The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #7 – Matthew Rosenberg, Ryan Cady, Writers; Carmine Di Giandomenico, Will Robson, Artists; Romulo Fajardo Jr, Hi-Fi, Colorists
Ray – 8/10
Ray: This series continues to be one of the most ridiculous in the DC lineup, but it’s slowly winning me over with just how chaotic it is. When we last left off the Hollywood Joker was planning to escape LA and head back to Gotham—only to be rudely stopped by Manhunter. The fight between the gritty and ruthless Kate Spencer and the absurd Joker is a lot of fun—it feels like they’re both in different genres. The other players have less to do, with the Gotham Joker only appearing in one brief scene with Solomon Grundy, Jason Todd being moved to Blackgate, and randomly a masked hijacker with a surprising name causing chaos in the skies over LA. The issue largely leaves us in the same place with started, but it built momentum with style.
The backup, now with Ryan Cady co-writing, sends Joker off to run for President with Jackanapes as his running mate. The only problem is, he’s made a LOT of enemies and they all want to commit a political assassination. What’s a killer clown to do? Body doubles and lots of them! This is probably the most cartoony backup so far.
Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo #6 – Marc Silvestri, Writer/Artist; Arif Prianto, Colorist
Ray – 6/10
Ray: Now that we’re in the final act of this gritty supernatural mini, we’ve finally revealed the main villain of the piece—Amanda, the dead daughter of Batman’s old friend—or rather undead daughter. Resurrected by her father’s experiments into a deranged undead bride determined on revenge against all the people she blames for killing her, she engineered the forced team-up between Batman and the Joker and now has everyone gathered in a profane church filled with zombies. Silvestri’s art continues to be right out of the ’90s, and Batman and Gordon get a few good scenes, but the villain is your classic stock monologuing creep. Joker and Harley quickly betray Batman and Gordon as soon as they could, which isn’t a surprise for Joker, but it drives home how much of this series feels like it’s taken from a less interesting era of DC Comics without anything added to it.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
