Cacophony: Joker and Batman Have A Civil Conversation

[espanolbot]

Following Onomatopoeia, a serial killer who targets unpowered superheroes, stabbing the Joker in the chest to escape Batman, and he's forced to chose between saving the Joker's life and catching his killer. To Commissioner Gordon's confusion, Batman decides to let Ono' escape so he can get the Joker medical treatment, despite the Commissioner saying that, basically, "I'm not asking you to kill him, I'm just asking you not to save him", despite Batman saying that he's a human being despite his being a monster, how he can't make choices because he's insane etc. etc.

Anyway, five months later, Batman sneaks into the Joker's hospital room while pretending to be his court appointed lawyer to explain why he didn't just let him die.

Comments

[icon_uk]

Hmmm, not sure I warm to the sort of set up where Batman has to choose between saving a life (that other people around him are more than capable of saving) and letting a killer go free, and chooses to let the killer go.

Don't like Joker knowing that Matches Malone is a fake ID for Batman, why would he, after all?

The black beard on the Joker is also odd (and annoyingly distracting), since the accident would surely have affected all the hair follicles on his head.

The rest of the discussion? Pretty sure I've seen much and such the same before.

[espanolbot]

Joker's beard is more black with a green tint, presumably because drawing him with a solid green beard would be kind of weird.

Smith's Joker being able to immediately see through people's disguise's is meant to be a running theme in this and the next story that he wrote. For example, in the sequel Batman took a vigilante he'd kind of taken under his wing for a visit to Arkham, and it's kind of shown that the Joker immediately works out who the guy (who had captured Mr J on his last rampage).

And Batman was forced to save the Joker as he was injured in such a way that he needed immediate medical attention, stabbed in the heart and nicking a ventricle, so he felt that he didn't have a choice but to go after Onomatopoeia later.

This decision came to bite him in the ass, in a cliffhanger ending to the Widening Gyre showed. Though due to the poor sales to that series... it's unlikely ever to be resolved.

[whitesycamore]

Also, the texture of his beard scares me.

Something about the way it's drawn makes me unable to help imagining what it would be like to touch it, and that thought disgusts me to my very soul.

[randyripoff]

See, to me the best Joker is the one that's as smart if not smarter than Batman. Scary sociopathic, chaotically evil, yet not quite as insane as everyone thinks. I think he's know who Batman is for some time now, but just doesn't care. There's no great theatre between the Joker and Bruce Wayne--Batman is needed to make it all work.

[freezer]

And that's why so much of the blood of Joker's victims is also on Batman's hands.

[greenmask]

Wonder how the numbers stack up? Crime joker has done vs other crimes batman has stopped.

[icon_uk]

By rights the Joker should have been A) Executed for his crimes (Since he's not legally insane) B) Shot by a police officer (or a random citizen) during the course of some crime or other or C) Killed in prison by any one of the dozens of supervillains or criminals he's attempted to kill over the years.

Hell, the Atom saved the Joker a few years ago, so there's plenty of blame to go around.

[blackruzsa]

God I love Joker. He always makes me laugh while I know he's a psychopath.

And while he's very sane here, I get the feeling he's just saying that to push Batman's buttons. I mean, seriously. If it's not actually the truth, he'll MAKE it the truth, because that's the punchline to his whole big joke. He won't stop while Batman lives, and he has no reason to get on as the Joker when Batman dies. And knowing that is probably killing Batman inside right now.

[espanolbot]

That seems to be DC's official stance on their relationship in a lot of ways, in both the Dark Knight Returns and more recently in the actual comics in RIP when Batman disappears the Joker either disappears too, allows himself to stay in Arkham or in the latter case activey starts "avenging" Batman by hunting down his supposed murderers.

[kamino_neko]

The panel where Joker's putting down the book, I spent a whole minute staring at it, trying to figure out who he reminded me of.

Carrot Top.

Creepiest fucking Joker EVER.

[crinos]

That is quite the manly beard The Joker be sporting.

[riddler13]

Never liked ANY of KS's works. Nothing personal, but I think his stories are always oversimplified and puerile, even for current superhero comic books.

