In the first major Joker story since the major DCU reboot, the Joker returns with a new approach to waging his war on Batman.
I'm of two minds about this arc (which, I admit, would be a better pun if this was a Two-Face story). The Joker is absolutely terrifying in this volume--a homicidal maniac who spouts gruesome threats where he may (or may not) be bluffing. His goal of attacking Batman through his support network (Nightwing, Red Robin, Batgirl, etc.) is pretty genius, and his claim to have figured out the identities of the whole Bat-Family is pretty great. The Joker here is a genius at psychological manipulation who knows just which buttons to push for maximum terror (and believe me, some of the things he says/implies are REALLY terrifying). But while the Joker was one of his scariest incarnations yet (just look at the cover, where his face has been crudely reattached with wires--he sports that look for the whole book!), I admit there were a few places where the story fell a little flat--or at least had me asking "why?" to my faithful comics reading companion, my dog.
One of the things that I both loved and didn't love were the references to past famous Joker stories. Since this story draws in a lot of Batman's supporting cast, it makes sense to reference the Joker's past violence to both Barbara Gordon and Jason Todd (though it feels like Barbara Gordon's case gets more air time; Todd is barely mentioned, which is odd considering that he actually died from what the Joker did to him). However, the Joker's m.o.of systematically reenacting his earliest crimes is strange. It makes sense to the reader (this is his "rebirth" in the New 52, after all), but makes less sense within the context of the DCU. The Joker hasn't really been "reborn" at this point, so why do that? I was also confused about the Joker's whereabouts for the last year. At the end of Faces of Death (Joker's last appearance) the Joker has vanished completely, and people comment throughout this book that they haven't seen him for a year. But later on we learn that he's been in Arkham for the past year--as a patient? Then didn't we know where he was? Or was he just hanging out there, since it seems to be his home away from home?
Overall, I enjoyed this collection, as long as I don't think too hard about the plot. I'll be interested to see where Snyder takes this in the Zero Year arc.
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