issues 13-17 of the 2011 series
The plot itself is pretty basic, although the details are very well-written. When the Joker leads Batman to Arkham, he's got to fight through a mob of inmates, who've stolen riot gear. Here's my favorite action sequence from that scene (4 pgs).
by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, Jock and more
In a nod to the Dennis O'Neil story, "Death in the Family," where the Joker murdered then-Robin Jason Todd, Snyder and co. pen their own take on it..."Death of the Family." It's named after Joker's main objective here, after a year-long hiatus: He thinks that all of the allies that Batman has surrounded himself with has made him weak. Last storyline, for example, he needed the help of his bat-family to save Gotham City from the Court of Owls. So the Joker has laid out a carnival of horrors across Gotham City, each an allusion to previous "dates" that he's had with the Batman, to convince him that he's better off without the bat-fam.
It's kind of clever how they included all these nods to previous storylines. None of them rang a bell for me, but of course, I haven't been reading Batman for 50+ years! It's even in the title itself...this story stands on the shoulders of its ancestors. At the time, there were still lots of questions about how the New 52 fit into the continuity of the DC Universe, and for them to make these references cemented its legitimacy as bonafide "canon" stories.
The final death trap sees the Batman having to choose between saving his teammates or pursuing Joker, but in a small twist, the Batman's faith in his team allows him to prevail.
The plot itself is pretty basic, although the details are very well-written. When the Joker leads Batman to Arkham, he's got to fight through a mob of inmates, who've stolen riot gear. Here's my favorite action sequence from that scene (4 pgs).
The Joker gets way too heavy on exposition for my taste. It got wordy and annoying, when sometimes the Joker doesn't need to have so many words to be menacing. It's worth noting, the full crossover event between all of the bat-family titles was collected in a 400-pg book called "Joker: Death of the Family." Apparently, Joker is worth billing more than Batman here!
A solid entry in the story, and a solid re-entry for the Joker back into the comics.
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