Batman #15

So Scott Snyder is jumping quickly into another crossover, this time updating the Joker for the new 52. There’s no denying that a faceless Joker is pretty damn spooky. Should his face be infected? I’d think so, but maybe he’s so crazy that doesn’t matter. In any case, Snyder is working hard to amp up the Joker’s damage so that he’s a bigger threat for Bats. 

Here’s my problem (and this actually pre-dates this storyline) with the Joker: Someone should just kill him. Like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, someone this crazy, this deadly, and with so high a body count? I don’t care how crazy they are, or if their insanity means they don’t get the death penalty. With this much evil perpetrated by one fiend, Batman is practically evil by allowing him to live. And hell, surely one cop or another would be taking him out after Joker killed a dozen of them with his bare hands last issue! Seriously! At a certain point, the escalation has to stop or the whole suspension of disbelief fails. The only reason for Joker to still be alive is so that the intellectual property is available for later stories from DC comics. 

That’s not to say there isn’t drama here. I like seeing the Bat family arguing with Bruce, especially when drawn so beautifully by Greg Capullo. His Bruce Wayne is way too young, but he does a nice job on the others. Nightwing in particular looks square-jawed and heroic. He looks like the family friendly Batman that Dick Grayson was always meant to be. No one else gets much to do, but this is Batman’s solo book after all. 

Again, we’re dealing with very little established continuity. We know Killing Joke still happened, and clearly the reservoir battle, and now we find out about some balloon battle. Maybe new 52 Joker hasn’t done so much bad stuff? I know it makes me a nerd, but I like understanding the greater history when these two meet. 

Fair