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The Three Jokers is, in my view, a bad comic with a perfect ending.

The Adder

The Adder

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,086
And when I say ending, I mean literally the last two pages of the final issue. If you go back literally one more page you're in some of the very worst of the comic.

While I doubt this ending will ever be canon (or at least won't be more than vague canon that drifts in and out of continuity), I very much appreciate what it does. It stops blaming Joker's shittiness on his mental illness. Yes, the insanity helped him expand the scope of his shitty actions, but it was all already there. He didn't go crazy and become violent. He was always violent, he just lost his inhibitions about it.

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I don't make a point of unabashedly complimenting Geoff Johns, but I'll give him this one. This was good.

And yeah, it reframes a major part of a very well loved comic, but so what? Even in that comic Joker admits he may be bullshitting entirely. Leaving out the fact that he was an abuser when trying to convince people that it was just one bad day that made him what he was seems entirely in keeping with who he is.

(It also serves the purpose of making Joker's whole speech about how important and unsolveable a figure in Bruce's life he is seem utterly pathetic, which retroactively makes that part of this still otherwise poor comic much better too.)
 
TheMadTitan

TheMadTitan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
27,197
Everything about it was practically invalidated by Joker War, so it's doubtful it'll ever even enter dubious canon. But that aside, even the ending is messy given how Bruce is seemingly unaware -- and not in the pretending to not know way -- but suddenly reveals he'd known the entire time. It feels cheap and doesn't line up with his portrayal for the entire thing.

Jason Fabok's art is nice though, even though I hate his Batgirl throwback suit. But that's because I hate that Batgirl suit in general.
 
SigmasonicX

SigmasonicX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,470
As a completely disconnected sequence taken out of context, this is a really nice revelation, yeah.
 
MaverickHunterX

MaverickHunterX

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,183
TBH, I'm a sucker for a decent Joker story, so I dug this. But yeah, OP, the ending caught me off guard. I loved it. It's just so Batman; a hint of ego, but if you think about it, of how much strength it takes to keep that secret, after everything that's happened, and knowing what the truth would do to his own family.

Maybe I'm being naive, but I took the whole Jeannie thing as she realizing that Jack was losing his mind and it was only going to get worse from there. I thought that physical abuse would be the next shoe to drop and instead of waiting for it, she skipped town.

This was my question - the Clown chastises the Comedian about daydreaming about his family, saying like hinted in "Killing Joke," that it was all bullshit. If that sounds true, how did the Comedian know exactly how his kid looked? That's way too accurate for even his imagination.

So, the "bad page before," I take it you weren't a fan of a possible
Jason and Barbara
thing?
 
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OP
The Adder

The Adder

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,086
MaverickHunterX said:
TBH, I'm a sucker for a decent Joker story, so I dug this. But yeah, OP, the ending caught me off guard. I loved it. It's just so Batman; a hint of ego, but if you think about it, of how much strength it takes to keep that secret, after everything that's happened, and knowing what the truth would do to his own family.

This was my question - the Clown chastises the Comedian about daydreaming about his family, saying like hinted in "Killing Joke," that it was all bullshit. If that sounds true, how did the Comedian know exactly how his kid looked? That's way too accurate for even his imagination.

So, the "bad page before," I take it you weren't a fan of a possible
Jason and Barbara
thing?
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Independent on how I felt about it, the way that page was executed was just schmaltzy garbage.
 
MaverickHunterX

MaverickHunterX

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,183
The Adder said:
Independent on how I felt about it, the way that page was executed was just schmaltzy garbage.
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To me, it was one of those things I never thought of before it was said aloud. In a sense, it would mesh, considering their shared tragedies and the struggle to move past them. Sure, it was schmaltzy, but it came from a broken person in which i couldn't remember the last positive change for them. And the thing with the note, it was almost perfect for
Jason
; cruel, but fits perfectly Knowing the character.

And besides, I'd rather that than
Babs wanting to fuck Bruce.
. Can't wait for WB to fuck up an animated version like everything else
 
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Candescence

Candescence

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,253
Eh, The Killing Joke isn't as big of a sacred cow as it used to be, and even Alan Moore considers it one of his lesser works.

