Batman: Three Jokers #2 Review

Done To Death

Written By: Geoff Johns

Art By: Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $6.99

Release Date: September 29, 2020

The story that has captivated comic readers across the world continues here as we dive deep into the mystery that is the "Three Jokers". In the previous issue, we had the groundwork built to show us what the world looked like in this Black Label event and the characters who were involved....... You know, beyond the three Jokers and we saw that to get to the bottom of this mystery we would not only have Batman involved but Batgirl and Red Hood. Pretty much the people who the Joker have hurt the worst in his criminal career, but one of these Jokers, the Clown wouldn't hurt anyone ever again after this comic because the first issue shocked me in its ending where we saw Jason Todd finally take his vengeance out on the Joker by shooting him in the head and ending his life. As the issue closed though, he just hoped that the one he killed was the one that originally killed him. It was a great issue and I hope that his second issue lives up to the hype that that issue setup. Let's jump into this issue and see how Batman will deal with Jason Todd who has finally ended a Joker's life and also see what Jason Todd will do to get to the rest of the Jokers that are out there. Let's check it out.

While the first issue captivated my imagination with what could be going on behind the scenes between Batman and the Joker and reasons why the Joker has changed his appearance and motivations over the years, this issue while still fun to read kind of moves away from that sense of wonder because it focused on the overly done confrontation between Jason Todd and the Joker, which includes Batman feeling regret over what happened to Jason, an abundance of people using crowbars and even a rehash of the Joker asking about why Jason would become the Red Hood after what Joker did to him. It's just overblown because it seems whenever anyone writes about Jason it can't be done without focusing heavily on the Joker and a crowbar to do it and by now it's just getting a little old hat. That being said, even with this done to death aspect to the story, there are still some new aspects that Geoff Johns adds to it to keep it at least a little fresh.

Sadly though, while I'm sure a lot of people are here to uncover the mystery of the Three Jokers including me, this issue focuses more on the Jason Todd/Joker relationship and the idea of how the Joker hurt him physically as well as mentally and that nobody was ever really there for Jason after the fact to help him heal like the support group that Barbara Gordon had after the Joker paralyzed her, allowing her to continue being a hero after the fact instead of someone who was just perpetually damaged like Jason. This is an interesting concept that I enjoyed out of this issue, even if it went a bit too far in my mind, where Jason and Barbara have a small intimate moment that felt forced and out of place, especially for how Barbara felt this entire issue after Jason murdering one of the Jokers right in front of her in the previous issue. 

All in all, I continue to love the art in this issue and you can see by reading this that our artistic team here is one of the best at DC Comics and that they are definitely bringing their "A" game when it comes to this book because for all this issue's faults in rehashing a tired aspect to the Jason Todd story, while also forcing a strange moment between two of our heroes, this book takes those moments and makes them look amazing. Even with what I consider faults in the story though, there are really interesting aspects to this issue as well and concepts added to the ones that I've already accused of being tired that gives us at least a new or slightly different spin to what we've seen before. So while I was slightly disappointed with what we got from this issue compared to what the first issue brought us, there is still a lot to like here and I'm still all-in on this story and can't wait for what we get next.

Bits and Pieces:

While this issue didn't "wow" me as the first one did, there is still a lot to like here, even if we're retreading some overused ground with the Jason Todd/Joker story. The art is amazing all the way through and I hope that even though this is a Black Label book and the continuity doesn't need to be a part of the mainline Batman series that we can see some growth in the Red Hood character all-around based on what we got here.

7.9/10