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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Clown Prince of Crime,
By Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told (DC Comics) (Paperback)
Here the Joker in the Batman comics gets his own book, which would suit his enormous vanity down to a T. Fans are divided as to whether the "Dark Knight" noir side of the Batman is the only acceptable face to the comic, and in general the lighthearted camp approach of the 1960s TV show is mocked and derided today. Everyone's looking for angst, particularly in their cartoon super-heroes. And so the Joker, with his chalk-white face and his manic grin, is no longer in, though even the zaniest of the late 1950s strips portrayed him as a man mentally torn between madness and street smarts. Fans of the dark approach like the way in which, by the 1970s, the Joker was actually killing people, often in horrible ways, in place of the surprise "laughing gas" tricks and comic crimes he resorted to back in the day. Both tribes of fans will find plenty to like in this book.
It's interesting to note how literate they must have assumed their audience to be back in the 40s and 50s. One story has the Joker adopting disguises--the costumes of famous characters of comedy--to commit his crimes in. I'm not talking Lucy and Ricky here, but Mr. Micawber from David Copperfield, Pagliacci, Pickwick, and Falstaff (who invades a performance of HAMLET and makes a spectacle of himself with his lines from Henry V.) Try that one out on today's comic readers! The most negligible story here is "Crime-of-the-Month Club" from 1957, in which The Joker tries to sell thugs his own "brilliantly conceived" caper plans for crimes, each one for some reason obviously tied in with particular months (April fools, June brides), in an auction pyramid scheme with some foreshadowing of the EBay of the present day. It's fluff, and it's not even good fluff. On the other end of the spectrum is the epic, Sergio Leone inspired "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge" from 1973, in which the Joker dispatches, one by one, five of his goons with terrifying power and real dementia, while the Batman runs always a step or two behind. It's grim, and some like them grim. I myself prefer the stories which pair the Joker with the blonde sex bomb "Sparrow," and the spooky transformations of "Clay-Face" from earlier on in the Joker's long career. One story that didn't make it into the book, though the editors were tempted, is the one that paired Batman and the Joker with none other than Jerry Lewis. Seems to me he would have been a great movie Joker, probably better than Jack Nicholson. Nicholson has his famous "killer smile," but Jerry had the real killer mind.... Mike Gold and Mark Wald supply notes that are pretty informative and the comics look good (except for their color registers). I dock the book a notch only because it's actually too much of a good thing, for after a while you get tired of the Joker, and maybe 18 or 19 stories in a row was pushing it.
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Has some great moments, but overall disappointing,
By Dean Kilbride (New Zealand) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told (DC Comics) (Paperback)
This book looked great. Great cover, great concept - the Joker's best stories since his inception in 1940. Sadly, the kind yet insane people at DC Comics chose the strangest selection ever considering this was supposed to be the greatest stories EVER told. Included at the back of the book is a section by Mark Waid, who describes other Joker stories which didn't make the cut. Most of them actually sound better than the ones included, such as "The Last Laugh", in which the Joker erects a giant monument - of himself, naturally - in Gotham Harbour, and an issue in which he forces Batman into a boxing match with spiked gloves on. Sounds interesting, right?
Sadly, some genius decided that including numerous, interchangable, and mind-numbing stories from the 50s and 60s was more important in terms of page allocation. Each story is indistinguishable from the next, and none are especially interesting. Two early highlights are from the early 1940s, when Bob Kane was still drawing Batman. These stories take place in a Gotham that consists of spooky haunted houses, with the Joker lunging out of the shadows to spook the bejesus out of you. Clowns are scary that way. One weird moment, however, is in "The Case of the Joker's Crime Circus", in which the writers make a point about introducing a midget called "Tino" to the reader, as if setting up a major plot point for later on. After Tino's eloquent introduction courtesy the Joker ("THIS IS TINO!"), he vanishes completely. Way to go, guys. Things pick up, after 165 pages, with 1973's "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge". Regarded as one of the single best stand-alone Batman issues, it features a Denny O'Neil story and inventive Neal Adams art. The Joker sets about murdering his ex-gang members, coincidentally in the exact order Batman chooses to track them down in. The Joker is taking babysteps back to being threatening after the creative hell that was the 50s and 60s, and Batman is as heroic and compassionate as ever. The shark tank sequence is frankly awesome, but the ending is strange... after Batman catches the Joker, he leads him off by the scruff of his neck, and the Joker calmly complies. The Joker is supposed to be a homicidal, intelligent dynamo of evil, not a five-year-old kid. Still, this is cool. The absolute high point is the double-whammy of "The Laughing Fish"/"The Sign of the Joker", by Steve Englehart. Despite some baffling-to-novices subplots, the result of its being from the middle of Englehart's run on Detective Comics, this is bloody beautiful. The Joker here is a murderer, a bully, creative, intelligent and, best of all, actually funny. Batman, also in top form, is run through the wringer to stop him. The art by Marshall Rogers is truly top-drawer stuff, but it's recommended you buy instead "Strange Apparitions", which collects Englehart's complete run. There are only 3 other post-1970 stories, which range from fair to appalling. In "Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker", an otherwise acceptable story from 1980, the colouring is garish and disgusting. Which brings me to my next gripe: the original colours of these stories has been jettisioned for no discernible reason, and is instead coloured by contemporary (as of 1989) colourists. This is unnoticeable in most cases, but it's disappointing that the original colours weren't retained, in order to keep the stories as they were. The colours for the aforementioned story, though, are simply unforgivable. The Joker's suit at one stage appears to be bright blue. Nice one, Julianna Ferriter, whoever you are. May you never work in comics again. This suffers badly from a baffling, terrible selection of stories, with really on three "great" ones in the whole bunch, two of which are really part of the same story. There were many, many other interesting selections which could have been made. The 1980s is sorely underrepresented, especially considering this collection was produced in 1989, and the most recent story contained within is from 1980. A three-part story from 1983 in which the Joker attempts to take over Guatemala, as detailed in the notes section, is a damn sight more interesting and worthy of inclusion than the umpteenth 50s story involving the Joker dressing up as Old King Cole or whatever the hell else he did back then. Sadly, their excuse is that they "didn't have enough space". Yes, you did, DC Comics. You just squandered it badly. That said... it's OK. The best stories drag the rating up a star or two. The rest are either cute or intolerable. How intolerable? In "The Great Clayface-Joker Feud", Clayface escapes our heroes by morphing into a mystical flying sphinx. Loser.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
laugh clown laugh,
This review is from: Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told (DC Comics) (Paperback)
These stories are from all differant eras of the joker.The original and evil joker, the 50s and 60s joker who would only try to outwit the dynamic duo with silly gimmics (to many times does the crime involve robbing places thats first letters will spell his name)and lastly the 70s and 80s joker who is a perfect blend of the two and is the joker we know now. WARNING.these stories are NOT for children which an earlier reviewer stated.
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