One of the more intriguing mysteries of the DC Universe during the turbulent 2010s was the enigma known as the Joker. Batman’s greatest foe had been in existence for over seventy years when Geoff Johns came to write his highly acclaimed Justice League (vol 2) run. It was a saga of high stakes, whereby gods of terror and a multiverse of evil was unleashed upon humanity. It was also a series where mere mortals – like the Dark Knight himself – received mightier-than-thou powers. That famed scene from Geoff Johns’s run, where Batman sits in Metron’s chair to ask for the real identity of the Clown Prince of Crime, only to discover that there is not simply one Joker, but three, is a moment imprinted deeply on the memory. How could it not? Following stories like DCU: Rebirth and others toyed with this possibility of three Jokers. Without a doubt, it has been one of the most long-awaited tales of modern Batman comics, a potential change that could so dramatically alter everything...
Batman: Three Jokers had been in the works for several years; it’s release had been long-awaited. The three prestige-format books hit the stands from August to October 2020, with Jason Fabok illustrating some absolutely stunning variant covers depicting different Jokers from the ages. Written by Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok’s pencils and inks are accompanied by Brad Anderson’s beautiful colouring. Reprinted several times over, I’m reading the three books in their original issues.
Few stories have been waited for with such anticipation and excitement. Three Jokers is a tale that generated hype and intrigue from the moment the very concept of three Clown Princes dawned. With interest came theories and discussion. Before the series was launched, I – for one – believed that perhaps Johns was harkening back to the three Jokers of the classic eras of comic books. For example, one Joker would be the gangster of the golden age – insane but calculating. Another would be a colourful clown squirting water from a flower attached to his hideously pink jacket – a nod to the brighter silver age. While the other would not be a clown, but an unhinged psychopath whose grin spells evil and unpredictable chaos to all in Gotham, reminding us of all of the crazed villain from the days of O’Neil/Adams and Englehart/Rogers. Although that is essentially the case for the Three Jokers and its premise, to say my thesis was completely accurate would be incorrect. Just as a fore-warning, Three Jokers isn’t the kind of story to explicitly reveal the mysteries of its plotting.
Perhaps it should come as no shock that – with Geoff Johns’s snappy and dramatic writing, accompanied by the cinematic artwork of Jason Fabok – Book one’s introduction can be read almost like the introduction to a movie. With the Batmobile tearing through the graves of Thomas and Martha Wayne (a very clumsy move from Batman) as an injured Dark Knight returns home, the opening pages require no dialogue; it runs on pure suspense and drama. That fantastic sequence, whereby Alfread stitches his master’s latest wound, and we witness the countless number of scars on his body, with each of them containing their own tale, is simply marvellous. Each flashback is heavy as the story of each scar is revealed. There have been many villains, but the one who caused the most scars should come as no shock. Ultimately, Batman is a character of tragedy – formed by the death of his parents (another flashback we witness, coming with a predictable sigh) and the evil of the Joker. Three Jokers is a mixture of an old-style crime mystery tale and personal drama. It all starts with the murders of the remaining members of the Moxon Crime Family – this once-highly regarded family had hired Joe Chill to murder the Waynes (whether that is still canon in this tale, it is difficult to say). The murder of a comedian, and the killing of three criminals at the Ace Chemical plant, point all fingers in the direction of the Joker. Three crimes, three Jokers, with the victims absorbed in the menacing grin, white skin, and green hair so familiar to us all. The Joker has stolen a vat of chemicals from Ace Chemicals, the place of his origin, and it’s up to Batman, Batgirl, and Red Hood to beat the Joker at whatever game he is playing. It is that ongoing enigma – the mystery behind the Joker’s actions – that fuel Three Jokers so brilliantly in the first two issues. Events occur which make little sense, and that absorbs readers deeply into the storyline as we yearn for answers. Even more questions arise when we finally meet the three Jokers, three distinct personalities of who once thought were where all the same villains. There’s the Criminal, the cold gangster-like killer. Then there’s the Clown, a murder-mired prankster. And then there’s the Comedian, the psychopath with a loud personality. Witnessing the interactions between these three characters is bizarre, especially because Johns writes the three personalities so differently. It is as if there are in conflict with one another, but united behind a plan.
That plan? To create a better Joker? What exactly this means is kept in the dark for some time to come, all the while the Bat-Family wander through Gotham’s aquarium and discover that one of the Joker’s has spilled Joker acid into the shark tank. These make for some happy – but very scary-looking – fish and sharks. Geoff Johns introduces us to a rather odd character - a forgotten sidekick for the clown prince of crime - who lives for barely ten pages before the tainted shark tears him in two. But this bloody moment does not take the crown in the gore fest. As I said, while the mystery of the Three Jokers is utterly gripping, it's the drama within the Bat Family that adds another layer of intensity to events.