[espanolbot]

*Shrug* I found them better after a second reading. The fact that the Widening Gyre is meant to be a story about Batman having a midlife crisis written when KS admitted he himself was having one (while smoking a lot of pot) while he wrote it does explain a lot.

He himself admitted that Cacophony wasn't really the best Batman story he could have written, and points out that some of the things people criticised the book for (dialogue that doesn't sound natural when read aloud, for example) are correct and resulted in a lot of redrafts when he noticed it.

In a lot of ways tWG is an interesting idea of what would Batman be like when he realises that he's not as young as he used to be, and begins to start seriously thinking about his future. It has a couple of good moments, such as him noticing for the first time that he's genuinely happy, which means (to him) that his girlfriend must be a robot or something sent to mess with him, only for Bruce to break down after she's shown to be who she said she was when he begins to realise that he'll "never be normal".

His Green Arrow run was genuinely good though, and no where this or its sequel in terms of tone.

[omnipotent]

I was going to say the same thing but you've already said it. That, and Walt Flanagan's (sp?, and I think he's the artist if memory serves me right?) art is mediocre at best.

[mrosa]

Amazing! Batman looks like Michael Jackson at first, the Joker like a a stereotypical Muslim terrorist. They reenact the conversation in The Killing Joke. And apparently there's medicine that can keep The Joker 'balanced,' which seems very false to me - I mean, not even The Spectre could cure tone down his madness. And he's crazy because of Batman and not because he's an enigmatic force of nature. It's all so cheap and unimaginative.

[mishalak]

You too with the Michael Jackson thing?

I enjoy Joker stories. I think they are fun as long as the concept of the Joker is not too closely examined. Because the real answer, just as the real answer with Batman being the greatest detective ever, is that the writers love the Joker. The only way either of these characters keeps going is "authoral favor". Or we assume things outside of cannon like "magic is real, the joker is the incarnation of madness".

So I agree with you totally, I think I am just coming at it from a slightly different direction.

Unless the Joker is lying and he is just as crazy as ever. If Batman is wrong about the Joker being sane, I know heresy that the Batman could ever be wrong about anything, then this is the Joker playing with his favorite toy and doing bang up acting job.

Not that it makes this a good story or good writing, but it is a way to dismiss it, to put our fingers in our ears and say, "Lalala, your story was stupid and it did not happen."

[darkknightjrk]

"And apparently there's medicine that can keep The Joker 'balanced,' which seems very false to me - I mean, not even The Spectre could cure tone down his madness."

Well, it's not like this thing magically cured him from wanting to kill--he's still a psychotic who wants to see Batman dead. He's just not immediately plotting to break out of the hospital, blow it up in the process, and cause another crime spree.

[protogarrett]

If another hero killed Joker, I think the only people who wouldn't want to give him/her a pass is Bats and Supes and WW. I'm pretty sure the rest would argue to let this one go.

[icon_uk]

Actually, I can see WW being pretty much okay with that one and even Superman would sound half hearted in his censure.

[cypherfdp]

You could impale someone on those ears.

[mrstatham]

Kelley Jones can do one better;

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/4/36298-796-40541-1-batman_super.jpg

[md84]

If it's anyone's fault the Joker is still around, it's the readers'. The Joker is only around because he's too popular a villain to kill off for good.

I dunno, the idea that Batman is partly to blame for the Joker's victims' fates is sort of ludicrous. It's not like Batman is the only person in existence who could kill Joker. Joker is just as mortal as any human. You might as well say it's the cops' fault for not killing him while they have him in custody, or the doctors' fault for treating him properly or not injecting an air bubble into his IV.

[big_daddy_d]

Last panel...ok that honest to god made me laugh.

[darkknightjrk]

There's a reason why Smith's well-renowned for his dick jokes. XD

[cyberghostface]

I've never thought Joker wanted Batman dead. Like how the Joker in TDK goes "I don't want to kill you. You complete me."

I am reminded of the story though where Joker thinks Batman dies and "snaps" back to sanity and tries to start a normal life only to go crazy again.

[espanolbot]

Well TDK's Joker was a liar, that might not necessarily have been true.

[crabby_lioness]

That's a lot better than I usually associate with Smith.

I don't believe the Joker, though. He changes his mind even more than Two-Face.

[orson_zedd]

Those two just need to get it over with and screw already.