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scans_dailyAh, the New Year! New beginnings, new opportunities... and for me, a chance to (finally) kick off a series of reviews centering around my favorite comics character and my favorite comics creator!
The story we'll be looking at today is one that pits Tim Drake, AKA Robin III, against a certain green-haired Clown Prince of Crime. Said story also happens to take place around the holiday season - complete with oodles of that good old Gotham snowfall - and has Batman be mysteriously absent so that Tim can face down the big bad Joker all by himself. I think you all know where this is going...
Yes, folks... it's time to dig into 1991's Robin II: The Joker's Wild!
The story we'll be looking at today is one that pits Tim Drake, AKA Robin III, against a certain green-haired Clown Prince of Crime. Said story also happens to take place around the holiday season - complete with oodles of that good old Gotham snowfall - and has Batman be mysteriously absent so that Tim can face down the big bad Joker all by himself. I think you all know where this is going...
Yes, folks... it's time to dig into 1991's Robin II: The Joker's Wild!
Now, the Robin II miniseries was many things: a satisfying adventure story, an important chapter in the saga of Tim Drake's career as Robin, and – through the eyes of Captain Retrospect – a rather triumphant example of the marketing stunts that made the nineties comic-book industry so infamous. Seriously, just look at all these variant covers! (most of which came with holographic cards, too!).
Above all else, though, it was the first Joker story that Chuck Dixon ever wrote. The first stepping stone on his journey to being one of the most underrated Joker writers of all time, amongst his many, many other accomplishments in the Bat-mythos.
I won’t lie: getting through this story was something of a chore, and I think that I might actually rank it the lowest out of all of Dixon’s Joker stories. All in all, it’s definitely something I would recommend more to Tim fans than Joker fans – from the title alone, you can tell that it’s Tim’s story before it’s the Joker’s, and the Joker’s role ultimately boils down to being The Villain to Beat for our young, intrepid hero. It's a story that relies more on the Joker's threat level, and his reputation as the biggest, baddest rogue in Batman's rogues gallery, than on what the Joker's personality can offer; and in later years, even Dixon himself would poke fun at how unimaginative the Joker's big plan here is.
In addition, Dixon's dialogue and narration feel rather clunky and overly expository here, unlike the smooth, laconic style he'd develop as the 90's went on. A large chunk of the plot also revolves around computer hacking and counterhacking (such is/was Tim's forte, especially since this story predates Oracle becoming a regular fixture in the Bat-books), which I, really, really can't bring myself to care about. Such is the nature of a child of the twenty-first century, I suppose.
Then, of course, there’s the small matter of Tom Lyle’s artwork, which I’ve always found to be rather hit-and-miss. Some panels and pages in this mini, I wish I could cut out and frame on my bedroom wall; others, I can barely glance at without cringing. I’ve often heard that the paper, printing, and color quality of DC’s late eighties/early nineties output was total crap, and boy, does it show here.
But maybe I’m being too harsh. This was one of Dixon’s earliest DC stories – his third-ever, if I remember correctly – and no writer can knock one out of the park on their first try with every character. Plus, there are a few genuinely golden moments with Dixon’s Joker here, including several scenes and story elements that would go on to be recycled and refined for Dixon's later, better Joker stories.
Our story begins, appropriately enough, within the walls of Arkham Asylum, where a very, very tense standoff is happening in the director's office...
Wait, the Joker is an American citizen now? For that matter, he has a birthday?!Where are dem birth certificates, clown?!
Naturally, the asylum director's Genre Savviness and careful precautions are no match for the incompetence of Arkham's guards and/or the demands of the plot:
I've no idea if this was Dixon's intention, but it's weirdly fitting to see Arkham's director - by all appearances, a rank-and-file conservative - be undone by a gimmicked Bible. It's also rather interesting to see Dixon/Lyle (or whoever is in charge of these things) try to paint the fourth wall here by playing with the borders, though the execution is somewhat... lacking.
Anyhoo, everyone's favorite lavender-loving lunatic makes it out with nary a scratch, while the real star of this story makes his first appearance:
Tim goes on to make a one-liner worthy of Dick, grumbling about how he wishes he was "in Rio by the Sea-O" with Bruce. And as ouch-worthy as that line sounds, it is a nice little tie-in if you know the full setup behind this story when it first came out. See, at the time of this story's release, the main Batman publications (Batman and Detective Comics) were undergoing Peter Milligan's gloriously bizarre four-part "Idiot Root" arc, which more or less pit Batman against a physical god in the jungles and on the streets of Brazil.
(Tangent: I might get around to reviewing that one sometime down the road; for now, all I'll say is that it should be impossible for a story to perfectly fit the art of both Jim Aparo and Norm Breyfogle, and yet that story somehow managed it.)
