With the Joker apprehended, you'd think that he could do no more harm, right? Wrong. The Joker takes situations that not even the police, who deal with hardened criminal daily, expect him to take horrific advantage of. He demands his "one call", and an officer hands over his cell phone. What does the Joker do? He looks up the name of the officer's doctor, calls the officer's wife, and tells her that she has an incurable, massively expensive blood disease and that she should just hang herself to rid her new husband of the burden. For some reason, this disturbed me the most. It wasn't the "worst" part in blood and gore, but the fact that the wife was so apt to believe the Joker and that he was so persuasive is scary. It's more that the Joker was psychology deadly and didn't have to even touch the officer's wife to kill her. But this also raises a flag in my mind. Why didn't she get a second opinion? Why didn't she think more on suicide before she actually did it? It just seems a little too convenient as far as how the story flows.
Anyway... The Joker's transferred to another facility and on the way he kills both of the officers. I've never considered how much damage a ballpoint pen to the jugular could do. This is merely the beginning. Even in the courtroom, the Joker manages to take lives. The judge has a severe peanut allergy, and is murdered after the Joker *pings* (that's a sound affect in case you didn't know!) a peanut off of the wall and into the judge's water. How the Joker knew? No idea. Another element of disbelief. The Joker also produces a banana peel in the courtroom that the attorney slips on. She just so happens to hit her neck on a stand and dies. Again...everything had to be laid out just so. Perfectly. I'm more apt to groan at how cheesy the ideas are than believe that the Joker is really THAT good.
Continuing with the complaint that the book is written far too conveniently for the Joker, I come to the next part of the novel. Joker is given a tool to use. A tool that is another villan. "Bad Cop" is given an escape route by the Joker (the Joker seems to have all these tie-ins with these other villians...I don't like it) and is desperate to be killed himself (SURPRISE! Bad Cop was the result of a cop losing his sanity...because he lost his new wife...to the Joker's sick prank call). Bad Cop procedes to break into the Police Academy and slaughters a few of the new faces in training. Basically, he's in search of a deed bad enough that will warrant someone to kill him and put him back with his wife.
All I have to say is....it's a mess. Before I say more than that, let me get to WHY.
Creativity of Writing: 3/5 Creative? Yes. In that how the Joker always finds a way to murder...even if not directly by his own hand. I feel like the novel scrapes on the surface of human psychology and manipulation, but it's in a way that isn't very believeable. I want it to dig deeper. I don't want everything to be written just-so and without a hitch. I don't want to see everything handed to the Joker. It got to be predictable. It got to be so far out there that it wasn't believeable. The dialogue, thought annoying (from the Joker), is believeable. It's easy to follow and entertaining to read. However, what's not entertaining outweighs the value of the entertaining conversations.
Creativity of Art: 4/5 The artwork was done by Scott McDaniel. The art looked great! It's nothing like Arkham Asylum, but it works. It seems to be fitting of the characters and story. It's easy to look at and follow. The panels are laid out in a clear way. Dialogue bubbles are laid out in a way thats easy to breeze through. I LOVE the cover. It's amazing in that it looks realistic while having a comic-feel to it. The cover was created by Stephanie Roux.
Overall Casual Read Rating: 3-3.5/5 It has a lot to be desired in the story and progression of events, but I will admit that it was entertaining watching it unfold and contemplating how much I believed if what was happening was even near possible.
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