#dark nights death metal joker | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

medusapelagia · 1 month

Text

11 I have a bad feeling about this

written for @steddieangstyaugust (prompt: Temporary Character Death ) and @augustwritingchallenge (Prompt: Joker: everybody lives) Rating: Mature Relationship: Steve/Eddie TW: hospital, injuries, temporary character death, shots Words: 2246

Steve stops before Creel's house, a terrible feeling creeping down on him.

“I have to go back.” He says, staring at Nancy.

“You can’t! We need you! There’s just three of us against a monster that can easily enter our minds.” She protests, holding the modified rifle in her hands.

“Are you saying I’m too stupid to be possessed?” Steve tries to chuckle, but the shiver down his neck makes him feel uneasy, “I know that we had a plan, Nancy. But our plans never worked and I have a bad feeling about this. I have to get back.”

“Dingus, listen, I get it. Ok? You don’t trust Eddie and neither do I. It’s not the man I would have chosen for the job, but if there’s something I’m sure about it's that he’ll keep Dustin safe. He's as fond of him as you are, if not more.” Robin tries to convince him

“Steve, for real, this isn’t the moment to get jealous over something you can’t control. You’ll have time to talk about your jealousy when we get rid of that monster. Now move your ass and come with us.”

“I have to get back, Nance! I have this haunting feeling that they’ll do something stupid.”

“Something you would do?” Robin asks, quirking an eyebrow.

Steve nods and Robin and Nancy share a look.

“It’s too late, Steve.” Nancy insists, but Steve shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, but if I don’t go back right now I’ll regret it all my life,” he replies, turning back and running toward the trailer while Nancy screams his name but he can’t stay. He remembers too well the feeling he felt that night in November 1983 when he tried to get back to the car and forget about monsters only to end up beating a Demogorgon with a makeshift nailed bat.

He runs as fast as he can, not caring about the vines or the noises, Vecna knows that they are there, and if he can attract any attention to himself and far away from his friend he’ll do it.

The black cloud of demobats has surrounded the trailer and Steve abruptly stops his run when he sees that they are piercing through the trailer’s metal walls. He still has a few Molotovs in his backpack and he might fire them… Steve doesn’t even manage to finish thinking that he sees someone running out of the trailer, grabbing an old bike, and starting to bike as fast as he can.

Someone with a pirate bandanna and dark hair.

“Eddie,” Steve whispers, his eyes pinned on the flock of bats following him.

Where’s Dustin?

Steve gets to the trailer, ripping with his bare hands the metallic protections Eddie and Dustin made around the trailer, and kicks the door open.

“Dustin?! Dustin?!” He calls, looking for the curly-haired boy.

“Steve! Steve! I’m here! Help me get back in the Upside Down! Eddie did something stupid and I have to stop him!”

It takes only a moment for Steve to see that the rope they used to climb in the Upside Down was cut and that Dustin has no way to get back.

“Find Lucas and call for help!” Steve yells, “I’ll try to stop Eddie.”

“Wait! Steve! Steve!” But Steve is already out of the trailer, grabbing Mrs. Wheeler's pink bike and starting to ride following the dark flock of bats until they stop. A swirl of black wings circling around a human figure that’s holding a trash lid has a shield.

“What are they doing?” Steve asks himself, and then he sees Eddie standing alone in the middle of a hurricane of demobats that keep attacking him without giving him the time to take his breath.

“Eddie!” Steve yells, and for a moment their eyes meet, but then Eddie falls on the ground, screaming, and Steve can’t use his Molotov if he doesn’t want to burn Eddie as well.

He grabs the ax and starts to swing it around, getting closer to Eddie while the bats bite him everywhere they can. He falls on his knees, next to Eddie who is covered in blood, while trying to shield him from other attacks.

“Fancy finding you here.” Eddie chuckles, blood pouring from his mouth, “I never thought I was going to die side by side with a jock.”

“Shut the fuck up. We’re not going to die. Not today.” He says, finally grabbing the Molotov and lighting it up before throwing it. For a moment the flock opens like it was cut open, just to come back even angrier than before and that’s the moment Steve realizes that they are going to die. Like Barb. Like Bobby. Like Billy. But this time it will be worse because they’ll die in that fucking parallel dimension and none will ever find their bodies.

While Steve curls around Eddie’s body he thinks about his mom. She promised her to water the plants and he’s not going to honor that promise.

Closing his eyes he holds Eddie to his chest, praying that their death will be quick.

“Steve. You’re crushing me.” Eddie complains, spitting more blood.

“Shut the fuck up, Eddie. Shut the fuck up!”

Steve is afraid to die. Even if it’s not the first time he face creatures from another dimension this time he must admit to himself that he’s fucking terrified. For once he can’t fight, all he can do is try to protect Eddie for as long as he can.

“Hey, big boy. We’ll be fine.” Eddie murmurs and Steve nods even if he doesn’t believe it.

A demobat starts to climb Steve’s back while another shrieks so closely to his heart that for a moment all he hears is a loud buzz. And then a demobat falls from the sky, crashing on the ground. And another. And another, until all the demobats are agonizing on the dirty ground.

“Eddie! We made it! We made it!” Steve screams, lifting his head to look around himself with surprise, but when he turns toward Eddie his eyes are closed.

“Eddie? Eddie!” Steve calls, shaking him against any common sense but unable to stop “No! No! No! Wake up! Eddie! Wake up!”

“Steve? Eddie?”

Limping, Dustin gets closer, “What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know! He’s… he’s not… he’s…” Steve tries to explain, but Dustin pushes him away with no grace and puts a hand under Eddie’s nose first, and then he searches for a heartbeat that is feeble but still there.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Dustin curses, taking off his jacket and trying to stop the lazy bleeding, “Steve! We can still help him! Listen to me! Listen to me! You attended rescue training, right? We have to try to stop the bleeding.”

“How?!”

“Your jacket. We have to keep the blood inside. If he bleeds out he’s fucked.”

Steve nods quietly, removing his jacket and pushing as hard as he can.

“Your belt. And Eddie’s belt too.”

“What?!”

“Give me the fucking belts!” Dustin insists, using them to tighten their jackets to Eddie’s body, “We have to move him, but we have to keep pressure on the wounds.”

“We can’t move him! He’s hurt! Badly!”

“And what are you suggesting, Steve? Are we waiting for an ambulance here?!” Dustin asks, mockingly, “Come on! Can you lift him?” Steve nods and Dustin smiles, patting on Eddie’s knee “You’re not going anywhere, Eddie!” Dustin says with conviction, while Steve tries to lift Eddie’s body as gently as he can.

Dustin is limping toward the trailer when Nancy and Robin find them. They are covered in debris and ashes but they both have a big smile on their faces.

“Vecna is dead!” Nancy announces with pride, before taking in the fact that Dustin is limping and that Eddie isn’t next to him but he’s lying in Steve’s arms.

“What happened?” Nancy asks worriedly.

“There’s no time. Can you help me back to the trailer while Robin calls Lucas? We are going to need an ambulance.” Dustin says.

“But Eddie is still a murder suspect.” Nancy objects.

“And he will be a dead suspect if we don’t help him! Come on!” Dustin insists and Steve is surprised that in all this chaos Dustin seems to be the only lucid person in the group.

Nancy offers Dustin her unloaded rifle to use as a cane while she gets his arm around her shoulders to help him walk toward the trailer and Robin calls Lucas with the radio and tells him that they need an ambulance. Lucas tells her that they are already at the hospital, Carver showed up and things went south for a moment but Lucas, Max, and Erica managed to escape from Carver’s fury and are now receiving medical assistance, but there was a big earthquake and the town is fucked, there’s no way an ambulance will get to the trailer park.

“What do we do?” Robin asks, her eyes wide with worry.

“The only thing we can do: drive Eddie to the hospital,” Nancy replies seriously.

***

Driving toward the hospital isn’t easy, Dustin and Steve are still putting pressure on Eddie’s injuries but the boy is unresponsive.

“Eddie! Come on! Don’t do this to me! Come on! Wake up! Wake up asshole!” Dustin cries, his hands covered in dried blood.

