Batman: Three Jokers #1 Discussion/Spoilers

[Rakzo]

Here it is people. The long-awaited Three Jokers storyline that was teased since the beginning of the Rebirth initiative way back in 2016. Geoff Johns has certainly been busy with his multiple projects so I can understand why this took so long and in retrospective it could have taken even longer (I mean, when is that Aquaman's Rise of the Seven Seas storyline going to release anyway?).

Sure, Johns is using the already overused Clown Prince of Crime and considering how derivative the current Joker War crossover in the Batman books is, I was not particularly claiming for more of him but I have to give it to the author, he's actually doing different with the character at least.

If there's something that I can appreciate about Johns is that, while he used to denigrate Batman a lot early on (which was understandable considering how overly-used he was in the 90s and early 2000s), he knows how to do something new whenever he takes him seriously. Take for example the early pages where we see Bruce's scars and we see how each one of them was produced by a different member of his rogue's gallery which builds-up for who produced the most of them, the Joker. This is pretty solid character work that involves multiple cast members and perfectly sets-up the plot. Bravo.

The good character work doesn't end there though since Batgirl and Red Hood also star in this book in interesting ways. We see how Barbara overcompensates the use of her legs as a symptom of what the Joker did and, while I was afraid that the author was making Jason more violent than usual, there are actually good justifications for it in story.

The mystery of the Three Jokers is still being explored with intriguing set pieces here and there that makes readers wonder where the story is going and who is really behind all of this and ends with a cliffhanger that is just shocking.

It wouldn't be a Johns' book of course if he didn't include obscure concepts and here we see Gaggy, Joker's original sidekick, back (and this is part of a joke to boot). Joe Chill also makes an appearance in a flashback but this time we see a bit of his personality since there seems the possibility that he actually took pity of Bruce and that's why he didn't kill him along with his parents. Good stuff.

Jason Fabok handles the art and I was missing his work too. Great and detailed artstyle that creates beautiful characters and delivers a pretty precise storytelling that follows the script perfectly.

Great beginning. Doubt anything will come close this week.

[Dark_Tzitzimine]

This book is a mess. No wonder it was bumped to non continuity limbo, the ramifications are so many and so stupid that I doubt any writer would be eager to deal with them.

I loved Johns work back on GL when he was just interested on telling a good story and not in trying to surpass far better writers than him like Moore or Morrison. Three Jokers is just an extremely poor attempt at character study that misses all the marks about what made the Joker become one of the most popular characters in fiction and instead delivers an attempt at be clever that face completely to hit its mark. The sad part is that if Johns didn't have the Three Jokers coexist, it would be a decent, if shallow, explanation to how does the Joker always cheat death. As it stands now is just a ridiculously contrived attempt at shocking the reader that only makes everyone in universe to look like complete morons.

Bruce, Jason and Barbara are written with the subtlety of a brick to the face and from this first issue, and while there is some degree of satisfaction at what Jason does to end the first issue, the reveal about what The Three Jokers are renders the whole thing meaningless.

Fabok art is decent but fails to deliver the sensation of movement or dynamism, where everything feels stilted. Paired with the weird panel layout leads to a bunch of wasted space, bloating the issue. They clearly tried to go for a TKJ feel, where every panel had a reason to be an build the tension of the story, essentially becoming a mother character in the story but here they failed miserably.

[Pohzee]

I thought the art during Red Hood and Batgirl's final scene was pretty fluid. I thought this was a pretty awesome issue and the most interested I've been in Red Hood in a long time. Dig the redesign for him and Batgirl, but Bruce's still needs to grow on me

[Rise]

It was definitely worth the wait and the first issue was great indeed. I was pleased with how well Johns handled Jason and everyone in general.

Can't wait for the next issue.

[Katana500]

I loved it!

I cannot wait to see what happens next. I'd be interested to hear peoples theories of what happens in the next two issues.

I think both Barbara and Bruce will snap and each kill a Joker.

[Myskin]

I'll quote myself from another thread:

Basically Johns is pulling the Toyman/Doctor Doom stunt again. In his Action Comics run, he made the Toyman not responsible for killing Cat Grant's son. The killer was his robotic clone.
Basically the classic Doctor Doom/Doombots trick. Or Arkham Knight, now that I think about it. Which he wrote.
I'll be damned if I understand what the point may be or how beneficial this could be to the Batman lore.