But yeah, independent of anything else, those two pages are pretty damn good. And it makes sense that Bruce had long figured out the Joker's identity.
 
PK Gaming

PK Gaming

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,331
I can't really engage with the OP since I'm not familiar with the story, but oh jeez comics have really come a long way in terms of art, goddamn are those panels gorgeous

I will say I've always been fond of Joker not actually being mentally ill but just malice incarnate and someone who uses his "one bad day" as an excuse to victimize others
 
Maximum Spider

Maximum Spider

ā–² Legend ā–²
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,966
Cleveland, OH
I thought the Three Jokers was a decent enough pager turner but there's one thing that muddies most of the good feelings I have towards it:

The retconning of Jason's death at the Joker's hands is unforgivable. The only good thing about A Death in the Family is just how defiantly heroic and brave Jason acts when he's at death's door. But I guess Geoff John's couldn't find any other reason for Jason to put a bullet into the Joker's brain.
 
Tornak

Tornak

Member
Feb 7, 2018
8,393
I agree.

Like I enjoyed it for what it was (and the amazing art), but the premise is already unnecessary and dumb (some of the twists/explanations, equally so) and I don't like the treatment of certain characters (namely, Jason, even if there are some good parts in his characterization).

But yeah, the ending is legitimately great. I love Bruce in there and his actions/feelings towards Joker and Chill.

Beyond that, I don't think there's much salvageable and won't be in canon (although I think it was quite popular? At least from a commercial standpoint, which I guess isn't surprising). Well, actually, I'm very partial to the designs for Bruce, Barbara and Jason, so I wouldn't mind seeing them in the future (Jason could do without most of the explicit Robin imagery, but still looks sick thanks to the overall colour scheme, the leather jacket and a proper helmet. Miles better than "MK ninja" Red Hood):
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808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
42,700
I haven't read the series, only seen a general overview when it was running and people were going wtf, but this ending just seems like one of those happy ending retcons for no reason reason. Maybe it has more weight if you read the whole thing, but knowing Killing Joke and then reading this, it just makes me wonder why?
 
RoninChaos

RoninChaos

Member
Oct 26, 2017
8,331
Now I need to read it again. I remember the series not sitting well with me overall and I don't even remember why there were three jokers.
 
Ruisu

Ruisu

Banned
Aug 1, 2019
5,535
Brasil
I hate the ending because the entire comic was this whole elevation of the idea of the Joker, oh how important and misterious he is, and there are three of them, and oh how traumatic he was to everyone in the Batfamily.

And then in the last two pages the comic decides "nah, it's been under control the entire time, Batman always knew who the joker was and has been hiding his true family from him as well." and it's so terribly cheap and an obvious attempt to 'subvert' itself that it didn't earn at all.

And I don't care how much the comic is a one-off detached from the main continuity, I just can't ignore how this entire concept came up from Batman literally joining an all-knowing God-chair, asking what the name of the Joker is and being completely incredulous at the answer. It's so stupid how they couldn't at least try to solve that at all.
 
canseesea

canseesea

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,011
Ruisu said:
And I don't care how much the comic is a one-off detached from the main continuity, I just can't ignore how this entire concept came up from Batman literally joining an all-knowing God-chair, asking what the name of the Joker is and being completely incredulous at the answer. It's so stupid how they couldn't at least try to solve that at all.
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And that question was asked specifically to get information from the chair that he didn't already have. He "tested" it before asking the Joker's identity...which he has apparently known forever.
 
Red or Alive

Red or Alive

Member
Oct 28, 2017
312
Ending didn't do it for me (like the rest of the series).

The GCPD of the Year One era didn't strike me as the kind of cops to go out of their way to rescue a civilian from an abusive relationship.
 
Grenouille

Grenouille

Member
Nov 26, 2017
660
Eh, that ruins the direct, ruthless tragedy of the Killing Joke, which is an aspect I've always enjoyed about it. They could have expressed the idea of the joker having always been an abuser without a blatant retcon.
 
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