Tag: Joker

By Michael Green, Denys Cowan & John Floyd (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-722-8

Apparently every writer wants a crack at the big guns and that seems to constitute rewriting the origin of a character every five minutes, so imagine my surprise that this re-re-re-working of the first meeting between Batman and the Joker reads so very well. Although I’ve complained about it often enough, a rethink on the relationship doesn’t have to be a desperate stunt or cheap trick.

Gotham City: Batman has prowled the night for only forty-two weeks but in that time has made a big impact. Crime is on the run and the obsessed hero allows himself the reward of falling in love with the vivacious and feisty Lorna Shore. In his hubris Batman imagines that he’s on top of his self-appointed mission and ready for anything. But Gotham has never before experienced a criminal like Jack…

Unlike previous origin tales such as the Red Hood (gentleman bandit of the 1950s) or the tragic victim of The Killing Joke, the man who will become the Joker is a cold, emotionless sociopath. This career criminal is already coldly crazy and the best Batman has ever faced. So when the outmatched and floundering hero makes a devil’s bargain with a gang-boss the events that lead to the birth of the Harlequin of Hate are his fault. And every death the Joker causes is forever Batman’s responsibility…

Screen Writer Michael Green has crafted a solid, compelling thriller that does much to delineate what the post-Infinite Crisis Batman will be. There are novel revelations and wonderfully intimate asides for long-time fans to appreciate. As ever the raw kinetic energy of Denys Cowan’s drawing adds penetrating edginess to the mix. If you have to reboot classic characters every so often, then this is the way to do it.

Top rate action and adventure, but continuity reactionaries and general nitpickers might want to wait for the eventual softcover release and leave themselves one less thing to bemoan.

© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Doug Moench, Kelley Jones & John Beatty (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-111-5 (hardback) ISBN: 978-1563891403 (trade paperback)

Released under the “Elseworlds” banner, where familiar properties are mixed with new or exotic genres outside regular continuities, this tale is a full-on traditional fantasy set in a feudal, mystic world of flying castles, wizards and monsters. Lilandra and Majister are sorcerers locked in a lifelong duel with an evil wizard. Sacrificing their lives and that of a baby they have mystically conjured, the pair create a fearsome beast that will eventually inflict their revenge on the terrifying Dark Joker and save the humans of the rural idyll known as The Wild.

But before the bat-winged monster can rescue innocent mankind from Dark Joker’s depredations, a beautiful, doomed woman named Saressa must tame the beast and teach it the humanity its tragic upbringing has deprived it of…

Although some of Jones and Beatty’s best artwork, this is not one of author Moench’s best scripts, managing somehow to be both heavy-handed and flimsy at the same time. The fantasy milieu is quite forced at times, his dialogue florid (even for Moench!) and the story seems unsure of its audience; injecting utterly unnecessary moments of gory excess into a solid plot that could with a little judicious pruning be quite recommendable for a younger readership.

Pretty but flawed, this is a book only really for the committed fan and collector.

© 1993 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Ed Brubaker & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-724-2

Post Infinite Crisis, we’ve just been treated to yet another origin of The Joker in the more or less monthly pages of Batman Confidential, but not so very long ago (2005 in fact) writer Ed Brubaker and artist Doug Mahnke treated us to a rather gripping treatment based on the original 1940s tales, with a tip of the hat to the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers tales of the early seventies (see Batman Chronicles Vol. – 1 ISBN: 1-84576-036-0 and Batman: Strange Apparitions – ISBN: 1-84023-109-2 for those classics) in the form of an impressive prestige one-shot.

The title and apparently the original inspiration for the Clown Prince of Crime himself come from Paul Leni’s seminal 1928 film classic starring Conrad Veidt in the title role. The plot concerns the actions of innocent Gwynplaine who had a permanent smile carved into his face by the King as a punishment for his father’s crimes…

Set not long after the events of Batman: Year One (ISBN: 1-84576-158-8), The Man Who Laughs sees Captain Jim Gordon recognise that Gotham City has been changed forever when an outlandish and macabre serial killer goes on a very public, attention-seeking murder spree. Even his secret ally and vigilante outlaw The Batman is daunted by the sheer scale and audacity of the chalk-faced lunatic who seems utterly unstoppable…

The remainder of this book collects a three-part adventure from Detective Comics #784-786. Brubaker here scripts a generational serial-killer mystery guest-starring the Golden Age Green Lantern, who was the superhero-in-residence of Gotham City in the 1940s and 1950s.

‘Made of Wood’ illustrated by Patrick Zircher, Aaron Sowd and Steve Bird, finds Batman hunting a murderer who originally terrorised the populace in 1948 – even assassinating the then-Mayor – before simply disappearing. Matters are further complicated when a guilt-plagued Green Lantern returns determined to close the case he fumbled nearly 50 years previously…

Brubaker is an excellent writer at the peak of his abilities here and the art on both stories is effective and compelling. This is one of the better Batman collections of recent years and a great treat for any fan or casual browser.

© 2003, 2005, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.