“Help! We need a doctor!” Steve yells as soon as they go through the hospital’s sliding doors, covered in dirt and blood. Nurses and doctors rush toward them, moving Eddie onto the gurney and toward the emergency room.

“There’s no heartbeat.” someone says and both Steve and Dustin freeze.

“What? What does it mean?!” Steve asks, not wanting to accept that they might have been too late, but the doctors are already rushing Eddie’s gurney while a doctor and a nurse wrestle Steve and Dustin into a little side room with a couple of beds and curtains for privacy.

Steve insists that the doctor takes care of Dustin first, but the woman lifts an eyebrow and asks him to strip and lie on the bed.

"What happened?" She asks, looking at the bites, "These bites are really… unusual."

"Stray dogs. Lots of them." Dusting immediately replies and Steve nods in agreement.

"Stray dogs," he murmurs, his eyes still pinned on the closed room where Eddie was taken.

People are screaming, and an electric sound makes him startle.

"What's happening? Where's Eddie? How's he?" Steve asks, trying to get up, but the doctor and a nurse stop him.

"My colleagues are taking good care of him. Don't worry about it."

But when Steve turns his head toward Dustin he sees his worries mirrored in Dustin's eyes. That electric sound could mean only one thing: that Eddie's heart stopped.

Steve tilts his head toward the door swiftly, and luckily Dustin is a little genius because he immediately catches on it and slowly limps toward the door, trying to eavesdrop on what's happening. Shielded by the doctor and the nurse, Steve can't really see him while the nurse cleans his wounds and the doctor stitches them.

"Gonna give you a couple of shots. You know… rabies."

Steve doesn't even listen, still anxious to have news about Eddie.

The nurse gently pats on his shoulder, "I promise that as soon as I get any info I'll tell you. Now try to rest."

Steve nods, quietly. He doesn’t know if it’s the adrenaline’s effect that’s slowly fading or the meds they gave him, but he never felt so tired in his life, so he closes his eyes to rest just a little.

***

Someone is shaking him.

Steve wakes up with a startle, looking around for a weapon to defend himself, but it's just Robin's mom, Emily.

Somehow the sun has risen while he was asleep, but Robin and her mom are still in the ER with him.

"Hey, Steve. Someone wants to see you," Emily says with a soft smile, and when Steve lifts his eyes, Wayne Munson is standing at the door.

"No, no, no. It's not possible! We did… We did our best! He's ok! He must be ok!" Steve cries, not ashamed at the hot tears that fall from his eyes.

The grumpy man steps closer, putting a warm big hand on Steve's shoulder.

"He's ok. Well. Not ok. He's hurt. Badly. But it would have been worse if it wasn't for you, or so the doctor said. So… thank you."

"I heard… I heard the defibrillator." Steve whispers.

"Yeah. It was touch and go for a moment, but they got him back and I'm not going to let him out of my sight again."

"No. Definitely not." Steve smiles through the tears.

"Now rest, because I have the feeling the rugrats will all come to visit soon."

Steve wipes his tears with the back of his hand while Mr. Munson stops in front of the door.

"Harrington??"

"Huh?"

"Thank you for saving my kid." He says, and then he leaves.

Steve looks for Robin, who’s immediately at his side, “Everyone ok?” Steve asks.

“Dustin got a sprained ankle, Max broke her arms, Erica, Nancy, Lucas and I are a little bit bruised but we are all good,” she confirms, squeezing his knee, “Oh, and mom said no more camping in the woods.”

The woman nods seriously, crossing her arms in front of her chest, while Steve nods, “I totally agree,” he says.

That was the last time that they saved the world.

Or so he hopes.

39 notes · View notes

delusionalmultifandomwriter · 8 months

Note

Please do a fic where adult jason todd gets comforted under/hidden in Batman’s cape!! the softer the better

your wish is my command (i missed the topic a little but it is super soft so i hope you like it anyways)

requested?: yes (i am so excited about this, ahh!)

words: 1848

Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Joker, Orphan

Oneshot, angst, hurt/comfort

TW: throwing up, violence, implicite self-harm urges (this got a lot darker than i planned it to be)

credits: the dialogue parts of the italic are from Batman: A Death in the Family

Have fun, thank you so much for requesting!

Ressurection is not exactly healthy. Which is not too surprising but still. The Lazarus Pit healed Jason's body, the scars were still there but very pale and barely visible anymore.

But the inner scars stayed, even after Jason and Bruce figured themselves out and came to terms with eachother again. Jason suffered from PTSD, who wouldn't after getting beaten up with a crowbar? The nightterrors and the coldness that randomly appeared every now and then were the worst.

This week started off with a night terror. Nothing uncommon, it happened all the time to almost all off them. Jason was at his own place where he was alone. Maybe he woke up his neighbours but at least not his family. He didn't like them worrying about him.

"What hurts more? A? Or B? Forehand? Or backhand? The crazy laugh echoed through the hall. Robin helplessly tried to craw away, his hands restrained behind his back. His breath whistled as he spit out some blood and mumbled a curse. The Joker chuckled evil and leaned down. A little louder, lamb chop. I think you may have a collapsed lung. That always impedes the oratory. Robin leaned up and spit the Joker into his face. The clown smashed Robin's head into the floor, his senses got flooded with the distant metallic feeling of a concussion. Nausea instantly hit him.

Jason shrieked awake. Nausea instantly hit him. He jumped up and nearly got tangled into his blanket. He stumbled into his bathroom and fell to his knees in front of the toilet.

Jason hated throwing up. Especially after a night terror when his mind was already full of thoughts. He leaned against the shower glass still sitting next to the toilet and waiting for the nausea to pass. After a few minutes he slowly got up and scooped some water from the washbasin into his mouth. Jason winced, his throat was raw and still shut tight.

He shivered, the bathroom floor was cold. Jason stumbled back into his bedroom. He grabbed the blanket from the floor and slowly made his way into the living room. He sat down against the heater with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He fell asleep exhausted on his carpet floor.

He was drowning. Breath. He needed air. Needed his lungs fill with oxygen. Cloth. There was cloth over his face. His mouth was dry. The sweet smell of death. He ripped the cloth from his face and threw up green, stale water. Flight! Where was he? He turned around and ran off. People. He took them out. The moves where in his muscles. He pressed his thumbs into the eyes of one of them. A tunnel. A cave. Darkness. Away.

The Joker escaping Arkham was nothing new to Gotham. Nothing new to the Batfam and nothing new to Jason. It happened a million times before but it still put Jason on edge ever since that night in Sarajevo.

He thought he was better. He thought he could conquer the Joker and arrest him again. It was a simple mission. A simple task. Then he met him in a warehouse in the Bowery. The green hair was brushed back, the purple suit dirty with some blood stains on it. The clown turned around and laughed at Red Hood hysterically.

And, hey, please tell the big man I said… "hello".

Jason saw red. He lunged at him and slammed the Joker into the wall, punched him in the face, once, twice. He could break him. He was not Robin anymore. He was taller than the clown now. Stronger. He could give back all the pain. He would give back all the pain. He slammed his knee into the Joker's ribs, a sharp crack echoed through the warehouse.

"Wow, that looked like it really hurt." Jason growled deeply as he lifted the Joker up a little and pinned him against the wall. He pulled him away and smashed him against the wall, the Joker's head lulled foreward a little as he coughed.

"Whoa, now, hang on. That looked like it hurt a lot more." Jason shouted angrily as he threw the Joker on the floor. "Now let's try and find out what hurts more?"

"A?" He kicked the Joker into the stomach. "Or B?" He striked out again.

"Red Hood!" Batman. Jason's head snapped around. "Orphan, stay here until the GCPD arrives." Batman ordered, Orphan appeared from the shadows behind the older man.

Jason finally snapped out of his murderous frenzy. His eyes went wide as he saw what he did. The Joker layed in a puddle of blood, his nose was broken pretty obviously and he was coughing and whincing weakly. Jason backed down when the clown started to laugh madly. Red Hood turned around, pushed past Batman and flea from the area.

The thoughts were flooding over Jason as he ran over the roofs. He was out of breath but he kept running and running until he fell to his knees. He leaned against a brick wall and ripped his mask off of his head. His face was wet with hot tears, smeared over his cheeks and neck. He wrapped his arms around his knees and tried to calm his breath.

