By Brian Azzarello & Lee Bermejo, with Mick Gray & Patricia Mulvihill (DC Comics Black Label)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9428-1 (HB)
I’m going to voice what is probably a minority opinion here, so please be aware that this is possibly one of those books that you’ll need to make your own mind up about – but then again, aren’t they all?
Brian Azzarello & Lee Bermejo have, singly and in partnership, created some of the best and most popularly received comics tales of the last decade or so: tough, uncompromising, visually memorable yarns that explore the darkest facets of human nature, yet with a deep core of sardonic wit – thoroughly readable but always-challenging.
A book dedicated to the grotesque antithesis and ultimate foe of the coldly logical Dark Knight therefore, would seem like the ideal vehicle for their talents and particular world-views…
The Joker is getting out of Arkham Asylum. Incredibly, the Clown Prince of Crime and undisputed ruler of all Gotham City’s rackets has been judged sane. He’s coming out, and he’s going to want his old position back. The mobsters that now run the city are terrified but resigned. He’s coming back, so somebody has to go fetch him…
Made Man on a downward spiral, Johnny Frost volunteers to be the guy, becoming the terrifying clown’s chauffeur and bodyguard in the process. The Joker is a murderous time-bomb everybody expects to explode at any moment, and as soon as he hits the city, he recruits Killer Croc as his enforcer, and begins working his way back to the top of the heap, using his reputation and horrifying propensity for baroque bloodletting the way a rattlesnake uses his tail.
Many of Batman’s rogues’ gallery (Penguin, Two-Face, Riddler and so on) are in paying attendance in various uncharacteristic positions of nefarious authority, and the events – narrated with growing desperation by helpless witness Frost – spiral towards an inevitable and bloody climax of madness and conflict. Clearly constructed for modern movie audiences, this is more a post-modern take on the classic gangster plot of a ruthless thug reclaiming his territory, rather than a yarn featuring the bizarre costumed crooks older fans might be more familiar and comfortable with.
No matter how beautiful or well executed (and it really is), nor how much overlap there is with most recent film franchise, for many of us emotionally wedded to the overarching continuity, this just does not work as a Joker story. Scar-Face, Blackmask, Maxie Zeus, even a real criminal like Al Capone perhaps, but the Joker shouldn’t be a “Goodfella†with a grudge and some gory peccadilloes: he’s the ultimate expression of random, bloody chaos, a bundle of “Impulse Issues†wrapped tight in a spiky ball of psychosis…
Devised as a miniseries and “promoted†to a high-profile original hardback before release, this is a taut and nasty thriller, immaculately illustrated: but there’s very little Batman in there, and no Joker at all…
Please feel free to disagree, and this certainly is a unique work that should be seen by all with the stomach for it – especially in this 80th anniversary year. The book is available in numerous iterations, but this Black Label edition rerelease (in Hardcover and digital formats) offers further enticements in the form of bonus section ‘Held for Observation’. Here be evaluations from Azzarello & Bermejo, promotional art, the original miniseries proposal, cover art for Wizard Magazine, character studies, previous edition cover art, unused covers, lots of pre-coloured story pages, and an outrageously irreverent Calvin and Hobbes spoof strip by Azzarello & Bermejo which saw print as Joker and Lex in Superman/Batman #75 (Summer 2010).
Trust me, this joke you should get…
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