Is THIS the new look for the Joker?

[icon_uk]

From Newsarama's preview solicitations for the Batman titles in Novemeber...



Now one thing about the Joker is that his appearance belies his manner. He LOOKS like a harmless clown, an innocent purveyor of humour and jocularity, an entertainer (Unless, like most people I know, you have coulrophobia), and that counterpoints the horror of his insanity, the fact he CAN'T stop smiling adds even more horror to it, the smile is on the lips, but it only touches his eyes when he's doing something vile.

It's been a memorable trait, and a neat gimmick for many years (though, of course, derived to a certain extent, from Conrad Veidt as Gwymplaine in "The Man Who Laughs").

So I was more than a little stunned that the first thing the DCnU did was have the Joker have his own face skinned, and we haven't seen him since. This was a bold, and VERY risky, move with one of their most iconic (DCnU's favourite word) characters.

That's going to change in the "Death of the Family" crossover, when we see the new look Joker, and it's been kept under wraps. Until, perhaps, now...

The preview Solicitations for November seem to show us what the new Joker will look like, on the cover of Batgirl #14 by Ed Benes...



Ummm... this is just a personal opinion, and I'm really trying to give the DCnU the benefit of the doubt as much as I can, but that's.... not good... very very not good, in fact it's bloody awful. (IMHO of course)

The gimmick is that the Joker cut his face off, and then reattached it with a leather strap around the back of his head and is pulling the sagging smile up via string or somesuch...

It appears we've gone from a uniquely creepy design of the original "Killer Clown" to something that looks like the Cenobite Face or the movie Leatherface having just killed an Avon lady and trying out her sample kit.

Now I could be wrong, this could be simply a cover, a ruse and when the "mask" comes off we'll see the REAL new look for the Joker and be horrified beyond words at the sinister magnificence of the design, but even MY Blue Lantern ring is running low on juice on this one.

And as an example of the well, I suppose we have to say "old" classic Joker looking both dapper and creepy as sin IN REAL LIFE, may I direct your attention to cosplayer Antony Misiano, better known to the interwebs as Harley's Joker (That's his tumblr account) That look is a classic for a reason people....

UPDATE - As my learned friend darkknightjrk pointed out, fellow Batman artist Greg Capullo has tweeted his opinion of this release

• As careful as I've been to save revealing our new Joker, the powers that be have let it out ahead if our book. Stay tuned fir MY pics.
• In my younger days, I'd have punched several holes in the walls of my office by now. Rest assured, I will give you terror when I draw him
• Try not to look at it. Wait for ours if you can
• The more I've thought about the Joker leak, the more I began thinking that it may have been for the best. The fact is, the way Scott and I will give you the Joker may have been too much for some with out this diluted sample hitting the web. DC, rightly so, had concerns about our images and story. Perhaps they leaked this intentionally to test the waters or to acclimate your minds to what is coming from us.
  
• Team Batman knows how to do one thing. Destroy. So, even if you do see the leak, you ain't seen nothing yet. Trust me
• I'm still not going to reveal my sketches. I won't let this incident blow the whole works. Be patient. Terror is heading your way

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE - Greg has now posted a tiny little teaser image on his Twitter account, which you can see if you go here

Sigh, okay, this is nightmarish, sort of, but IMHO it still misses the whole point of the Joker. The Joker is a monster who looks like something innocent and harmless which accentuates the horror of his true nature. This is still just.. a monster who looks like a monster... whoop-de-doo.

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

I also have to wonder if the fact that it's Benes drawing it has anything to do with it. Don't get me wrong, I respect him as an artist, but creepy horror isn't exactly his forte' (which is why him going in Red Lanterns was a...strange choice, initially).

If this is what we're going to get with this arc (and it is possible that they're pulling our lariat with this), I'm going to wait to see how Capullo draws it before I get too big of an opinion.

[darkknightjrk]

To further this, Capullo just went on Twitter to say that we haven't seen it up close yet, and that he "will give you terror" when he draws him.

[lencannon]

I dunno, there's so much wrong with the New 52, this doesn't even register for me. Joker looks messed up and different in this story arc? He'll be a different weird looking in the next. Just kind of his thing.

[aeka]

Ugh.

[moetushie]

Meh.

[ar_feiniel]

[eyz]

'nuff said!!!

XD

[crabby_lioness]

If I still cared this would rile me up, but it's way too late.

[halloweenjack]

Ditto. It's like a, well, a joke that someone might have made in the late eighties about it being just about the only way to make the Joker seem edgy after TDKR, The Killing Joke, the death of Jason, etc.

[filthysize]

For whatever it's worth, Greg Capullo is pretty pissed about this cover on Twitter.

[mrstatham]

It is genuinely aggravating because Capullo's two covers and promo piece so far have been incredibly ambiguous about what Joker looks like. The first cover was just an extreme closeup in a mirror, and the new one doesn't even show Joker from the front. As it is, I wish DC editorial had some common sense and thought that 'oh hey, we should save the big reveal for the LEAD book'.

[littlepunkryo]

I'll wait till I see Capullo's drawings. This design doesn't bother me, it's just the Joker with added grossness, but Capullo's art has legitimately creeped me out before so I'm still curious to see what he comes up with.

