Instead, Azzarello puts the Joker on the psychiatrist's couch and let's his gullible narrator, Frost, ask all the questions while we sit back omnisciently and contemplate the answers. Trying to dive directly into the Joker's thought process would have been not only a foolish move, but a futile one as well, and would only have trivialized what has become the most complex mind in all of comics. Thank the comic book heavens that Azzarello didn't attempt to place us in the Joker's head by making him the story's narrator, as he did with Lex Luthor in his and Bermejo's Lex Luthor: Man of Steel miniseries. At the same time, he's more vile and depraved than any one of us, let alone Johnny Frost, his henchmen and the story's narrator, could possibly comprehend. Azzarello's Joker is a schoolyard bully who long ago traded nooggies and dead-arms for torture and dismemberment. Despite his similarly scarred visage and propensity for chaos, this Joker is not the same meticulous agent of anarchy seen in The Dark Knight, nor is he the typical scenery chewing, joke-spewing maniac found in most comics. What I'm saying is that for the first time since Moore's seminal exploration of Batman's greatest villain, Azzarello somehow manages to humanize and demonize the Joker at the same time. I'm not comparing the quality or merits of the two works. Now I understand that comparing any work to The Killing Joke in the first sentence of a review can come across as the worst sort of hyperbole, so allow me to explain. It demands multiple readings, even if you're stomach might not be up for a second go around. Joker is a true stroke of twisted genius, a masterpiece of chaos, gore, grit, guts, filthy gutters and unimaginable insanity. Even with its straightforward plot and an onslaught of extremely graphic violence, Azzarello and Bermejo's story somehow manages to achieve a level of subtlety rare to any Batman comic, let alone one starring his deadliest and most flamboyant nemesis. It's also a hellish decent into the bowels of the most foul and reprehensible city in all of fiction, with its most foul and reprehensible citizen as our tour guide. OctoBrian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo's Joker is a deeply disturbing and completely unnerving work, a literary achievement that takes its place right alongside Alan Moore's The Killing Joke as one of the few successful attempts to scratch beneath the surface of the Joker's impenetrable psyche. The darkest tale featuring the Clown Prince of Crime might also be his best. Not since THE KILLING JOKE have you seen such a powerful tale of The Joker – you won't want to miss this one! Look for appearances by a slew of Gotham's most wanted, including gritty takes on Two-Face, Riddler, Killer Croc, Penguin, Harley Quinn and even Batman! Not content to settle for a piece of the pie, The Joker vows to take back the whole damn enchilada by any means necessary. JOKER - highly anticipated new graphic novelįresh from his release from Arkham, the Crown Prince of Crime seeks out old allies.Īfter yet another stint in Arkham Asylum, The Joker finds "his city" divided among mobsters and costumed villains.
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