Batman: Three Jokers #1 Discussion/Spoilers

[Robotman]

If Jason did shoot The Joker who killed him, in reality he’s gonna he pretty damn happy. Bruce will go on about “what have you done?!? Now you’re no better than him!” but Jason already uses lethal force. He’s already crossed the line. This would be one of the best days of his life. Even if it’s not the mastermind Joker, he still gets his ultimate revenge.

[Dark_Tzitzimine]

Some of you keep asking some painfully stupid questions that I truly wonder if it's a side effect from reading comics for so long. Why didn't Batman know about the three jokers? Gee, I don't know. How did he not know about the court of owls? Why can Batman fight powerful aliens in JL, but struggle against powerless goons in his book? Why anyone still live in Gotham when it keep getting nuked every other day?....etc.

Newsflash people, you are reading superhero comics where the majority of the stories have absolutely no logical reasoning behind them. If you have hard getting that, why do you even bother reading comics anymore?

This is a dumb posture to have. Yes, this is a comic book about superheroes but even these need to be internally consistent on its narrative, some vague limits to suspension as disbelief where what the writer creates a set of parameters and adheres to them in an attempt to keep his own work from going off rails.

This story, much like Snyder's Court of Owls, or Bendis' Gold Lantern break the already established lore so they can cram their ideas into the narrative instead of working them organically into it. And every single story has been criticized for these flaws on its moment. The sad thing is that Johns used to be pretty good about avoiding this particular pitfall since the entirety of his GL run was based around retcons that still respected the internal logic of the GL mythos.

Funny detail I've just noticed. Maybe it's important for the story and it will make this stuff more interesting, maybe I'm just wrong, I don't know.

The three corpses Batman finds at the beginning are said to be "dead ringers for the Red Hood and his two sidekicks". I find it an interesting choice of words, because it's as if they were talking of the Red Hood and the Joker as two different people.
So I am wondering whether they were trying to retcon The Killing Joke into something different, changing the flashback part of the story into the Joker's first attempt at creating a new Joker clone.
I got the idea because... That's how I read TKJ ages ago. Moore's narration never openly say that the failed comedian sequences are part of the Joker's past. So for some reasons (don't judge me, I was very, very young and I barely knew who the Joker was) I thought that that the two stories - the Red Hood part with the HAHAHAHA in the rain ending and the Joker kidnapping Gordon - were happening at the same time, and the Joker was trying to recreate the accident which had created him years before for some reasons.

But OK, I am probably just wrong.

The notion of the Three Jokers throws a descomunal wrench to the premise and most common interpretation of The Killing Joke since the comedian descent into madness is not because he was caught in a streak of bad luck and lacked the mental fortitude to endure it and become better from it, but rather, because there was an evil mastermind working in the shadows to turn him into a Joker.

I thought it was a pretty good first issue, but it does have some problems already. Johns is really trying to make this a spiritual sequel to The Killing Joke, even using the 9 grid panels. Alan Moore has criticized Johns for building his career out of his past DC stories. I used to chalk that up to Moore just being his old prickly self but after Doomsday Clock and now this, his argument becomes more valid.

The sequence where DITF Joker intentionally swerves the truck he's driving to hit a raccoon was probably a sort of take that to Moore's comments about Johns being a raccoon scavenging his trash can for ideas, but in light on how poorly thought this story ended up, is a metaphor that backfired.

If Jason did shoot The Joker who killed him, in reality, he’s gonna be pretty damn happy. Bruce will go on about “what have you done?!? Now you’re no better than him!” but Jason already uses lethal force. He’s already crossed the line. This would be one of the best days of his life. Even if it’s not the mastermind Joker, he still gets his ultimate revenge.

This is a perfect example of the character regression you mentioned in your previous post though. Current Jason would want to stop the Joker in the hopes of saving all of his future victims, not just out of personal satisfaction, but since more Jokers will keep popping out, killing one loses any meaning beyond of a self congratulatory, fan pandering sequence.

[j9ac9k]

Forgetting the larger story discussions for a second, I'm bugged by something else:
-- I thought the whole point of the "joker fish" was that they had frowns, which is why he hung Batman upside down when dropping him into the tank - that he would see them as smiles.

Unless the fish here (and the one in the Batcave) refer to a different story?? Because if not, then I'd have to question Johns's research.

[Rise]

Yeah, the super sacred "established narrative lore" that keep changing every few decades with every reboot or relaunch. Gives me a break, there are writers who can't even keep being consistent in the same run (inculding one you keep defending all the time), let alone for writers to keep up with each others.

These writers are writing characters that are over 80 years. If they want to keep things fresh, they need to break up with this so called established narrative.

[The_Last_Czarnian]

Clearly whichever reality this story exists in is just a lead-in to another Batman permutation. Move over, Dark Multiverse. Time to meet The Joker Who Bats!

[Denkota]

Clearly whichever reality this story exists in is just a lead-in to another Batman permutation. Move over, Dark Multiverse. Time to meet The Joker Who Bats!

