Jim Gordon is trapped in Gotham Central as the Red Hood Gang makes an audacious play. But also in Central is a factor no one expected: the Joker, who has decided to show his old gang, and its new boss, exactly what he can do. āJoker: Year Oneā concludes in Batman #144, written by Chip Zdarsky, penciled by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Andrea Sorrentino, inked by Stefano Nesi and Sorrentino, colored by Alejandro Sanchez and Dave Stewart, and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Darkseid is ā¦ here, and he wants the part of the Anti-Life Equation Gog possesses. Two sets of the Worldās Finest heroes and Magog stand between them. And the choice that Magog makes will change the world of Earth-22 forever. Batman/Superman: Worldās Finest #24 is written by Mark Waid, drawn by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain and lettered by Steve Wands.
Catwoman has an old debt to pay off to someone very dangerous: Amanda Waller. Fortunately, Waller has a simple job for Selina to run with the Suicide Squad: just steal an artifact. From Black Adam. OK, maybe not so simple. Catwoman #62 is written by Tini Howard, drawn by Carmine Di Giandomenico, colored by Veronica Gandini and lettered by Lucas Gattoni.
Will Nevin: We talked about this in our last recording, but for the benefit of readers who 1) donāt listen to the show (come on, already, give it a shot!) or 2) donāt want to wait a couple of weeks to hear it, I think weāve concluded that the Folio Societyās Batman collection is the first half of a yet-to-be-announced two-part work. And that weāre really and truly begging comics to move beyond Killing Joke.
Matt Lazorwitz: Yeah, the fact that seems to posit that important Batman stories, or stories fundamental to comics and Batman, stopped in 1993 is kind of ridiculous. Also, as we stated, we need more reprints of harder-to-find comics; this is fine as a big, standalone book, but I want more of the weird and wild stuff you just donāt find everywhere.
Will: If weāre being honest, they could have reprinted Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told and called it a day. Thatās more hard-to-find stuff at least.
āJoker Beginsā Ends
Matt: We reach the end of āJoker: Year Oneā with what was probably the chapter of this story I enjoyed the most, but itās still something of a head scratcher to me. What was the purpose of this story? Was it all to get to that final moment in the flashforward where Batman thinks Joker could have killed him all along but didnāt? I mean, thatās an interesting enough idea, but did we need three issues to get there?
Will: Matt, we needed to make the subtext text once again as Joker confesses his love for Batman. We had to. Had to! And Iām with you on the overall point here. For a story that editorial hyped as *the* Joker origin, this reads more like a Red Hood (no, not that Red Hood) piece, and nothing in this final chapter really felt essential to the Joker character. Shit, even his vengeance against the gang leader/police commissioner (boy is that ever some commentary) that was decades in the making takes place off panel. Strange, strange choices made by all involved here, Matt.
Matt: This chapter worked best for me because it felt almost (but not quite) like a companion to James Tynion IVās superb Joker series. We have Jim Gordon caught up in the middle of a conflict with the Joker playing with the same pieces in a way that Gordon is unaware of. We said we wanted more of the Gordon stuff from the first two issues, and this delivers that. But as much as I like that, Gordon isnāt even a part of the present-day stuff in the rest of the run, so I donāt see why we would spend this much time with him. Except maybe Zdarksy just wanted to write a Gordon story?
Will: And we both want to read Gordon stories, Matt! Iām just going to blame the strangeness on editorial, and maybe Big Daddy Z will spill his guts in a couple of years and confirm as such. And what the heck was up with Sorrentino in this issue? Did he budge an inch off his Batfleck model? I wouldnāt be surprised if some of that was traced ā it was that similar.
Matt: I honestly want to know why this was the two nesting narratives as well. Other than the two beats we mentioned (Jokerās confession and Batmanās realization), and Zdarsky almost issuing an apology for the way he had Bruce treat Jason during āGotham Warā by saying he loves him like a son, that flashforward served no purpose except to allow Sorrentino to draw this weird future.
Was I the only one who was getting The Dark Knight vibes here? Joker arranges an elaborate, Machievellian Rube Goldberg device within a police station. Thatās not in itself a bad idea, but it seems to mostly abandon all of the wheels within wheels, Jokers within Jokers stuff of the first two issues and instead is just a normal Joker story.
Will: The less time, attention and thought given to Three Jokers, the better. The story as a whole has felt derivative from the jump, and while it never plodded ā only having three issues is a big plus ā it never shook the feeling that weāre just wasting our time here. This is by no means bad. For whatever else we can say about it, it is a competently constructed comic. But itās not great.
Thy Kingdom Come
Matt: This finale shows what you get when you have a creative team who work together seamlessly. Waid ties the themes of this arc directly into the themes of the original Kingdom Come. Moraās art is still clearly his, but I feel like heās added a more brutal edge than we have ever seen in the fight with Darkseid and in Magogās final fall from grace. And Bonvillain colors it lushly, but with darker hues when Darkseid is present, as if heās sucking the light from the scene itself. Itās really smartly done all around.
