This week's graphic novel departs from the recent string of Star Wars titles and focuses on my other comic enjoyment: Batman. Specifically, here we look at The Man Who Laughs- one of the classic Batman tales. This graphic novel collects two stories- the title tale and Made of Wood.
The Man Who Laughs recalls Batman's first encounter with the Joker. The Clown Prince shows up terrorizing Gotham by killing people with his poisonous laughing gas and taking over the airwaves to promise deaths of prominent Gotham citizens. Batman eventually realizes Joker plans to poison the city water system, and takes him down before he can do so. Elements of this story definitely found their way into two Batman movies by Christopher Nolan: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
Made of Wood features the 1940's Green Lantern (Alan Scott) teaming up with Batman to solve and stop a recurrence of a mysterious serial killer from 50 years ago, whose trademark is inscribing "made of wood" on all his/her victims. It also features the (now-retired) Commissioner Gordon, and looks at the trouble people can get into when they treat heroes as gods.
Both tales here are good. The Man Who Laughs is not the first or only Batman story to look at the early days of Joker- for example, Lovers and Madmen (reviewed here) is set in the same time/deals with the same themes- but it's well done. Made of Wood is a good, if not stellar, tale.
Rating: A-
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