He needed to get air into his lungs but his whole body blocked against taking a deep breath. Jason panicked. What had he done?! He disappointed Batman, he promised to be better than the Joker. He wanted to be better. His family would abandom him, what else should they do? He was supposed to be a hero. He sobbed violently, black spots started to dance over his vision. He couldn't breath. Jason felt like he would die here, alone on some roof, alone in this world.

Jason felt someone shake his body. "Jason." A deep but very calm voice called out to him. Jason panted desperatly as his lungs filled with air. Not enough to live but enough to survive.

He was lifted up a little and after that leaned against a soft wall. Soft wall. There are no soft walls, at least none that Jason was aware off but he was too close to fainting to truly bother about the existence of soft walls. Jason started sobbing again.

"Jay, come on. Breath." The voice said desperate. A strong hand was harshly rubbing his back. Jason inhaled the air shaky, his body was trembling.

"There you go chum, okay." Bruce. It was Bruce. Noone ever called Jason chum before. Jason was suddenly embarassed and violently tried to dry his tears up, rubbing on his skin roughly with his gloved hands. Bruce gently took his hands in his and Jason's head slupped against Bruce's chest.

Then Jason started babbling. "I'm sorry, i didn't mean to... he... i, i couldn't." He sobbed again. "The memories, they come back... the Joker... i can't stop it." Jason needed to hurt, he needed to feel something. He tried to pull his hands from Bruce' grip but he held them tightly.

"Jason, look at me." Bruce growled deeply. Jason looked up and as their eyes met, he couldn't find any angryness, not even disappointment. He looked back into his lap and sobbed quietly but his breath, although shaky, evened out a little.

"There you go. You are fine, Jay." Bruce said. "You can breath, you are okay." Bruce always was repetitive with his comforting but it didn't really matter to Jason because he was there, he held Jason in his arms and he was not angry. Jason could stay with his family, he could come back.

"You called me chum." Jason mumbled weakly, his voice was still filled with silent crying. Bruce chuckled deeply. "I guess that is true." Jason felt the hand on his back, he shivered a little as the cold hit his body. "Cold?" Bruce asked. Jason nodded softly.

Bruce leaned up a little and deattached his cape from his shoulders. He wrapped the thick, black fabric around Jason and bundeled him up tightly. Jason exhaled shaky. The bone aching cold disappeared from his body and the shivering slowly but surely passed. His muscles were burning, feeling weak like he could not move anything. Jason blinked drowsily. His sobs died down and just like that, his eyes closed.

Gotham City was no place for a kid. Not even a well-trained and resilient kid like Jason Todd. It was raining tonight, the wind whistled through the city. Robin sat under Batman's cape like an owl baby, as they observed the Iceberg Lounge. They had been sitting there for hours but Robin wasn't cold. He was warm. Wet from the rain but warm. He would totally catch a cold but not tonight. Not right now. Right now he was warm, close to Batman and sucking up his body heat. Nothing bad has happened to him yet.

When Jason jolted awake, he was no longer on the roof. He inhaled sharply, as he felt a hand on his back. "Hey, you are safe. It was just a nightmare." Jason turned around to see Bruce, leaning against the head of the bed with his laptop on the nightstand. The older man gave him a worried look. Jason looked around confused. This wasn't his bedroom. It was Bruce'. The kingsize bed spoke for itself.

Jason looked down at himself, he was wearing a black t-shirt and red and black sweatpants not in his Red Hood suit. "I'm fine?" He mumbled. Bruce smiled at him, it was weird to see him so relaxed. "Yes, you are." Jason nodded slowly. Bruce leaned down to the floor and put something heavy on his lap.

"Here, Tim got you this. You looked like you liked the cape a lot." Jason lifted the heavy thing up, it was a weighted blanket. He wrapped it around his shoulders. "Did i fall asleep?" He asked confused. "Right after i wrapped the cape around you. Dr. Thompkins said you where hypothermic and severly sleep deprived. What the hell happened?" Bruce asked concerned

Jason shrugged and layed back down on his stomach with the heavy blanket around him. He was still tired, his body was grounded now and he wanted to sleep. Bruce sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Sleep, we can later talk about you not reaching out for help" He finally said. Jason rolled his eyes. "As if you are better." He grumbled.

Bruce nudged Jason playfully. He gently rubbed the younger boys back. Jason sighed as he moved a little closer. Bruce pulled the other blanket over him a little and Jason was finally warm. "You scared the living hell out of me." Bruce said while he layed down next to Jason. The younger boy moved a little closer and Bruce continued to gently rub his back.

"M sorry." Jason mumbled sleepily. "Didn't mean to." He looked at Bruce with half open eyes. He buried his head into one of the pillows and Bruce smiled as he watched how relaxed and content Jason looked. He leaned over to kiss Jason's hair.

"It's okay. Don't worry about it. Sleep tight, chum."

-----

Same shit on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55397161

118 notes · View notes

distort-opia · 1 year

Note

I never made this connection before but I just saw a tumblr post on it....joker was in Bruce's cave DURING THE BATCAT WEDDING???????????? what in the hell i feel like I need to reread those comics with this new context BC WHAT IN THE HELLLLLL

No no, Joker wasn't in Bruce's Cave during any kind of wedding... however, he was imprisoned in Bruce's Cave while Selina and Bruce were dating. He was there while Bruce proposed to her. Hell Joker is still there while Batcat was doing wedding planning. I still find it absolutely hilarious to imagine Bruce getting up at the crack of dawn and sneaking out of the bedroom to go feed Joker in the depths of his basement =)) Nothing symbolic about that, no sir.

Yeah... it's insane. Joker's POV on the whole thing is honestly crazy if you think about it. You've got amnesia, you have no idea who you used to be! And then Batman shows up, does something to bring your memories back and re-Jokerizes you as part of an ongoing investigation, and then... keeps you in a cell for months. Green Lantern and The Signal free you by mistake. You try to stop Bruce from destroying the Universe but fail 'cause he has no idea when to stop, and whatever the fuck Dark Nights: Death Metal is happens, in which The Batman Who Laughs works for a god called Perpetua who wants to eat your world sort of. You team up with Bruce to take down TBWL in a moment of glory, but the fucker leaves you behind to get caved in with the insane version of himself. Anyway, you survive, reeling, and then (because Bane and Bruce's father from an alternate world are plotting to ruin his life) you find out about the Batcat wedding and you go "WHAAAAT??"

Imagining how Joker's post on Reddit would go like "AITA for trying to break up the wedding of the guy who 1) technically killed me, 2) forced me to remember my life as a serial killer and kept me imprisoned for months, and 3) left me to fight off the evil version of him from an alternate universe alone??"

#asks #batjokes #joker #bruce wayne

151 notes · View notes

pluckyredhead · 11 months

Text

The Lost Titans in Canon: Jason and Rose

I already talked about Jason and Eddie's canon friendship, so next up, I want to talk about Jason and Rose. They're an interesting duo, actually, because even though they have appeared in far more comics together than Jason and Eddie, a lot of them take place in Elseworlds, or timelines that are in questionable continuity these days. It's only in the past couple of years that this relationship has really picked up the pace - and to a certain extent, only in the past couple of days.

Jason and Rose first interacted in Red Hood and the Outlaws, the New 52 volume. Rose turns up hunting the Outlaws, and it's revealed that she and Jason have a sexual past. Because it's RHATO, she's of course written appallingly out of character:

Awful.

The very next issue, the book is canceled. Jason and Rose walk off together, but when we next see Jason in Red Hood/Arsenal like four seconds later, Rose is nowhere in sight.

Anyway, this history and interaction are...let's say in dubious continuity. Rose's appearance here barely jives with anything else she did in the DCU (most of which was also written incoherently by Lobdell), and everything about New 52 Rose was instantly retconned out of existence by Rebirth. Then again, you could say the same thing about Jason and Roy.

Ever since, DC has treated Jason and Rose like they have romantic history of some kind, or at least there are references to sexual tension between them, but no one is ever specific about exactly what their history is.

