It’s the final showdown between Batman and Failsafe in Batman #130, written by Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Jorge Jimenez, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Clayton Cowles. In the backup, Batman must confront the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh for the life of the Joker in a story written by Zdarsky, drawn by Leonardo Romero, colored by Jordie Bellaire and lettered by Cowles.
While one Joker confronts Red Hood, the other gets a not-so-warm welcome from his old “friends” in the Legion of Doom. The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #3 is written by Matthew Rosenberg, drawn by Carmine Di Giandomenico, colored by Arif Prianto and lettered by Tom Napolitano. In the backup, Joker needs a doctor in a story written by Rosenberg, drawn and colored by Francesco Francavilla and lettered by Napolitano.
Batman and Joker fight the Joker ghouls and try to learn their origins in Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo #2, written and drawn by Marc Silvestri, colored by Arif Prianto and lettered by Troy Peteri.
Matt Lazorwitz: So, this week, apropos of nothing in this particular column, the first three episodes of Batman: The Audio Adventure Season 2 became available on Stitcher, my podcast platform of choice, so I’d wager they’re out in the wild on most of them, and you should all go out and listen, because they remain a ton of fun.
Will Nevin: The ultimate tease to get you to sign up for HBO Max, the home of the world’s best … podcasts? It’s still weird. But hell, they’ve got Adult Swim and soon to be two seasons of the world’s horniest version of Perry Mason. Lots to enjoy there.
Compassion
Matt: This is the way the arc ends, not with a whimper, but with a big old bang. The opening of this issue is one of the most gloriously bonkers things I have read in a long time: Batman basically surfing his way down from the moon on debris. It’s a pretty good summation of this arc so far: fun action that shows how badass Batman is but pads things out a bunch.
Will: Way to go full-on invisible car on us, Zdarsky. I understand this is a comic book and there have to be allowances for such things, but man, did I ever not care for that. Too much and too silly. But you’re right in that it’s a solid encapsulation of the arc: lots of sound and fury, ultimately signifying precious little.
Matt: But I do like the way Bruce thinks his way around Failsafe in the end. He knows he’s too smart to be beaten easily, and that he (or Zur-en-Arrh) is too clever to be so easily beaten with a virus, so he has to do something truly unexpected. That is Batman at his best: looking at all the angles and coming up with a plan of attack that no one else would. Choosing to infect Failsafe with the one thing his other self wouldn’t, the thing that Batman doesn’t have, compassion, is a good note.
Will: Oh absolutely. This story has a solid point to make — and what a great wrap to the backup, by the way — but there’s just so much damned noise around it. I’m hoping the end is a way to get us to some basic, grounded story as an attempt to cut back on the excesses of this one.
Matt: Zdarsky said in an interview that the next arc is going to be quieter and more character focused, so I think that is what’s in the cards.
And while the portrayal of what Tim Drake is up to doesn’t quite line up with the Tim who is trying to make a life for himself over in his own ongoing, I love how Zdarsky writes him. The narration where Bruce talks about how Tim is the Robin who loved teamwork, who didn’t go off on his own but who refined working with him as a partner? That’s some great character work for Tim. And you know I’m always looking for good Tim Drake content.
Will: Matt loves him some Tim Drake, I do know that. Zdarsky is a fantastic writer — you don’t have to spend too much time with Newburn and the best parts of The Knight to figure that out. I only wish that talent had more of an opportunity to shine here. Are people forever doomed to be wasted on the main Batman title? Is that what we’ve come to?
Matt: And as you said, the backup proves how well Zdarksy can handle this book. Watching Batman wrestle with the Zur-En-Arrh persona, pointing out that Joker feels like a psychic attack at all times and finally Bruce knowing he has to rein it in? His conscience talking to him through Martha Wayne, the loving parent who seems so empathetic in all the flashbacks to her? That shows how well Zdarsky gets Batman. I want more of that in the main story.
I wonder if we need to just set our expectations differently for this book. That this is going to be bombastic, that this isn’t going to have introspection at its heart and instead be the Michael Bay movie of Batman comics. If you go in with that expectation? This book is an unqualified success. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I want to see those arcs balanced with more thoughtful ones. And maybe we’ll get that. We have to wait for the next arc to see.
