This week saw DC Comics publish Batman: The Brave and the Bold #1, a new anthology comic series about the Dark Knight Detective and some of his allies. Featuring a variety of fan-favorite creators, the series will feature a range of stories, with no uniform length across chapters (some running three issues, others more or less). The first of these is one that DC fans have been anticipating with creators Tom King and Mitch Gerads reuniting to tell a new Batman story that focuses on The Joker. With the first part of the story now here, and its wild reinvention of the character fully revealed, readers are taking to social media to reveal they’re loving the twisted take.
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Titled “The Winning Card,” the series is described as “a horrifying four-part retelling of the first bloody clash between the Joker and the Batman.” Those with an interest in classic Batman comics will see a lot of references to the Joker’s actual first appearance across the story, but it’s the comic’s use of Joker’s dialogue that has many unsettled. While all other characters in the issue speak in traditional comic book dialogue balloons, The Joker only talks in silent film interstitial title cards. Combine that with his horrifying plan, involving a violent kidnapping, this version of the Clown Prince of Crime is creeping readers out big time. You can see the reactions below. Batman: The Brave and the Bold will include three other stories for fans:
- Stormwatch: Down with the Kings – The Justice League may be gone, but its enemies aren’t. Who’ll protect the world from the worst of the worst? Ed Brisson and Jeff Spokes pick up the story started in the Wildstorm 30th Anniversary Special as Director Bones and his new covert StormWatch team travel the globe on black-ops missions to take super-powered weapons of mass destruction off the board. But this is StormWatch, and as always, not all is as it seems. Down with the Kings starts here!
- Heroes of Tomorrow – Superstar artist Dan Mora (Batman/Superman: World’s Finest, Detective Comics) makes his writing debut kicking off a new series of Batman Black & White short stories. In a Gotham City overrun by the cybernetic henchmen of The Joker, the only person who can save us is the mysterious motorcycle-riding, bat-costumed hero of urban legend…
- Superman: Order of the Black Lamp-Part I: From writer Christopher Cantwell (Halt and Catch Fire co-creator, Briar, Iron Man) and artist Javier Rodr guez (Daredevil, Defenders), Superman finds a decoder ring with a secret message- Save me -which sends him on a quest to solve a mystery with ties to the Man of Steel’s past.
