Azzarello, Brian: Joker
Joker (2008)
Written by: Brian Azzarello
Illustrator: Lee Bermejo
Genre: Graphic Novel
Pages: 128 (Hardcover)
So how does this graphic novel fit with my comic book a day? Well, it doesn't. Not really. I'd finished a mini-series and had no idea what to read, so my hubby asked if I'd be willing to read a stand-alone hardcover. I said sure, so he passed along Joker, which I finished in pretty much one sitting on a Sunday afternoon. And why wouldn't I? While I'm no Batman expert, I do have a love for the franchise, so this was right up my alley.
The premise: ganked from BN.com: The Joker has been mysteriously released from Arkham Asylum, and he's none to happy about what's happened to his Gotham City rackets while he's been "away." What follows is a harrowing night of revenge, murder and manic crime as only The Joker can deliver it, as he brutally takes back his stolen assets from The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face, Killer Croc and others.
Review style: I'm not wholly comfortable reviewing graphic novels or comics, but I will talk about my response to the art as well as the story itself and how it strikes me given the gigantically spiraling and oftentimes contradictory Batman canon that's out there. In this case, there's really no such thing as spoilers, so if you're interested, read on.
First of all, the art. I can't believe how different the various pages are in this book. So here's a tidbit I never knew until I watched a special feature on the Kick-Ass BluRay: there's more than one person who contributes to the art of a graphic novel. You've got the artist, who lays the groundwork, but you've got inkers and pencillers, and this book has two different inkers, and it shows. Sometimes, you get a page that's just gorgeous in its smooth coloration and rendering, whereas other pages are really sharp in their graphic detail. I, naturally, leaned towards the more smooth coloration. While I couldn't find a sample page that illustrated this exactly, this page here comes close.
The art as a whole works well. I can't tell you if there seems to be a metaphorical reason to explain why sometimes the art is gritty and sometimes it's smooth (in terms of the paints and whatnot), but I can say it worked, because when your eyes land on a smooth panel, it jumps out at you and makes you pay attention.
The story itself is interesting. For some reason, Arkham Asylum has labeled the Joker as cured, aka sane. And truly, his actions through the book, while criminal, aren't the kind of chaotic madness I've come to expect of the character through various mediums (film, animation, graphic novels, etc). He's flesh out, and I saw sides of the Joker I'd not seen before without manic laughter following those moments. And the end is, well, I'm not going to spoil anything, and I can't if I wanted to. I'm not sure how I interpret the end in terms of the Joker's storyline, but I can interpret it for the narrator. Not that I'll reveal it here, of course. I did say I'd keep this spoiler-free.
But the story is narrated through the eyes of a henchman, Jonny Frost, who thinks that the Joker is his claim to fame, to the big life. And despite being a henchmen, Frost is a good narrator and a sympathetic one. He finds himself caught in a war between the Joker and those who took over the Joker's city, and Frost finds there's more to lose than simply his future of a big crime life.
It's a good story, and more fascinating was Azzarello's rendition of popular Batman villains. Two-Face, Riddler, The Penguin, and Killer Croc. I'm a little used to the cartoon origins or ridiculous origins of the pre-Christopher Nolan movies, so seeing these characters defined through a more realistic, gritty lens was interesting for me, and had me wondering if our boy Jonny Frost was meant to transition into the villain we know as Mr. Freeze. If you're better schooled on your mythology than I am, you probably already know the answer, but if you're not, I'm not spoiling nothing. Either way, it made for a fun layer of guessing.
What was weird for me is that I'm not an expert in this franchise by any means. Sure, I've seen all the films (starting from Tim Burton onward), and I was a ridiculously huge fan of Fox's animated series back in the '90s. I've read a few choice graphic novels that my husband selected, and lastly, I enjoyed the hell out of the storyline of the Batman: Arkham Asylum PS3 game released last year (not that I played, I just watched). Oh, and I liked watching the hubby play Lego: Batman too!
The point to all of this rambling is that in the larger scheme of things, I got a little confused, like with Two-Face's role in Gotham City. It doesn't mesh with any of the iterations I've seen before, but I got over it. Though, as a nitpick, I wish they'd made his dual personality a little more obvious in dialogue. The barely-there squiggle dialogue bubble was too easy to look over and miss.
Yet, I get the feeling that--short of a monthly series, the Batman franchise is a big sandbox of make-believe. It's not quite public domain (though that's coming), but if you get to write a Batman story, you get to do whatever you want with it, starting from the origins. You don't have to follow any continuity unless you're hired to pick up where another writer left off, you know?
Mind you, this is my not-so-educated guess on how I think it works. I might be very wrong about this, but based on my observations, that's what I've come away with.
Anyway, this didn't totally hinder my reading. It just made me stop and go, "hmmm…" for a little bit before reading on.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: As far as I can tell, this is only available in hardcover, but even if you're a kind of casual yet knowledgeable-enough-to-be-dangerous fan like I am, I think you'll be quite pleased with this story. It's dark and it's compelling, as we see sides of the Joker we've not seen before (I shouldn't say "we," because really, it's me), and it's a dark, gritty, violent tale that makes you wonder whether or not the Joker's really sane or just faking it for a larger purpose. A good read, with art that appealed to me very much. Azzarello's storytelling has me wanting to seek out his other work, and reading this particular tale of the Joker has me wanting to read (and re-read) more Batman-related comics.
Cover Commentary: Well, it certainly fits the character! The cover I've got isn't quite as bright and bold as the image used in this review, but at least the least used in this review shows more. The font choice is a good one, so is placement. And hey, it's the Joker's bloody-looking mouth. There's not much more of a trademark than that, the Joker's frightening grin. It's guaranteed to catch the eye of any fan of the franchise, and I really like its gritty feel, the lack of clean, cartoony lines.
Next up: Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey