In Batman #142, Batman thinks back to his first meeting with the Joker, and readers follow along those first few months of Joker’s origin.
Title: Batman #142 — “The Joker: Year One” Part One
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli & Andrea Sorrentino
Colorist: Alejandro Sanchez & Dave Stewart
Cover: Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Nesi & Tomeu Morey
Variant Covers: David Finch, Gleb Melnikov, Chip Zdarsky, Greg Tocchini & Stevan Subic,
Release Date: February 6, 2024
Please Note: This comic book review may contain spoilers
Batman #142 opens with Batman monologuing to himself about the Joker. He’s pondering the clue Joker left him, two red pill capsules that look like the Red Hood moniker. Batman drops the pill caps, thinking back to when they first met. He knows now what he didn’t then, that Red Mask from “The Bat-Man of Gotham” story (which ran from Batman #131 through Batman #136) created triplicates of Jokers when trying to turn himself into one. But why two pills?
The story leaps to Joker crouched over that puddle, the Red Hood mask in front of him. He laughs, then stands up, and spots two other Jokers. All three start strangling and beating each other. In a final shot, we see one laughing again maniacally, but we can’t confirm the fate of the other two. We presume they’re dead, but no bodies are shown.
The art that opens this issue is haunting and moody. It alternates between two different styles, one for Batman and the other for Joker. Batman’s coloring is grittier. Clean linework is shaded over with an atmospheric haze. Joker’s story, on the other hand, is clean. It’s raining, but there is no grit obscuring the pale, pasty faces as they beat each other senseless.
A Joker, one seemingly not “our” Joker, grabs a woman taking the trash out of her house. He believes it to be his wife, calling her Sally, and tells her that he got caught up in something and needs to fix it. He tells her he loves her, then runs off. A husband appears in the doorway behind the woman, asking “Jody” if she’s alright.
Six months later, this same Joker is sitting in an apartment with a rotten corpse, thinking to himself. He has scraggly green hair and a full beard, thinking about how his heists spiraled out of control and became something else. He smears bronzer on himself in front of the mirror, then spots a visage of the Red Hood staring at him. Hood and this Joker surmise that someone in their gang squealed, which is how they ended up this way.
As readers, we’re disinclined to believe that this is “our” Joker because of his appearance. There’s an innocence to this Joker’s face, and the most glaring item missing is his trademark ruby, red lips. But maybe that’s the point? He’s not fully “the Joker” yet, so while the possibility exists that this isn’t the real “Joker,” it’s also possible that he’s more of a proto-Joker still.
Batman #142 variant cover by David Finch
Elsewhere, Detective Jim Gordon spaces out at his police desk. Harvey Bullock hands him a file and mentions that the interim commissioner, the one sitting in for Loeb until a new commissioner is picked, wants to see Gordon. The acting commissioner tells Gordon that his write-up of the A.C.E. Chemical Plant attack by the Red Hood gang in Batman: Zero Year was a “love letter” to Batman. When Gordon pushes back, the interim commissioner tells him to rewrite it. On the way out of the office, Gordon gets into a fight with a dirty cop named Manny who accuses Gordon of turning against the police for some “freak.”
When Gordon is out of earshot, the interim commissioner tells Manny that they need to “solve” this Gordon problem, as he could be bad for the both of them.
The world of the GCPD in these few pages is one of brown, muted blues, and grays. It’s very neutral, and what stands out is Jim Gordon’s fiery orange hair and the interim commissioner’s bright purple shirt. If the text didn’t overtly hint at the commissioner’s crookedness, his purple shirt makes him look like a mob boss, or worse, a Joker.
After the confrontation with Manny, the art leaps wildly again to more of an oil pastel style with a shirtless, emaciated Joker hanging on a table from his arms in a Christ-like visage. Batman’s narration tells us that this is Arkham, and this contraption, this machine Joker is hooked up to, was an idea from Commissioner Barbara Gordon.
Another leap through time, and it’s back to those few months after Joker’s birth. At a bar called Flunky’s, Joker, in bad makeup to (sort of) pass like a normal person, taunts two goons into a fight. These goons are joined by others, and for a moment, it looks like Joker is going to take the beating of his life. Then he fights back, and after mopping the floor with them, is greeted by an old Hood gang member simply called “Twenty-Two”. Twenty-two, who also goes by “Brian,” tells Joker they have to leave before the cops show up.
Another person at the bar sees them and makes a phone call. He tells “Number Two” that a ghost has returned from the grave. Number Two opens a locker and pulls out a Red Hood mask, telling one of his underlings that they have to postpone the gala hit until they kill their old boss.
