Overview: In Knight Terrors: The Joker #2, the Joker finds himself waking from one nightmare after the other, struggling to balance the growing sense of unease within him.
Synopsis (Spoilers Ahead): Running through the dirty streets of Gotham City, a trio of robbers desperately try to escape in the dark of the night, relentlessly pursued by…the Batman.
This Batman has a unique method, one that involves funny one-liners and setting petty thieves on fire, who gouges people’s eyeballs out with batarangs, and—
—with a start, the Joker awakes from the horrid nightmare, waking his partner, Lena, in the process. Only a few short moments later their son, Albert, enters his parents’ bedroom demanding to know if they’re awake; he doesn’t want to miss practice!
Later, while at work, the Joker spends his day conducting interviews and is somewhat perturbed by the fact that both his candidates are highly dangerous and wanted criminals. Mr. Freeze and Scarecrow are not at all impressed by the Joker’s supposed amnesia of who he truly is and who they are; the whole reason they thought to apply at Wayne Enterprises was because of the Joker. The Batman has become ruthless and murderous, and so many criminals are seeking to lay low at legitimate businesses until the Bat is dealt with.
After returning home and waking from yet another nightmare, the Joker creeps into the living room and opens the wardrobe, relieved to still see Batman’s corpse hanging inside.
Later that night, the streets of Gotham are visited once again by the violent, brutal Batman, who doesn’t seek to just stop and incapacitate but to kill as well. He makes jokes and doesn’t recognize the criminals who he once used to work with, instead snapping their necks and bashing their heads in without a second thought.
Night turns to day, which brings the Joker to the LexCorp vs Wayne Enterprises baseball game. The game goes awry when the Joker strangles one of the opposing catchers to death. He doesn’t appreciate people making comments about Batman, him being Batman, jokes, or not appreciating jokes, at all.
Well, at least all the commotion provides Bruce Wayne and the Joker a moment to actually meet, and so they plan a time to talk that night at the Wayne Manor over dinner.
That evening, the Joker arrives for dinner and is greeted by the Wayne indentured servant, Winchester. Bruce Wayne makes his appearance in a Hawaiian button-down and purple wide-brim hat, and the two sit down for their meal.
Joker confirms that Bruce Wayne isn’t upset about the baseball game—he isn’t—rather, Bruce Wayne tells him that he feels like the Joker isn’t being his true self. After all, the man that they hired earlier isn’t the same man sitting across from him now.
According to this Bruce Wayne, the world needs spirit and for people to be a little crazy. A man without a sense of humor is like Gotham City without the Batman.
This last comment confuses the Joker, as he thought the Batman died yet everyone keeps seeing him!
And that, Bruce Wayne says, is what’s wrong with him. The Batman died, and when he did a part of the Joker died with him. The Joker is broken now, but something about the imposter Batman on the streets is awakening something within Joker.
The scene suddenly changes, and the Joker finds himself in the middle of a managerial meeting, having just stared off into space for a full two minutes.
After one off-handed comment from a manager calling the Joker a nutjob, the Joker takes his pencil and stabs the man to death with it.
The stress of the day doesn’t end there, however, as upon his return home he finds his son and wife have discovered the now rotting corpse of Batman that’s been hanging in their wardrobe. That, and Bruce Wayne’s comment about him being broken, sends the Joker into a mental tailspin that ends with him devising a plan to try and catch the Batman; there’s no way he could catch the real Batman, and so if his plan fails, then everything will be right in the world.
Yet, Joker’s plan does work and just as the Batman starts choking and dying by acid…the Joker wakes up. The Joker finds himself underground, next to Solomon Grundy and a few others, realizing that it was all just a nightmare.
Rolling over, the Joker tells everyone to shut up. He’s going back to sleep.
Analysis: Knight Terrors: The Joker #2, written by Matthew Rosenberg with artist Stefano Raffaele, kicks things off with the appearance of Batman, but not as he once was. The Batman also looks and acts like the Joker, who in this dream reality, is employed by Bruce Wayne, works a nine-to-five, and returns home after work to his nightmare-dream-created wife and son.
This issue felt more like I was reading a dream, the story and timeline within it feeling appropriately disjointed with jagged transitions between them. Unfortunately, and perhaps because of this, it overall felt a bit like Knight Terrors: The Joker #1; a little all over the place and without a true focus, other than providing us the opportunity to read a Joker who’s decidedly unsure of himself and his purpose in life.
I appreciated the baseball game scene between LexCorp and Wayne Enterprises, however, I was less than inspired or taken by this book’s interpretation of Bruce Wayne. I wasn’t really sure where this idea of the character was coming from, yet it did do its job in making sure he seemed both unsettling and somewhat unhinged (tearing into a lobster with your hands and shoving food into your mouth seems to have that effect).
Ultimately, I did get the sense as though there was supposed to be a deeper meaning from all the attempted self-actualizing on the Joker’s part and from the bizarre conversation with Bruce Wayne. But the “deeper meaning,” if there is one, is confusing. The reference to The Killing Joke by the outfit that Bruce Wayne was wearing at the dinner table felt like it should have some significance—may be confirmation of the state of the real Batman, or maybe it’s really just a reference on the part of the writer, just for kicks?
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with the preview images of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by pre-ordering this issue digitally on Comixology through Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
Knight Terrors: The Joker #2
Overall Score
2/5
In the end, you realize that the whole thing was just a nightmare, and it really doesn’t matter or impact the stories that are taking place in the canon right now. This kind of feels like a letdown, as I felt like just shrugging my shoulders and moving on to the next thing, not quite taken or impressed with this little interlude.
