Each week, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 32 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-)read it, talk about it, and, on (or about) Wednesday, post whatever emerges; you can subscribe via RSS, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast delivery system. This week: internal affairs(!) / cleveland(!) / peter weller(!)
Each week, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 32 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-)read it, talk about it, and, on (or about) Wednesday, post whatever emerges; you can subscribe via RSS, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast delivery system. This week: my shitty memory / creeper Hawkman / shoeboxes:
(Written by Geoff Johns with art by Jason Fabok and Brad Anderson. Released August-October 2020 via DC Comics Black Label; my complete reading list, from 2013 to the present, lives here)
While he wrote one of my favorite recent Bat-variants – the Thomas Wayne Flashpoint Batman (though it was Azzarello’s work that made him a favorite) – and the central conceit of THREE JOKERS is intriguing (any opportunity to see the Joker in his first, “Criminal,” iteration is a win for me – and I LOVE that it hurts him to laugh), Geoff Johns writing Batman triggers some weird cognitive dissonance for me: it's a phenomenon I've yet to explain – perhaps fodder for a future maundering – but one that is, nonetheless there, clouding my view of any of Johns's efforts with the Bat.
While it may have clouded my view, it didn't hamper my enjoyment: THREE JOKERS is a solid yarn with some particularly affecting sequences delivered in stunning detail by Fabok interspersed with some that felt like afterthoughts– in particular, Barb and Jason's "moment" and its impact deserved more time and more depth than Johns afforded it; I can't decide if it was out of a fear or discomfort of "going there" and all that it could entail (a veritable goldmine, I think), or a desire to cram a whole bunch of ideas into a far-too-lean package.
Definitely worth a read though its brevity was a disservice to both its impact and staying power.