[mrstatham]

And as it is, I could care less about Simone revisiting the Killing Joker properly. We all know that it's not really going be dynamic and that the Joker isn't going to hurt her at all, and whilst twenty two pages of the Joker getting his teeth kicked in by Barbara could be entertaining, Simone's execution of the villains in Batgirl so far has been piss poor.

[stillanerd]

My own comments copied and pasted from CBR:

You know, I think Scott Snyder is an excellent writer, so I'm confident that it will be explained why the Joker, for the purposes of going after the Batman family, has decided to have his own face removed just so he could wear it like a mask.

That being said, I think Snyder and DC are missing a very crucial point: what made the Joker's face terrifying was that it wasn't a mask--it was his own face. Unlike Batman who has to dress up as a bat in order to frighten criminals, the Joker doesn't have to wear a disguise in order to frighten people; his visage of a laughing, creepy-looking clown is all he needs to be terrifying. To have him essentially wear a mask in order to induce horror, fear, and terror diminishes and misunderstands this very concept.

Granted, the Joker's new mask made from the skin of his own face is creepy and horror inducing, but it is the wrong kind of horror to attribute to someone like the Joker, and doesn't even make any sense given his character. It works for someone like Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre because it actually ties in with what that character and his family does, in that they re-use the remnants of their cannibalized victims. It even made sense for the Dollmaker character in Tony Daniel's first Detective Comics story in that that character used a similar MO. But the MO of the Joker, on the other hand, was that he sets out to make people as insane as himself, to show that, deep down, they are no different than him. His face is the face of the darkness within us all, exposed for everyone to see. And it didn't have to take a mask made from his own flesh to get that point across.

[freezer]

The gimmick is that the Joker cut his face off,

So he's Ultimate Red Skull now?

[sherkahn]

I think this might be the "old look", using his own face as msk to cover the new look.

[thanekos]

" Harley.. isn't it enough to know that I ruined a Bat, making this for you? "

[kurenai_tenka]

The covers very skeevy.

But really, I feel bad for Capullo and Snyder. Ridiculously bad marketing.

Antony Misiano

[big_daddy_d]

Holy crap he makes a perfect looking Joker!

[glprime]

I'm just tired of the Joker. I was ready for Two-Face or Black Mask to reign terror in Gotham for the next 15-20 years, but instead we get this for ever and ever. He's been done over and over, and besides Dark Knight, I've never seen him "reconstructed" well and made interesting again. Time for a new opponent to take center stage (and that's why the Court of Owls has me doing the "interesting..." eyebrow raise).

[silverhammerman]

I know what you mean, the Joker's a great villain but he can be a little over exposed. Obviously it's because everyone wants to tell their Joker story, but it's hard not to just want a good yarn with someone else. I mean, it's been how long since we had a good Two-Face story? I feel like the Joker's just been in so many stories the last few years that it's ridiculous.

[sadoeuphemist]

The Joker has never looked like a harmless clown, mostly because there is no such thing. All clowns are existential avatars of horror.

That being said, yes that is a pretty bad picture.

[arise]

So bored of the Joker in general. :/

[wtfomfg2]

I feel like if 90s comics and Horror movie remakes got together and had a baby, this would be it.

[mullon]

My god, his face has been pulled back in a hideous rictus! And he looked so normal before!

[zabilac]

I...don't get it. Does he look different or something?

[icon_uk]

Yes, sort of. Instead of his skin being part of his face, he's now wearing his removed skin as a mask over his... well, whatever's left of his face.

[sadoeuphemist]

No, but seriously, I don't think the Joker has ever looked innocent and harmless in his entire existence and I don't know where you're getting this idea. The closest is in stuff like Bolland's Killing Joke, where he looked sad and pathetic.

[icon_uk]

I'm getting it from the historical precedent of a few centuries of clowns in circuses... The guy with the white face, the painted-on smile and the funny coloured wig and crazy clothes was a harmless entertainer.

Spend too long looking at the Joker and you'd see the smile wasn't just painted on, but the first impression of the Joker is of a clown, and a clown, unless one is predisposed to dislike clowns, is something inherently amusing and innocent.

[horselover107]

This just feels like they're trying too hard.

Trying too hard?

[capt_satellite]

Yeah, kinda.

First thing I thought of was Mojo after a gastric bypass.

Re: Trying too hard?

[icon_uk]

Actually, that's probably an even more disturbing image... kudos... I guess o_O

DCU reclaims it's rightful position.....

[capt_satellite]

.....as the preeminant brand leader for those who just LOOOOOVE seeing women getting the living fetilizer knocked out of them on their funny books : /

Seriously, WTF is wrong with them!?!

We've got a lot of hate-driven dualism in the wold today. A lot of people flipping out doing evil acts for incomprehensible reasons. People randomly flipping out.....my god, Americans shooting Americans at worship......I'm thingking back, and I have to go back to the Civil rights Movements, and even then it was generally groups of people invested in in their status quo perpetrating it agains people who'd dare to challenge them for the right to simply be.

So, question....is the American pressure-cooker of fear and failure ready to serve up a whole new breed of psychotropic killing machines? Are they more prevelant now, and more extreme than David Berkowicz, Sam Bick, Arthur Bremmer, and Richard Ramirez? I know a lot of you are students of human folly, and have a more global view than I can objectively have.

[don1138]

Sigh. Oh, Nu52. The Image Comics model succeeded with the ADD crowd for a short while, and then fell off the cliff -- don't u remember? Why u reviving a failed business model? LOL -- U so stoopid!