The Joker 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular

[cyberghostface]

Joker meets a kid who keeps bugs that he’s taken the legs off of in a box. He tells the Joker it’s his birthday but no one is coming.





Joker tells the boy's father that they had a job last night and he wasn't there. The other men were taken by Batman. He says he was going to kill him but he learned from his son that you can't play with something if it's dead. 

Comments

[alicemacher]

Um... I'm... not sure if I should be touched by the Joker actually being kind to someone he sees as a kindred spirit, or seriously skeeved out because that kindred spirit is a kid who pulls off insects' legs. Or both.

[lego_joker]

See, part of me wants to agree with (both parts of) that, but another part's going "This is Gotham, a kid who just tortures insects is penny-ante".

Regardless, I consider this another of the book's gems - I usually don't care for Tom Taylor's overly snide/Wacky(tm) writing style, but combined with Risso's art (usually an acquired taste at best) it has a surprisingly slow, menacing energy to it.

[cyberghostface]

I was worried about Taylor being in this book because he hates the Joker and generally just uses him to shit on the character or prop up Harley but I was pleasantly surprised.

[phantomfo]

And yet, in his "kindness," it seems pretty clear that he cut off some of the father's fingers and mixed them with the hot dogs.

And the implication that he'll be back to torture him more next year, but won't kill them if they don't "leave the box."

[alicemacher]

Yikes. I see I missed that important detail the first time around, but yeah, his mutilated hand in silhouette speaks a thousand words.

[donnblake]

That's a choking hazard, to be sure!

[icon_uk]

"Well, if you're choking, stick your finger down your throat!"

"WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M CHOKING ON!"

[donnblake]

I laughed at that. Thank you.

[lordultimus]

This is a Joker story we need more of.

[alicemacher]

I want to agree, but I also find myself thinking: Just how bad has DC's handling of the Joker gotten when I find it promising that here he's "merely" cut off someone's fingers instead of outright murdering him?

Can DC writers not do better than that? I'm not saying the publisher should go back to the days when the worst thing the Joker did was steal a kid's report card, trick Batman into making "boners," or attempt to conceal his moustache with makeup. :-) It's just... does every Joker story (that isn't set in Batman 66 continuity) need to end in horrific murder at most or permanent disability at the least?

[lego_joker]

Maybe we oughta start posting some tie-in comics from Batman: The Brave and the Bold?

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Oh, please do! I haven't been exposed to nearly enough BatB.

I mean, I imagine a lot of people haven't, but mine feels especially low.

[liliaeth]

Honestly, considering it's Joker, I'm pleasantly surprised he didn't just poison everyone a that party with joker gas

[shakalooloo]

Ah, a Joker with regular speech bubbles. Rare, these days!

[kurenai_tenka]

Oh, this was my favourite story in the book. Fantastic.

[superfangirl1]

This is surprisingly different and I like it.