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joker

The Joker’s “Last” Laugh In The Clown Prince Of Crime

November 29, 2021 by Sara Century 1 Comment

The Joker has undergone significant change over the course of his history, but one thing that a lot of modern fans might not know is that he was genuinely terrifying dating all the way back to day one. His first appearance in Batman #1 makes no qualms when it comes to portraying him as a remorseless killer, taking the haunting visual imagery from director Paul Leni’s silent masterpiece The Man Who Laughs (1928) and twisting the once-heroic jester portrayed by Conrad Veidt into a murderer with a penchant for elaborate showmanship.

In the comics of the mid-’50s, the Batline had been steered away from the occasionally grisly content of the early days towards more family-friendly fare in response to the birth of the Comics Code. Likewise, the campy fun of Batman ‘66 had become the definitive take on the character in popular culture. Regardless, the Joker has more or less remained a horror across the decades, and when writers began once more to embrace mature themes, he was one of the first to step up the brutality. The Joker: Clown Prince of Crime (1975) shows us a criminal mastermind with a callous disregard for life, regardless of whether or not Batman happens to be around to see it or not.

Discusses The Joker: Clown Prince of Crime #1-10 [Read more…] about The Joker’s “Last” Laugh In The Clown Prince Of Crime

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: DC Comics, joker

Infinite Frontier: The Joker Vol. 1 Review!

November 9, 2021 by Nathan Payson Leave a Comment

Written by James Tynion IV, (issue #5 by Matthew Rosenberg)

Pencils by Guillem March, (issue #5 by Francesco Francavilla)

Colors by Arif Prianto

Collects: The Joker #1-6

When James Tynion IV revealed he was working on a second Batman title, I was excited to see what it would be; when I found out the comic was Joker, I got nervous. It’s no secret that the Joker has been heavily overused over the past two years, from Stjepan Sejic’s Harleen to Geoff Johns’s Three Jokers to the Joker Movie and Lemire’s Joker: Killer Smile. Even in the last couple of months, we’ve gotten The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox by Mathew Rosenberg, the Joker ongoing, a Joker/Suicide Squad Story, and the Joker showing up in Tom King’s Batman/Catwoman. I wondered when I started reading the book if I would feel the same Joker burnout here as well.

Fortunately, Tyion has a creative solution to the Joker burnout problem. Tynion’s Joker isn’t a traditional Joker story told from the Joker’s point of view, but rather a James Gordon story about his relationship with the Joker — about the trauma and grief that the former Commissioner has endured over the years and the way they make him question his morality. [Read more…] about Infinite Frontier: The Joker Vol. 1 Review!

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: joker

Theses on Three Jokers by Geoff Johns & Jason Fabok

November 3, 2020 by Sean Dillon 3 Comments

Ed. Note: Spoilers for Three Jokers (and more or less the oeuvre of Geoff Johns) follow!

0. Let’s just get this out of the way: The Killing Joke is not that good of a comic. Even by the standards of bad Alan Moore comics, this sticks out in terms of its quality. Where most other trademark bad Alan Moore comics are bad for more interesting reasons (Neonomicon and later volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are bad for interesting yet horrifying reasons), The Killing Joke is perhaps Moore’s only major work that’s bad for the boring reasons most other comics are. It’s bad because it lacks ambition to be anything other than a story about Batman and the Joker. It’s bad because it treats Barbara Gordon more like a prop than a character. It’s bad because the environment it came out of was toxic to the point where Alan was explicitly told to “Cripple the b*#ch.”

In short, it’s bad in the same way comics like the Vigilante arc “Father’s Day,” the Violator miniseries, and Three Jokers are bad. [Read more…] about Theses on Three Jokers by Geoff Johns & Jason Fabok

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: Batman, DC Comics, joker

Batman: The Man Who Laughs Review! — At First Just Ghostly

October 6, 2020 by John Galati 1 Comment

“We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
But the crowd called out for more
(…) She said, ‘There is no reason’
And the truth is plain to see
But I wandered through my playing cards
And would not let her be”

—Procol Harum, Whiter Shade of Pale

About the Author | Ed Brubaker

Ed Brubaker has made some of the finest comic books of the last twenty years. From his creator-owned titles like Sleeper and Fatale, to groundbreaking work on Big-Two titles like Captain America and Catwoman.

With a portfolio so big and identifiable, it’s easy to forget that some of his best work was done early in his career, during his short run with Detective Comics.

Brubaker’s noir-fueled style with its clipped dialog and tense, focused plotting was a perfect tonal match for the series. But it was Brubaker’s love of mysteries and his economy of thinking that made the books shine.

Unfortunately, those same strengths could also bite him. This collected edition of The Man Who Laughs is an interesting match of both. But we’re going to take a look at the other books before we get to that.

[Read more…] about Batman: The Man Who Laughs Review! — At First Just Ghostly

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: Batman, DC Comics, joker

Batman: Three Jokers by Geoff Johns & Jason Fabok | The Comedy Rule of 3s

August 26, 2020 by John Galati 5 Comments

A little more than five years before Superman first saw print, America had already seen his kind of celebrity in Babe Ruth. Like Superman, Ruth wasn’t the first ballplayer (superhero), but in a sense, he created baseball (superhero genre.) He was the stuff of legends. And nothing was more Ruth than when he called his shot in the 1932 series held here in Wrigley Field.

Now, we are here, in an America long past that Game 1, and Action Comics #1. And now, Geoff Johns has called his shot.

A little more than five years ago, Johns revealed in the pages of Justice League: Darkseid War that the Joker didn’t have one real name, but three. This was Johns pointing into the stands, declaring the impossible. I’m going to make a massive change to one of comic’s bedrock dynamics, Joker and Batman. The move seems to say: And even though you know I’m going to do it, you’re going to be amazed when you see it. [Read more…] about Batman: Three Jokers by Geoff Johns & Jason Fabok | The Comedy Rule of 3s

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: Batman, DC Comics, joker

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