Review: Batman Incorporated Vol. 2: Joker Incorporated hardcover (DC Comics)

Ed Brisson’s Batman Incorporated Vol. 2: Joker Incorporated has a ticking clock that winds down effectively, spreading mayhem and carnage that’s worthy of the villain in the title. This second volume is an improvement on the satisfactory first, which is what we like to see, and certainly acquits Brission well. I had the normal reader jitters at the beginning going into a book whose author I wasn’t familiar with, but by the end I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up one of Brisson’s books again.

There’s a few titles that DC billed as ongoing in the Infinite Frontier era that ran 12 issues and done, seemingly “maxiseries” in disguise. I can’t see why Inc. couldn’t have gone longer — Joker Incorporated is about as fine an arc for this title as one could hope — but maybe a Batman book without the actual Batman or recognizable members of the Bat-family just doesn’t make the cut.

[Review contains spoilers]

The challenge posed by the Joker in Inc. Vol. 2 is not particularly original, I don’t think. The Joker’s implanted bombs in his acolytes that can only be disarmed if the international Batmen kill their enemies; the “joke” here, one I think has been played before, is to put in opposition Batman’s dual edicts: save lives and don’t kill.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

But I think Brisson wisely applies this to Batman Inc., given that the very premise is a Bat-team run by Ghost-Maker, already a vigilante who kills, who’s renounced killing mostly on a lark (or so he says) to give Batman’s approach a try. So indeed this is a team wrestling with Joker-logic that would give many of them permission to do what they already think is the right thing anyway.

And Brisson manages to make breaking bad seem compelling, as Ghost-Maker argues with his reluctant team in the second issue that the villains are going to die either way, by the Joker’s hand or by theirs, the only question is whether the hostages will be sacrificed as well. This is preceded by more than a couple scenes of innocents meeting their deaths, such that Ghost-Maker’s suggestion doesn’t seem as abhorrent as it usually might among the superhero set. (It’s a relatively violent book as these things go, though commensurate with its subject matter.) Another second’s thought and it occurred to me this is a problem that might otherwise be solved by “beaming up” the villains into the Justice League transporter, but for a moment Brisson did well in presenting a seemingly hopeless situation.

Indeed, the book feels wonderfully chaotic, wonderfully time-crunched, and again I think Brisson does well creating a palpable ticking clock, something hard to do in comics. (I’d venture this is a story better read in trade than waiting a month between parts.) Partially Brisson accomplishes this through showing us the various outcomes — Joker presses his trigger and an acolyte releases Joker gas; Wingman hesitates to kill his opponent and is himself killed; Dark Ranger ultimately throws himself on top of his exploding enemy. It’s a place where the book’s big cast helps — when it seemed more a hinderance in Batman Incorporated Vol. 1: No More Teachers — in that Brisson has lots of room to swiftly cut back and forth between scenes of mayhem.

The Wingman who dies, by the way, is Willis Todd, father of Jason Todd, the Red Hood. Jason's father being alive was not at all fresh to me and I had to jump back to Red Hood and the Outlaws to remind myself, and even then it’s still a bit muddled. In wherever Jason is showing up these days, I don’t expect Willis' death will be a storyline a la when Roy Harper died in Heroes in Crisis; rather, Willis' death serves both to raise this book’s stakes and to put to bed an extant continuity nightmare.

As befits mainstream superhero comics, it would seem Brisson’s book comes down on the “not kill” side of things. Ghost-Maker leaves the team (off to limbo?) and the remaining Batmen prepare to lead themselves, with Raven Red’s father affirming, “I’m proud of how strong you are, son” for not killing a villain when he had the chance. Still, the book ends with emphasis on the line “no good deed goes unpunished,” which is an argument against, not for, taking the higher path. It remains to be seen whether that’s something that will play out; DC offers “the end … for now!” but I don’t take that as any guarantee of future plans in place.

John Timms provides most of the art; I’m used to his work on “lighter” titles like Harley Quinn and Young Justice, but this blood-soaked volume is really an argument toward him getting a shot on the Batman title proper. Between Michele Bandini, David Lafuente, Serg Acuña, and Nikola Cizmesija, it’s hard to tell who’s helping out on which pages (plus DC’s unfortunate tendency these days to list pencillers and inkers all in one category), but I appreciated that the Clownhunter character gets drawn a bit in the pseudo-animated style that James Stokoe has depicted him earlier.

That all of this goes down in Ed Brisson’s Batman Incorporated Vol. 2: Joker Incorporated — Ghost-Maker quitting, Jason Todd’s father being killed, a Joker attack — without an appearance by Batman himself is surprising, perhaps the only indication in an otherwise solid book that maybe the end took the creative team by surprise. There’s also a late-book sequence of Ghost-Maker throwing knives into henchmen’s that looks rather fatal, though colored in shadow so it’s hard to tell.

That is, does Ghost-Maker indeed kill here? What does Batman have to say about it? Pity we don’t get an answer, and I don’t see more from Brisson on DC’s schedule, but I’d certainly be game for it.

[Includes original covers, gallery of 32 (!!) variant covers from the series]

Rating 2.5