The Man Who Laughs

[The Laughing Fish]

There are many SPOILERS here, so read carefully if you haven't read it.

I read The Man Who Laughs by Ed Brubaker last week. It's another retelling of Batman's first encounter with the Joker, who begins a killing spree by poisoning people to death by midnight with his Joker Venom. It's a somewhat modern retelling of Joker's very first debut appearance, but the only difference is this book takes cues from other famous story arcs as part of the backstory: Batman has been around for a year following the events of Frank Miller's Year One, and he suspects that the Joker could have possibly been the Red Hood, who fell into a vat of chemical acid at Ace Chemicals a few months earlier.

The story itself is okay but it is what it is: another retelling of the very first meeting between Joker and Batman. I didn't think it was completely groundbreaking stuff, but it's worth the read if you have nothing else to do. I've got to say that the art feels rather freaky and even grim; the way that the police discover a warehouse full of decaying and smiling victims who murdered by the Joker is sickening to look at. I think the illustration is perhaps the biggest negative in the story - it's certainly not Marshall Rogers quality.

The best parts of the book come towards the end; when the Joker makes an attempt to kill Bruce, Bruce lets himself get poisoned temporarily by the venom so nobody would suspect his secret identity, and he suffers from a psychotic episode during a flashback to his parents' murders. Alfred resuscitates Bruce back to life, and Bruce changes into Batman in time to prevent the Joker from using his deadly venom to poison Gotham's water supply by blowing up the viaduct. Joker goes from trying to murder everyone in Gotham to suddenly condemning Batman's actions. "You just cut off all the water to the city - you've crippled them for weeks!". A true sociopath.

Not bad, but not great either. It's still worth a read when you have nothing to do.

[Silver Nemesis]

For newer readers who are unfamiliar with the early comics, this is likely the preferred version of Batman and the Joker's first encounter. I haven't read it since it first came out, but I recall my opinion being much the same as yours. It's an interesting revisionist take on the Joker's debut story, but beyond that it's nothing really groundbreaking. That said, I did enjoy it when I first read it.