Customer Reviews

Batman: The Man Who Laughs

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Was one of the last stories that Brubaker wrote for DC before he moved over to Marvel, and became the superstar writer on Captain America and Daredevil.

Great Joker/Batman origin story that is fun and has spot on portrayal of the menacing Joker. Not only is this a great read, but it has some very spectacular artwork. The atwork alone is reason enough to purchase this book.

Important to keep in mind that this is a very quick read, as the orginal story came in one Prestige Format Comic (48 pages). However this comic is hard to find and worth sowhere in the $50 range. This is great opportunity to pick up a hard to find story right before the New Batman Movie.

This is one of the better Joker stories in years. It's a sort of sequel to "Year one" and tells the tale of how The Dark Knight first met the notorious evildoer that in future years would become his arch-nemesis.

Joker is killing several rich persons, which to begin with appears to be for no reason other than getting a sick laugh out of it. But as the story progresses Batman starts to find out the motive behind these bizarre killings as well as figuring out who The Joker was and what made what he is.
The writing is perfect. Ed Brubaker does a terrific job on it. He has also added some nice references to Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke" All the classic elements from a Joker story are here. Making threats on live television, killing people at midnight and using henchmen dressed as clowns. If you enjoyed Batman stories such as "Year one", The Killing Joke" or "The laughing fish" then this one should be right up your alley.
An interesting fact: The title is a reference to a movie with the same name and it is from this film that Bob Kane got the inspiration for The Joker.

Buy this book to read Ed Brubaker and Doug mahnke excellent redux of the Joker's first encounter with batman. In a shocking turn, DC hires a great artist to do a high profile Batman tale. I only fault this story on being too short.
The Man Who Laughs was orignally published as a 48 page soft cover graphic novel, but deserves the hardcover format. Sadly, the cover graphics are not very well done. The white spine with the ugly blue at the bottom doesn't look good on the book shelf, particularly next to it's natural companion, the recently released Killing Joke hardcover.
As a filler, a Batman/Golden Age Green Lantern story is also randomely reprinted here. This story originally appeared in Detective Comics which Mr. Brubaker wrote for a little over a year. I remember his run as well written (as most of his work is), but laden with poor fill-in art unworthy of his scripts. The artwork by Mike Lilly is just OK, but I fail to see why it was included in this hardcover.
It would have been much better to reprint the Joker's first two appearances from Batman #1, as well as Dennis O'Neal's Legends of the Dark Knight #50, from 1993, which retold the same story of Batman's first encounter with the Joker. Dennis O'Neal wrote a spot on story with some great moments, but the particularly bad art from Brett Blevins is not something which should be seen again. At least the theme of the book would have been consistant.

This hardcover edition of "The Man Who Laughs" is a great addition to a comic libray - but the 20 dollar tag makes it hard to justify for the 40-somthing page story... Also thrown in is "Made of Wood," a random Brubaker story featuring Green Lantern Alan Scott (another short story :/ ). 'Wood' is passable, but 'Man who Laughs' is a must have...

"The Man who Laughs" storyline retells the first couple appearances of The Joker in Gotham city. Though the story is almost a direct retelling of Batman issue #1 (and other Kane stories) Brubaker finds ways to reinvent the story to make it much more frightening.

A great addition to your comic library, but if you can help taking the time to find the original prestige edition - you'll save yourself about 15 bucks.

the story was outstanding and the art work was great... being a big fan of the batman and the joker.. this story was one i missed 5 years ago, but thanks to Amazon .com i bought a copy of this great story.

Fantastic book that shows the beginning relationship between Batman and the Joker. I enjoy how it shows just how twisted and insane the Joker is. Overall a great read. Fantastic art too.

I'm surprised that none of the reviewers seemed to recognize that this is a re-telling of one of the first Joker stories ever told. "Batman vs. The Joker" (Batman #1, 1940). In the original story The Joker kills the rich men to enforce a shakedown of other rich men. Here, his sociopathy is more apparent because he's killing for killing's sake. I like what they've done with it.

The bonus Alan Scott/Green Lantern story is truly great!

Batman: The Man Who Laughs, starts off in the early, years when Bruce Wayne is learning to become the Batman we all know today. The story takes place when Captain Gordon and the G.C.P.D. find a room filled with victims who have had their faces grotesquely disfigured. Batman comes to the scene as usual to gather information, they don't have a clue who could have done such a thing to all these people. Batman and the Joker finally meet face to face, for the first time, and the Joker is taken out. The story ends shortly, than the Trade Paperback leads to another story, that isn't part of the Man Who Laughs story at all.

The story is called "Made of Wood" and it is about a story of a serial murderer, that dates back to the time before Bruce Wayne has ever been born. Which involves Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern, to my Now knowledge, was a protector of Gotham City before there was a Batman.

The Made of Wood story takes up most of the pages in this TPB, so The Man Who Laughs was surprisingly short for my taste, compared to other stories. Though this is one of my favorite stories, the art in the Man Who Laughs is very well drawn, and the storyline is great. This is definitely one of the stories on my recommendation list.

The man who laughs lacks the adept dialogue of the killing joke but it's a worthy companion to it. This is a story where the city is not prepared for the joker's madness. The arrival of the joker is the dark knights turning point as a squire in his career of the very same order that his enemy does not represent as chaos of comedy. He has always used comedy as a metaphor for getting things his own loony way. After his arrival Gotham is no longer the same because it has to face the harsh new light of inquiry before it can finally rest and the dark knight now realises the gravity of the situation at hand. Despite the countless number of smiling dead corpses young Batman is willing to stop it at any cost with bravery for his own cities safety and welfare against these insane criminals, which have started to emerge from the shadows. He now needs to piece together the clown prince of crime bizarre motives and his actions. It is set in time and continuity right after the events of YEAR ONE. At the end of YEAR ONE when Gordon says that someone has threatened to poison Gotham's water supply? That's one of the major plot points of the man who laughs. This is a true crime story where Gordon and the dark night try to take down the clown ace of knaves himself. The illustrations are highly detailed and the characters are very true to life in their appearance. Finally lastly but not least in the end the man who laughs is a solid entertaining retelling story of two polar opposite characters of the same card. They both represent chaos and order of comedy and tragedy, in that they need each other simultaneously to survive.

Don't get me wrong, I did like "The Killing Joke". But I think that this story is so much better. The Killing Joke seemed so rushed to me, and this one didn't feel that way at all. I read the first joker story from Batman #1 (1940) before I read this, just because I wanted to see where the joker started. I liked the story a lot, and thought then that a modern version would be great. Well then I heard about this "The Man Who Laughs" and knew right then that I needed to get it. I looked online and found out that it was out of print, I couldn't even get the stores to order it. Then I went to my local comic book store and they had 4 copies laying right there. I bought it right away, after I read it I was so surprised, they kept the same story from the original and added more flavor to it, more plot. Needless to say, I love this book. This is when Gotham learned to fear The Joker.