Being a therapist to the Joker is no laughing matter. When Ben’s treatment of the Joker begins going downhill, his psyche breaks down with it. Spoilers for Joker: Killer Smile #2 follow.
The first issue of Joker: Killer Smile immediately set itself apart from the pack. It was a completely new type of Joker story. There had been horror stories featuring the Joker plenty of times before, but there was something different about this one. It was purely psychological. The Joker wasn’t a slasher villain, he was just a clown in a cell and yet, he was still terrifying. The second issue of Joker: Killer Smile keeps this idea going and ramps up from simply being creepy to being terrifying.
Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino and genuinely one of the best creative teams working in comics. Everything they do is gold. The fact that they are doing two different psychological horror comics at the same time and both and fantastic is telling. Gideon Falls and Joker: Killer Smile are great companion pieces for one reason alone, the toll that the mind can take before breaking. Both series explore that well, but Killer Smile does so in a way that ramps up the horror even further somehow. This is a severely unnerving book to read and that’s why it’s fantastic. It accomplishes exactly what it is trying to do.
Sorrentino’s art is incomparable as well. His style is absolutely perfect for horror comics and he continues to prove so with this issue. His layouts are inventive and unsettling. His inking, while usually pretty heavy, is most subdued again in this which allows for Jordie Bellaire’s excellent colors to shine. The colors allow for this to feel very different from most horror comics as its much brighter than most. The art uses white and red extremely effectively to create that blood is seeping out of the page. It’s a very subtle thing that makes every page feel unsettling, which is great.
The only real problem with this issue is that the entire premise has been done before, plenty of times. It’s kind of the whole idea behind Harley Quinn. The story itself, so far, isn’t really all that fresh. The difference here though is how it’s being executed. It’s a story that’s being executed extremely well with every note hitting near perfectly. Every time it wants to scare you, that’s exactly what it does, even when it’s predictable, which is a testament to how well it’s done.