The Joker, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. You could call it a dream team. Call it Batman’s nightmare. The most infamous villain in comic book history is back.
DC Comics revealed the Joker is back this October. When The New 52 launched last September the Joker met a horrific fate at the end of Tony Daniel’s Detective Comics #1. The Joker’s face was carved off and he hasn’t been seen since.
October’s Batman #13 by Snyder and Capullo kicks off the “Death of the Family” storyline. DC teases the classic villain will be used in “dark, horrifying, unnerving” way and the return will affect Batman, the Bat-family and Gotham City.
“Joker is my favorite villain of all time,” Snyder revealed today on The Source. “Not just in comics. In everything – film, books, TV. He’s the greatest, hands down. So this story is something extremely important and personal to me – something I’ve been building in my head ever since I started working in Gotham.”
“When Scott told me that he’d written a Joker story for our next arc, I couldn’t contain my excitement,” added Capullo. “Talk about a dream come true! For me, the Joker is the ultimate rogue and the villain I most wanted to draw. I gotta tell you, after hearing what the story is about, this isn’t a dream come true. It’s a nightmare! A macabre and bloody, flesh crawling nightmare. We hope you’ll have the nerve to face what’s coming. Warning: It ain’t for the faint of heart!”
Given the cliffhanger of Detective Comics #1 could the classic villain be sporting a new face?
“Wait ’til you see him,” Snyder said. “Greg’s sketches literally gave me chills. Point blank: This is Joker like you’ve never seen him before. He has a mission. He has a secret. And he has a serious axe to grind with Batman. It isn’t going to be pretty, but it’s going to be a wild ride.”
This will be the first major story with the Joker in the relaunched DC continuity. The story title makes you think of the classic “Death in the Family” story in which the Joker killed Jason Todd. There’s no official word on if the Joker’s return will mean a crossover with other Bat-family titles like Night of the Owls. With a title like “Death of the Family” could the Joker’s new plot be to destroy Batman’s alliances with the other heroes of Gotham City? Could the Joker have been masquerading as another character this past year in the New 52?
By Editor