Next up is DCeased: The Unkillables, a miniseries set in the DCeased universe. Jason and Rose actually wind up getting married in this universe, but obviously it's not actually in continuity because it's an AU. Still, they're pretty cute:

(This ends tragically, of course, because DCeased.)

Speaking of AUs, we also saw these two together in Future State, a possible dystopian future. They are definitely sleeping together, but while Rose spends most of her time making double entendres, Jason is distant and brooding, until she gets pissed off:

Still, she shows up later to rescue him, and they actually manage to end that AU together and alive (for now):

Okay, so much for AUs and potentially retconned-away interactions. What about the in continuity stuff?

Well, this single panel happened during Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Last Stories of the DC Universe, which was sort of the transitional event between the end of Rebirth and completely rolling back the remnants of the New 52:

Is it still in continuity? Do any of the characters remember it? I HAVE NO IDEA.

Next is Robin, when Rose tells Jason that Damian has entered the assassin tournament on Lazarus Island, and the former Robins show up to try to stop him. Rose and Jason don't interact directly, but we do get this:

Great question, Damian! NO ONE KNOWS.

Rose and Jason FINALLY interact ONE HUNDRED PERCENT IN CURRENT CONTINUITY FOR SURE in The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing, when she rescues him from a police van and they both look ridiculously hot about it:

I'm assuming she's calling him "lover boy" because they've hooked up, but if you've read any of my work you know I'm a Jason Todd Secret Virgin truther, so I'm choosing to read it ambiguously. I'm also choosing to read her last line as her having the hots for Steph. (Rose, like me, prefers Naughty Robins only.) Anyway, she's been roped into the plot of this book, but it's still ongoing so who knows how it'll resolve. (Spoiler: not with Jason successfully killing the Joker!)

That was going to be my whole list when I started this post, but then Batman/Catwoman: Gotham War: Red Hood #2 came out, and who should show up but Rose!

We've seen this dynamic from them before: Rose cracks sex jokes, Jason is stoic and terse and Focused On The Mission. I'm of two minds about this - it's fun to read, and Rose does tend to make bawdy jokes (she did grow up in a brothel, after all), whereas Jason ranges from stoic to equally sassy depending on who's writing him, so I wouldn't necessarily say it's out of character for either of them. It's more that Rose is always depicted as the one pursuing Jason, whereas he has Important Manly Things to think about instead. (See also: Bruce and Selina, Bruce and Talia, Bruce and any woman, any man in comics and any woman.) Just because it's not technically OOC doesn't mean it doesn't overlap into a sexist trope.

(I kind of love the idea that she is literally only doing it because she knows it embarrasses him and he is Focusing On The Mission to hide his blush and they both know they aren't going to fuck, but that's a personal headcanon and not really the Occam's Razor interpretation of these scenes, which are definitely meant to imply that they are banging.)

What I did find interesting about this issue is that it's the first one in continuity to show genuine concern and affection between the characters:

Do I think Rose would ever stand with her toes together like that past the age of 12? No. But this is still very touching.

Anyway, JayRose is one of those pairings that I don't ship but am perfectly fine seeing unfold in canon. I totally get why DC would pair them, I totally get what they would see in each other, I think it will all end in disaster but that can be fun to watch. It'll be interesting to see if DC commits to actually telling an in-continuity story with these two, or if they will forever be restricted to her showing up and making a dick joke that Jason will ignore because of how he's sad inside. Time will tell!

#jason todd #red hood #rose wilson #ravager #the lost titans

113 notes · View notes

roseworth · 10 months

Text

Rose Wilson: New52 and Beyond

i couldn't find a good list of all of rose's appearances after flashpoint so i made my own 🥰

now listen to me. most of these suck so bad. do NOT read anything on this list if youre not already a rose fan, instead check out my pre52 rose reading list first <3

the ones that i think you should read are in bold and my personal favorites are italicized. i would strongly recommend not reading any besides those because everything else is mostly unreadable and terrible

tldr: this is ALL of her appearances in order, but i recommend only reading the bold or italics. ok lets go

Superboy v6 #1-7, 32-34

The Culling crossover (Superboy #8, Legion Lost #8, Teen Titans #8, Teen Titans Annual #1, Superboy #9, Legion Lost #9, Teen Titans #9)

Ravagers #1-2, 6-12

Deathstroke v2 #19-20

Red Hood and the Outlaws v1 #39-40

Deathstroke v3 #4-7, 13-20, annual #1 (especially #7 and #18-20)

Deathstroke v4 #2-10, 12, 14-18, 20-29, 36-41, 44-50 (especially #2-18, #36-40, & #44-47)

Dark Nights Death Metal: The Last Stories of the DC Universe

Robin v3 #1-11

Deathstroke Inc #6-7

Shadow War crossover (Batman #122, Deathstroke Inc #8, Robin #13, Batman #123, Deathstroke Inc #9, Robin #14, Shadow War Omega)

Dark Crisis #3, 5-7

Wildstorm 30th Anniversary Special

Batman: the Brave and the Bold #1-6

Knight Terrors: Ravager #1-2

Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #9-12

Gotham War: Red Hood #2

(posted November 2023 and probably will not be regularly updated lmao)

#rose wilson #reading list #dc #ive had this one in my drafts for so long #i started making it in january then just held onto it until btbatb and mwsl ended. then forgor for a couple weeks #anyways i didnt do a full explanation of why i chose each issue like i did in the last reading list #but i do have reasonings. so if you want to know why i said you should or shouldnt read something please ask <33333

70 notes · View notes

zahri-melitor · 20 days

Text

Dark Nights: Death Metal:

Well, this was an event that accomplished what it was intended to do (set up Infinite Frontier) but also was incredibly full of itself and self-referential. You know when you go into a story and the story itself has tie-ins making fun of how overblown this all is, it probably should have been reined in harder.

I do think there were some cool designs in this story, but the problem was that a lot of it was purely hung up on aesthetic, rather than any level of in-universe reasoning. The redesigns exist for the Rule of Cool, not for any storytelling reason. There wasn't any real consistency to who had a redesign and who did not. Which, when you're dealing with a full-DC universe event that is busy talking about COIE, Infinite Crisis, Dark Crisis and Dark Nights: Metal, means several characters were already appearing in multiple costumes when talking about the earlier events, making things even harder to track (for one example, Mary Marvel appeared as a tiny background image in both her red and her white costumes in a double page spread, because she wore different ones in different Crises. This is both attention to detail but also something that is going to confuse people). On top of this, Greg Capullo being the artist on the main book meant that there was no hope of telling characters apart by facial features, which when you've changed someone's costume and hair style, makes life even more difficult.

I also think part of the problem and clear reliance on the Rule of Cool was that, after inventing a whole Justice League of evil Batmen for Dark Nights: Metal, none of them other than The Batman Who Laughs did anything in this event other than sort of decorate the scenery. You spent an event and series of one-shots designing these characters 2-3 years ago and they're not even being used, in favour of newer Evil Batmen versions? And event TBWL gets a whole makeover and redesign by getting his brain implanted in a Dr Manhattan clone body. Like, what is the point in getting invested in these characters.

Why does Diana have blue-ombre hair and an invisible magic chainsaw. Why would Diana want to have an invisible magic chainsaw. What about Diana's character, the diplomat, peace advocate and negotiator, suggests her approach in this situation would be to feel she needed to have a chainsaw as her main weapon. This is the sort of problem the event's dealing with.

I think it was an epic-scale event, but the main emotion I had coming out of it was 'I don't care' in regards to all the fighting. I don't care about there being a Batman-version of every single possible hero and villain across the Multiverse and Dark Multiverse. I don't think it provides an angle for particularly interesting commentary, and the event didn't even properly dig in and interrogate what this means about how DC as a company leans into the Bat franchise above all others.

The Batman Who Laughs' first appearance in the entire event was explicitly saying "I know you're tired of me but look you're back reading me again!" and it's like...thanks, genre-savvy Joker!Batman, but I'm not actually here or interested in reading this for you. I'm working through this story to see what particular strings are being pulled to change future storytelling.