Will: And narratively, it closes the loop, connecting this arc to both Kingdom Come and flashing to a postscript for that seminal work. As I come back to the question that weāve constantly pondered ā whether this is essential to Kingdom Come or a needless return to what he and Alex Ross created 25 years ago ā I think I land somewhere in the middle. This story doesnāt overstay its welcome, never feels too trifle-y and even lands in a good, satisfying place. But I donāt think weāll be clamoring for it to be collected with Kingdom Come, either.
Matt: Yes, I think this is by far the best of the Kingdom Come follow-ups (the others being Waidās own The Kingdom and Alex Ross and Geoff Johnsā Justice Society of America arc, āThy Kingdom Comeā). Waid finds a way to balance nostalgia with serious character work. I was concerned trying to humanize Magog, a character created to be a stock example of an EXTREME hero, would just fall flat, but it works here. We see why he does what he does, what pushes him to eventually cross that line again with Joker, and it all feels natural. I donāt think I want a follow-up Magog mini, mind you, but I think as a cap to that characterās story? This works really well.
Will: I think you could count on one hand the number of people in the DC universe whoād say you canāt kill Joker, and it makes every bit of sense that David/Magog would be a hero to the people of Metropolis and the rest of the world for doing so. And that would certainly leave Kingdom Come Batman with a mighty big ax to grind. I donāt know if we need that particular chapter or beat to be told, but itās at least interesting. And I wonder if thatās whatās always been in Waidās head.
Matt: That does appear in Kingdom Come, in a brief flashback. The whole story is told over maybe two pages, and I agree, thatās the most we want of it. Itās background, itās not a story on its own.
I really like the closure we get at the end, not just for Magog, but more for āourā Superman. From the beginning of this arc, he has had such an ax to grind with his counterpart, and him learning that itās Superman-22ās belief that he was not needed, that a Superman is always needed, and getting a moment of reconciliation with Magog after delivering a very Superman speech about redemptions and better paths, serves as the emotional core of the arc coming to fruition.
Will: And then the splash with Magog getting redemption? Very uplifting conclusion ā¦ although I feel like I need to consult the original text to determine whether Magog can be redeemed. (See what I did there, Matt?)
Trapped between a Wall and a Black Adam Place
Matt: After last monthās particularly dark issue, itās nice to swing back to a much lighter story. Just a good olā heist with a Suicide Squad trying to steal from Black Adam. What could go wrong?
Will: Everything? I would generally not mess with either Black Adam or Amanda Waller, but, hey, Selinaās gotta do her.
Matt: Catwoman seems like the perfect kind of character for the Squad: clever and willing to do anything to save her own skin; her only interaction with them before this was during āI Am Suicideā during the Tom King Batman run. I just wish it was during a period when Waller wasnāt in her supervillain mode. I donāt blame Tini Howard for how quick on the brain bomb Waller was in this story; thatās just how sheās being written across the line now, which I am not a fan of.
Will: That was a bizarre conclusion to the story ā as readers, we know this arcās gimmick, but Waller canāt be that cavalier when it comes to offing someone like Catwoman. Sheās a known person in the world! Friends with important people! It would be ā¦ suicide ā¦ for Waller to push that button. Yet she does because the arcās gimmick demands that she does.
Matt: There were less contrived ways to get Waller to blow the brain bomb, I suppose, but itās sadly within character for this current incarnation of Waller.
I like the mix of the supernatural with the mundane in this arc. I think weāve talked about it before, but the supernatural stuff never drowns out the more grounded aspects of Selina running crazy scores, but it adds a flavor to it. Selina meeting up with Bastet, the goddess of cats, who made her DC debut in The Sandman, by the way, is fun. I like that weāre getting a little wild comic magical nonsense to tie in with the nine lives, and I like that Selina just sort of shrugs at meeting a god. When you run in her circles, thatās just sort of something you have to accept.
Will: Too much of the god stuff, and my head wouldāve been spinning, but itās kept nice and tight here. Although Iām certainly confused by the Black Adam stuff. You can steal his powers by taking the thingy?
Matt: The power stealing there was Black Alice; that is her power. She can steal the powers of other mystical characters. The thingy was just a macguffin that Waller wanted to acquire to see if Selina would play nice, which she clearly didnāt. By the end, I think this was all a gambit by Waller to see if she could get Catwoman to join her, or at least use her, which by the end it was obvious she couldnāt.
Will: I had a bad case of the sleepies when I was trying to read this issue, so Iām not surprised that was lost on me. Will is also not very smart.
Matt: All in all, this continues to be a fun arc. Iām curious to see how it all wraps up, and how the stakes can keep escalating, because itās hard to get higher than these past couple issues.
Will: Coming next month: Selina fights God! (probably)
Bat-miscellany
- This weekās BatChat podcast takes us into deep space and to the deepest, darkest heart of humanity with three tales of Batman and the New Gods.
- Irredeemable ā as both a film adaptation and a new comic series ā appears to be stuck in development at Netflix after missing its announced 2023 launch.
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Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. 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 creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