Ha Ha! He will have as his sidekick the Robin Clown who weeps.

[JBatmanFan05]

Some of you keep asking some painfully stupid questions that I truly wonder if it's a side effect from reading comics for so long. Why didn't Batman know about the Three Jokers? Gee, I don't know. How did he not know about The Court of Owls?

I agree. Some people forget that if Batman was some perfect infallible detective, there'd no ability to tell any or many Batman stories anymore. Batman does overlook things, does make mistakes, despite being considered a great detective.

[Dark_Tzitzimine]

Yeah, the super sacred "established narrative lore" that keep changing every few decades with every reboot or relaunch. Gives me a break, there are writers who can't even keep being consistent in the same run (inculding one you keep defending all the time), let alone for writers to keep up with each others.

These writers are writing characters that are over 80 years. If they want to keep things fresh, they need to break up with this so called established narrative.

I wasn't talking about established lore, I was saying that the story isn't consistent with its own narrative.

The point of contention is how is possible that no one noticed that every time the Joker did anything, it was a different guy. Something that the story makes a plot point from the get-go by having nearly every character question how is possible for the Joker to make multiple crimes at the same time and later on, by having Jason voice the same questions.

Johns is the one who brought the larger Batman mythos into play by forcing the symbolism of having one Joker for Bruce, Barbara, and Jason each and then, by referencing a stories that have happened over the years as the cornerstone for his narrative.

Again, compare it with The Killing Joke who didn't reference any story nor made an attempt to acknowledge the larger mythos, it was a perfectly self-contained story with no outside ties boggling it down.

I agree. Some people forget that if Batman was some perfect infallible detective, there'd no ability to tell any or many Batman stories anymore. Batman does overlook things, does make mistakes, despite being considered a great detective.

Not realizing you've been fighting at least three different guys on the span of 10~15 years is going beyond simply suspension of disbelief and into outright stupidity. And we're not talking only about Bruce, it also includes all of Joker's associates, henchmen, other Gotham villains, the entire GCPD and other heroes and you really want to make believe that no one ever realized something was off? That an omnipotent and omniscient magical chair from a civilization of gods was needed to reveal there were more than one Joker running around?

[The Cool Thatguy]

Forgetting the larger story discussions for a second, I'm bugged by something else:
-- I thought the whole point of the "joker fish" was that they had frowns, which is why he hung Batman upside down when dropping him into the tank - that he would see them as smiles.

Unless the fish here (and the one in the Batcave) refer to a different story?? Because if not, then I'd have to question Johns's research.

Nope, you're thinking of Harley's modification to one of Joker's plans. He wanted to drop Batman in a tank of jokerized piranhas, but couldn't get them to smile. Harley came up with the idea to hang Batman upside down so that it would look like they were smiling.

Joker hated it because you had to explain it (thus killing the joke), and wasn't his idea.

The smiling fish, however, dates back to an older Joker story. He put his formula in the water so that the fish would have his smile, and then sought to copyright them. Utterly crazy, but that is Joker.

[Alan2099]

Ha Ha! He will have as his sidekick the Robin Clown who weeps.

And Bat-Quinn the Ivy Huntress!

[j9ac9k]

The smiling fish, however, dates back to an older Joker story. He put his formula in the water so that the fish would have his smile, and then sought to copyright them. Utterly crazy, but that is Joker.

OOoooh, right - thanks for the clarification!

[j9ac9k]

Two other tidbits that are bothering me (well, more like one question and one nitpick):
-- It doesn't seem that the three Jokers here are the same three Jokers that Batman was looking at in the Batcave when he first found out about them - one of them was the Snyder Joker. Which of these three would he be then?
-- Joker keeps talking about bashing Jason's skull in, then about not wanting to really kill him. But then what about the bomb? He doesn't mention that. It was the bomb that really killed him. Is Johns ignoring it because he just likes the crowbar death more?

[Thundershot]

I haven’t read a Batman book since.... Hush? I thought this was entertaining. However I keep seeing people saying it’s not in continuity... that’s too bad.

[JBatmanFan05]

Two other tidbits that are bothering me (well, more like one question and one nitpick):
-- Joker keeps talking about bashing Jason's skull in, then about not wanting to really kill him. But then what about the bomb? He doesn't mention that. It was the bomb that really killed him. Is Johns ignoring it because he just likes the crowbar death more?

I think it can be implied the bomb was necessary to keep up appearances, keep the heroes honest. Joker can say he thought Jason would be rescued from the bomb like Batman and Robin always thwart his Rube Goldberg (delayed) deathtraps.

[Myskin]

The notion of the Three Jokers throws a descomunal wrench to the premise and most common interpretation of The Killing Joke since the comedian descent into madness is not because he was caught in a streak of bad luck and lacked the mental fortitude to endure it and become better from it, but rather, because there was an evil mastermind working in the shadows to turn him into a Joker.

The 13-year-old me is happy - he has been right all along.