If Batman disappears, would the Joker make sense? JM DeMatteis studies the psychology of the relationship between the clown and the bat beyond masks and makeup.
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight It was an example of a containing collection where the authors could propose stories that, although they were in continuity, did not continue the sagas of the regular series. This type of series came from the time of Jim Starlin in the character, who was looking for a new way of working with the bat. The method has been preserved, but it has not recovered the little gems that authors such as Grant Morrison, Dennis O’Neil, Steven Grant or JM DeMatteis accompanied by legendary artists such as Klaus Janson, José Luis Garcia Lopez, Mike Zeck or Joe Staton
Veteran screenwriter Chuck Dixon said years ago that a story with the Joker could lift you up or sink you hopelessly. He is a complex character who mutates with each era, updating himself or returning to his original origins without warning. Many authors have tried to analyze, define or classify it. Most have not been able to pigeonhole the Joker, they have contributed and left more or less important marks on him. But he has never gotten caught up, and that always makes him interesting.
The figure of JM De Matteis
This time it is the great JM De Matteis who embarks on the adventure of the clown of crime, and wonders what a comedian can do without an audience, a villain without a hero. He does not leave the story there, because Batman also suffers from that strange relationship, the anger that possesses him is multiplied when the Joker enters the scene, but if his illness worsens, then isn’t he himself part of the problem?
The screenwriter places us in another of the “performances” from the Joker, a massacre, complete with the kidnapping of a Gotham councilwoman. The case ends with Batman dead, and the Joker with nothing to do except come to his senses and build a life for himself. The exaggerated jester becomes a diffident man who discovers love after a long time alone While healing from wounds is easy, Bruce Wayne has suffered many, but healing souls is something that only a few can do, and being that kind of character It doesn’t look like Batman’s method.
De Matteis is a specialist in the psychology of characters, in paradigm shifts, in moving them away from their comfort zone, and above all, in reaffirming their essence, always with something new. Reinforcing man over bat and clown over man. we are not before Kraven’s Last Hunt but with Batman and the Joker instead of Spider-Man and Kraven, the characters function in a very different way, and studying those paths is the writer’s signature. Finding elements that define the personality and its vital objective, that teach us that they are much more than primordial archetypes that we use to analyze fears and overcome the difficulties of life, is what makes American writing different.
Joe Staton’s drawing
In the graphic field we find an artist who left a good stage in Green Lantern after the departure of Dave Gibbons, and who has worked on many of the DC characters: Joe Staton. He has a classic style, but that evolved into a peculiarity, a certain cartoonish tone that adds expressiveness and some madness to his comics. Clear and defined with a very high and marked contrast that leaves no room for gray, he makes it clear that the story is the main thing, but adding something else is his mission, and he always fulfills it.
Joker. Becoming sane is a story that has not gone unnoticed by later authors who took advantage of some details, the need for love and companionship on the part of the Joker, and his almost symbiotic relationship with Batman. It’s not the best DeMatteis has written, nor the pinnacle of Staton’s art, but it’s a good Batman story.