I wanted to do my own review on Batman #7 which was released at the beginning of this month.
I had some time on my hands and wanted to analyze some things about the comic. I usually never do any detailed reviews because… it’s comics. I enjoy them and then I read other people’s reviews and point of views about them lol. But something compelled me 0_0
I’m giving this comic a 10/10, but that could also be because I have been parched for an interesting Joker stories and I don’t expect them these days.
I’m going to overanalyze everything, just keep that in mind. It's just me enjoying writing about the story and doing detective work, pointing out things I've noticed and have questions about.
I've assumed you, the reader, have already read the story. If not, it might be confusing to follow my ramblings.
So let’s begin in Arkham Tower, where “him” has summoned Batman. I do enjoy that the cops refer to Joker as “him,” and they all know who they are talking about. Him is a “he who shall not be named” type of guy.
Zeller mentions that Patient 10 (J being the tenth letter in the alphabet hmhm) has been medically immobilized and mechanically pithed. So he’s paralyzed by needles in the spine, and he’s also being drugged? When I read it, I had to look at the wording a couple more times because both kinda mean the same thing when you get down to it. Joker also has cranial implants, but there are no head scars to suggest that. Unless they just drilled a tiny hole into his head and dropped a little chip inside.
Zeller tells Batman that had she known Joker had been asking for him, she would never have allowed the meeting. But here she is allowing it anyway. Maybe she feels put on the spot and doesn't want to be the buzzkill.
There is one thing I’m not getting about this. Since she is Joker’s therapist/doctor, did she not ask questions as to who this “best friend” is? Maybe she thought Joker was just loopy due to his medical state? In issue 6 she asks him if he was able to reach out? Maybe schedule a visit?
Who is the person that is supposed to reach out for him? Someone in his care team? Does Zeller communicate with them? You would think it would be her who controls all the communication and does the reaching out. Joker says he was able to reach out, but in this issue Zeller says she was excited that Joker “mentioned the desire” to reach out to someone.
Maybe Zeller was being slightly condescending? She is in a position of power after all, which you can feel, just a little, in the way she talks to him. She’s the boss girl and she lets both him and Batman know about it.
Turns out it was an ex-cop/Arkham orderly named Joshua who reached out to Joker, and that it was done in secrecy behind her back. This is a little painful for her because you can tell Zeller really wants her patients to trust her. She’s also embarrassed in front of Batman after giving him a whole spiel about how secure the containment room death trap is.
Batman goes on to tell Zeller that Joker’s mind is conniving for going behind her back.
Jeez, Bats. You’re really being hard on Joker with this one. Yes, when you’re a prisoner it is forbidden for you to make contact outside your cell without those in control knowing, but it’s still a pretty innocent move to pull. He wanted to speak to you and knew he couldn’t contact you via Zeller, who really doesn’t like you, because you are the brute who beats up the mentally ill.
I do like the overprotectiveness of Zeller. Makes for an interesting dynamic and storytelling. A tale as old as time. Everyone at Arkham ever has hated Batman. They see him as the main bad influence for the frenzied psychics of the supervillains, and it only makes their job more difficult.
Why does Zeller want everyone to take their shoes off while walking the tiled path? Because wearing your shoes in front of the fat Buddha Joker is disrespectful, that’s why! You can't enter the temple with your dirty boots on.
My guess is that the floors are very sensitive, so walking over them with hard footing might damage them over time?
You could point out that rubber soles don’t conduct electricity, but enough volts will blow you straight out of your shoes. Don’t worry.
The more obvious reason is cleanliness, I'm guessing. We see Joshua mopping the floor. Wearing slippers, etc., is pretty common in most hospitals. Or maybe it's because it's Joker's new home. And in most cultures you take your shoes off when you enter home.
The kill switch seems like complete overkill here. When the thumb comes off the switch, Batman’s blood will boil him to death. Joker, on the other hand, remains protected as long as everything is airtight in that tube. Okay, moving on.
Ohhh, Joker, so excited! Batman actually came! Of course he did.
So why is Joker so bloated? My favorite theory, like some people pointed out, is that Joker is a pickle in a jar at this point.
