LAST LAUGH SECRET FILES: "Touched"

[starwolf_oakley]

Here's three pages from an eight-page short story from JOKER: LAST LAUGH SECRET FILES.
Cameron Chase and Cliff Hansen of the DEO (and the DC series CHASE) are interviewing people who had contact with the Joker to "fill in some gaps." What could possibly go wrong? Not much, as it turns out. Story by Dan Curtis Johnson, art by J.H. Williams III, who wrote and drew the CHASE series.

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/09/27/she-has-no-head-j-h-williams-iii-and-dan-curtis-johnsons-chase/



After talking to a former Arkham employee (The Joker recited poetry about how her friends turned on her.) Cameron and Cliff talk to people who had friends and family killed by the Joker. In each page, the middle panel is a flashback with the "narrator" freaking out in the caption box.



Harley Quinn pops up. Her traumatic victimization is finding out "he's just not that into you."

Cliff is traumatized himself, although it has nothing to do with the Joker.



Why, I wonder who that could be?



Most fans don't like LAST LAUGH, but it had its moments.

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

Is Cliff a mind reader?

[starwolf_oakley]

No. The middle panels are flashbacks.

[recognitions]

I always wondered about this. With all the people the Joker has killed, you'd think Gotham would have support groups by now. Not to mention him turning into a political cause célèbre.

[whitesycamore]

According to the latest issue of Lost Days he also tops the government's most wanted list in every nation. I think Joker's continued existence can only be explained by supernatural powers at this point.

[glimmung]

Its as if Bin Laden hung out in Detroit. Makes no sense.

But... Comics!

[bariman]

I always thought he had to be some kind of chaos/insanity demon or demigod. He would posess people who have had "one bad day" and go out and sow insanity. When that body gets killed or worn out, he posesses another one, explaining how he had come back from the dead so often, his multiple pasts, his different looks, and his different characterizations over the years. Though one would think that Zatanna, Dr. Fate, or some other mystical dude or dudette would have banished or trapped him by now.

Either way, it'd make for a good Elseworld or something.

[cleome45]

Matt Wagner already wrote/drew that series over fifteen years ago, I think. It was called Grendel. :)

[janegray]

Xenogears also did that with Miang.

[korvarthefox.livejournal.com]

The supernatural power of "Marketing". He is kept alive by the presence of his avatar on lunch boxes and in colouring books.

[drakyndra]

He's like a Discworld God. He survives off people's belief in him.

[icon_uk]

It's interesting that someone finally sort of draws attention to how unusual it is that Barbara isn't dead. The Joker (well, this iteration of him anyway), leaving a victim alive is pretty much unique, since he was always Mr "murder-death-kill-kill-kill" at this time.Sure it's a flashback to another writer in another era, but dreadful as what happened to her is, she's still a damnsight luckier than most people the Joker runs into on a caper.

[whitesycamore]

Good point. But I can also imagine the Joker found it funnier to leave her crippled rather than dead. I've no doubt he would have killed her if he knew she was actually Batgirl.

[icon_uk]

Oh yes, the Joker as seen at the time of TKJ doing something that sick and cruel, is very in keeping for him, but not for the Joker at the time of this story, where subtly was out the window and deaths all round, one reason I TRULY dislike that take on the Joker and generally despise "Last Laugh"

[whitesycamore]

Ah, no, I get that. I blame too much champagne for my misunderstanding

I hate Last Laugh for having the Joker change costumes every five panels, as though he was a little kid playing dress-up. His portrayal was so infantile he just lost any sense of menace in that story.

[psychopathicus_rex]

I think the point of him shooting her was to drive Gordon crazy with pictures of her maimed body, so I'm guessing he intended to cripple her, rather than kill. If he'd intended a kill-shot, he probably would have just shot her between the eyes or something; shattering her spine made for better pictures. The point wasn't her, it was Gordon's reaction to her, so he wanted to make it as spectacularly gory as he could, and a shot through the spine is a hell of a lot bloodier than a shot through the head.

[starwolf_oakley]

John Ostrander in an issue of BATMAN CHRONICLES (the series, not the reprints) had Barbara say that the Joker fired a "doctored" bullet. A regular bullet would have killed her before she hit the ground.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, there you are, then. (Although I'm not so sure about the 'dead before she hit the ground' bit; people have gotten shot through the spine plenty of times, and, with prompt medical attention, they've generally survived, I think.)

[thosefew]

I seem to recall some comic saying that the Joker had removed some of the grains from the bullet and that the Joker intended to cripple.

[jarodrussell]

I always thought it'd be neat if it turned out the Joker actually was practicing a style of comedy...Slapstick Nihilism...that no one understood, and then see what would happen when someone finally understood it. Maybe have The Pretender come to Gotham and get inside Joker's head.

[sir_mikael]

Dude! A Pretender mention! High five!
Also yes that sounds like an interesting idea... Slapstick Nihilism, what a beautiful combination of words.

[big_daddy_d]

Most fans don't like LAST LAUGH, but it had its moments.

I rather liked it actually.

[psychopathicus_rex]

I really like the 'interior monologue flashback' narration used here. I don't think I've seen it used that particular way before, and it works very well.
I DON'T, however, like the added dialogue in the Killing Joke sequence. There's no point to it - that sequence worked perfectly well in the original with the Joker as a silent, smiling presence. Him goofing around and cracking wise just doesn't have the same impact.