I think when you look at some of the structural moving parts of the event, such as the various links of previous big events to damaging the Source Wall, how that led to Perpetua getting free, and the process of saving and rebuilding the Multiverse, the discussions of where they’re taking the now Omniverse, there was an interesting epic plot under everything being used to justify the moves wanted from the event. The intent to shake-up the status quo and restore more of post-Crisis in characters' memories was something that had been drifting around DC for several years at that point, with some characters explicitly getting post-Crisis memories back via various means.

But it's such layers of 'doesn't this look rad? I think it does!' on top of the bits of plot I actually cared about.

I think there was some more interesting work done in various tie-ins and backups as writers used the space to interrogate some ideas (or in the case of Joshua Williamson, get on with the Wally West Rehabilitation Project). I have a soft spot for using the setting to allow some people to have necessary conversations they would otherwise avoid. And I’m a sucker for a good splash page full of a dozen different variants of the Titans over the decades.

But oh it was the sort of giant event where it felt designed to fuel comic book debates. Why is Sgt Rock here as narrator? Because we’re including everyone! Even though I think most active fans of the character are probably in their dotage now, we have to include all our different facets and genres. Including the old military comics.

I know I’m usually more positive than this, and look I did get emotional in the final quarter of the story, as everyone but especially Diana prepared to sacrifice their lives.

I just feel there was a lot of red herrings and page time wasted on concept art that was ultimately meaningless.

#z canon read throughs #dark nights: death metal #recent reads

8 notes · View notes

fractualized · 11 months

Text

Three Jokers Are Not Better Than One

(or, cheap twists don't make a good story)

Would you look at that? It's time to bitch about Three Jokers!

(spoilers for a 3-year-old comic ahead)

Gotham War got me into hater mode, so I figured it was time to take a second look at Three Jokers, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jason Fabok. I first read it when the issues came out, and I thought it was possible that the story isn't as bad as I remembered. I don't know why, since for the past three years I've been haunted by the possibility of it being deemed canon.

Of course, at the time of conception, Three Jokers was intended to be canon. Johns set up the premise in the Darkseid War storyline of the 2011 Justice League run, in issues published in 2015/2016. Batman takes control of the omniscient Mobius Chair, and he tests it by asking who killed his parents. Then he asks a second question, which Hal Jordan presses him on several issues later.

[Justice League (2011) #42 & Justice League (2011) #50]

Four years later, when Three Jokers was set to be released towards the end of 2020, Johns did at first confirm it would be canon despite being released via Black Label, where books are not meant to be part of the larger continuity. In later interviews, however, this assertion got walked back in favor of saying the canonicity is up to each reader, which is kind of a wild thing to say. "Look, this story merely proposes that one of our most popular characters has actually been three different dudes the whole time, which totally has a negligible impact on how that character should be seen and has interacted with the world. Take it or leave it!"

But then, DC's idea of canon has been pretty squiggly of late, especially with the increasing multiverse shenanigans. In the final issue of Dark Knights: Death Metal in 2021, the reader is told, "with our past finally set, myriad new futures are opening up. And as hypertime heals, we'll likely experience flashes of them– and even alternate pasts– in pretty epic fashion." Infinite Frontier followed, with a press release declaring, "When our heroes saved the Multiverse from Perpetua in Dark Nights: Death Metal, everything was put back where it belonged… and we do mean everything. All the damage from all the Crises was undone [....]"

I have a lot of thoughts about this, revolving around what the heck does it mean for storytelling and how we should understand characters that apparently, somehow, everything is canon? How are we supposed to take this as anything other than the omniverse being an excuse for DC Editorial to wave off responsibility for a legible timeline? "Batman can be in two places at once because, uh, the Monitor sneezed?"

But this too-long essay is about Three Jokers, so I'll narrow my concern: if character histories can simply change with a multiversal glitch, in whatever overwrought way those are usually explained to us, then it sure feels like it doesn't matter that Three Jokers was published under Black Label. It sure seems like, at whoever's whim, Three Jokers can still get locked into the main storyline. I mean, Zdarsky still hasn't explained what that three Jokers shit in Batman #135 is about. On the other hand, we know that the explanation for the two Jokers in The Man Who Stopped Laughing does not involve the multiverse, and Joker is supposed to reunite with Batman over in Zdarsky's story when that story closes out, so… I actually have no reason to be confident that means anything.

"But why would Three Jokers getting canonized be so bad?" you may ask if you've never read Three Jokers (or if you fully enjoyed it).

Speaking for myself, it starts with the premise: taking a character and saying, "actually, this is not one complex guy but three different guys, which fractures the character's motivations and relationships over the last several decades." When that character is one you enjoy very much, this twist is not fun. It's a fundamental change to who they are.

Then five months before the release of Three Jokers #1, Johns and Fabok did an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Some things the pair said raised red flags:

1) Three Jokers' story would focus on the trauma that Barbara, Jason, and Bruce suffered at Joker's hands, per Johns. "If you suffer some trauma, you don’t just get over with it and move on with your life, it changes who you are. Sometimes it changes you for the better, sometimes it changes you for the worse. You can heal right, and you can heal wrong. That’s really what the book’s about: Healing right, healing wrong, and surviving."

2) Johns also said of the story: “It goes back to the beginning when Batman first encountered the Joker, but it’s also The Killing Joke and A Death in the Family that speak to the book and that we’re building off emotionally." And Fabok mentioned that the book's look would be based on the aesthetics of The Killing Joke: "I really want it to feel like it could be a spiritual sequel, at least artistically."

These remarks foreshadowed a disconnect. A key part of The Killing Joke itself is that both Joker and Bruce experienced terrible trauma ("one bad day"), but in responding to it, they made different choices: broadly, Joker choosing to hurt people versus Bruce choosing to help people. Johns excluding Joker from his comments about trauma felt like a sign that he ignored a key part of the character, despite Joker being a core part of a new tale "emotionally" inspired by TKJ.

(We're setting aside "you can heal right and you can heal wrong" for now. Ohhh, we'll get back to that.)

Johns' blind spot was confirmed a few months later when he was quoted by the DC Nation Twitter account: "There are very few characters that are, to me, as irredeemable as The Joker. There is nothing in him that is good."

Wow, what close analysis from Mr. Emotional Build.

Look, I don't need Joker to be redeemed or woobified. (Ask me about the "Pushback" storyline from 2004 and hear my gnashing teeth crack a filling.) But I would like the full breadth of his character acknowledged, especially when you're claiming you're writing about trauma, especially when you're creating a "spiritual sequel" to one of best known Joker stories (if not the best known one).

Then Three Jokers finally came out, and over three months it proved to be neither an examination of healing nor very interesting, at least not in an enjoyable way. What it has to "say" about trauma, for any of the characters, is no different than the limited conclusion made in previous Batman books: mainly the drumbeat of fighting off the darkness by being a bigger person— or at least not killing your enemy. Making Joker into a role played by three different people adds nothing; it amounts to little more than a gimmick.

Hell, even as a gimmick, it's flawed. Theoretically, the three Jokers represent phases of personality the Joker has embodied over the years— but the representations we get don't make sense. Here they are summed up in Book 3:

Sorry, what? The Criminal is less interested in theatrics? In what time period was the Joker ever not interested in making a big show of things in one way or another? Maybe this is supposed to be an "early" Joker in terms of the Rebirth/InfiniCrisisDarkCarnateTier/whatever more recent conception of him, but I'll wager that's not what people think about when they think of Joker at his start. They think about Golden Age Joker doing goofy shit and laughing maniacally. They're not expecting this morose man.

The other thing is that, in Book 1, the narrative "assigns" each of our three protagonists to a Joker: Bruce to the Criminal, who appeared at the start; Barbara to the Comedian, who shot her; and Jason to the Clown, who killed him. Now at first I thought Johns was saying one Joker took over after another, but since Barbara's attack and Jason's death happened 9 months apart in 1988, which are not different Joker eras, I think we're supposed to see them as sort of… cycling on and off depending on the needs of the scheme? Maybe? But the descriptions above are still confusing. Why am I supposed to see the Joker who got carried away with the fun of beating Jason with a crowbar and successfully blew him up as less sadistic than the other one?

