It's a sad, sad time in England. What with rising living costs, budget cuts and, perhaps worse of all, the end of 'Knight and Squire'. I think we should all have a minutes silence for this tragic loss… ok, that being said I think it's time I gave my review.
The issue opens up at a crime scene, superhero/pop star Jade Peabody has been shot dead. It's revealed that the Joker did it because she may have been able to foresee his plan, he's not worried about Squire however, who holds a similar power to Jade Peabody, because she is of course distracted by the death of The Shrike. Dead superheroes start popping up all over England, all killed in bizarre ways. The deaths are suspected to be linked but nobody knows who's behind it, however, Knight figures out that it's the real Joker using proxies after he finds a Joker mask that controls it's wearer to kill superheroes. Squire thinks up a plan to trick the Joker into a confrontation; the masks contain cameras and microphones so the superheroes only say and do what they want Joker to see, convincing him that they are being overwhelmed. At this point, we find out that the supervillains of England have decided to side with the superheroes as they're not happy with the Joker doing their job for them.
All of the remaining heroes and villains meet up at Stone Henge to discuss their plan for getting rid of the Joker when dozens of mind-controlled civilians turn up with guns, in the struggle, Knight shouts, so that Joker can hear though the microphones in the masks, "We can only hope Jarvis Poker holds out and doesn't let us down!". The Joker becomes very suspicious at this and confronts Jarvis but, recognizing Knight's plan, Jarvis taunts the Joker into believing that he has secret information.
Overnight the attacks on superheroes double but the heroes come up with another plan, they send Faceoff out to pretend they're fighting back against the Joker but in reality they use the comm-links that the Joker shares with the mind-controlling masks to mention "the magic". This scares the Joker who forces Jarvis to take them to the source of the magic , Jarvis allows the Joker to bully him as he once again recognizes Knight's plan. Jarvis takes the Joker to an abandoned looking building before running towards it yelling for help, Joker shoots Jarvis in the back and enters the building which turns out to be the pub from issue one of the mini-series. Unable to use his guns the Joker is subdued by the heroes in the pub who take his weapons, strip him naked and teleport him to Arkham Asylum. The End.
Once again I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'Knight and Squire' and especially after last month when I was itching to get my hands on this issue. I thought that bringing the Joker in to this mini-series was brilliant, the juxtaposed persona that he has against the British heroes works well and really creates a sense of realism in the otherwise ridiculous Britain.
Unfortunately, after last months near-perfect issue, this did let me down slightly but I would still recommend it. I'm really glad that the same themes from issue 5 carried over and I thought that Squire's reaction to The Shrike's death was handled very well, including a great silent page. I also enjoyed seeing the Joker just killing in cold-blood, knowing that there wouldn't be ramifications, it was a well written example of just how evil the Joker really is. Overall, I wish I could give it my rating a bit more, but something's holding be back, in any case I'm sad that the series has ended, especially knowing that we won't be getting any more… at least not for a while.
Knight and Squire #6:
Reviewed by Joe
