The Batman Who Laughs #3 - DC Comics

THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS #3, April 2019

Whilst Scott Snyder may well have intended “The Batman Who Laughs” “to be a stand-alone series where you can read it from start to finish without feeling like you need everything else”, the New Yorker’s script for “The Laughing House” most likely had any readers unfamiliar with James Worthington Gordon Junior scouring about looking for an explanation as to just why Bruce Wayne’s alter-ego would turn to the young man as his only hope to defeat the "Jokerized version of Batman who originated from the Dark Multiverse.” Indeed, despite the Commissioner alluding to all the security measures his bespectacled son must take so as to ensure the serial-killer maintains control of his psychopathic tendencies, it is difficult to believe that the Dark Knight’s only chance to succeed in this disappointing narrative is to force the remorseful youth’s personality back to when it was a murdering genius; “Look! At thirteen years old you were a legend! You had books, journals filled with routes, genius combinations!”

Equally as befuddling is “DC Comics” publicised belief that this twenty-four periodical starts to “fit together” all the pieces of its titular character’s plan, and the Burbank-based publisher’s promise that Oswald Cobblepot will play a prominent part in the sociopath’s schemes. True, the Penguin does provide one of the highlights of this comic when he goes “head-to-head with the darkest version of his mortal enemy” and watches his magnificent Iceberg Lounge get significantly torched in the process.

But all these pulse-pounding panels debatably depict is how lethal “the Bat Gimp” can be in close combat, as he surprisingly leaves the semi-conscious crime boss still alive following the cold-blooded murder of another alternative version of Bruce Wayne who apparently “actually ends up competing" with the Penguin to bring him down. Just how these senseless shenanigans progress The Batman Who Laughs’ scheme is unclear, unless the villain’s suggestion that the hapless Gotham City mobster “look into a guy who worked for you named Malone” is a galvanising clue of some kind..?

Quite possibly this book’s biggest problem though, is Mark "Jock" Simpson’s artwork which certainly makes its opening sequence involving James Gordon and his offspring appear as lifelessly flat as the cardboard boxes surrounding them in the store room. Disappointingly wooden-looking and consistently too dark, perhaps due to an overly-enthusiastic David Baron as colorist, even Batman’s highly-anticipated confrontation against the Grim Knight seemingly lacks the vitality a perusing bibliophile might expect from such two such well-matched adversaries…

The regular cover art of "THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS" No. 3 by Jock