The Joker has taken an amusement park hostage and the only way Batman can win is by playing Joker’s game. Minor spoilers for Detective Comics #1008 follow.
Coming off the back of the more supernatural story of the previous two issues, Detective Comics returns to its more ground sensibilities. This time, Joker is brought into the fold in a one-and-done that, in premise, looks fantastic. In execution, however, there’s a lot that this issue leaves wanting. That’s not to say that there’s nothing good within this issue, it’s just the end result doesn’t meet the promise of the idea.
The idea behind this issue is absolutely fantastic. Joker has kidnapped an entire amusement park and rigged devices that release Joker Toxin onto their necks. The only way Batman can stop him is through doing whatever Joker wants, not by simply beating him to a pulp. That sounds great. It also sounds like a tried and true premise of Batman/Joker stories, i.e. The Killing Joke, Mask of the Phantasm, The Dark Knight Returns. However, the issue feels like it’s simply giving homage to all those stories rather than doing its own thing. There are several very overt references to the aforementioned stories, including one combined with a Chinatown reference, and that’s kind of all the issue has going for it on a story level.
On a character level, there’s some really fun things done with The Joker and Batman. Probably the most interesting thing though is that The Joker seems to be breaking the fourth wall at the beginning of this issue. This has been a trait for Harley Quinn as of late, but I don’t know if it’s been really done with The Joker before. It probably has, but regardless, it still feels fresh and not overtly fourth wall breaking in this issue. Peter Tomasi also a really solid job with the Batman/Joker dynamic in this issue despite his plot not being that interesting.
Doug Mahnke’s art is the real star of this issue though. He is genuinely one of the best Batman artists ever and just a single image (shown above) proves that. He somehow makes these ridiculous things that Batman and Joker are doing, like being in bumper cars, feel real and proper. Despite Mahnke’s great abilities though, there’s only so much he can do with the script of this issue. What he does though is great, especially his incredibly unsettling Joker.
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