Review by Frank Plowright
The Joker Year One combines a pair of three chapter thrillers and a couple of short stories to good effect. It’s first worth noting that the Gotham War has occurred since The Bat-Man of Gotham, and during that Batman fell out with most of his regular allies. Before then Chip Zdarsky revealed he’s constructed a secret back-up persona, Zur-en-Arrh, as keeper of his secrets. It’s a concept explained more reasonably than might be assumed, but a greater surprise is the Joker now seemingly knowing not only about Batman’s civilian identity, but all the people he trained with before becoming the Caped Crusader. There is an explanation, though, of ground-shifting proportions.
That’s key to the first story, although also misdirection, as what ‘Mind Bomb’ is ultimately about is something completely different. Zdarsky’s not forgotten a previous menace, and they return, terrifyingly more powerful. Jorge Jiménez on art maximises the threat, providing a visual spectacle. As seen on the sample art, the assorted alternate versions of himself Batman met on his tour through the multiverse haven’t yet served their use, and Jiménez supplies perfect versions of iconic Batmen past.
As good as that is, it’s but the prelude to the Joker revealing, as the title suggest, his early activities under that name. Zdarsky makes the presumption that readers know the Joker’s origin as a criminal called the Red Hood who survived a dousing in a chemical bath. This is rolled out via two perspectives, the more conventional of them drawn by Guiseppe Camuncoli as the Joker gradually pulls his personality together and reintroduces himself to Gotham. Alongside that we see the corruption in the Gotham police. The other, far darker strand is drawn by Andrea Sorrentino who’s consulted Dave McKean’s work, and Zdarsky brings that to an interesting conclusion turning the perceived wisdom about Batman and the Joker on its head. Very clever. It’s an excellent Jim Gordon story.
Zdarsky’s first back-up features Vandal Savage, a visitor during Gotham War. Why couldn’t the same artist have drawn both short chapters? Jorge Corona is very much contrasted by Mike Hawthorne, whose pages are as stiff as Corona’s are loose, and not working in the style he used on the main feature. It says little in quite a few pages intended to establish Savage as a new power, and now occupying Wayne Manor. Dustin Nguyen’s art is a highlight of the slightly more substantial ‘In This Together’ setting up conflicts to come.
A lot about Joker Year One is smart, but it’s nonetheless a problematical collection. There are elements Zdarsky’s obviously holding back, some to be explained in Dark Prisons, but there are also multiple references to other material with no great explanation of it in-story. Is it reasonable to expect readers to have read several other titles just to figure out what’s going on? That’s generally the curse of the crossover, not a standard graphic novel, and it’s shortsighted.
