After a disappointing first issue, is there a way to redeem Joker’s Knight Terrors arc? Well yes, but just slightly.
The Sketch is a Bit Funnier
The first issue of Joker’s nightmare fell flat when it came to the comedy. This sequel chapter, however, has several jokes that work a lot better. Seeing the Joker play baseball on his day off was fun. But the comedy particularly worked in the Joker’s interactions with his nightmare wife and son. I enjoyed it when Joker’s fake son started to question why his father had Batman’s corpse in his closet.
“Why aren’t you in school, son?”
“It’s nighttime.”
Still Kind of a Mess
Despite that big improvement, the changes don't exactly make this comic very memorable. We know that a “Batman” is supposed to be roaming the city, though he acts like the Joker. I was confused as to whether this Batman was supposed to be the real thing back from the dead or whether the Joker was doing cosplay. (Joker doesn’t seem to think Batman is alive, so I was confused here. Is the Joker playing at being Batman but not realizing it?)
It would seem that the Joker slowly starts to take on the traditional role of Bruce Wayne in living the double life of a business man and a costumed comic book character, but once again, I’m unclear if that's the point. There is some good role reversal in seeing the Joker meet Bruce Wayne who is dressed in the Joker’s “Killing Joke” get-up. Could this be confirmation that the real Batman is alive? Maybe it was supposed to be. It's a good reference again, but I wish the intentions of the book were more clear.
Ultimately Pointless
The artwork in the book by Stefano Raffaele was consistent, and colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr. gave a wide range of color tones to the book. This made it so the overall tone could shift from comedic to dark very quickly which is fitting for a story meant to be a nightmare. Unfortunately, the ending proved that this entire storyline was nothing more than an interruption to the main story of Joker’s ongoing series. This is on par with everything that’s been happening with the Knight Terrors event. Why ever would DC halt their books just so all the characters could partake in an event that they might not have anything to do with? It just makes no sense. If you should ever read this book in a trade collection, you might as well skip over these two chapters.
Recommend if…
- You were hoping for a little more comedy from this Joker story.
- Joker’s story arc hasn’t been that interesting to you, and you don’t mind it being interrupted.
Overall
Did I mention that the whole Knight Terrors event has been a bust? There was absolutely no reason for DC to use it to interrupt all of its books. Maybe it would be okay if this short arc provided some hilariously memorable comedy for the Joker. While this issue does improve in that area, however, it still isn’t enough to make up for this pointless event.
Score: 5.5/10
Disclaimer: DC Comics provided Batman News a copy of this comic for the purposes of this review.