Elsewhere, the “Black Hood” gang robs a jewelry store and makes a break for it, but their cop is smashed up by Batman. At the scene of the crime, the GCPD find the gang members wrapped up. Gordon climbs a fire escape to meet with Batman. Batman is wearing his purple gloves, which subtly informs readers that this takes place in the earliest days of his crime-fighting.
Gordon asks Batman to stick around the scene of the crime, but Batman pushes back, citing interim commissioner McCleod’s dislike of vigilantes. He notes that there are so many Red Hood copycat gangs lately, and while their leader is gone, the gang is still out there. Batman asks Jim to focus. Gordon feels differently. Jim tells Batman that with the Red Hood leader dead, there should be no worries, but Batman’s face tells it all. He’s not so sure the leader died in that vat of chemicals.
Meanwhile, Joker walks down the street with Brian. When Brian goes into a pizza shop for a slice, Joker waits outside. He spots Batman grappling overhead. Joker flees, running back to the river he was dumped into after the A.C.E. Chemicals fiasco. It’s arguably the best part of the issue, with Zdarsky adding narration that makes Joker seem sympathetic and disjointed. There are two minds grappling with each other, not too unlike Gollum in Lord of the Rings.
As Joker stares at his reflection in the water, he sees a ghastly sanguine figure looking back at him. The reflection is scared of what they’re going to do, and Joker reaches down to strangle him. After it’s dead, Joker stands up, only to be called out by a man who was watching him at the bar. The man wants to train Joker to harness his mind, to not fear anything and become a force of nature. When Joker asks what his qualifications are, he simply says that he trained Batman.
Back in the future, Batman travels through the sewers. His narration tells us that he’s looking for Duke Thomas (The Signal). Duke is “infected,” and his powers are “absorbing all the light” in Gotham City. When Batman reaches the surface, he’s surrounded by a bunch of Gothamites who have been Jokerized.
The art is back to that gritty, surreal, haunting look from the opener of the issue. The final page is a Gotham cast in shadow with only the green hair and red eyes of zombie-like Gothamites shining through the black and gray colors. It’s an effectively enticing and unsettling ending, one that invites us to continue this journey just by the spectacle of that lasting impression. With how many timelines are being juggled, with how Batman of the future and Joker of the past are on paths that would seemingly collide in the issues ahead, it’s hard to judge this issue on its own.
Batman #142 variant cover by Greg Tocchini
Can We Even Call This a “Year One” Story?
For readers who haven’t read Batman: Zero Year, this story might feel adrift. Some context is given to provide a few clues, but the events of that divisive tale aren’t fully divulged to give enough context to new readers. It also helps if readers are more familiar with Bat-scribe Scott Snyder’s other works on the title, including his introduction of Duke Thomas, Duke’s powerset, and maybe even the Dark Knights: Metal storyline. Other recommended reading includes “The Bat-Man of Gotham” storyline from last year, though enough context might be given for that to make sense for now (the notion that there were three Jokers at one point).
What’s odd, however, is that this book is slapped with the label of “Joker: Year One.” Yes, a good chunk of it takes place right after the Joker was created, but there’s another storyline that takes place far into the future, when Barbara Gordon is commissioner, that’s so detached from the “year one”-ness of this book. Personally, when I see “Year One,” I automatically think that the book will be more of a gateway title for new readers who may have heard of the characters, know a little bit about the world, but require no further reading to grasp everything going on. At least in this first part, that doesn’t feel to be the case. It feels like there needs to be a whole catalog of supplemental reading for new readers who happen to pick this up because it’s a “year one” book.
As it’s only the first part, I can’t make a definitive judgment, especially considering that this introductory issue is so tethered to what will debut in the coming weeks. Still, the label seems at odds with the thrust into Batman lore and canon that this story demands from readers. It makes one wonder if “Joker: Year One” was more of an editorial mandate and less of a narrative-driven decision.
That said, the art, especially in the dark, gothic, dirty, futuristic bits, is gruesome and tantalizing. Had this book not leaped back and forth between art styles, the art for the past events would be more enjoyable. As it stands, with each style interwoven throughout the book, the past events look more cutesy and cherubic in nature. It feels very “comic booky” and not the horror we open and close with. Again, it’s not bad, but the distinct difference in feel is perhaps too noticeable.
That said, I have one question for our readers that I, too, have been mulling over.
How do you feel about a Joker story that portrays him sympathetically? Does that make you uncomfortable, or are you cool with it?
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Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advanced copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