It is fitting that the heroic trio of the series is Batman, Batgirl, and Red Hood. Each of them has had their fair share of damage by the Joker's hand in the past. But the three characters are all fundamentally different from one another when it comes to justice. Batman - the strong believer in a 'no kill' policy - is on one end of a spectrum whereby Red Hood - the Joker's ultimate murder victim whose mind was twisted and turned to sheer vengeance - is on the other. Batgirl is in the middle, acting as a source of humanity for the Dark Knight, and a voice of reason for the fallen Robin. Geoff Johns writes the relationship within this triangle fantastically. He clearly understands their personalities but also their dialogue and relationships with one another. It's that sharp difference between themselves and their view of justice that much of the drama of Three Jokers is made all the more powerful.
Towards the end of the first book, the heroes manage to capture the Clown. While Batman heads off in search of his villainous comrades, Batgirl and Red Hood are left in the company of a killer who has fundamentally altered (or in the case of Jason, ended) their lives. The Clown may be sillier than the others, but he is still a demon and a violent one at that. Those final pages of the first book - as the Clown intimidates Red Hood with his troubled past and burning memories of his first death - makes for harrowing and dramatic reading. The dialogue written by Johns hits hard as the Clown does, he can anger and enrage Red Hood. I've always questioned why Jason Todd would want to name himself after the original alter-ego of the man who brutally murdered him, but once you realise that Jason and the Joker aren't too similar, it begins to make sense. It's that revelation which provides a small kick to the emotions, small in comparison to Red Hood suddenly blowing the Clown's brains out with his gun. It's a moment of genuine shock told magnificently by an artist like Jason Fabok. Red Hood has got his revenge, but the question looms - was that the Joker?
The friction caused in the Bat Family by the Clown's death is noticeable to say the least, especially with the police now on the search for Red Hood. It's a drama which causes arguments between Batman and the former Robin, but all that drama struggles to come to a head or evolve into something greater. You'd think such a moment would drive the Red Hood onto a different path - for better or for ill - but little comes of a moment of such great magnitude. Nevertheless, the mystery continues to bite and grip in Book Two. With one Joker dead, the psychology of the remaining two becomes a source of intrigue. As the Comedian ponders the family tragically discarded by grim reality that he never got to enjoy (flashbacks to the kind of household the failing comedian wanted to enjoy in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke), the Criminal coldly disregards his partner. The quest for a better Joker continues. The mystery behind such a quest is slowly revealed, especially after Red Hood discovers countless Joker-like bodies dumped in a swimming pool full of Ace Chemicals acid. They are some of many victims claimed by the Jokers – by using the acid, they aim to transform criminals into variants of the Joker. But one must be the ultimate Joker – Batman’s ultimate foe. The effects of the acid which birthed the Joker depend on the victim – some are more are insane than others, but that appears to be entirely random. While Red Hood is clumsily captured and beaten by the Comedian (this story really is just a ‘how much can be torture Jason Todd’ plot), Batman and Batgirl are confronted by the hordes of Jokers transformed by the acid. Jason Todd really is the one who gets the hardest time in this story, and while little seems to come of it, his relationship with Batgirl exploring the depression and loneliness behind the tough exterior makes for some interesting scenes. Nevertheless, the drama continues to build.
The creation of a link between the Joker and Joe Chill isn't a wholly original idea. After all, it was Tim Burton in his classic 1989 movie where Jack Nicholson's Joker was revealed to have once been the petty thief who shot and killed the Waynes. But with Book Three, that link is explored in a very different way. Batman storms into Blackgate to confront Joe Chill after discovering a link between events past and present. Joe Chill has been kidnapped by the Criminal and the Comedian. In their attempt to create a perfect Joker, they have found the perfect candidate in Joe Chill. By transforming Joe Chill – the man who literally created Batman by killing the Waynes – the Dark Knight will have an ultimate and most personal foe. With that in mind, surely the Jokers should have gone for Joe Chill first rather than waste their time on turning low lives into Jokers. Nevertheless, Book Three opens with a fantastic full-page spread not just displaying the three Jokers – the Comedian, the Criminal, and the Clown, but countless others too. From The Artist and The City Planner, to The Babysitter and the Stalker, the acid is transforming its victims into different personalities of the Joker. I really like this idea, especially because it is a creative way of respecting the history of the character since 1940. Batman acknowledges that the different Jokers reflect his arch-foe at different times during their years-long duel. The Criminal is most like the Joker of those early days, while the Clown is the Joker in those years where Robin was young, and the world was (slightly) more innocent. Sadly, this creativity and ingenuity is ruined by what is a disappointing end to a great mystery. All roads lead to the Monarch Theatre – the last place where Bruce Wayne was at his happiest as a boy. Guided gracefully by Johns’s brilliant dialogue-less storytelling, the scene of confrontation and explanation is silly. The Criminal is revealed to be the brains of the outfit, with his plan to make Chill the ultimate Joker his chosen method of ruining Batman’s life. But when Batman rescues Chill from an acidy fate, the Criminal is shot through the head by the Comedian. This Joker – the one of the Killing Joke and modern era – is the Joker. This should come as no great shock, given that the O’Neil/Englehart/Moore variant of the Joker has been the definitive personality in the comics since the 1970s. However, with only the Comedian left, he gives up the ghost and allows himself to be arrested. This means that the Criminal was gunning for the Joe Chill plan all along and the Comedian let him proceed just for the hell of it. Why? It’s never clear. Although the Criminal wanted a dark plot to defeat his villain, the Comedian is a creature of disorganised chaos, obsessed with Batman totally. Why did the Comedian – the only Joker – create the Criminal and the Clown in the first place? Moreover, things surely fall apart when you look back and recall what the source of this Three Jokers storyline actually was. The Mobius Chair isn’t so primitive a device – it is the font of all knowledge, never wrong in its thinking. Surely, with its infinite knowledge, Metron’s chair would have known that one of the three Jokers was the original one, while the other two were only somewhat-sophisticated copies? These are just a few questions many of which could be asked, but Johns doesn’t provide any answers.
