Writer: Jeff Lemire / Penciller: Andrea Sorrentino / Colour Artist: Jordie Bellaire / Letterer: Steve Wands / Editors: Chris Conroy, Maggie Howell / Collects: Joker: Killer Smile #1-#3 & Batman: Smile Killer (One-Shot) / HC / DC Comics (Black Label).
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26th August 2020
The Pitch: Everyone knows The Joker doesn't have the most promising history with psychotherapists. In fact, no one's even been able to diagnose him. But that doesn't matter to Dr. Ben Arnell; he's determined to be the one to unravel this unknowable mind. And there's no way The Joker could ever get through the therapeutic walls Ben has built around himself. Right? There's no way The Joker's been entering his house at night...right?
The Joker (as a character viewed by an audience) has become a focal point for warring ideologies lately. On one hand, he's a popular icon, albeit not one you can be sympathetic towards. A brand, as much as Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman. A cash cow whenever his smiling visage adorns posters, lunch boxes, T-shirts, and badges. It's easy to see why DC has thrown their weight behind the character. The movie, starring Joaquin Phoenix, made over a billion dollars. Most of DC's Black Label Line have featured him as the main character or in guest appearances. And Three Jokers is making its long-delayed debut this week. But then, there's the flip side. Where The Joker is considered to be another type of poster boy: One that's emblematic of white male rage. This was brought to the fore with the Joker movie (again, so much the focus of divisive arguments) and as usual, the fandom didn't help. Sometimes, you have to wonder if we can tell fact from fiction anymore.
It's this reality-shifting nature of one's psyche that lies at the heart of Killer Smile. If you're dealing with The Joker, can you trust anything? Anyone? Even yourself? Ben Arnell is a character who thinks he's got the answer. What's interesting about Arnell is what he and his actions reveal about The Joker and what he's really about. Joker is an attack on hubris, on ego. On capability, self-assurance. Otherwise why constantly go up against the most capable, self-assured (Bat)man in Gotham? And for those of you wondering, yeah, of course, Bruce can be hubristic and ego-driven. For that matter, so can The Joker. I guess you deplore the traits you see in yourself, no? But there are other ideas that creep up throughout Killer Smile, ones that are more terrifying and speak to our times. As Arnell spends more time with The Joker, he himself is proven to be going insane. This makes me think... Is insanity a disease or a virus? Is it a bug we all risk catching?
I think we might, personally. Again, I don't want to mistake fiction for fact but we're living in strange times. Mental health leads the conversation, along with the visible and tangible spike in deplorable race hate and anger. And I find myself wondering if the virus that we all seem to be facing – the deadliest one – isn't COVID, but a kind of global madness. I have to point out here that Killer Smile does not feature race hate. It's more the madness as a communicable illness that I'm trying to get at here. An infection that we might not realise is sneaking up on us. Changing our minds, warping our view of what we are. Of the world around us. Killer Smile keeps this idea on the discrete channel, but the warning signs are there. There's also a tangent about The Joker being a performance, which is an idea I like, along with Grant Morrison's super-sanity notion. It's the one that makes the most sense. But in that, I'm probably just applying logic to a character devoid of any outward signs of logic.
Lemire and Sorrentino create a tangible horror vibe with this book. It feels like the mood and tone of the excellent Gideon Falls have dripped off the ink, across their desks and seeped through the pages here. That's not a detraction. It's the best thing for it. The duo creates their own Gotham. Wide spaces, with plenty of room to stack the bodies. And Gideon Falls also dealt with a spreading madness, so the connection works to their advantage here. Lemire's writing is unusually sombre. He makes you feel the innate sadness of watching a good man go mad. I feel like the undertone of his writing is usually more chipper, though. Sorrentino's art is like watching the articulate compositions of David Fincher – true modern art – only someone is behind him, firing a handgun now and then, making him run - camera shaking, trying to capture the action. The panels are inventive and beautifully constructed. Bellaire stomps the colours down but amps the contrast, especially as we get to the last chapter, where the psychosis runs amok, screaming. Bellaire's blood is richer and more horrible than any you've seen before and it makes a real difference having everyone work widescreen, thanks to that beautiful Black Label trim size. Wands letters keep the volume of the voices at the perfect level. You can feel what the clinical enclave and acoustics of Arkham do to alter the timbre of The Joker's speech and the regret in Arnell's voice when realises just what he's done and has been done to him. On a final note, the one-shot epilogue, Batman: The Smile Killer is also included in this volume, hinting that the team is creating their own mini Bat Universe since Smile Killer plays not only as an epilogue to this story but tantalisingly as a potential next chapter. Sometimes the wait is the most maddening thing.
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