Johns does appear to lampshade this confusion in the middle of Book 1, when we get all three Jokers in a cabin in the woods. The Clown and the Comedian have this exchange:

This and a later panel with the Comedian actually imply that he and the Clown are interchangeable, even though they're supposed to be different. So are they or not? Is there an actual reason we need three Jokers, or did Johns just think it was a neato idea and then spend four years trying to figure out a "layered" justification for it?

The other thing about this cabin scene, and about the Joker trio largely, is that it should be fun and it's not. There should be chaos! Zaniness! At the very least, all the narcissism in the room should generate a competitive friction, make their interactions more dynamic. (Really it should generate bloodshed and end with one man standing within like ten minutes, but I'll grant the choice to save that for Book 3.) Instead it's almost mundane. The cabin isn't even decorated! It's dark and dreary, like the Jokers are dark and dreary. If we're gonna have three Jokers, can't they at least be Jokering with each other?

The same thought comes when I consider the very beginning of Book 1. It all starts out like a typical Batman story: three deadly crimes are committed in one night, the Joker seemingly responsible for all of them, and Bruce, Barbara, and Jason are drawn together as they try to figure out what's up. Of course, thanks to the Magic Chair, Bruce already knows there are three clowns, but Barbara and Jason are thinking that Joker is working with two look-alikes to create confusion. And considering the basics of what happens in this story, what the Comedian's larger plan is meant to accomplish, why couldn't this have been written with just two look-alikes? I mean, yeah, it would require Johns to forget about his continuity bomb, but maybe the story would have been better (and shorter). Again, the creation of other Jokers isn't doing much for what the plot is getting at. The three crimes that start us off would still serve the function of reminding Bruce of how Joker's been a constant in his life. The taunting of a convincing Joker look-alike is enough to set off Jason's anger and sadness about what happened to him, and his fears of what he could become. The climax with Joe Chill would have to be redone, but the threat of him being Jokerized isn't the crucial plot point; the Comedian's film of him is. Bruce doesn't even have any substantial thoughts about there being three of his nemesis.

But, alas, the story goes how it goes. And as it goes, we also see that Jason behaves more cruelly in his search for Joker than Barbara and Bruce. For example, Jason attacks and threatens one of Joker's victims to get information, feeling justified because the guy has a rap sheet, while Barbara scolds him and Bruce tells the victim, "I'm sorry this happened." What I find notable about this is that while comics regularly present Jason as hot-headed and Barbara as reasonable, Bruce… uh… If you gather a random selection of Batman comics, you'll find that his level of violence is all over the place. This story, however, requires a more somber Bruce, whose violence is more reactive, because Jason and Barbara serve Johns' dichotomy of "heal right" versus "heal wrong." We can't have Bruce on the sadistic side of the scale fucking that up, and besides, Jason's long been the posterboy for healing "wrong."

That notion comes to a head at the end of the issue. The heroes have encountered and subdued the Clown at the aquarium when Jim Gordon calls. The GCPD found another Joker, and Bruce leaves Jason and Barbara alone with the Clown to assist.

Goodness me, who could have predicted Jason might kill a restrained Joker? Not Bruce, who absolutely should have. Barbara is there to talk Jason down, sure, but what else is the Clown gonna do but needle Jason to kill him?

The Clown cackles then, declaring that Red Hood is his Robin, for the very reason of his violent impulses and how much he upsets the Bat, and of course Jason shoots him in the head, because oof.

Honestly, on this second read I found this scene a smidge too oof. Jason was a determined little Robin, dedicated to saving his awful mother to the very end, and him cracking and declaring that he'll work for a criminal… I don't know. I don't think it's impossible, but it feels superfluous. I don't think such a reveal is necessary to get Jason to fire. I think the Clown focusing on how the new Red Hood is actually quite similar to the old, as well as how Jason matters less than the neverending battle between Batman and Joker, is enough emotional stress to get to the same end result.

But that's a minor quibble; we've got bigger fish to fry! Such as the specter of the "healed right/healed wrong" dynamic that reappears as Barbara and Jason argue over the Clown's corpse.

Barbara leaves angrily after this, but man. I wish the story overall took more cues from this scene, that in a Black Label story we could stray from the simplistic idea of how a Good One would save Joker and a Bad One wouldn't. I want to explore Jason's assertion that Barbara didn't do her best to uphold Bruce's one rule. I want to know if maybe she's tired of being the fucking Good One.

Hell, let's go further: what if we were surprised by Barbara killing the Clown before Jason could? The Clown's taunting about Jason could have gotten to her too. We could have a story about how being put on a pedestal as a Good Victim is a cage, about Barbara struggling with falling from that position, about Jason feeling unsure if he should commend her for an act that obviously hurts her or comfort her for something he would have done himself. That's an actual examination of the struggle to process violent trauma— that you don't need three Jokers for!

But the story we have never gets back to Jason's suggestion that Barbara let the murder happen, not in this issue or the following two. This issue just ends with Jason hoping that the Clown was the actual Joker and that he didn't kill the wrong guy, which is a pretty "LOL oh yeah" line when you remember that he and Barbara don't know there are three Jokers yet.

Book 1, truth be told, isn't that bad. On my reread, I started to wonder if my only real issue with the story is that it's not as engaging as all the hype insisted it would be.

Then Book 2 starts, and goddammit. GODDAMMIT.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: why can we not have more DC writers having fun with Joker's multiple-choice backstory? Why did Johns read The Killing Joke and decide his interpretation would be this?:

Ugh. UGGGHHH.

I don't recall the issue, but there's these panels that circulate sometimes of Harley Quinn encountering Joker in Arkham or prison, in which they exchange words about their relationship and he's a creep and she kicks his ass. I have no problem with Harley kicking Joker's ass. He deserves it. My problem is that those panels play out like an empowerment scene in a generic Lifetime movie. My problem is that it doesn't have the flavor of Harley and Joker. My problem is that it's lazy.

And that's my problem with what Johns does with Joker's backstory in TKJ. He could take it anywhere, and he goes gritty without an ounce of nuance. Because hey, this is Joker, and "there is nothing in him that is good," right? We'll just ignore that one of DC's all-time classics, the one this garbage is ✨inspired by✨, has Joker reflecting on a past for which he is an unreliable narrator, but in which he laments how his comedy dream put his growing family in a bad spot, in which he desperately aligns with shady people so his family can be secure, in which he's devastated by losing the only person he has in the world and their growing baby. And these memories could be distorted or entirely fake, but what's interesting in TKJ is that Joker never tells anyone else about them, even in his big speech to Batman. The flashbacks are not part of an attempt to manipulate anyone or convince them his world view is correct. It's a tale in Joker's head that, regardless of the truth, deeply affects him. It's what drove him to go to horrendous lengths to prove his point, even if the point is wrong.

But fuck that, right? We're going lazy! We're going cheap! We're going with the Jeannie backstory, but actually Joker was only terrible to her. The Comedian fondly fantasizes about terrorizing her and their son, because he's 100% an abuser, because he must have always been that way, with not a single appealing quality that we need to reckon with as we so often do with toxic people in real life. Even the freaking stutter Joker had as he struggled with stand-up comedy is given to Jeannie. Seriously?

I cannot emphasize enough: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this "take."

On the other hand, when the Comedian is brought out of his stupor, we do finally get something super funny:

At least we'll always have this panel of Joker eating cat food.

The Criminal only interrupted the daydream because he's mad the Clown is dead, and the Clown was so eager to be dead I thought it was part of their plan buuuuuuut I guess not. Then we jump to Bruce figuring out that the "Joker" that Gordon cornered is just another victim, a dead judge. Barbara appears to tell Bruce what Jason did, and they discuss it over comms on the road.

Bruce, shockingly, says that they can't really do anything about what Jason did.

Pretty sure the guy who batarang'd Jason's throat rather than let him kill Joker would have a more intense reaction than this?? Or any reaction other than sober understanding? Maybe Bruce is still coping with finally dealing with three Jokers at once and will flip his shit when this all resolves. Or maybe he's just thinking, "it's okay, I still have two emotional support clowns left!" I don't know. He's so weirdly passive in this story.

