Batman: The Dark Knight #23.4: The Joker's Daughter

[informationgeek]

Writer: Ann Nocenti
Artist: Georges Jeanty
Inker: Dexter Vines
Colorist: Michelle Stewart


So... since we've been discussing the Joker's Daughter, why not look at her first real issue? She debuted one issue before this, but this is her official debut.


Warning for violence and self-harm.



Good old superfangirl1 did a post about this issue back when it originally came out, but that was when it just came out. So for this post, there will be a few more pages.

















So... impressed? Her issue did sell a lot... or at least in high demand apparently...

Comments

[locuatico]

I do think her being on high demand was a mix of factors, none of them being people actually LIKING the character or thinking this was close to "good" in some way. the fact she disappeared after this and that one catwoman appearence Until Lobdell got his hands on her seem to support this.

[informationgeek]

She did reappear some more after this with a special one-shot, which I will do a post on, and then popping up during the New Suicide Squad run. She did keep reappearing... just in nothing ever good.

[locuatico]

Huh... so that's why i never saw her again. i did know there was a special or something where she met Harley, but that's it. still, even that sounds more like someone being convinced She was going to become a thing and pushing for her while everyone else disagreed.

[captainbellman]

There's also the weird quasi-feminist stuff, which I don't get. Is Nocenti trying to imply that only a brain-damaged sewer-dweller wearing a leather face would institute female leadership? Or is she trying to make out Duela as a courageous anti-establishment hero?

[deh_tommy]

I thought her one-shot (not this one, the book that was released after this) was okay.

[redmagpie]

She was in the Jim Gordon Batman series too, right? Didn't she have a robot or something?

[cyberghostface]

I'm curious as to how many faces Joker has lying around. Because when he returned in Endgame he still had the severed face as a prop.

[deh_tommy]

Story over continuity - who has the face doesn't matter as long as the face exists for someone to possess.

[janegray]

I'd be a lot more forgiving of the "story over continuity" mantra if the writers and editors who keep pushing it didn't have such a track record of bad/mediocre stories. At this point I see it as a massive red flag.

[cygnia]

Did Harley ever interact with her?

[cyberghostface]

They did in 'Suicide Squad'.

[alicemacher]

Having not read this storyline, I do hope it's just Duela and her gang, and not Nocenti herself, who missed the whole point of the Joker. It's not his face--monstrous as it is--that gives him his power. It's his genius with chemistry, the performing arts, and other fields, combined with an uncompromising sociopathy, narcissism, and (when written as more than a garden-variety ax murderer) unpredictabillity. The scary face is the icing on the poison cake.

[silicondream]

For that matter, I don't think his face is supposed to be inherently horrifying. He can make it horrifying, sure, but he can also make it charming, hilarious, pathetic, unsettling--whatever fits his mood. That's what makes the Joker so good at gaining and abusing people's trust...henchmen, other villains, Arkham staff. If his face permanently advertised all the evil he's capable of, no one would ever go near him.

[alicemacher]

True. Even Brian Bolland, in my opinion the definitive Joker artist, hasn't drawn him with a horrifying face all the time.

[icon_uk]

There's the noted Joker cosplayer Anthony Misiano, aka Harley's Joker who has an amazingly flexible face and makes his Bolland-like Joker seem almost handsome, but also, not quite right...

[deh_tommy]

Well, I think that's brought up and explored a bit more with the (in my opinion, rather decent) Joker's Daughter one-shot that was released after this one.

[reveen]

Ooooh, so we have anorexia and self harm in the mix too, huh? So DC is literally trying to push a mentally ill teenager as this super scary evil-ass villain.

[redmagpie]

IT'S EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEME

[captainbellman]

Despite all they've done to him, I couldn't imagine the Joker wanting to hang out with this girl.

Jared Leto's Joker, though? Oh, man, they'd be besties.

I honestly think the Joker, any version of him, would take one look at this girl...

[7dialsmystery]

...and laugh in her face. Then kill her in some roccoco and gory manner. If there was anything left of the body, he'd feed it Harley's hyenas.

[beyondthefringe]

This is awful on every level. Ugh. I don't even know where or how to begin with hating this. Joker's Daughter is a character I just can't even tolerate.

"Oh look! The Joker's face! I'mma put it on now!"

[deh_tommy]

To be honest, I was hoping that her apparent attempts at reformation would have led her to be like her (anti? semi?) heroic pre-New 52 counterpart.

[mrstatham]

This. Even the pretty weak (at least compared to the Bombshells book) Ame-Comi Girls book had a better take on Duela as a supervillain. Better visual, too. But.. Yeah. I was hoping that Lobdell - misguided as his writing can be - would have done something better with her; as it is, that just reads like a smack in the face now.

[silicondream]

I feel like this character is basically a slightly grosser and far less interesting copy of Nash, the second Mist.

[captainbellman]

"Stop moving! Agh! Dammit! Oh, if only there were a way to put you to sleep somehow!"

[redmagpie]

Yeaaaaaaaaaaah

[silicondream]

"I should probably pull the scalpel back at this point so you can't keep rubbing your face on it! Unfortunately, I don't remember how my brain operates my arms! Looks like I should have given you the ketamine!"

[captainbellman]

As for that cover...every time I see the word "Daddy" used in a sexual way I think of Don Dimello, theatrical producer.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kUxn5QqCJbg

[doomedpatroller]

Stupidest character in DC Comics.

Duela is boring as heck, but..

[7dialsmystery]

...the "villian" Charon she branded seems pretty interesting. Why can't we have more of that guy?