Three Jokers: A Joke of a Story

Vega
Oct 27, 2020
4 min read

If you have not read Batman: Three Jokers and plan to, turn back now.

SPOILERS BELOWSPOILERS BELOW* SPOILERS BELOW*

Towards the end of Justice League #42 (2015), during The Darkseid War event, Batman sat in the Mobius Chair and asked “What's the Joker's true name?”. As Batman perceives the answer provided by the chair, readers were left with these words “No. That's not possible,” and were left wondering what his ominous answer meant for eight issues. In Justice League #50 (2016), Batman reveals to Green Lantern that the chair did not provide him with a name, but instead told him that there were three Jokers. At SDCC 2018, DC Comics announced that the three Jokers plot thread would be RESOLVED (note for later) in a three-issue Black Label mini-series. At that time, the only hint that we got about the story was art depicting three different versions of the Joker from different eras of Batman's history. The questions and excitement coming from this panel ran rampant and Three Jokers became maybe the most anticipated title from DC in recent years, even for me, a predominantly Marvel reader.

Thus, the expectations for these three issues were very high and did the recently wrapped series meet those expectations?

Nope.

The mini-series had the natural restrictions of having a only three issues to unravel what history has turned into a convoluted story: the Joker's identity. I acknowledge my lack of writing experience, however, such a concept should easily fill each page with the explorations of the Jokers, their differences, their origins, their identities, their motivations, etc. Instead, the Jokers' story consists of a first issue for the set-up and we get a finale that doesn't offer any clear answers. I mean they even dedicated another page to the death of the Waynes. I get that the death of the Wayne's comes back into play with the focus on Joe Chill that'll be touched on later, but I would find it hard to believe that anybody reading this story is unaware of what happened to Batman's parents. You may be wondering where the second issue is. Issue #2 felt like a traditional tie-in issue to a larger event, still taking place and being impacted by the three Jokers storyline, but with its focus elsewhere. That issue was a Death in the Family re-do along with Batgirl and Red Hood having therapy together.

It was known from the start that Batman, Red Hood, and Batgirl would all be involved in the story, but Red Hood specifically, seemed like the main character for most of it, with the Jokers seeming as more of a side story to move the plot along. Rather than RESOLVING (see, I told you it was in all CAPS for a reason) the questions regarding the Jokers, we are left with more questions. Nothing was really explained, albeit except two plot points that I thought were done really well, which was very unsatisfying when you're expecting to get some kind of answer about the Jokers. I expected a Joker story that included the Bat-family, but instead got a Bat-family story that included the Joker, albeit three of them).

Leaving this series, we are clued in that the original Joker (shocker, no clue which one that was) has created other versions of himself in order to make the perfect Joker for Batman. This leads to Joe Chill, the man known for murdering the Waynes, being kidnapped with the intent of being Joker-ized. This was damn good storytelling, with a resolution for both the emotional torment of Joe Chill and Bruce. But again, I think the story as a whole would have benefited from much more Joker (he's not in the title or anything). We also got an interesting plot development from the Killing Joke Joker's origin, with Batman revealing to us that Joker's wife did NOT die as originally told in the story. Prior to becoming Joker, the violent and controlling tendencies he demonstrated towards his wife resulted in her faking her death so that she could live with her child free of him. A major driving force in his transformation into the Joker never actually happened. Cool. A little bit more background on one Joker.

The biggest mistake of the series was in one of Bruce's last lines: “I knew the Joker's name one week after we first met”. He indicates to Alfred that he has maintained the secret to protect Joker's family, thus citing that because of that, the “...Joker's name isn't what's important. It never has been”. I take two strong points from this statement, 1. screw you guys who thought you were going to get anymore about the Joker's origin cause it has never been necessary for the character, and 2. WHAT WAS THE POINT OF HIM ASKING FOR THE JOKER'S NAME IN THE MORBIUS CHAIR?! Frustration.

Did we get any answers? Who are the Jokers? Where did they come from? Are any of them the original? Are there others? We got indications from which we can draw some loose inferences, but that feels like such a weak payoff for such a high profile series.