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JOKER: LAST LAUGH #1
"Stir Crazy"
Recommended (7/10)
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DC Comics
Writers: Chuck Dixon & Scott Beatty
Pencils: Pete Woods
Inks: Andrew Pepoy
Colors: Tom McCraw & Digital Chameleon
Letters: Willie Schubert
Editor: Matt Idelson
Price: $2.95 US/$4.95 CAN |
Despite my appreciation for the talent behind this mini-series, I haven't been looking forward to this crossover. I'm still not looking forward to it being a huge crossover, but as a standalone mini-series, it looks like it might not be too bad. There are some questionable moments and contrived events, largely centering on the Joker's ultra competence, but the vision of a riot orchestrated by the Joker is suitably horrific, and tying things in to Barbara Gordon taking a night off should have interesting ramifications. I'll be quite surprised if this gives us the kind of permanent end that the Joker really needs at this point, but this does look like an interesting crossover for fans of Nightwing, Birds of Prey, Robin and other "Dixonverse"
title fans at least.
Although he's never topped
Ostrander and Yale in my mind, Dixon is probably one of the best writers Oracle
has had, and so I enjoyed seeing some character moments between her and Dick
Grayson. The examination of her feelings for the Joker is both a nice insight
into her motivations and foreshadowing for how big her role is going to be in
this crossover. Dixon and Beatty also do a nice job with a few other secondary
characters, including some really nice work with former Miracle Man Shilo
Norman, federal marshal Dina Bell and a couple of moments for Blue Beetle.
The heart of this first issue
is what happens when Joker finds out he's dying. The creators don't flinch from
depicting Joker as a murderous and effective villain, with gruesome methods used
on Multi-Man and a chilling scene of what happened to all the guards attempting
to quell the riot. I also thought the reactions of the Warden and Shilo
effectively amped up the tension, showing that these professionals are quite
afraid of what the Joker can do.
Unfortunately, what the Joker
can do has been pushed up to an unbelievable degree. He's apparently immune to
the puke gas used on the prisoners, with no explanation, he gets an impressive
amount of weaponry past their security and the coincidence of the formula for
his laughing gas is a bit too convenient as well. There are a lot of moments
here where you'll have to push aside nagging doubts in order to enjoy the story,
because a lot of the Joker's cleverness comes down to the writers letting him
get away with things.
Pete Woods is something of an
"animated" style artist, not someone I would have imagined as the man for a
gruesome depiction of Joker's madness, but he turns in his usual top-notch job.
His work on the character moments, whether it's between Dick and Barbara or
Shilo and Dina, are some of my favorites, but the also really gives a feel for
the aftermath of the Joker's attacks. And I loved his depictions of costumed
characters, from Batman to Black Canary to Blue Beetle. Like Rick Burchett, he
has grown beyond being someone for "Adventures" books and into someone who is
ideally suited to a variety of different work, with a specialty in the
Batman-related areas.
This really seems like an awful idea for a big crossover, especially coming on the heels of a similarly all-consuming crossover in "Our Worlds At War." However, as with most of these events, it looks like the central minds behind it may turn in a strong core story, and maybe the Last Laugh mini-series will be
more successful creatively than I expect the Last Laugh crossover to be.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review. |
