There is a man in Room Ten in Arkham Tower. He floats in a tank. His skin is pale, his hair is green. And he has reached out to talk to an old friend. Batman confronts the Joker again in Batman #7, written by Matt Fraction, drawn by Jorge Jimenez, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Clayton Cowles with Jimenez.
Will Nevin: Matt, do you ever think about death? Or “H2SH”?
Matt Lazorwitz: These are both things I do my best to NOT think about as much as possible.
Will: We can pass on the first one for now, but can you believe that Batman Vol. 3 #163 has been delayed until May 27 (until it gets pushed back again)? That’s a total of nine months (so far). At least the story was terrible, amirite?
Matt: It seems, from vague social media posts, that something is up with Jim Lee, who I wish well/a speedy recovery/whatever he needs, but I find it mindboggling that they’re still saying this is Part 1. We are never going to see Part 2. And/or if we do, it will be a footnote in DC history. Let’s just move on at this point. Rewrite the last two pages to wrap it up, and let it be over.
Will: Do it Newhart style. Bruce wakes up in the Fraction run and talks about what a strange dream he had.
Matt: That’s as good an answer as any at this point.
A visit with an old friend
Matt: I understand that mental health facilities and prisons, in theory, are about rehabilitation. And that you can’t really rehabilitate someone who is not allowed to interact with people. But after the number of psychiatrists, psychologists, orderlies and guards the Joker — excuse me, Patient Ten — has done a number on, at this point putting him in a hole and just leaving him there seems like the smartest thing to do, right? Because he’s got Dr. Zeller wrapped around his finger.
Will: It’s interesting to ponder the moral culpability of a reformed Joker, isn’t it? Maybe a writer will take up that story one day in a little pocket universe, because everyone knows that Joker will never be cured because, as you’ve said a thousand billion times, Big Two superhero comics are built on the illusion of change.
Also, just a gentle reminder that the White Knight/Murphyverse is utter, irredeemable trash.
Matt: It is a fascinating question, whether a mind that remembers years of the most utter carnage can maintain a grip on sanity. It would be fascinating to see a Joker restored to some semblance of sanity just to break in a different way.
But this Joker here? This guy is running a scheme. The moment where he is complimenting Dr. Zeller, saying how great she and her machine are, and you see the little smile on her face, how satisfied she is? This guy is playing her like a fiddle. He knows exactly what to say to get her to believe he’s getting better, just so the joke when it turns out he’s got some depraved scheme is all the sweeter.
Will: She’s going in the goop, right? I don’t think there’s any way this ends without her getting hooked up to what she’s created. Or maybe she gets electrocuted. Or suffocates. That lady created her own death trap, didn’t she?
Matt: I think that is where the safe money is, yeah.
I have to give Fraction and Jimenez a lot of credit here. This issue is just a conversation. There is no violence anywhere in it, except a couple panels in flashback. But it keeps you absolutely engaged. Not only is what is being said interesting, but I read everything Joker said twice, trying to see what he’s hiding in his dialogue. I’m expecting this to be one of those situations where he didn’t really lie, but just told the truth from a crooked point of view or hid the truth in what he said in a way that will make sense when the story wraps up. And Jimenez draws the body language and facial expressions in ways that help move the story forward. It’s a master class in how to have action that isn’t violence in your comic.
Will: And I’m here for it! You know how astoundingly bored I get with action in superhero comics. As the Barenaked Ladies once sang, “It’s all been done.” The design here was also smart. Just a simple retro computer terminal. No fancy lettering or colors. The stripped-down approach really heightened the tension with Joker’s dialogue, almost as if you could imagine it coming out one strained word at a time.
Matt: That or Mark Hamill’s voice run through an auto-tuner, stripping away the levels and just leaving this hint of it buried under the computer effect. Especially creepy.
I continue to think Joker now has some kind of psychic powers. Affecting Riddler from earlier in the series, and somehow affecting the janitor who came in with the purpose of doing harm to the guy who screwed up his face. “Whatever it was that brought him into Room Ten vanished when he saw me.” I might be looking for something that isn’t there, but it really does feel like he can put the whammy on someone, right? Maybe not full-on mind control, but some ability to reach out and make people a little more agreeable. And if that’s the case, of course he doesn’t want to get unhooked! He’s having too much fun.
Will: I’m guessing there are harder falls than cop-to-janitor, but none are coming to mind at the moment. Time to talk about that last page, you reckon?
Matt: Yeah. I am trying to figure out if this is supposed to be a big deal or not. If you are new to the book, or a casual Batman reader, it certainly is. But Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV and Chip Zdarksy (plus other writers going back as far as Jim Starlin in the late ’80s) all heavily implied that Joker knows Batman’s identity. I don’t think he ever flat out called him Bruce in any of those runs, but it’s not a big stretch from “Death of the Family” and “Joker War” that Joker has known The Secret for years. Still, it is a great moment, and a great facial expression Jimenez gives Batman when Joker just calls him Bruce.
Will: The framing of that shot was perfect. And, side note, Bruce could use some work on his poker face.
But, yeah, as we’ve talked about, The Secret is not *that* much of a secret if we’re working in a grounded universe. Gordon knows (but doesn’t talk about it), and it would make perfect sense for Joker to know but not make it the focus of his endeavors because he wants the game to continue indefinitely. Even here, he’s not using the fact that he knows his secret identity to torment him; he’s using it (if we take him at his word, which we do at our extreme peril) only to make Bruce take him seriously.
And on a related note, I hope Fraction has something new or interesting to say about the Batman/Joker dynamic. Not that any of it was bad here, but it didn’t seem particularly fresh either.
Matt: I think we need to see where he’s taking it, and how central Joker is to the bigger arc he’s telling. We were introduced to Minotaur a few issues ago and haven’t done a lot with him, for instance. Fraction has a lot of balls in the air right now. I assume he’s the one with the contract out on our hero. I do wonder, too, if the hit is on Batman? Or Bruce? It was Bruce who interfered with Hugo Strange’s hitmen taking out Zeller after all.
Will: And we’ve got to see how the Vandal Savage stuff works itself out as (groan) Poison Ivy becomes mayor. One day, we’ll get back to a Gotham run by incompetent, corrupt or incompetent and corrupt bureaucrats.
Matt: We don’t have a free slot coming up for the column, but I feel like we should read this month’s Poison Ivy as a bonus column or something, as it begins the Mayor Ivy arc. I have a lot more faith in G. Willow Wilson than you do, it seems. That book has been consistently good for 40 issues, so I think there’s potential here.
Will: There’s an empty place in my soul that cries out for realism in superhero comics. Something in me is broken. So it’s really nothing against Wilson. Admittedly, Ivy could be used as a vehicle to do interesting things, and I’m not down on those ideas — just the idea of Gotham voters turning their city over to an on-again/off-again supervillain. I mean, who would elect a monster to run a city or a country? Just some fanciful nonsense if you ask me.
Matt: In the immortal words of Yakko Warner, “Goodnight, everybody!”
Bat-miscellany
- The BatChat podcast bids a fond farewell to Grant Morrison’s run on the Bat titles and continues reading “Knightquest” and “No Man’s Land.”
Buy Batman #7 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)
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.
