The Joker #1

I'd recognize that spit curl anywhere! I know who The Joker is!

Since this is Batman 23.1 and it's about The Joker, I'm hoping it's by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. I actually kind of like that each of these issues' creative teams is a surprise to me. Well, kind of a surprise. I figured Nocenti was doing The Creeper but I didn't know who would be doing the art. And I was hoping Michael Alan Nelson would continue with Supergirl's Cyborg Daddy. But I really wasn't positive. The first thing I do after I buy my comic books on Wednesday is go to lunch with the Non-Certified Spouse. While we're eating lunch, I'll look over the covers and see if there are any changes to the creative teams. Mostly nothing much has changed but every now and then I get really excited about a change! Like when Scott Lobdell's name wasn't on Superman! I had to excuse myself from the table for a few minutes over that one. And apologize to the staff for desecrating their bathroom.

The cover is signed by Fabok so maybe it's the Detective Comics team of John Layman and Jason Fabok.

I'm not going to say DC would be fools not to release this image as a t-shirt but they might be able to use the $20 that I'd spend on it.

So the issue begins with a poor boy with chalky white skin and green eyes being screamed at by a woman with black fingernails and chalky white skin and blood red lips. I can't wait to find out who these people are!

The monkey's name is Gaggy so that mystery is quickly revealed! And the horrible woman is the aunt of the scared little child that probably grows up to be The Joker's first victim or something! Because this can't be The Joker! How dare DC Comics give me any reason to sympathize with that murderous devil! But they want me to believe I can sympathize with him for at least a little bit! It's a big joke to tug at my heartstrings and say, "See? You can't judge even the worst psychopath until you've spent nineteen pages in his shoes!" But then the twentieth page will be the punch line and it will say, "Surprise! That wasn't The Joker at all! It was his first horrible dick of a boss at the first lab the Joker worked in!"

Because I refuse to empathize with this clown! I refuse! But the way she yanks Gaggy out of his hands and throws him in the corner! It's so SAD!

Poor Gaggy!

The art is fantastic and I can't be certain who it is because the title page hasn't appeared yet. And I'm not going to flip through to find it and have the big joke ending spoiled for me! But then I think, "I bet since I'm writing about it, it'll appear on the next page since it looks like this little prologue thing is over!" So I turn the page and walla walla onion rings! There it is! Andy Kubert, Writer. Andy Clarke, Art. Well, Andy Clarke. Those were some spectacular first few pages. Bravo!

That may have indeed been a memory of The Joker which he was trying hard not to remember several years ago while he was hanging out at the Gotham City Zoo with some friends, feeding a man to a snake.

Or he was reveling in the memory. He is a fucking nutjob!

The Joker ignores his henchmen as he wanders off to look at the gorillas. A mother gorilla with her baby gorilla who is holding a gorilla doll that vaguely resembles his old puppet Gaggy. Run, baby gorilla! Run! The Joker is thinking about turning you into a puppet and forcing you to wear stupid clothes! Get out of there!

Oh poor baby new Gaggy!

The Joker names his new child Jackanapes instead of Gaggy because he's a stupid dickhole. I'm glad he didn't choose Gaggy because that might make bond a little bit with the Joker and then I'd have to reevaluate everything I've ever believed and maybe possible take up a life of random, psychotic crime.

For a few pages, The Joker raises Jackanapes to be just like him. The Joker's pride and joy! A better upbringing than The Joker ever had! Father and son, raining chaos down on Gotham like monkey shit raining down on tourists at the zoo. It was the best of times and sometimes even the betterest of times. The Joker actually teaches Jackanapes a lot of the qualities that Cyborg Superman is looking for in a perfect specimen! If only Cyborg Superman had come to Earth to find his roses!

Just you wait, The Joker! Kids always turn on their parents no matter how fantastic the parents think they're being! It's practically a universal law! Or at least a shitty law of Western Culture. And everybody knows that's practically universal law!

Who does The Joker's and Jackanape's tailoring?

The Joker and Jackanapes engage in one final mission to save the Gotham Zoo. On that mission, Jackanapes escapes The Joker's clutches by faking his own death. He just never could live up to his father's penchant for death and destruction. Deep down, it always caused him pain and misery. So he did what all the ungrateful snots wind up doing: he ran away. The Joker believes he drowned and just thinks it's a big joke because he's an asshole, even if he did have a horrible upbringing and his aunt treated Gaggy like crap.

The Joker #1 Rating: A decent story with some fantastic flashback art. I like the story of Jackanapes and the fact that the gorilla had more empathy and feelings than The Joker, so it escaped his lunacy. It helps to balance out The Joker's total shitballs childhood as a means of explaining why The Joker acts the way he does. Because Jackanapes the Gorilla was raised by a madman to be a monster and he breaks out of the cycle. So The Joker either had the possibility to break out and change his ways and chose not to, or The Joker was just born a psychopath and happened to be raised by another psychopath. So Jackanapes was more human than The Joker although I still feel bad when I think about The Joker being separated from Gaggy. I bet if Batman found Gaggy and returned him to The Joker while The Joker was incarcerated in Arkham, The Joker would never need to breakout again.