Writer: Bob HallPlot: The Joker attempts to win the compassion of national TV viewers, as he relates two more of his imaginary origin tales.
I'm really pleased with the way this mini is going. What you shouldn't try to do is compare this story to The Killing Joke; if you can prevent yourself from doing that, you'll be pleasantly entertained. Then again, comedy is such a subjective thing.
Just like he did in the first issue, Bob Hall provides the Joker with yukyuks that're hit and miss. That is what makes his take on the character so true. They're not all supposed to be funny, and even when they aren't, in some strange way, they are. It's that paradox that enables Hall's Joker to perform, and perform he does. Television viewers of the DCU's Barry Dancer Show, a Jerry Springer knock-off, could eat the Joker's charisma for supper, lunch, and breakfast. Heck, the way he's going, the Joker could be a great midnight snack, as Cassandra Hahn, the show's producer, learned after she sampled his finer wares, in the lonely dark.
The Egyptian tale had everything we'd find in a stereotypical comic - sex, violence, comedy - but when Hall combined these three things through the Joker's storytelling ability, we get drama, the kind that makes you want to read on, to see what's gonna happen next.
Though I hesitate to delve too closely into Hall's writing, I'd like you to indulge me in my insanity, if only for a moment: in his Egyptian origin, the Joker described a woman named Nepher (this could be Hall's way of shortening the name of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti, the wife of Akhenaton). If you say Nepher's name backwards, you roughly get Reipan, and as any Bat-fan who detests the name Jack Napier will know, Reipan is Napier backwards. But Jack Napier is not the real name of the Joker in current comic book continuity. I just wonder if any of that was going through Hall's head, too.
The Joker as an abused child was handled even better here. Hall induced sympathy for the young lad in his readers, and it might be weird to say, but I was rooting for the guy, when he attacked that evil soon-to-be stepdad of his, with a juiced-up joy buzzer.
This is one comic where you'll actually hear Batman say "darling". How can you possibly afford to miss that?
