Joker

Joker

Written by Brian Azzarello

Art by Lee Bermejo

Published by DC Comics











Where to start. I guess with this. I started reading comics at roughly eight years old. With a real interest developing by thirteen. Batman has always been the center of my comics universe, first with the Tim Burton film, then with the pages of Batman and Detective Comics. Mr. J was always there. With his wide red grin and his usually well groomed green hair. His purple suit. And he always brought the ha ha ha's.
The thing about this character is that he's a psychopathic murderer, it's what he gets off on. That was the original intent of his creation way back in the good clean days of 1940. Somewhere along the way he became a clown, not in the literal sense as he is already obviously a clown, but as Ledger's Joker said best, he lost his balls. He became about gags and the like. He was tamed and toned down, the antithesis of his intention and while still the most fun of Batman's rogues gallery, still rather bla.

I'm biased, he is my favorite villain. But I guess I never realized how boring he was until Heath Ledger played him. I was a fellow naysayer in his casting and ability, but then I saw what he did. He gave the Joker his balls back. He made him what the Joker is and should be. He made him scary. With few exceptions, I personally have never seen that in the Joker. Cool, yes. Murderous, yes. Sick, not really. Scary, nuh-uh.

For all intents and purposes, The Joker is a character that Ledger created. At least the Joker I want from here on out. Nicholson never sat well with me and I don't want that or a Romero version anymore. I wanna see the Joker as created by Ledger.

And Joker is a damn good start.

Technically written and drawn before Ledger was even cast, this book, which has no relation to The Dark Knight, is the literary soul mate of that movie. The art by Lee Bermejo eerily mirrors Ledger's Joker as much as Azzarello's writing does. The tone is realistic like TDK, with no apparent typical cape book stereotypes. This is as real as it could get in a place where a man would dress up as a bat.



All the usual Gotham suspects show up here: Penguin looking like a fat Hitler minus mustache, Harley Quinn in a non-speaking role, Killer Croc as a black man with a skin condition, The Riddler as a gimpy genius, and Harvey Two-Face, also not too far removed from the movie. The one Gotham resident barely making an appearance in this book is Batman, he's only a cameo in this book, because after all, the Joker is the star of this show.

The story starts as small time thug Jonny Frost elects to retrieve Joker from Arkham where he is being released for unknown reasons. 'Jonny Jonny' is quickly recruited as Joker's right hand man and the story goes from there as Mr. J seeks to reclaim his lost kingdom.

The Story has a very Fight Club feel to it in the sense of Jonny Jonny's relationship with Joker being reminescent of Tyler Durdin's to himself in the first half of the movie. Many, okay, all of the things Joker does in this book are disturbing, from skinning a man to his revenge tactics against Jonny Jonny.

I'm not sure if the book makes Joker at all a sympathetic figure, but at times he is almost human. But still always sick and twisted. He carries his deep paranoia of Batman watching over him at all times and it is mentioned a few times, even if the Bat's name is never spoken, he is usually just referred as 'him'. But you never mistake who him is.


The 'villain' of this book is Two-Face, dressed not at all as flashy as his comic book counterpart, and absent the usual green scarred skin. He is the man who took Joker's territories and money upon his incarceration and he is the man Joker seeks to utterly destroy, causing Harvey to seek help in Batman.

At the climax of the book, after Joker's Fear and Loathing style Gotham rampage has reached its limits, Batman does show, and is himself very different from his comic book counterpart in more than just costume. He speaks only three words before letting his fists do the rest of the talking.

This is the most original Joker story written since A Killing Joke back in the 80's and will probably be viewed as better than that book in time. This is truly a classic and hopefully it leads the way the character of the Joker will go for years to come, because compared to this, the comic book version of the Joker is nothing but a clown.