If what Johns was aiming at was approaching the Joker in a more "realistic" way, he spectacularly failed.
"Realistic" as in "it isn't possible for one villain to do all the things the Joker has done", or "it isn't possible for one villain to change so much from one issue to the other".
The classic "Joker reinvents himself every day" explanation isn't realistic at all, but I'd say that the vast majority of the readers had accepted it years ago. There have been some very good stories - mainly by Morrison - on this specific concept. Was there really a demand among readers for it to be discarded? I mean, it's not less realistic than having Batman surviving dozens of mortal wounds including a broken spine.

The multiple Jokers thing doesn't make it more realistic. If anything, it makes everything needlessly complicated. We basically should accept that thanks to relatively realistic tools (acid, surgery) one character has literally been able to clone himself. Same - identical - look. Same cultural background. Same psychological mindset. Same IQ. And no one, not even the people close to him - Batman, Harley Quinn - had ever realized anything.
Batman has tried to discover the Joker's secret ID for years. And he has NEVER realized that the Joker's DNA changes from one crime to the other one? Oh yes, apparently - that's what I get from one single balloon from this issue - Joker chemicals change DNA, too.
I don't understand how this change makes the Joker more interesting or scary. It makes his influence on the world needlessly contrived. Instead of a charismatic criminal we basically have a gang. And none of them is entirely responsible of ALL the crimes which have always been attributed to the Joker.

All in all, I think that Johns made this stuff just to give Jason Todd and Barbara Gordon some kind of compensation for what has happened in DITF and TKJ. I can see Barbara's Joker dying in #02 (she obviously won't be the one who kills him) and some kind of reshuffling of the cards at the end, with one surviving Joker and some doubts about which Joker has done what. So Johns basically did it for fan pandering.

But yes, it will probably be just a standalone, out of continuity story.

[The Cool Thatguy]

This strikes me as an attempt to reconcile different Jokers, and all I can think is 'why?'.

The Joker's always been whimsical. Anyone remember Mad Love, and what Joker did?

First, he became so furious at Harley for upstaging him, and screwing up the joke, that he threw her out a window. He was furious that Harley was trying to steal his glory.

Then, he freed Batman, leaving him unharmed.

And finally, he changes his mind, and would have killed Batman then and there if Batman hadn't redirected the shot.

Joker has always been impulsive and crazy. We don't need more to 'explain' that

[Bad Witch]

Here it is people. The long-awaited Three Jokers storyline that was teased since the beginning of the Rebirth initiative way back in 2016. Geoff Johns has certainly been busy with his multiple projects so I can understand why this took so long and in retrospective it could have taken even longer (I mean, when is that Aquaman's Rise of the Seven Seas storyline going to release anyway?).

Sure, Johns is using the already overused Clown Prince of Crime and considering how derivative the current Joker War crossover in the Batman books is, I was not particularly claiming for more of him but I have to give it to the author, he's actually doing different with the character at least.

If there's something that I can appreciate about Johns is that, while he used to denigrate Batman a lot early on (which was understandable considering how overly-used he was in the 90s and early 2000s), he knows how to do something new whenever he takes him seriously. Take for example the early pages where we see Bruce's scars and we see how each one of them was produced by a different member of his rogue's gallery which builds-up for who produced the most of them, the Joker. This is pretty solid character work that involves multiple cast members and perfectly sets-up the plot. Bravo.

The good character work doesn't end there though since Batgirl and Red Hood also star in this book in interesting ways. We see how Barbara overcompensates the use of her legs as a symptom of what the Joker did and, while I was afraid that the author was making Jason more violent than usual, there are actually good justifications for it in story.

The mystery of the Three Jokers is still being explored with intriguing set pieces here and there that makes readers wonder where the story is going and who is really behind all of this and ends with a cliffhanger that is just shocking.

It wouldn't be a Johns' book of course if he didn't include obscure concepts and here we see Gaggy, Joker's original sidekick, back (and this is part of a joke to boot). Joe Chill also makes an appearance in a flashback but this time we see a bit of his personality since there seems the possibility that he actually took pity of Bruce and that's why he didn't kill him along with his parents. Good stuff.

Jason Fabok handles the art and I was missing his work too. Great and detailed artstyle that creates beautiful characters and delivers a pretty precise storytelling that follows the script perfectly.

Great beginning. Doubt anything will come close this week.

Set pieces? Lmao!! Pretentious much? It's a comic, not a bible film epic from the fifties...

It was weak. Earth one was so good and this feels like it belongs in the earth one verse...except it doesn't because none of the things that happened in main continuity happened in earth one. The art is staggeringly exactly the same, the motifs are the same. There suit, the car everything is the same as earth one except it's not possible to be apart of earth one because we I outlined the events happening in three jokers don't make sense to earth one.