The reasoning is never mentioned in this issue except that it’s a secondary side effect of his “stilling,” which I took to mean was a side effect of being paralyzed.
The more realistic side effect of why Joker is looking bloated would be due to edema, which is caused by being paralyzed in this case and results in fluid retention throughout the whole body. The human body does some strange things when it doesn’t move anymore. Fluids mostly pool in the lower body due to gravity, like in the legs, but since Joker is floating in liquid and his weight is spread out more evenly, it would build up everywhere in his body.
I had a friend who went through this. He had extreme muscle atrophy from being bedridden and not moving, leading to his entire lower body swelling up. So this is the first thing that came to mind when I saw the first covers. The splotchy skin and scrapes on his body are also symptoms of edema because the skin stretches and becomes more sensitive to bruising. Or maybe orderlies had to wrestle Joker into the tube.
As mentioned, without movement, the fluids start to—
As I was writing this, I was listening to a podcast of Matt Fraction explaining how Joker's “super sanity” makes him skinny as he burns through so many of his body’s calories. Now that his racing brain has been calmed down, he’s gaining weight fast.
—pool up in tissue and… oh.
Now that doesn’t make a lick of sense!
I thought Joker was thin because thin people exist? Especially when they are mentally ill, with poor nutritional habits and too much nervous energy and anxiety to have good healthy appetites?
I’m going to let my inner nerd run amok for a while starting here.
Please don’t judge me:
The male human body in a normal everyday state burns about 2,500 calories a day. About 300 to 400, in the comic it’s mentioned 500, of that is dedicated to the brain. 8,000 calories a day is something an ultra-marathoner in the most intense run of their life would burn, and that’s even stretching it.
Ignoring organ failure and other intense medical problems, Joker would need to eat an INSANE amount of food a day. INSANE amounts of food. It’s impossible for a human body to survive burning 8,000 calories a day. 8,000 calories is like burning more than a kilo, 2.2 pounds, of fat tissue a day. Instead of throwing pies, Joker is going to need to eat aaaall the pies.
Just to put it into perspective:
8,000 calories is 8 kg of TNT.
8,000 calories is driving an electric car for about 55 km (35 miles).
8,000 calories is lighting a Christmas tree for over a month.
And that’s just for his brain. Now add the extra 2,000 calories his body needs to burn just by doing nothing. That’s 10,000 calories, and we are now looking at a metabolism closer to that of a lion or a gorilla.
It’s Joker’s frenzied mind that is burning the 8,000 calories, but the human brain doesn’t use that many calories for thinking. It’s mostly to keep everything below the head going.
But who’s controlling his calorie intake anyway as he’s floating in the tube? Zeller is. She could easily cut back on whatever super astronaut sludge she is feeding him so he doesn’t have to fatten up like a Christmas goose. Calibrate the food intake, doctor.
So.....Joker has to make the choice between being utterly balls to the wall insane or being fat? Is this what he sometimes refers to as one of “life’s cruel jokes”? I think Hugo Strange might be right that big pharma might be involved here. Introducing Joker-O-Zempic to Gotham public.
Joker is typically not that skinny looking, though. I would argue Scarecrow is way more so. Joker is more lanky and lithe looking, if anything. In fact, in Hush 2, it’s the opposite. He is looking practically ripped!
I quite actually enjoyed the idea of Joker being bloated due to a side effect of floating in a pickle jar, being pithed, and suffering from muscle atrophy and edema. It added a little more depth to the strangeness, the body horror, and the utter helplessness of the situation Joker finds himself in as he is shackled to his prison in all different kinds of ways. Even if he gets those needles out of his neck, he’s going to be crawling his way towards the exit.
But the Batman universe resides in the same universe of flying aliens, demons, and gods. Everything flies, including magic calories.
Okay, moving on from that.
In the podcast, Fraction gives us a real-life medical example of how the Crown of Storms is based on an actual device (called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation), and it’s used on people with severe depression. Which is actually kinda neat. Whether it works or is just another placebo machine, that’s another story.
Awww, Joker looks so excited to see Batman! Look at them eyes!
