#The Joker War

[momachan]

"Yeah, just found a housewarming gift from Bruce."

Red Hood: The Hill (2024) #0. "A Family Thing."

[inoghmia]

I know I keep making jokes about batjokes but Bruce, buddy, what kind of poetic love letter till death do us part soulmates bs speech is this

(Batman 2016 Vol.2 The Joker War )

[ciccerone]

Harley Quinn VS Punchline (The Joker War) from Batman Vol. 3 #98 Art by Jorge Jiménez, Color by Tomeu Morey

[howlingday]

Cinder: I don't understand why you would choose to follow a leader who doesn't respect you. Doesn't care about you.

Jaune: She does care about me.

Cinder: Does she? She has her one rule, doesn't she? The one that she stands by no matter what? "Do not kill." And yet, I'm still alive, despite the countless bodies that lead back to her decision, her choice to keep me alive.

Cinder: And there's you; another straggler caught up in her own little war that you never asked for. A war she dragged you into.

Jaune: ...You know what I think, Cinder? I think you're desperate. All these attempts you make to get her attention, and why? To be her friend? Her lover? Let's face it, you love Ruby, and you can't bear the thought of living without her.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Jaune: IT'S SO PATHETIC!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Cinder: Stop it. Stop laughing. You don't get to laugh at me!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Cinder: Shut up! SHUT UP! STOP LAUGHING! STOP LAUGHING!

[zahri-melitor]

The Joker War:

Yeah so: this was a good event. The stakes were high, it pulled in and tied off a lot of storytelling since Rebirth, and it reset the status quo for Gotham. Plus, I had a lot of fun reading it.

Sometimes you read an event and come out of it going 'well what was the point'. This is not one of those events; I can see how it sets up a whole chunk of the subsequent 4 years of stories.

It also had an absolutely banger set of writers working on it, supplemented with solid artists. It was very much James Tynion's event, but he clearly was talking to Peter Tomasi, Ram V, Dan Jurgens and Cecil Castellucci to pull the storytelling together. (Scott Lobdell also contributed a single issue but it was very much a tie-in of the 'Jason receives a call' type). Castellucci was the weakest link in that set and even she landed what needed to happen with Barbara during the event.

So. Joker reveals that he knows who all the Bats are, and that he's known that for a long time, as he proceeds to try and break Bruce by plunging the city into chaos, stealing all of the Wayne fortune, revealing Wayne Enterprises to be as 'corrupt' as any other multinational, and using all of the Bat equipment that the company has been manufacturing to cause terror.

Bruce, who has been isolating himself in the wake of City of Bane and Alfred's death, initially starts out trying to fight all of this on his own, and then spends even more time hallucinating Alfred, as Tynion gives him a chance to process what happened. He eventually gets to the classic 'call in the family' round up. But mostly, he's fighting Joker by himself. Harley, who is extremely irritated by Punchline's whole existence (and sewed up her own slit throat with a guitar string at one point), spends a fair amount of time helping Bruce, and eventually sets up a situation in the final Bruce v Joker showdown where she ties bombs to herself and to Joker, tells Bruce he's only got time to defuse one, and sprints away. Joker is VERY put out by Bruce's decisions in this situation, because they contradict what he's been monologuing about.

That's the main Bruce plot. (Oh he also gets to deal with Two-Face bringing Lincoln March back and then my least favourite fake Wayne getting blown up in a way that may or may not be fatal. The wikis cannot agree)

Dick's entire Ric plot arc comes to a head with a series of brainwashings. Joker gets his hands on the crystal that had previously brainwashed him into having no memories and then to thinking he was raised by William Cobb as a Talon, and deciding to join in the fun, rewrites Dick's memories as 'Dickyboy', who was raised by Joker after the circus. Yes. We do Joker Junior (but for Dick!) Most of the bad stuff done during this period is like...calling for help to trick Jason, Tim and Babs to turn up, and then curbstomping Jason. Tim gets to defuse a bomb about to blow up a hospital and is very proud of himself, while Dick's fatal flaw of 'extremely suggestible to redheads' pops up and a combination of Babs and Bea are able to talk him around and restore his memories to actually being Dick Grayson (Bea's purple dreads get her into the category, I think). Thank goodness, Nightwing is back.