What's more aggravating, though, is the other aspect of this conversation, that Jason "healed wrong." It would be one thing as a pat judgment Bruce is making, but we know from that interview that Johns positioned "healed right versus healed wrong" as the story's theme. It's not good. It's way too glib a framing for evaluating how people who've gone through trauma are dealing with it, in any context. Sure, there are better and worse coping mechanisms, better and worse outcomes, but healing is an ongoing process that can be so individualized. Reducing it to "right" and "wrong," saying that one is "strong" and implying that the other comes from some sort of deficiency… I hope Johns just spoke poorly and he does understand that it's not that simple.

Now, is it a stretch to apply that critique to Jason killing criminals at his whim? Sure, deciding that you personally should play the role of judge, jury, and executioner is not a good way to deal with trauma. But that's not exactly what's happening here. This "healed right versus healed wrong" framing is being applied to Jason Todd going after the Joker. Obviously, I like Joker, but can we be real about this? Can we be real in a Black Label book, the imprint where comic books (allegedly) have room to take things more seriously? Can we take the question of, "In this fictional world where Joker is an unstoppable fatal mayhem machine— now THREE machines— is it completely out of bounds for someone to finally kill him?" and be like, "Errr…not really?" When this story explicitly denies Joker even one teeny redeeming human quality, are we seriously still going to say, "Well, you know, if Jason takes the life of the man who murdered him and millions other people, because he doesn't want him to kill more people, which Joker will absolutely do and we all know it, doesn't that say something awful about Jason?" Are we really??

Plus the judgment about healing is put into the mouth of a man who— say it with me!— regularly dresses as a bat and beats the ever-loving shit out of people because his parents were murdered. Toning Bruce down in this particular story doesn't hide that.

Although, what I think is intended as a flawed assumption on Bruce's part is his other line, "Jason's suffering." It implies that Barbara still isn't, but we are shown Barbara reflecting on her paralyzation, even now when she's "strong" and has healed "right." And the story will get into this a bit later, but it absolutely does not let Barbara and Jason escape the dichotomy. To the story's detriment, their interactions go in a wild direction, but we'll get to that.

First, Bruce and Barbara's investigation leads them to Blackgate, because the fingerprints on the murder weapon for the dead judge belong to none other than Joe Chill. However, we learn that Chill has been in the medical wing for two months because he's sick with cancer.

Meanwhile, Jason's investigation leads him to a closed athletic center. The pool inside is filled with the chemicals stolen from Ace at the start of the story, as well as dozens of pale naked bodies with green hair. Jason's attempt to contact Barbara is interrupted when one of said bodies bursts to life and grabs his ankle, asking for help. Jason reacts with hostility, kicking the poor guy, and I'm not sure if it's because he's unnerved by a room of floating Jokers or if it's pretty normal for him to not keep his cool even for the sake of an obvious victim of a horrible crime. A Gotham City vigilante can't be that shocked by one guy being alive in a pile of bodies, can they?

But that's all setup. When the guy falls unconscious, the Criminal and the Comedian ambush Jason and drag him away, one saying, "He'll be perfect."

It's a line that meanly gets your hopes up, poking at a subject that could make all this more interesting.

Jason awakes, strapped to a chair and as naked as the bodies in the pool. The Criminal says he and his pals have spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect candidate for a new Joker, and he repeats the question of what's up with Jason taking on the Red Hood moniker.

It seems that, like DCAU Tim Drake in Batman Beyond before him, Jason Todd will be transformed into a fourth Joker! But it won't only be because it will wreck the Batman. It'll be because Joker already sees himself in Jason. This is something new to explore! There are places to go here; other comics hinting at Joker's past point to him having a childhood not dissimilar to Jason's, of growing up on the street, experiencing abuse, and learning unpalatable ways to survive. We could see Jason struggling with the possibility that he has more in common with Joker than he wants to think about!

But we won't. Inexplicably, the Criminal turns around and says that despite their similarities, despite Jason hating Batman as much as he does, despite the Comedian (presumably) saying Jason is perfect, and despite getting Jason ready for the pool, Jason actually isn't good enough, not "bright" enough. (Because all the Jokers we have in this dour story are so bright?)

And then the Comedian just beats the hell out of Jason (saying it's more fun than the first time, in another annoying nod to how he and the Clown are the same damn Joker) and says they're leaving Jason alive because maybe he'll prove them wrong and he'll become a new Joker after all? But the current Jokers aren't really going to go for it. Their interest is just abandoned.

The point is only to freak Jason out, so when Bruce and Barbara arrive, fight a horde of Jokerized victims, and find Jason alone and naked and vulnerable, he does not react well when Bruce tries to ask if he's okay. Jason turns on him and blames him for setting him on this path, for leaving him in the dirt, for replacing him easily. He lashes out at Barbara too, asking if she's going to lock him away, but ultimately it's easier to take comfort from her.

A direct reference to Return of the Joker here, focusing on the shadow Batman casts over the lives of his partners, the responsibility he bears in how Joker targeted them to hurt the Bat, and how poorly he offers comfort himself.

It does segue nicely into the next scene, when Bruce and Barbara get Jason to her apartment to rest. Bruce leaves to keep investigating, and Barbara is pissed because this is the exact lack of support that contributed to Jason going his own way. Support is highlighted again when Jason wakes in Barbara's room and looks around.

Aside from Barbara seeking out books to deal with her physical and mental struggles after Joker's attack, the old calendars show the help she received from her father and health professionals.

And this scene does get into something that's missing from TKJ, in which Bruce tells Joker that no, not everyone will retreat to madness like he did. How we react to trauma is greatly affected by the resources available to us.

This scene is nice. It's nice to come from the action to some place quiet and for someone to say this Jason, something he's wanted to hear. It's late in coming, but it's pain validated.

And then Johns fucking ruins it.

Man. Just. Ugh. Yeah, I know people seek comfort in moments of vulnerability, but… the reader knows. The reader knows moments like this aren't included to be like "oh, this was an isolated blip of human behavior! The story won't call back to it later!" Johns apparently wants Barbara/Jason to be a thing. And if you want a solid reason for that… well, we don't get any good ones.

Meanwhile, Bruce is in the cave, and I'm only mentioning that because these folder labels are incredibly funny:

Then the issue ends with Joe Chill kidnapped from Blackgate by the Comedian, who has a video camera and asks him to talk about why he really killed the Waynes. Dun dun dunnnnnnnn! Is that a twist on the way?! Well, yeah, but not really the one you think and it's incredibly stupid.

Finally we are at Book 3. Jason is suited back up, and he and Barbara have met up with Bruce in the cave to figure out how the Jokers plan to create another, better Joker.

Soooooo Jason and Barbara had that whole conversation. Jason was shaken by what the Jokers said to him. But now he's completely back on track. Allllllrighty.

Jason and Bruce then have an argument rehashing everything that Barbara said she was sorry Jason experienced, with Bruce saying of course he'd love to kill the Joker, and Jason pointing out that he obviously hasn't. Jason also says he thinks the only reason Bruce isn't turning Jason in for killing the Clown is to protect Batman's identity. Barbara just tries to de-escalate with her doe eyes. They're back to the status quo, and it sucks, which is the point. When they try to get back to the investigation at hand, Bruce pauses and attempts to apologize.

And again, with this blatant TKJ reference, it feels like we need to dig into the parallels between Jason and Joker! They both insist it's too late! They won't take help! But surely Jason isn't as far gone! There's something to chew on here.

But nah, this story is heading toward a big ol' revelation, foreshadowed here:

🎶 Why the fuck you lyin'? 🎶

Finally they get the alert that Joe Chill was kidnapped, and on investigating his cell, Bruce finds a bunch of letters addressed to… himself, Bruce Wayne. He seeks out the prison reverend.

Which is unintentionally hilarious, because in the storyline that started this whole three Jokers nonsense, there's a Batman Darkseid War one-shot where Joe Chill's behavior does not remotely align with this.

Lol comics are fun.

In the middle of Bruce investigating the letters, we get Jason being all repentant with Babs again.

You just said? You totally were?? Gonna kill more clowns??? How is this supposed to come off as genuine? Granted, Jason doesn't try to kill the other Jokers after this, but the apparently impetus for reversing course is... uh... we'll get there.