Batman, less thrilled.
This is one of the strong suits of this story. Joker is speaking to Batman through this sterile? robotic voice, but the real communication is happening through the eyes.
Joker has got that thousand-yard, wall-eyed look.
Technically, Joker has been lobotomized. It’s something Hugo Strange pointed out in Issue 3. Joker’s robotic and structured, rational speech also emphasizes this. There’s a good reason for Batman’s reaction upon seeing Joker, because it all looks extremely inhumane. But Batman snaps out of it quickly, reminding himself that he's been done with Joker’s bullshit for a long time.
In the past, when lobotomies delivered the desired results by shoving a needle into the frontal lobes of the brain and squirming it around, you got a person who was calmed down. Still functional, but very controlled, which is what Joker is now. The only difference here is that the Crown of Storms doesn’t seem to be as permanent as an icepick to the brain.
So is Joker doing this voluntarily? Matt Fraction mentions that Joker had been captured. Croc, on the other hand, voluntarily committed himself. The Riddler stole and wanted to use the Crown on himself.
But Joker being Joker, I’m picturing a scene where the Arkham Tower guards just drag his ass, kicking and screaming, into the tube.
(In the real world, any type of experimental therapy for (mental) patients can never be done without their consent.)
I love this panel! Joker looking over to Zeller, knowing he’s in trouble. Knowing he betrayed Zeller’s doctor-patient confidentiality trust. And he doesn’t want to rat out Joshua. But he does relent, begging Batman to stay. Because right now, Joker’s situation is at a stalemate.
I just love the way Jorge Jimenez does Joker’s nonverbal communication through the eyes. They look intense, but also human, less insane, yet still calculating. You can read into it anyway you like.
We are introduced to an Arkham orderly named Josiah, a former cop who Joker mutilated. For a moment, I thought it was Two-Face (Batman is looking for a new penny to add to his trophy collection, after all).
This is an important moment because we are introduced to a character who should by all means hate and want to kill Joker. He does have that rage when he confronts Joker in the tube, but Josiah was able to put his urge for revenge aside and become sympathetic to a newly sane Joker.
This is quite important in introducing the reader to the topic of redemption. If he can give Joker a chance, why can’t you?
How does one forgive a serial killer? I don’t think there are many real-life examples of victims or friends of victims ever forgiving their repentant tormentors. But we are not really dealing with real-life characters. In the real world, a Joker would have been caught once, and that would have been the end of it. In Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, the Joker had been locked up for over two years, which is more realistic than a Joker who escapes every week.
The Batman comics need to undo some of the damage of having made the Joker an unrepentant, unstoppable killer. I don’t know if the naysayers are just louder, but every time there is an announced story with Joker in the making, people react with:
“Why doesn’t Batman kill him off?” or “Yawn, not another Joker story, there are other villains to focus on.” As much as I like Snyder’s writing and his Batjokes food, I’m not a big fan of Joker being some kind of Halloween killer or mythological, timeless cursed demon. Sure, in an Elseworld or Halloween story it’s amazing, but not in canon. Gotham is a down to earth place with down to earth people. You need some humanity/sadness to keep a villain interesting, which is a golden rule in good storytelling.
That’s why Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke and Paul Dini’s stories are, to this day, still the most influential Joker stories, because Joker was given an everyman’s tragic (and mysterious) backstory. Not that one bad day will drive anyone insane, but it does feel like that for some people on some days. Turning Joker into a complete monster just makes you not care about what happens to him. At that point, you are rooting for Batman just to wring his neck and have him die.
I was going to write something about the whole “Batman should/shouldn't kill Joker” debate, but Distort-Opia did a pretty good analysis on that. Check it out!
The beautiful spread! Loving the Joker’s evil, catlike eyes and black mamba mouth.
I read somewhere that the spread was going to show us the “inside” of Joker’s mind. Which I guess it does, but it’s more of an homage to his history as the Joker and less about his psyche. Which is fine, because you don’t want to give too much away or else you end up with another origin story nobody asked for. Which was what I was fearing, but they steered away from that.