Selina is busy playing everyone, and ends up transferring the Wayne fortune she originally set in motion to be stolen from Bruce to end up in Lucius Fox's Caymans bank account, setting up the whole upcoming Jace Fox stories. Also she moves back to Alleytown in the aftermath of everything to get back to her Brubaker roots.

Barbara gets attacked by Joker who wants to replicate A Killing Joke now that he can reveal he knows he shot Batgirl at that time, and hijacks her spinal implant. So Babs digs it out AGAIN, then once she's got away needs Luke Fox to help her fix it and reimplant the connections. The entire point of all of these fun and games is essentially to put Babs in a position where she knows she needs to stop relying on going out as Batgirl: she finally gets to come back online as Oracle, in green wearing glasses, where she seizes control of the city and does some proper Oracle work. There's a fair amount of talk about how she needs to start transitioning back to Oracle at least part time.

Also James Jr has developed a split personality and ends up throwing himself off a building to his death, while Babs as Batgirl tries to grab him, leading to even more extension of the "Jim Gordon hates Batgirl" plot that's been running since n52 and the last time James Jr threw himself to his death (off a bridge). Sigh. I'm bored of that one. There's a broken body at the bottom and we bury him this time, so we're pretty safe from another James Jr plot until someone decides to drop his corpse in a Lazarus Pit or get Superboy Prime to punch time or inject him with electrum or whatever.

Oh and Steph and Cass switch costumes to be both be Batgirl in a short in the anthology issue, which has the most unfortunate art in existence and may possibly be the source of the confusion over their ages at the start of the Batgirls run (It would be fine if it was a DC Super Hero Girls imprint story; it's ridiculous for main universe).

It's fun! Quite a lot goes on! Pretty much everyone shows up at some point, including Kate Kane coming back to Gotham for the first time since the whole 'shooting Clayface' situation; the only big absences are Damian (stuck in limboland and only appearing on one cover; this is presumably due to all the back and forth going on as people try to work out what they're doing with him now that 5G is off the table); JPV, who I think is technically still in space?; and Harper gets namechecked as still working with Leslie, but doesn't show up.

I would definitely recommend it if you have read a decent amount of the Batman/Detective Comics/Nightwing/Batgirl/Catwoman comics between 2016 and 2020. I also would suggest it's a solid choice if you're simply interested in the set up for all the character direction changes spinning out after the cancel/relaunch of titles after Future State at the start of 2021.

This is definitely one of those events where, while there is a lot of Joker, he's actually being used for reasons that make sense, and there's a lot of other villains running around causing problems as well.

[fordarkisthesuede]

I haven't seen anyone talk about this yet so I am now obligated to show y'all this statue I found

I mean LOOK at this absolute beauty!!! He's GORGEOUS!!!

This is officially the Museum Masterline Batman The Joker Batsuit (Concept Design by Jorge Jimenez) statue, scaled at a whopping 31 inches tall! He big!!!

Apparently this is Jorge Jimenez' design of Joker in the [stolen] Batsuit in Batman #99 of The Joker War arc. (And none of y'all cycled any of those images around? lol come on guys don't hold out on me here)

He's also pricey af (about $2K, not counting shipping) and sold out on half the places I looked, like BigBadToyStore and Entertainment Earth, but there's one left at CollecterzOwn if any of you have the means for it!

And I need you all to see the "bonus" head included with this baby because OMG HE LOOKS SO FUCKING GOOD

STOP BEING PRETTY JOKER I DON'T HAVE ROOM FOR YOUR PRICEY ASS

[catboybatman]

Started The Joker War......??? Why WE manufacturing weapons all of a sudden?? I thought there was a basic understanding that they didnt do that? Also Bruce is written a lot more violent/worse than in Tomasi's comics before this? Whats up with that? He's such an asshole, like, even more than usual in current comics? Also bordering on being careless and killing especially in the Two-Face part of the comic. He really is so unsympathetic, also kinda curt with Harvey when they confronted each other for the first time in this comic but that might be bc of the panelling.

Speaking of Two-Face; THE IMPROMPTU BRAIN SURGERY??? Is it medical malpractice if you dont have a license because i think Bruce just went a step too far. Its one thing to practice field medicine/basics without formal hospital training (not to say he didnt have training/good education on it but yk) but BRAIN SURGERY??? Did i miss something??? Back to the violence,, he really was going to town like... idk. What is it with writers making him beat the information out of people so much and so violently like gang... stop it. Idk maybe Tomasi rewatched the Nolan movies for this.

