Ricky Church reviews The Batman Who Laughs #1…
Batman and The Joker have one of the most interesting and complex relationships in all of comics with the rivalry feeding the other in a never-ending cycle of violence and escalation. Occasionally the question is asked how different the two really are or what might happen if Batman ever gave in and finally killed Joker once and for all. James Tynion IV imagines that world in this tie-in issue to Dark Nights: Metal, exploring the backstory of the fearsome leader of the Nightmare Batmen, The Batman Who Laughs.
The Batman Who Laughs #1 follows the same basic structure as the other tie-in issues as it shows how X world’s Batman became evil. Tynion, however, uses this to also examine Batman and Joker’s relationship as the Clown Prince decides to take their relationship to the next level. The images at the start of the story as Gotham burns and Joker kills several people in front of Batman is disturbing, but only grows more so from there.
Tynion takes Batman’s greatest fear of turning into The Joker and dials it up. It is disconcerting to see Batman kill his family and friends, especially in some horrific ways, but the angle Tyion gives as to why this is happening is believable. There’s a sense that this shouldn’t be real, yet everything the Batman Who Laughs says, from the points he raises about the freedom and enjoyment killing gives rings true to someone that is a hybrid of Batman’s intelligence and all of Joker’s sadism. The book only keeps getting worse as Batman deals out some truly devastating and macabre blows to his friends.
Riley Rossmo’s art lends a lot of credence to the book’s unsettling atmosphere. He makes it feel like a horror movie with the twisted visuals, from the introductory pages of Joker’s latest rampage to a fairly graphic panel of what Batman has done to the Justice League. Rossmo really takes the notion of a Batman mixed with Joker and goes to the limits and then some with the imagery, yet still leaves plenty open for the readers to interpret, such as what was done to the League, Robin or Lois Lane, which is rather the point of Dark Nights: Metal: that the things we come up with in our heads can be truly frightening.
The book’s story does feel a bit rushed at times as it depicts the evolution of Bruce from Batman into the Batman Who Laughs, but that may be because the premise is so big that it has the potential to be its own miniseries rather than a one-shot. However, it does skim over how the Batman Who Laughs went from having a Batman/Joker-inspired costume to the one he’s wearing now. It was a nice touch that Rossmo slowly evolved Batman’s costume throughout the story, but the later switch in costumes seemed like a big jump that could have been fleshed out more.
The Batman Who Laughs #1 is an incredibly dark story that Tynion uses to examine Batman and Joker and just how dangerous a combination of the two might be. He uses the opportunity to really make a disturbing tale that further shows why the Batman Who Laughs poses such a grave threat in Metal. It would have been nice if this story didn’t feel quite as fast, but Tynion and Rossmo still did a great job with this horrifying story.
Rating: 8/10
Ricky Church
