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Off the Damn Side of the City, Man!

“The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture,�� Alfred Hitchcock once observed, and that rule of thumb is arguably even more relevant for comic books than for movies. The Joker is usually described as the greatest comic-book villain of all time, yet he is often written as little more than a clownish, spectacularly absurd nut case who happens to be obsessed with keeping the Batman on his toes. Not all that interesting.

Occasionally, though, a writer comes along who manages to unlock the Joker’s full terrifying potential, and Brian Azzarello is one of those writers. Granted, Azzarello's Joker still tells a lot of jokes, but the thing is �� those jokes are not even remotely funny. Instead, they seem to bring down the room temperature by about 30 degrees from one second to the next �� and that’s before things start to get ugly��

Make no mistake: Azzarello’s Joker is one earth-shattering force of chaos. He has the unique ability to see all those little “strings�� attached to us and our feeble realities, that is, he fully understands the degree to which our lives are determined by social rules and bonds and structures. And he has come to the conclusion that those strings must be cut. After all, who in his right mind would voluntarily transform himself into a mere puppet by becoming a productive member of society? As far as the Joker is concerned, he’d much rather toy with all those little puppets out there, and Lee Bermejo’s detailed artwork ensures that such alternative forms of entertainment look appropriately nasty and disturbing.

One of the Joker's henchmen sums up the whole mess like this: "I been to some parties in my day... but this... was one hell of a party. It wasn't just off the hook... it tore the hook off the wall... and the wall off the house... off the damn side of the city, man." Sounds like fun?