He and Kate are kinda cute tho. I do miss the days Bruce said please and thank you on the regular(ish), i really liked that subtle thing about him. Such a polite young man. But thats what you get if you jump around between older comics and current ones i guess. Speaking of: the difference between the detective work then and now... oh how i miss the times before that damned speaking computer. When he put stuff in the analyzing machines and came to his own conclusions. I mean really, it would already improve so much if they just had Bruce read out/think the computer conclusions rather than have some digital voice say it. Especially because im 75% sure that isnt how that works. Anyway. Whatever

[nfcomics]

HARLEY QUINN no.1 • cover art • Derrick Chew [Mar 2021]

Ahem! You better read this closely, ’cause we’ve got a red-hot relaunch on our hands here—and I should know! Harley Quinn here to let everyone know that I got a brand-new monthly series here with a brand-new status quo. I’m coming back to Gotham City to make up for the sins of my past, and help the city recover from “The Joker War”! But there’s no welcoming committee waiting for me, your favorite Maid of Mischief! And between you and me, some real creeps are working to keep the city broken. We can’t let that happen, can we?

(W) Stephanie Phillips (A) Riley Rossmo (CA) Derrick Chew

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt.4

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.5] [Pt.6] [Pt.7] [Pt.8] [Pt.9] [Pt.10]

Danny was sitting in the back, his backpack obnoxiously taking up the seat next to him, when the door to the lecture hall creaked open near silently.

“What are you in here for?” Danny asked the guy who crept into class. He sympathetically took his backpack off the Seat of Shame and allowed the guy to sit down. Funnily enough, they had the same hair and eye color.

“Gen Ed. Undecided. You?” The guy grunted quietly back.

“Environmental studies. I’m Danny.”

“Tim.”

With the implicit understanding of two people in a required class they could not give less than two fucks about, Tim and Danny tuned back into the lecture. When the class was assigned group work, Danny looked over to see Tim softly snoring, head slammed down on the table.

“Tim. Wake up, dude.” Danny poked his shoulder.

“Huh? Class over?”

“Nah, we got group work. Discussion board.”

“Oh shit, thanks for waking me up. Wanna team up?”

Danny shrugged. “Sure. We should aim to post it in the middle so the professor doesn’t read our answers to the class.”

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Any idea what we’re talking about?”

“Kind of?”

“Good enough for me.”

——

Tim Drake kept seeing Danny Fenton around on campus.

“Danny! Dude, what are you doing?”

Danny turned, gloved hands full of crumpled trash. “Picking up after the student population, apparently.”

“Didn’t think environmental studies was that serious.”

“Global warming is very serious, you jerk,” Danny smirked at him, crossing the grass to put the trash into the trash can. “Reduce, reuse, oil shouldn’t be spilled in water and all that.”

“Basic stuff,” Tim grinned. Nice, he basically had a friend past Bernard now!

They were friends, right?

“And yet humanity fails to comprehend it. Incredible. Incredibly stupid that is.”

“They get it. Major corporations just don’t care.”

Danny sighed. “True that. You on your way to your next class?” He took off his biodegradable gloves off (nitrile and nylon, baby!) and chucked them into the trash.

“I’ve got free time, actually. Prof cancelled for his daughter’s surgery.”

“Oh, shit, that’s rough! You wanna go downtown and join the strike?”

“A strike? What for?” Even as he asked, Tim hiked his bag higher onto his shoulder, ready to go. They fell into step as the two left campus.

“Apparently, Quillan Pharma was doing some shady shit at their manufacturing plants. I think it’s like killing kids, and pouring toxins into the ground.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. Oh! Poison Ivy’s gonna be there!”

Tim blinked. He casted a sideways look at Danny. Sure he’s been here long enough to know… but it couldn’t hurt to check. “You know she’s an eco-terrorist, right?”

“Okay, but like… people suck sometimes. And all she’s asking for is like don’t kill the planet. And she doesn’t do that whole mind control thing too much anymore! The Sirens are so cool. Plus, one of my best friends at home might actually kill me if I don’t try to get her autograph. Poison Ivy is like, Sam’s personal hero.”

Tim snickered. “Yeah, okay. Mind if one of my friends join? His name’s Bernard.”

“The more the merrier,” Danny nodded. “Ooo! Hot chocolate. Want some?”

Danny bought three drinks as Tim trailed behind, texting Bernard.

