Origin stories are one of the great staples of comics. Be it heroes or villains, giving a character a specific beginning and pulling back the curtain to reveal the who-what-where-when-why that made them the icon we’ve come to love or hate is something that is both deeply familiar and almost necessary for the reservoir of story potential those beginnings hold. But repetition, or perhaps more accurately, retellings of stories are just as much a staple in comics, particularly when it comes to major characters; nothing is really ever new. It’s merely retooled and retold with varying levels of success and that is where Batman #142 comes in. The issue, kicking off the “The Joker Year One” arc, is part origin story, part retelling, and part attempt to reconcile current elements of the character’s story in Chip Zdarsky’s Batman with more definitive tales preceding it. But instead of making important connections between the Joker’s past, present, and future, the issue over-explains unnecessary details about DC’s most iconic villain and offers very little of substance.
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Batman #142 moves between timelines, specifically the past and the future, opening in the past with the most iconic aspect of the Joker’s story: that fateful dip in the vat of acid in Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke that transforms whoever the Joker was before into the madman terrorizing Gotham years later. It’s as good as place as any to start, though there’s something to be said—and it’s not necessarily a good something—that the issue opts to completely lift Brian Bolland’s iconic art in one panel with different and more muted colors.
From there, readers are taken into a somewhat confusing trek into Joker’s internal monologue as he tries to process his transformation while we see him reconcile what’s happened to his physical form but hasn’t yet taken in his mind. It’s this aspect of the story that has the potential to be interesting. Getting a glimpse of Joker’s genuine inner workings is something that would be insightful or even thought provoking, particularly in this moment of transition, but instead, we don’t get that. What we do get is a cheapening of what has previously been established as the big turning point. Now, that acid bath is nothing more than a part of a slow descent instead of something singularly catastrophic.
It’s that chipping away at the horror of the Joker’s origin that largely washes out anything else the issue has to offer. There’s a moment where the story deviates from Joker to Gordon in a clear revisiting and retreading of something most readers will have seen before shifting back to the idea of Joker trying to fit into his new reality. That part is what sets up most of the story—another gang has taken over—but there’s a lot of explaining, to the point of there being simply too much exposition. Instead of there being an offering of anything new or interesting about Joker’s origin, Zdarsky seems determined to dissect the character and catalog the parts. In doing so, Joker becomes less of a worthy villain and instead, an overcooked idea with too-convenient ties to Batman.
From an artistic perspective, the issue is pleasant to the eye, but it’s hard to get past the nearly direct lifting early on and the dim colors that play a big part in that. Nothing lifts. Everything feels like it’s lightly covered in a haze. Given that the story aspect of the issue feels like a copy of a copy with annotations, having something that feels dimmed, art wise, makes sense to some degree.
All this to say not all of Batman #142 feels worn and needless. The future timeline sequences feel relatively fresh and new. Part of that comes from different artwork and brighter colors, but the bulk comes from the horrific turn things take on the final page as Gotham and perhaps the world may be infected by the Joker. It gives things a post-apocalyptic impression that lands somewhere between zombies and vampires. It’s that bit that makes this exploration at least tantalizing, if not worthwhile, in what is an otherwise deeply uneven issue.
Published by DC Comics
On February 6, 2024
Written by Chip Zdarsky
Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Andrea Sorrentino
Colors by Alejandro Sanchez and Dave Stewart
Letters by Clayton Cowles
Cover by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Nesi, and Tomeu Morey