A Guy Walks into a Hospital
Matt: We continue down the rabbit hole of this series, and I remain confused about what it’s doing. This is, in many ways, what I have always been most afraid of with a Joker series. We’re focusing heavily on the Joker wandering Gotham, and while he’s not the Machievellian mastermind the other Joker is, he’s still an unrepentant killer. Are we supposed to empathize, or at least sympathize, with him? Because I don’t. I want more of Red Hood, a character struggling with his redemption arc, or Harley, a character who might find her redemption challenged.
Will: We keep hitting the same point on this book, don’t we? Faux Joker is a distraction, a curious little oddity that’s pulling focus from the characters with more interesting stories. Did I enjoy the cannibals from Hooper County, Texas, in the first volume? I sure as shit did. Would I have wanted three or four issues to be all about them? Absolutely not!
Matt: I walked out of this issue and I felt … nothing, really. It’s interesting enough, but it feels like an academic exercise. What is the Joker if you strip away everything from him? Not a bad concept for an issue or two, but for an ongoing, or at least long-form maxi-series? Not feeling it. I wonder if Rosenberg is doing a slow build to Faux Joker having to team up with Red Hood to take on Mastermind Joker to learn the truth. That’s a story worth reading, since it will force Jason to face his trauma. But if that’s where it’s going, let’s get there.
Will: Yeah, if we can’t answer the question “Why does this thing exist?” with something other than “because DC thought it would move product” after another couple of issues, I’m not sure that we should keep investing time on this one.
Matt: The backup stories remain wild fun. And once again, Gaggy doesn’t make it out. While they’re fun, I again don’t know what they’re here for. Each one seems to play on a theme or element of the main story: the second Joker in issue #1, people thinking he’s dead in issue #2 and here him needing to go to the hospital. But I don’t know why we’re seeing the unreliable narrator Joker. Unless this is just Rosenberg cutting loose. I’m OK with that, but I want to stop trying to find meaning in it if there is none.
Will: Big Barda. She’s tall, see? Joker’s short. That’s funny. (Actually, it was and I loved it.)
Matt: We need to read Justice League International Annual #2 for the pod soon. The JLI tries to have a family barbecue, and Joker shows up in a tank.
Will: It’s never good when Joker has access to armored vehicles.
The Oddest Couple
Matt: One of the fun things that works well with writer artists, or when writers and artists are teams who know each other’s strengths, is that you get a book where the artist gets to draw what they want. And clearly Silvestri is loving drawing the body horror of this book. The lovingly rendered Joker people and the slowly growing teeth removed from one in the Batcave are horrifyingly breathtaking.
Will: You’re right in that the art is the star of the show here. As far as the story goes, we’ve got a bit of a science/tech mystery (How the hell do you get monsters to grow out of teeth, anyhow?), but the Batman/Joker interaction isn’t anything special.
Matt: Right. We’ve seen Batman and Joker have to work together so many times before. If you’re going to do something with it, you need to give us something new. And this is just Joker needling Batman. The ticking clock of the kidnapped Gordon gives it some stakes, sure, but that’s plot momentum, not character.
Will: At least Batman: Europa gave us a road trip. Last Knight gifted us with a disembodied head. This … has comic book science?
Matt: It does, and say what else about Silvestri, he knows how to leave you with a cliffhanger. Both the monster growing from the teeth and Batman having to decide which of two people the mastermind behind this will kill to save both the other person and their kid? That does have me curious what’s coming next.
Will: And Joker is bound to really fuck things up at some point, right? We also got some hints at an interesting Batman/Bullock dynamic, and that’s something I’d like to see more of. He’s a few steps removed from a scumbag who — when you really need him — is there to do the right thing, but he’s always got that natural tension with Batman — maybe owing to some jealousy over his relationship with Gordon.
Matt: And that Bullock, who likes to bend the rules but knows there are lines he can’t cross, sees Batman jumping back and forth over those lines with regularity and he gets away with it. I think that bugs the hell out of Bullock.
Bat-miscellany
- In this week’s BatChat podcast, we’re joined by Tony Thornley to talk about three Batman intercompany crossovers.
- The new issue of Joker does point out just how many Bat villains have advanced degrees. Makes you think, if you live in Gotham, you might be better off skipping grad school.
- Harley calls Red Hood “Sad Robin.” That is very appropriate.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