“He said yes.”

“Cool! We should meet up somewhere before the drinks get cold.”

Well, Danny got the autograph. Tim got a new friend, and Bernard got a drink from his crush.

——

“Oh, you’re the glowing dude that Batman always talks about!”

Danny blinked, eyes scanning the wing-like cape and the yellow emblem on the hero’s suit. Danny was indeed glowing, stars and nebulas freckling across neon green skin, and glowing hair the color of a white dwarf star, tinged with the blue from his ice core.

“I… have absolutely no idea who you are,” Danny lied, like a liar. He’s found a surprising niche of entertainment in messing with the local vigilantes and he’ll be damned if he missed this opportunity.

He heard a snicker from the comm lines as Red Robin visibly brushes it off.

“I��m Red Robin. Why are you picking up trash?”

“Picking up after you humans, apparently.”

The both of them blink, feeling a weird sense of déjà vu. A moment of awkward silence passed before they both shook it off.

“Are you here to help? No offense, but the track record for you people is terrible.” Danny strode over and grabbed a bag. He opened it, and shook it at Red Robin’s face. “See? Batarangs, these odd bird looking ones, the R’s. Seriously, pick up after yourselves!”

“Oh, woah, can we have these back?”

Danny yanked the bag back before Red Robin could get close. “Pay me. These were incredibly tedious to pick up. Especially the batarangs. I mean, I even found a whole bunch of old rusted ones in the middle of the bay. What did you do, dump an entire bag in there from the air?”

Red Robin sighed and took out a wad of cash, with tracking fluid all over it. Danny grimaced, smelling the odd scent on the money. “That’s not real cash. It smells off. Are you trying to give me counterfeits because you’re broke?”

Red Robin gaped, oddly offended. “No! They’re real!”

“Doesn’t smell like it. It’s stinkier than the trash. Go get the one with the money, the litterer. Tell him I’ll be back the next full moon. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Danny grumbled, disappearing on the spot to watch Red Robin flounder with the stack of cash and the piles of dead bodies on the shore.

“What the fuck even is my life these days?” Red Robin wondered out loud, stuffing the cash back into his pocket. He looked over the plastic wrapped bodies and slumped, sighing.

Oddly enough, Danny felt a sense of sympathy. Well, he’s not getting paid for sympathy. He’s not getting paid at all tonight, actually. Danny flew off, plunging once more into the depths of the significantly cleaner waters, and used his ice to scoop out oil stains.

Danny glanced around and sighed. He had a lot of work to do.

——

“So you’re saying he’s like a werewolf mermaid fae child immortal god thing, right?”

Bruce grunted.

“B, what the hell are you smoking these days? You know drugs are bad, right? Do we need Superman to give you that PSA?” Jason snickered.

Tim, massaging his arms from having to haul an ungodly amount of dead bodies, grunted. He’s so similar to Bruce that it gave the people currently in the cave hives.

“He said full moon. I don’t think we can track him with regular stuff. The bugs kept shorting out.”

“Oh boy,” Dick sighed. “Don’t fall off the spiral cliff, Tim. You’ve got midterms to think about so no stalking the guy.”

“Yet,” Tim shot back, changing out of his suit.

Bruce grunted, setting aside a huge stack of cash.

[25shadesoffebruary]

Joker of all trades

[momachan]

"Killer Croc. Aren't you supposed to be locked away in Arkham? -Cut a deal. Early release for good behaivor. Aren't you missing some Outlaws? That Artemis is smokin'. -Step out. Let's do this."

Red Hood: The Hill (2024) #0. "A Family Thing."

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

The many facets of Joker

[incorrectbatfam]

Dick: You killed my brother.

Joker: I've killed very many brothers. You'll have to be more specific.

[howlingday]

Tyrian: My goddess, I... I have failed you... The people have gathered together too well, and we are losing. I want you to know, before my death, that I love you and I will never stop believing in you.

Jaune: Funny... I think I heard a song like that once.

Tyrian: You!

Jaune: Yeah, me. Remember me? Jaune Arc, short, sweet, rolls off the tongue? The ladies love it. But more importantly, I'm the guy who's going to put you in jail. And you're going to stay there for a long time.

Tyrian: Oh, is that SO?! (Swipes)

Jaune: (Deflects, Parries) Yeah! It IS! (Clocks him)

Tyrian: (Rolls across the ground) Hoo... Hoohoohoohoo! Oh, you really think you have a chance? (Grimm crawl behind) Against ALL of us?