As ideas go, creating an ultimate Joker isn’t exactly a great one. What is the need for such a thing? The Joker is Batman’s greatest foe because of two aspects – his unpredictable nature, and unstoppable capacity to commit such evil. In both of those senses, he is similar to Batman himself, and they share that constant obsessiveness to their cause. What is the need to create an ultimate Joker when, for all intents and purposes, Batman already has one. Just think – the Joker has killed a Robin, crippled a Batgirl, killed Commissioner Gordon’s wife, and murdered hundreds of innocents. He carries on, and Batman refuses to kill him. The Joker is Batman’s ultimate endurance test, providing the Dark Knight with murderous urges which must be resisted. It’s because of this that the cast of the story work so brilliantly – Batgirl and Red Hood bare the scars of the Joker’s insanity and cruelty, and their different vantage points almost correspond to the three different Jokers in the tale. Attempting to create a better Joker is a non-sensical and silly idea. It’s tragic really, considering that the first two issues built up the mystery so brilliantly. But with a pretty naff plot revealed and enough plot holes to sink a dreadnought, the conclusion really does fall short.
That all said, Geoff Johns’s characterisation of Joe Chill is a highlight. This is a forgettable crook immortalised for his actions in Crime Alley. Many writers have made Chill into an evil petty thief, but Johns’s pens a character bleeding with guilt for his sin. The guilt is genuine too. After Batman saves his life at the end of the third book, Chill’s thanks are received fondly by the Dark Knight.
What’s more, the final pages of the third book provide food for thought. It’s revealed that the Joker’s family – with the same wife from Moore’s Killing Joke and now a child – are out there living in hiding thanks to the police and Bruce Wayne. That spontaneous scene from Moore’s story, whereby the police tell the struggling comedian that his wife and unborn child were killed in a freak electrical accident, is revealed to be a complete lie. The wife escaped her husband’s growing instability and is now looking after a child. Although this does completely remove the magic of The Killing Joke – with that origin teased not as the truth, but a possible one – it strangely provides some closure and hope.
As I've hinted or conveyed several times during the review, the artwork of Jason Fabok is some of the best visuals I have ever seen in a modern comic book. With its sharp capacity to deliver such drama and ability to creatively convey a story of such implicitly, Fabok is a masterful storyteller. Mixed with Johns’s drama and those powerful scenes lacking any dialogue, the art can powerfully tell a story wonderfully. Brad Anderson’s colouring is certainly modern, but its colour pallet is never too dim or grimly urban. It has the vibrancy of a classic crime comic book. In short, words cannot do justice to the fantastic work of Fabok and Anderson.
VERDICT
Overall, Batman: Three Jokers enjoys some brilliant success in the first two books, but it comes crashing down in the final part. Always the brilliant writer of drama and suspense, Johns’s builds up a genuinely intriguing mystery tale with great twists and turns, along with some good personal drama and fantastic moments. However, with a questionable premise and much confusion surrounding the Jokers and many other details, the third part is a disappointment. Perhaps it was always inevitable that such a grand and gripping idea was never going to live up to its initial excitement, but how enjoyable and mesmerizing the path of mystery was. It is a visual masterpiece, but the destination is sorely lacking.
Next Week: The Shade: Marked For Death (The Shade (vol 2) 1-12). Written by James Robinson, with art by Cully Hammer, Javier Pulido, Frazer Irving, Darwyn Cooke, J. Bonr, Jill Thompson, and Gene Ha.
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