Saturday 13 August 2022

The Joker #15 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon


I've really enjoyed this series. When it was first announced, before I read what it was about, I had little interest in it. Why would I want to read a book about the Joker, a character who always works better in small doses? Well, that's not what this series was about. If you've not actually caught this book yet and don't know about it, The Joker follows former police commissioner Jim Gordon as he's hired to try and track down and kill the Joker by a rich, shady individual.

The series saw Jim on the trail of the man who had tortured him, paralysed his daughter, turned his son into a killer, and countless other crimes. Along the way he discovered shady organisations, illegal cloning experiments, and even teamed up with a new version of Bane, Vengeance; Bane's clone 'daughter'.

The series put Gordon into a grey area. He was no longer the staunchly good cop who always does the right thing. He'd become an individual who was quite justifiably out for revenge against a monster. And the entire series I honestly couldn't tell you if he'd go through with killing the Joker or not.

So when this final issue came down to him being confronted by Batman, who wanted to know what happened to the Joker, it became a bit of a tense moment. The issue wrapped up the events in flashback, with Gordon telling Batman how things ended. But the reveal of what happened to the Joker was held back, was something kept close to the chest until the end.

This may seem like a cheap tactic to some, but as the central thread of the entire fifteen issue run, the whole journey that Gordon went on, it made perfect sense to keep it back until it couldn't be a secret anymore. And whilst Gordon didn't kill the Joker, and it felt right and true to his character, I think I'd be saying the same if he had have pulled the trigger. This series did a wonderful job of walking the fine line between good and bad, and in a lot of ways it made this story of an old cop chasing a weird clown around the world whilst cannibals tried to catch them deeper and more layered than it had any real right being.

If you've not read this series I'd highly recommend it. It may only be fifteen issues long, but it's easily one of my favourite stories for both Jim Gordon, and the Joker.


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