orchestrated by a king Joker; someone not submerged in temporary insanity but rather following an appalling secret agenda…
As the new Batman, Oracle and Gotham’s police struggle to maintain order without bloodshed, tempers are beginning to fray and when one young cop is wounded in a scuffle, he responds with deadly force…
The king Joker is plagued with memories of the night he was an unwilling witness and a collateral casualty in a terrifying clash between the true Harlequin of Hate and the Dynamic Duo. Of course, the heroes rushed him to hospital and his life was saved from the toxins sprayed on the rooftops during that particular murder-spree – but in their haste the heroes missed his girlfriend. She died in ghastly agony all alone…
The death of the first party-rager polarises the city and The Impostor is quick to capitalise on the tragedy, calling for a massive Jokerz rally to show support and solidarity for their fallen comrade.
But when the Dark Knight leads squads of strictly-censured police officers in trying to contain the subsequent riot, three cops are ambushed and assassinated…
A new factor then weighs in: an Impostor Batman calling on all decent, hard-working citizens to take back their city from the drug-addled, party-crazy Jokerz. Soon there is open warfare in ‘The (s)Laughter of Fools’ and Batman is forced into a desperate experiment and takes a dose of the Joker Juice to discover just what he’s up against…
Whilst he’s trapped in the throes of the psycho-drug, both Impostors are busy exhorting their growing followings to even greater acts of violence and there are even rumblings of mutiny in the GCPD ranks.
Eventually the inevitable occurs and a gang of Jokerz are found shot to death from behind. They were fleeing, not attacking, and the Guardian Bats all claim that it was the Impostor Batman who murdered them…
By day ten the brutality is almost commonplace and industrialist Winslow Heath, the survivor of that long-ago rooftop battle, calls his chief chemist Doctor Kaligari for a progress report. He wants to know when the next Joker Juice upgrade will be ready for distribution…
‘Laughter out of Bellies’ sees top cop Harvey Bullock helpless to prove his suspicion that his own men are bolstering the ranks of the Guardian Bats gang: crippling, maiming or killing Jokerz in the streets. It’s a small mercy that the supply of J-Juice has dried up, although the hopelessly “Jonesing†junkies don’t think so…
After a week without liberating transformations, the thousands of Juicer addicts are going crazy… which is when philanthropist Heath announces his Bartholomew’s Fair as a way of soothing tempers on all sides. He’s also ready to release his brand new Joker Juice hyper-amped onto the bloody, fun-starved streets…
Batman can’t prove Heath’s involvement, and his terse confrontation with the philanthropist doesn’t shake the vengeful maniac from executing his insane plan in ‘Last Man Laughing’, but as the Fair explodes into a vast, orgiastic bloodbath, all the hard-pressed hero can do is hope to take out both Impostors before the city becomes a living Hell on Earth…Â
Complete with a cover gallery by Peter Nguyen, this is a splendid, stripped down, all-action tense suspense thriller (designed to tie-in to the Videogame of the same name) elevated by the ingenious efforts of scripter David Hine and penciller Scott McDaniel – two of the modern industry’s most underrated and undervalued talents – ably augmented by inker Andy Owen – that will delight any Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatic
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