Anyway, among Chill's letters are tickets to the Monarch Theater, so the heroes all head over for whatever the Jokers have set up for them, which of course includes another horde of failed Joker zombies. During the fight, the Comedian's interview of Joe Chill plays on the screen, and the Criminal reveals they have Chill tied up in a chair suspended over a vat of green chemicals.

As Chill on screen explains that he killed the Waynes out of hatred and envy for how much they had, and how much he regrets his actions, the Criminal explains that he considered both Jason and Barbara as strong candidates for the new Joker. And wait. WAIT. Mr. Johns, sir, are you telling me it crossed your mind to write a story in which Barbara becomes the new Joker? That's so much more interesting than the bullshit we're getting! Imagine it: Barbara dealing with the dissatisfaction of being the "good, strong victim" and just losing her shit. You could combine that with how uneasy Jason is with his similarities to Joker, and maybe Jason is the one who convinces Barbara to turn back. This is Black Label! This could've been anything! Anything!

But we've got Chill. And the Criminal goes on to say the reason he wanted to make a new Joker at all:

Are… are you? I'm pretty sure Joker is pretty well fucking defined. He's a murderer with a very dark sense of humor who is obsessed with Batman. That's been a pretty good through-line.

Also, Joker pretty clearly means a lot to Batman, as that middle panel with Jason seems intended to remind us, but the Criminal does clarify that he wants to be "everything" to him, which is why he's pulling Bruce's parents' murderer into all this. I guess I can't blame him for reaching for the stars?

Cue big fight scene. The Chill recording continues to explain his regret, and soon the theater is on fire. Batman saves Chill and knocks the Criminal unconscious. Chill thinks Batman is going to kill him, but Bruce saves him from a falling brick wall instead— before the Criminal revives and tries to set off a bomb to kill them all, maybe. There's a BOOM flag sticking out of the dynamite a few panels later, after the Comedian shows up and shoots the Criminal in the head. TWIST!

The Comedian surrenders, and after a scene with Jason picking the most awkward time to suggest he and Barbara try being a couple and Barbara looking pissed she has to tell him no, we jump to Bruce and the Comedian in the armored police car.

As a batjokes shipper, looking at these pages is weird, because they are good food for the brainworms. The Criminal wanted to engineer a Joker who meant the most to Batman, but the Comedian wanted to be that Joker. It's a weird plan, considering that Joker prefers Batman over Bruce Wayne, so he would be more likely to not want to heal Bruce's wound lest the healing lead to less Batmanning, but still. This crazy plan is all about maintaining Batman's attention.

But I can only enjoy these panels out of context, not just because I'm pretty weary of insanely elaborate plans that manage to work out, but also because there's just so much to hate in the rest of the story, especially the real twist that closes it out.

Before we get to that, though, we're thrown back into the Jason/Barbara nonsense with a very gross letter he writes to her.

"Dear Barbara, I want to make a change. But I can't do that without you. I know I've come across cold and distant…"

1) Look, love can help people heal. Barbara could be a good friend advising Jason on what might help him. She could help bring him back into the batfam fold. This letter is not that. This letter is pushing someone to be in a romantic relationship with you for the explicit purpose of getting them to heal you. That's not how love works. That's using someone as a tool. It's supposed to be sad that Barbara never sees the letter but it's good, actually. Don't put that shit on her!

2) This romance came out of freaking nowhere and now we get Jason insisting he can simply stop being Red Hood for the sake of it— but only for the sake of it, apparently! Does Jason think his worldview as Red Hood is an impediment to healing or not? This is just surface-level melodramatic nonsense. And I wish that was the point, but no. Again, the letter getting swept away is presented as sad.

3) Speaking of which, who tapes a confessional letter that exposes your vigilante identity to a door where anyone can see it? You'd slip it under the door at least. Johns couldn't figure out any other way for the letter to vanish? Get out of here with this contrived nonsense. There should've been panels of Jason rereading the letter, realizing how unhinged it is, and throwing it away himself.

4) Is the "Funtime Cleaners" guy in his purple uniform supposed to be Joker? Or representative of Joker's influence on their lives? If yes and it's him, he's a goddamn hero. If it's symbolic, what does that mean, that even when you reach out to others… elements out of your control will keep you alone? 'Cause that sure is bleak for a book allegedly about healing.

With all that done with, now we get to the big twist, the dumbest fucking part of this story, the end, the takeaway. Of course it involves more crimes against The Killing Joke, which I'm increasingly convinced no one at DC has actually read in the past thirty years.

Bruce drives up to Alaska, and we get this reveal.

Do the kids still *headdesk* nowadays? That's what I'm doing. There will be a blood stain.

1) So Bruce has known the Joker's identity, or at least the Comedian's, basically the whole time. We're just retconning that the Joker question he asked the Magic Chair wasn't for information; it was a second test question. And all this is in the face of Bruce lamenting many times over the years that he doesn't know who Joker really is, of him lamenting it in The Killing goddamn Joke. "I don't know him, Alfred. All these years and I don't know who he is any more than he knows who I am. How can two people hate so much without knowing each other?" We're just. Fucking excising that. A line alluding to Bruce's motivation for visiting Joker in TKJ's opening scene.

2) We're rounding out the lazy revisions to the TKJ backstory with some copaganda! Geoff Johns doesn't think it's possible for Joker to have been anything but a horror to his family, but he does think it's possible that random officers in the friggin' Gotham City Police Department— in early Batman lore no less, when they were at their most corrupt— would fundraise for a "lady" they clearly don't know to get her out of the city to safety. Also, what was the plan for when Joker asked to see his wife's dead body?? Congrats, you've come up with something dumber than "Pushback."

3) This scrawls more highlighter on how bad the premise of there being three Jokers is, because the flashback in TKJ happens before Joker starts out. Like that's how Bruce always recalls it; he didn't meet the Joker until after what happened at Ace Chemicals. So isn't Jeannie then actually the Criminal's wife? Because the Criminal is the one who behaves as Bruce remembers Joker was at the start. So is the Comedian obsessed with the Criminal's wife for some reason? Or is the Comedian actually the first Joker, and the Criminal came later and used to be more wacky? What is going on here?

Under all these questions, per the final page, the point of Three Jokers is still visible: ultimately, his victims matter more than he does. But that's a hilarious point to a story that revolves around three of the guy, with very little payoff to the gimmick, and when part of the plot is that the heroes still shouldn't kill him.

And again, just because a story makes reference to healing, it doesn't mean it's "about" healing. The most we get is the knowledge that Barbara and Jeannie received support from other people. There's no discussion of how long it took either of them, of why Barbara came out the other side not wanting to kill Joker, of anything Jeannie has done since she left Gotham. The possibility that Jason could find connection is promptly throttled by a forced romance. It's implied that the Comedian's plan worked for Bruce, as we see Bruce at Chill's deathbed, holding his hand, and at Chill's grave. You might be interested in Bruce's thoughts as he juxtaposes Chill's repentance against the fact that his parents are still dead, so you can assess if this really would affect the feeling of loss that drove him to his lifelong mission, but you won't get them. The "how" of healing is up to the reader— who is never asked to extend the same thought process to the Joker. And you personally do not have to give a crap about Joker, but again, if this book is supposed to be about responses to healing, about Jason's response versus Barbara's, then taking an actual look at Joker feels relevant!

So there we are: fourteen pages of me venting my little heart out, hoping the premise of Three Jokers never gets looped into canon. I'm well aware that my personal attachment to a character means nothing against DC's incentives to promote stories with Big Twists (and endless events and multiverse bullshit), but then again, those incentives are based on what people will buy. So if I can add to the voices saying that Three Jokers is bad, and you should not spend your money on it or books like it, maybe I can be one vibe of many that keeps the Joker as one single bat-obsessed murderclown...

Though if not, I can always retreat to older comics. I still have plenty of those to get through.

#three jokers #the killing joke #batjokes #batman #joker #bruce wayne #barbara gordon #jason todd #analysis #my jibber-jabber #tl;dr three jokers is just usual batman stuff with a dumb gimmick #and jaybabs thrown in for the lulz

135 notes · View notes