Writer: Bob HallPlot: After being force-fed a marathon of episodes of a Jerry Springer knock-off as part of his therapy, a mind-numbed Joker escapes Arkham Asylum, into the hands of the very talk-show host he abhors.
Ever since Bob Hall started working with Batman, his stories received mixed reaction. One need only look so far as his previous effort, Batman: DOA, to determine his merits as a Bat-storyteller.
Characterization is one place where he excels. To him, Batman is a character with likes and dislikes, someone who's not afraid to say what's he's thinking. The interplay between Bruce and Alfred isn't something we get every month in the core Bat-books.
Since this three-part mini is devoted to the Joker, Bob has more time to examine the Joker's inner workings. In No Man's Land last year, Greg Rucka presented the kind of Joker I'd never completely seen before, but always hoped for. The Joker in this mini is similarly magnificent, as far as psychos go.
Bob Hall's freedom allows him to take that Joker one step further, making him an endlessly raving maniac, with jokes that are both hit and miss; it's that diversity here that makes his Joker believable.
There are times when his art resembles something from Graham Nolan, but most of the pages look like pencils comparable to those of Jim Aparo. In both theoretical cases, they'd appear to have been inked by Bill Sienkiewicz, but there's some gritty texture to Bob Hall's art that combines all three artists into a funhouse of follies.