So anyways, that story provided a convenient way to get Bruce out of Gotham so that Tim could face the Joker alone in this story, though I have no idea which one was conceived first. I've heard that Milligan's story was cooked up solely to serve this story, and considering how heavily DC editorial was investing in Tim during this period, I wouldn't discount that theory.
Alright, back to the main story. While swinging around, Tim sees the Bat-Signal fired up. Like a dutiful little superhero, he swings over the Police HQ, where Gordon informs him that the Joker has escaped. Tim is appropriately horrified.
Meanwhile, the Joker returns to his old hideout and gang, only to realize that times have changed:
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's everyone's favorite second-rate Captain Cold, pre-BTAS Mr. Freeze! And in his Super Powers Collection costume, for extra nostalgia points!
The Joker is less than impressed:
According to Dixon, Freeze's death here was done at the specific request of then-editor Denny O'Neil, who apparently hated Freeze. I've heard of no other accounts to back this up, save for a friend of mine on LJ who said that O'Neil had penned a Freeze story for a 1997 prose collection called Legends of the Batman that was supposedly "everything that's wrong with Denny O'Neil in less than ten pages". For better or worse, though, this won't be close to the last time that we see Freeze under Dixon's pen.
In the meantime, Tim's busy dealing with typical teenage superhero stuff: wake up, go to school, deal with the popularity food chain, hunt down the recently-escaped mass murderer. One visit to Arkham and subsequent brainstorming session in the Batcave later, Tim gets his first lead: most the reading materials in the Joker's cell pointed to a fascination with the computer expert Osgood Pellinger.
Tim goes to stake out Dr. Pellinger's house, and even with his thermal costume, it's not an easy wait. After an hour ticks by, he's about to call it quits, when Osgood suddenly leaves for a night drive. At which point, this happens:
Tim jumps down to confront the Joker, leading to what is probably the most famous moment from this story:
I've heard some people call this part a continuity error, since the ending to A Lonely Place of Dying (which had come out only a few months ago, and tends to be regarded as an even more integral part of Tim's history) established pretty firmly that Joker already knew that Batman had gotten a new Robin after Jason. Me, I see no problem at all - sure, the Joker acts like he doesn't know Batman has gotten a new Robin here, but he's never been one to let reality get in the way of having a little fun. The way I see it, his dramatic bellow of "I KILLED YOU!" is just him hamming it up for his "audience" - Tim, the goon who's driving the snowplow, and/or the readers of the comic (depending on how meta you like your Joker).
Anyways, since we're only one-fourth of the way through the story, we're still comfortably in "nothing goes wrong for the bad guy" territory. So Joker effortlessly shakes Tim off of the snowplow and drives off with Dr. Pellinger, car and all. What dastardly plans does the Homicidal Harlequin of Hate have for our little computer expert?
Find out in my very next post! (Because apparently, the cut system has a limit. Who knew?)
Above all else, though, it was the first Joker story that Chuck Dixon ever wrote. The first stepping stone on his journey to being one of the most underrated Joker writers of all time, amongst his many, many other accomplishments in the Bat-mythos.
I won’t lie: getting through this story was something of a chore, and I think that I might actually rank it the lowest out of all of Dixon’s Joker stories. All in all, it’s definitely something I would recommend more to Tim fans than Joker fans – from the title alone, you can tell that it’s Tim’s story before it’s the Joker’s, and the Joker’s role ultimately boils down to being The Villain to Beat for our young, intrepid hero. It's a story that relies more on the Joker's threat level, and his reputation as the biggest, baddest rogue in Batman's rogues gallery, than on what the Joker's personality can offer; and in later years, even Dixon himself would poke fun at how unimaginative the Joker's big plan here is.
In addition, Dixon's dialogue and narration feel rather clunky and overly expository here, unlike the smooth, laconic style he'd develop as the 90's went on. A large chunk of the plot also revolves around computer hacking and counterhacking (such is/was Tim's forte, especially since this story predates Oracle becoming a regular fixture in the Bat-books), which I, really, really can't bring myself to care about. Such is the nature of a child of the twenty-first century, I suppose.
Then, of course, there’s the small matter of Tom Lyle’s artwork, which I’ve always found to be rather hit-and-miss. Some panels and pages in this mini, I wish I could cut out and frame on my bedroom wall; others, I can barely glance at without cringing. I’ve often heard that the paper, printing, and color quality of DC’s late eighties/early nineties output was total crap, and boy, does it show here.
But maybe I’m being too harsh. This was one of Dixon’s earliest DC stories – his third-ever, if I remember correctly – and no writer can knock one out of the park on their first try with every character. Plus, there are a few genuinely golden moments with Dixon’s Joker here, including several scenes and story elements that would go on to be recycled and refined for Dixon's later, better Joker stories.
Our story begins, appropriately enough, within the walls of Arkham Asylum, where a very, very tense standoff is happening in the director's office...
Wait, the Joker is an American citizen now? For that matter, he has a birthday?!
