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A review by captwinghead
The Joker: A Celebration of 75 Years by Bill Finger
3.0
This is a complicated rating for me. Perhaps the most complicated of the year.
See, the first 300 or so pages of this book are pretty much 1.5 stars. When I wasn't bored I was dreading turning the page because I was sure boredom was coming.
The last 150 or so pages are 5 stars.
I usually love older DC comics because if I'm not laughing at how campy the dialogue is (Dick, my son, I love you but you tell more dad jokes than Danny Tanner) I'm interested in the mystery. With the Joker, they started with a cold blooded, calculated killer. He made radio broadcasts about who was on his hit list and then he terrorized Gotham by sneaking in and killing his targets despite the police's best efforts. He drove Batman crazy and he was a force to be reckoned with.
Then the Comics Code came along and said "Yeah, you're scaring the kiddies. Get rid of him or lighten him up." So, they turned the Joker into a cheesy, goofball bank robber Batman '66 would be proud of. It was so goofy I put this book down several times. The art wasn't great either.
Then the 70's happened, the Comics Code lightened up and they flipped the switch and turned Joker into a monster again. Well, he killed people with his laughing gas again. Then he killed Jason Todd and it seemed like that was the worst he could do. For the 80's, beating a child to death with a crowbar was pretty damn bad.
Then we hit the millennium and it was like the writers said "You thought that was evil? Watch this!"
It got so much worse.
Violence wise. The writing got significantly better.
The most horrifying story, one that reminded me of that episode of Six Feet Under that me and most everyone could never sit through again, is the one where Tim unknowingly gets in the car with the Joker. He gasses Tim, ties him to the car seat and drives through the Gotham night with a dead married couple in the backseat. They've been Joker gassed to die with huge grins on their faces and Tim is rightfully horrified. He's trying to get out when he feels a toy car underneath the seat and he realizes this couple have a little boy that's been orphaned. He's forced to sit there as the Joker drives through the city hitting people indiscriminately. He kills several people, all the while telling Tim there's no way he'll be able to escape. The final straw is him driving closer and closer to a group of children sitting on Santa's lap. Tim's horrified and in a brilliant moment, tells a Marx joke and the Joker veers off course. He distracts the Joker with Groucho anecdotes and manages to escape. Tim's actually incredibly badass and relatable here.
It was that story and the portion from No Man's Land when he kills a woman trying to save the 80 babies he kidnapped that convinced me the writers were done with telling stories where the Joker is a clever figure and went straight into, he's a thoughtless killer. Watch what he does next!
The last stories are from the New 52, including the story where the Dollmaker cuts his face off. Not sure why he did that just to tape (?) it back on. It's grotesque, that's for sure. The last story follows him trying to track down Alfred during Death of the Family. I read that arc and I wasn't super impressed, not gonna lie. Anyway, the last page really stuck with me. The Joker does all of this because he thinks the Batfam is making Bruce weaker:
"It happens all of a sudden, just a tiny shift, but there it is. You stare back and you see it. The smallest flicker in the pupils, but still. And you say to yourself, see? Beneath it all he's just what you thought he was. A man. And ignore the fact that what you saw those tiny pupils do was expand. Expand for you after you stared back long enough. Ignore the fact that what you saw those black points expand with... was love."
They've been trying to build this relationship where the Joker has this twisted obsession with Batman. That he feels a kinship and a type of love for him but these last few stories are the only times I really got that feeling. Maybe if they'd focused on the issues that were more like that, I would've been more interested.
So, the first 300 pages get 1.5 stars. The last 150 or so get 5 stars.
There's a really great part of the story "Going Sane" where the Joker gets amnesia and thinks he's a man named Joseph Kerr. He meets a woman, falls in love and they share a life but he's having a mental breakdown and dreaming about being the Joker. It's so interesting because there's a voiceover from his girlfriend turned fiancée as he slowly reveals his true nature. It ends with her being hopeful for the future but we, the reader, know everything's going to hell.
See, the first 300 or so pages of this book are pretty much 1.5 stars. When I wasn't bored I was dreading turning the page because I was sure boredom was coming.
The last 150 or so pages are 5 stars.
I usually love older DC comics because if I'm not laughing at how campy the dialogue is (Dick, my son, I love you but you tell more dad jokes than Danny Tanner) I'm interested in the mystery. With the Joker, they started with a cold blooded, calculated killer. He made radio broadcasts about who was on his hit list and then he terrorized Gotham by sneaking in and killing his targets despite the police's best efforts. He drove Batman crazy and he was a force to be reckoned with.
Then the Comics Code came along and said "Yeah, you're scaring the kiddies. Get rid of him or lighten him up." So, they turned the Joker into a cheesy, goofball bank robber Batman '66 would be proud of. It was so goofy I put this book down several times. The art wasn't great either.
Then the 70's happened, the Comics Code lightened up and they flipped the switch and turned Joker into a monster again. Well, he killed people with his laughing gas again. Then he killed Jason Todd and it seemed like that was the worst he could do. For the 80's, beating a child to death with a crowbar was pretty damn bad.
Then we hit the millennium and it was like the writers said "You thought that was evil? Watch this!"
It got so much worse.
Violence wise. The writing got significantly better.
The most horrifying story, one that reminded me of that episode of Six Feet Under that me and most everyone could never sit through again, is the one where Tim unknowingly gets in the car with the Joker. He gasses Tim, ties him to the car seat and drives through the Gotham night with a dead married couple in the backseat. They've been Joker gassed to die with huge grins on their faces and Tim is rightfully horrified. He's trying to get out when he feels a toy car underneath the seat and he realizes this couple have a little boy that's been orphaned. He's forced to sit there as the Joker drives through the city hitting people indiscriminately. He kills several people, all the while telling Tim there's no way he'll be able to escape. The final straw is him driving closer and closer to a group of children sitting on Santa's lap. Tim's horrified and in a brilliant moment, tells a Marx joke and the Joker veers off course. He distracts the Joker with Groucho anecdotes and manages to escape. Tim's actually incredibly badass and relatable here.
It was that story and the portion from No Man's Land when he kills a woman trying to save the 80 babies he kidnapped that convinced me the writers were done with telling stories where the Joker is a clever figure and went straight into, he's a thoughtless killer. Watch what he does next!
The last stories are from the New 52, including the story where the Dollmaker cuts his face off. Not sure why he did that just to tape (?) it back on. It's grotesque, that's for sure. The last story follows him trying to track down Alfred during Death of the Family. I read that arc and I wasn't super impressed, not gonna lie. Anyway, the last page really stuck with me. The Joker does all of this because he thinks the Batfam is making Bruce weaker:
"It happens all of a sudden, just a tiny shift, but there it is. You stare back and you see it. The smallest flicker in the pupils, but still. And you say to yourself, see? Beneath it all he's just what you thought he was. A man. And ignore the fact that what you saw those tiny pupils do was expand. Expand for you after you stared back long enough. Ignore the fact that what you saw those black points expand with... was love."
They've been trying to build this relationship where the Joker has this twisted obsession with Batman. That he feels a kinship and a type of love for him but these last few stories are the only times I really got that feeling. Maybe if they'd focused on the issues that were more like that, I would've been more interested.
So, the first 300 pages get 1.5 stars. The last 150 or so get 5 stars.
There's a really great part of the story "Going Sane" where the Joker gets amnesia and thinks he's a man named Joseph Kerr. He meets a woman, falls in love and they share a life but he's having a mental breakdown and dreaming about being the Joker. It's so interesting because there's a voiceover from his girlfriend turned fiancée as he slowly reveals his true nature. It ends with her being hopeful for the future but we, the reader, know everything's going to hell.