Jaune: Yeah.

Jaune: (Ren, Nora, Oscar, & Emerald arrive) Yeah, we do.

[zahri-melitor]

Prelude to Joker War

Thinking about the state of play as I go into this:

City of Bane: notably the supporting characters who were involved in this were Damian, Tim, Helena, Babs, Duke and Cass. They're currently the crew who were worrying about Bruce's state of mind. Alfred is dead; half the rogues have recently got to romp around the streets controlling things and clearly sort of miss it.

Batman: Pennyworth RIP just made clear for everyone that Jason, Tim, Damian and Babs are all supposed to be sorta annoyed at Bruce for various reasons right now.

Tynion's lead in to the event in Batman has been focused on the plans of someone called The Designer, whose outfit has been giving me serious Vandal Savage vibes (it is very very like what he's been swanning around in in the current Zdarsky run), but at present has been revealed to NOT be Vandal. Sus. The Designer's thing is that he helps villains improve their plans, and back in the Early Days (TM) - it's pitched as Robin!Dick period, but the costumes look 90s - he helped Joker, Riddler, Catwoman and Penguin refine overarching dream plans for how to take down Batman and conquer Gotham. Someone's just had all four of them activate those plans: assassins going after major political figures with the intention of getting Penguin to be Mayor; Riddler locked the city down with a grand crossword puzzle that was supposed to be a labyrinth for Bruce but that he solved on the fly (oh Eddie you are in a bad place right now, with this both having Year Zero vibes and also being shirtless and scarred); Selina wanted to become the richest person alive by...stealing Bruce Wayne's wealth for herself; and Joker's busy with an evil plan to exploit the other three's plans and 'become the devil'.

In Detective Comics Two-Face is currently having issues where he's concealing information between his personalities and is currently running a Two-Face cult based on his coin flips in the bowels of the courthouse; Bruce has just discovered this and got captured, and the cultists are following the orders of the coin flips.

Dick has just been brainwashed and is transitioning out of Ric Grayson as a personality - he is currently trying to distinguish between memories of being raised by William Cobb as a Talon and being raised by Bruce in a combined post-Crisis&Rebirth shaped timeline (Dick was definitely fostered around 10, he just confirmed a bunch of Bludhaven memories that he definitely did not have before this storyline started).

Babs is very very confused right now (a bunch of her writers clearly aren't talking), but she's at the present working for Congresswoman Luciana Alejo and exhibiting a very 'it's not gentrification unless it happened AFTER I arrived' attitude. She's mad that Bruce is busy rebuilding half of Gotham after City of Bane tore it apart, because...she doesn't trust that the rebuild will happen in all communities? Because systemic racism and classism or something? Even though she can just talk to Bruce? I dunno, it's a whole plot that could be sorted out if Babs raised her concerns with Bruce and asked him a few questions, someone she's known for more than a decade.

Oh and Selina is also getting dragged around quite a bit by the demands of the plot, from King, where she was back to essentially dating Bruce, everything's fine in City of Bane, to her own title, where she's had to leave Villa Hermosa as everything became too hot for her to handle and she's just started a roadtrip across country with Maggie (and Ram V is about to pick up the book), to Tynion's story where she's stealing all of Bruce's money because...I can't actually tell? She's been forced into setting off her plan by Joker?

In any case, there are a lot of balls in the air, and I hate to say it but it looks like Joker is about to crash everything in a fascinating manner.

[bluerosefox]

Phantomish Rogues

Team Phantom get ripped from their home universe into the DCverse. With no money or real ID's in this world. Now thats a problem.

Another big problem is that Danny is badly injured and his core kinda put him into a deep cryo sleep. He needs to rest and gather ectoplasm.

Bigger problem Team Phantom have no clue how to get home because they don't know how to decode the Fenton Portal blue-prints, not even Jazz who at the time didn't pay attention to her parents portal work anymore by the time they finished it. The only one who does have an idea is Danny!

Biggest problem, they landed in a place called Gotham that seems to be overrun with actual villains and heroes? (vigilantes). And for some odd reason many of them seem to find them no matter where the Team goes to hide.

Until they can get their hands on a safe space, tech, and money, Team Phantom might have to go a bit Rogue/Villainous if they wanna keep Danny safe until he wakes up.