Naturally, the asylum director's Genre Savviness and careful precautions are no match for the incompetence of Arkham's guards and/or the demands of the plot:
I've no idea if this was Dixon's intention, but it's weirdly fitting to see Arkham's director - by all appearances, a rank-and-file conservative - be undone by a gimmicked Bible. It's also rather interesting to see Dixon/Lyle (or whoever is in charge of these things) try to paint the fourth wall here by playing with the borders, though the execution is somewhat... lacking.
Anyhoo, everyone's favorite lavender-loving lunatic makes it out with nary a scratch, while the real star of this story makes his first appearance:
Tim goes on to make a one-liner worthy of Dick, grumbling about how he wishes he was "in Rio by the Sea-O" with Bruce. And as ouch-worthy as that line sounds, it is a nice little tie-in if you know the full setup behind this story when it first came out. See, at the time of this story's release, the main Batman publications (Batman and Detective Comics) were undergoing Peter Milligan's gloriously bizarre four-part "Idiot Root" arc, which more or less pit Batman against a physical god in the jungles and on the streets of Brazil.
(Tangent: I might get around to reviewing that one sometime down the road; for now, all I'll say is that it should be impossible for a story to perfectly fit the art of both Jim Aparo and Norm Breyfogle, and yet that story somehow managed it.)
So anyways, that story provided a convenient way to get Bruce out of Gotham so that Tim could face the Joker alone in this story, though I have no idea which one was conceived first. I've heard that Milligan's story was cooked up solely to serve this story, and considering how heavily DC editorial was investing in Tim during this period, I wouldn't discount that theory.
Alright, back to the main story. While swinging around, Tim sees the Bat-Signal fired up. Like a dutiful little superhero, he swings over the Police HQ, where Gordon informs him that the Joker has escaped. Tim is appropriately horrified.
Meanwhile, the Joker returns to his old hideout and gang, only to realize that times have changed:
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's everyone's favorite second-rate Captain Cold, pre-BTAS Mr. Freeze! And in his Super Powers Collection costume, for extra nostalgia points!
The Joker is less than impressed:
According to Dixon, Freeze's death here was done at the specific request of then-editor Denny O'Neil, who apparently hated Freeze. I've heard of no other accounts to back this up, save for a friend of mine on LJ who said that O'Neil had penned a Freeze story for a 1997 prose collection called Legends of the Batman that was supposedly "everything that's wrong with Denny O'Neil in less than ten pages". For better or worse, though, this won't be close to the last time that we see Freeze under Dixon's pen.
In the meantime, Tim's busy dealing with typical teenage superhero stuff: wake up, go to school, deal with the popularity food chain, hunt down the recently-escaped mass murderer. One visit to Arkham and subsequent brainstorming session in the Batcave later, Tim gets his first lead: most the reading materials in the Joker's cell pointed to a fascination with the computer expert Osgood Pellinger.
Tim goes to stake out Dr. Pellinger's house, and even with his thermal costume, it's not an easy wait. After an hour ticks by, he's about to call it quits, when Osgood suddenly leaves for a night drive. At which point, this happens:
Tim jumps down to confront the Joker, leading to what is probably the most famous moment from this story:
I've heard some people call this part a continuity error, since the ending to A Lonely Place of Dying (which had come out only a few months ago, and tends to be regarded as an even more integral part of Tim's history) established pretty firmly that Joker already knew that Batman had gotten a new Robin after Jason. Me, I see no problem at all - sure, the Joker acts like he doesn't know Batman has gotten a new Robin here, but he's never been one to let reality get in the way of having a little fun. The way I see it, his dramatic bellow of "I KILLED YOU!" is just him hamming it up for his "audience" - Tim, the goon who's driving the snowplow, and/or the readers of the comic (depending on how meta you like your Joker).
Anyways, since we're only one-fourth of the way through the story, we're still comfortably in "nothing goes wrong for the bad guy" territory. So Joker effortlessly shakes Tim off of the snowplow and drives off with Dr. Pellinger, car and all. What dastardly plans does the Homicidal Harlequin of Hate have for our little computer expert?
Find out in my very next post! (Because apparently, the cut system has a limit. Who knew?)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 03:24 pm (UTC)I might be able to rustle something up, though.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 03:15 am (UTC)I also agree with what you said about Dixon's writing on this - If I read it correctly, you're saying "it's a bit hit and miss, but hit-and-miss is still part hit, and there are a lot of great moments here."
Favorite Joker quote from this part? "I'm the guy everybody is waiting for." I can't really explain why, I just do.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 03:29 pm (UTC)But then again... that same henchman pops back up multiple times during the story, so maybe Mistah J is just in one of his inexplicable periods of mercy right now (in fact, if you believe Dixon in a later Joker story, he's actually in kind of a post-Death in the Family funk right now).
Yeah, that about sums it up - hit-and-miss.
Love that quote, too!
no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 02:07 am (UTC)