Way back towards the end of 2011 DC did a reboot, resulting in the ‘New 52’, along with these reboots was Detective Comics #1, in that first issue we saw one of the greatest villains of all time get his face willingly cut off by a new villain, known as the ‘Dollmaker’. Joker vanished without a trace, all that was left was his face pinned to the wall of his cell… and a couple of not-so-great story arcs, even after such a shockingly brilliant first issue.
Fast forward a year. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s first huge story arc in ‘The New 52 Batman’ has come to an end; ‘The Court of Owls/The City of Owls’. After Scott Snyder’s ‘The Black Mirror’, there was no doubt that his work on Batman would be utterly brilliant, but how can he follow on from such a great introduction? By bringing back Joker of course, the villain we love to hate and hate to love. ‘The Death of The Family’ event spread across all the bat titles, offering some brilliant tie-ins (mainly Batgirl and Batman & Robin). Joker believes that Batman’s family have made him weak, and he wants to kill the family. Scott Snyder described it as a “Love letter from Joker to Batman”.
Since Joker returned, donning the Leather Face-style look, there had been a lot of speculation as to who may finally meet there end in this arc, some believing it would be Alfred (I will admit… I was one of them), but once the finale arrived, many believed it was an anti-climactic ending, and that “not much happened”. Although this issue did not turn out how I expected, it was nothing short of a masterpiece, and I am happy to say that I was far from let-down.
Joker isn’t afraid to kill or seriously harm a main character; he beat Jason Todd to death with a crowbar and also shot Barbara Gordon in the spine, resulting in her being paralysed from the waist down. Joker’s tried his fair share of killing, but has never succeeded in destroying the bat-family as a whole, so he decides to take a different approach; whispering into the ears of each member of the family, feeding them lies and truths, everything and anything to turn the family against each other, ultimately trying to get across that Batman loves the Joker more than the family, hence why he cannot kill him. With some chilling visuals, provided by the excellent Greg Capullo, we witness a final show down between Gotham’s Dark Knight and the Joker, the closest we ever get to seeing Batman almost killing Joker (unless you count the end of Killing Joke), and for the first time seeing fear in the Clown Princes’ eyes. To Batman’s misfortune, his nemesis doesn’t go out the way he would have liked, leaving an unsatisfying feeling in his gut, yes, he beat the Clown, but Joker also succeeded in metaphorically killing the Bat-Family. We are left with a downer of an ending, the family not trusting Bruce and keeping their distance, along with not knowing whether the Joker is still out there, or if he did actually meet his end.
To those who complained about the finale, isn’t it more fascinating and terrifying that Joker can destroy a whole family without even lifting a crowbar or a gun, but instead using only words? I will happily go as far as saying this is possibly one of the greatest Joker arcs of all time, and even if we don’t see the Clown Prince again, at least we had a satisfyingly intelligent, horrifying and exciting end to one of the best Batman villains ever made. All I can say is thank you Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo for reminding me why I love Batman and why I read comics, I can’t wait to see what you have to offer us next.
5/5
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