The next few weeks or so is told through the eyes of this low-level thug who volunteered to pick him up. <-what the actual fuck? That's not science.Īnyway. The gist is that Joker gets released from prison because he's 'not crazy' anymore. It's all crime and bloodshed and horror.Plotwise, I thought this was kind of overrated. Batman isn't completely absent, but, for much of this graphic novel, it's as if Gotham City doesn't even have a protector. This isn't a Batman story about the Joker, and, even more so than 'The Killing Joker,' this is an exploration of the Joker as a character. There's plenty to love about 'Joker,' including the truly disturbing mania of the Joker himself. And he pulls it off, with his own cynical edge. These versions of the characters are interesting only in the way the Joker interacts with them, but it's important that Azzarello and Bermejo keep them all tonally consistent with the kind of semi-real, movie version of Gotham presented here. Azzarello and Bermejo seem to be auditioning their interpretations for future movie use, suggesting that Killer Croc might work as a steroidal black gang leader who lives in a meat locker, or the Riddler could be a tatted-up cripple with a knowing smile. Killer Croc appears, as does Two-Face, the Riddler, and the Penguin, all of whom presented in ways that differ from their in-continuity counterparts. Azzarello writes to Bermejo's strengths here, giving him a sleek but sullied world to illustrate, characters who slice a path through Gotham City like so many dirty razors. Instead, it's like a Michael Mann film on paper, exploring the Joker's struggle to regain control of the Gotham underworld.

'Joker' isn't hard-boiled in the Mickey Spillane-by-way-of-Frank Miller way that we saw in his 'Batman: Broken City' tale a few years back. And I think that's a respectable choice, considering that Ledger has defined the character for our generation.Īnd Azzarello, notoriously uninterested in superheroes, brings in the street-level crime elements needed to make that kind of Joker work best.

Their version of the Joker isn't the same as what we see in the movie, but it's certainly on the Ledger end of the spectrum. Yet there's a clear Heath Ledger influence here, and it seems as if Azzarello and Bermejo were working off early teaser trailer indications of the film, and then extrapolating from there. It's not an adaptation of 'The Dark Knight,' nor is it exactly a spin-off, but it's informed by that movie, even though - given the lead time on projects like this - it must have been written long before Azzarello saw the film in theaters. Whether it's true or not, 'Joker' feels like it was commissioned specifically as a tie-in to the biggest movie of the year.

Joker comic azzarello