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JOKER: LAST LAUGH #2
"Siege Mentality"
Mildly Recommended (6/10)
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DC Comics
Writers: Chuck Dixon & Scott Beatty
Pencils: Marcos Martin
Inks: Mark Farmer & Alvaro Lopez
Colors: Tom McCraw & Digital Chameleon
Letters: Willie Schubert
Editor: Matt Idelson
Price: $2.95 US/$4.95 CAN |
As I read
this, all I could keep thinking was how much better it would have been as a
self-contained mini-series instead of a crossover. As a self-contained
mini-series, this is a terrific "send-off" of sorts for Dixon and his cast of
characters, as Batman and his family of hangers-on go up against the Joker one
last time with the highest of stakes. As a crossover, it's about half a story,
chopped up into other titles and told out-of-sequence. There are a lot of things
to appreciate here, including a powerful depiction of the death and destruction
the Joker is capable of, a couple of really neat uses of DC bad guys and some
terrific work with supporting characters Shilo Norman and Dina Bell. If only the
story was being told solely by these creators, I think we'd have something
pretty good. As is, we've got a flawed tale that is only as good as its weakest
link.
There are important events happening offscreen in this mini-series. What happens to Nightwing and how did Black Canary go from infiltrating the facility to getting the crap kicked out of her? Sorry, you have to read Nightwing and Birds of Prey for that. How did all of this start in the first place? Sorry, that's in the Last Laugh Secret Files, which hasn't come out yet. It's bad scheduling and planning, and it's
par for the course in big crossovers.
If you can ignore these
missing elements, what you have here is a pretty good story. Dixon and Beatty do
a terrific job of conveying what a monster the Joker is. Hundreds of guards
dead, mass destruction, psychological trauma for all those involved, this is a
case that will not leave the investigators untouched. Martin's shot of Oracle
sitting alone in her monitor room looking at the chaos speaks volumes. There are
some really neat ideas put to use in Joker's plot as well. A "Joker-ized" Chemo
is just a really fun idea, done up in fine visual style by Martin, and the
method that Joker uses to destroy the prison is unusual as well.
Visually speaking, you can tell the difference in inkers on this issue, as about half the story looks like the stylized Robin: Year One work of Marcos Martin and the other looks like Butch Guice or Greg Land on Birds of Prey. Both are good styles, and despite the
cognitive dissonance caused when the style shifts, we get some really nice
moments overall artistically. The aquatic level sequences are terrific and the
last minute escape in the Bug equally impressive.
Dixon has always been good
with supporting characters, and he and Beatty do nice work with that kind of
thing here as well. Shilo and Dina are both very enjoyable characters who get
some decent screen time, and the Blue Beetle plays a crucial role as well. In
addition, the use of Multi-Man as a tragically doomed character is just as
sickly entertaining as it was in the first issue.
If you don't mind a few holes in storytelling (or if you're willing to invest in the often lackluster crossover issues), Joker: Last Laugh is actually
turning out to be something of an entertaining mini-series. However, as with
just about every other big crossover that DC and Marvel have done, it doesn't
really need to be stretched beyond a mini-series and into a huge crossover, and
the result is that it feels a bit flawed.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review. |