What makes Joker such a powerful, iconic character is that everybody can project their own tailored origin story onto him. Not saying I can't enjoy fresh takes, just not Three Jokers or Batman and him sharing the same sensei, pleaaaase.
It’s a little strange that Joker tells Batman that he remembers everything like it’s a big reveal. I don’t remember there being a time in the comics that Joker had amnesia of his own crimes? Pre-Joker memories, sure, but we do see a man crying below Joker’s face. He’s being booed, but the spread doesn’t elaborate any further than that. So does Joker remember his past as well? And how much?
A thank you to Fractualize for pointing out the different scenes. There are some very obscure Joker moments in here. I’m also glad they didn’t ruin this beautiful spread with Punchline’s face. Only her boobs were added, to… I don’t know. Joker is a man, after all. Moving on.
Batman is taken aback by, let’s be honest, this grotesque display of Joker’s incarceration. Joker is practically a pinned bug, which is what I first thought “pithed” meant at first.
Batman catches himself before displaying any kind of emotion that he cares, slipping back into his big bad bat persona.
P.S. In one of the other covers for issue 7, drawn by George Molina, we see it’s Joker reaching out his hand toward Batman. Ah man… the feels.
Let alone that he’s not allowed to touch the tube or he gets the instant death squeeze, or doesn't want to display any sad emotions in front of Zeller, or letting Joker know he cares for that matter, I read this as Batman having to remind himself that caring for Joker has always been a fool’s errand. He’s tried to help and reach out to Joker in the past, and has always been met with devastating disappointment.
There is a hint to this dynamic in the big spread, where batman is trying to catch a hanging dangling Joker. Always shooting himself in the foot and Batman is having to pick up his mess. Batman has been waiting to be there to save him for years, but the Joker persona has too much of a tight grip on his compulsive sick mind.
In a way Batman is protecting himself by reeling himself in and being dismissive and even snarky and sarcastic as the conversation goes on. He tells Zeller he’s not going to call him “patient 10”, and continues referring to him as Joker, just like he kept referring to Waylon Jones as Killer Croc.
As he mentions in issue 1, he tries to “keep them all separate, in my mind. It’s easier that way when they inevitably disappoint you. People never change. Not really”. Very broody stuff.
He’s doesn’t want to get sucked into that Joker vortex again. Joker had done too much damage and harm to garner any sympathy from anyone. Batman is done coddling Joker.
But he really isn’t. He won’t be able to help himself. Just like he went soft on Croc.
(although Croc is an easier pill to swallow than Joker is.)
The couple of snarky remarks and gestures are a little out of character for Batman, who is always more stoic in his rudeness, but that doesn't always make for interesting story telling. I’m okay with a little bit of sass from Batman. The back and forth. And he seems to be an ass to everyone in this run.
Oooohhhhww, he’s getting all excited at the idea of truly bonding and becoming Batman’s friend.
The Crown is buzzing, trying to calm that mind down. Somewhere in Arkham Tower, a dozen Christmas trees are being blown up all at once.
The storytelling from here is great. Joker’s mind is saner now, but he is painfully lonely, and so is Batman. The rest speaks for itself. Might Zeller be a bit jealous? Or, like most doctors, thinking Batman is not the influence a recovering Joker needs right now? Because she cuts them off in the middle of an important connecting moment.
I think this is what the kids today refer to as Emmm-Pathy?
Got ourselves an Immortan Joe Kerr here.
Oh oh… she’s getting the Harley Quinn treatment! Watch out, Annika!
Now would you look at that! Joker knows Batman/Bruce has been dating Zeller. Is he kind of giving Batman his blessing here?
By the way, how smart is Zeller really? She couldn’t figure out that Bruce Wayne is Batman after an intense car chase by thugs with swords, a fight with a bird samurai lady, and then Robin calling him father? Was she concussed? Still recovering from the dumpster dive? Playing dumb? High IQ doesn’t always mean high EQ. We can have the most brilliant minds who are unable to read people. Okay, fine.
I thought it was pretty cool to find out that the Ocean of Storms was once huge oceans of lava on the moon. A nice analogy for the relentless, hot inner turmoil hidden away in the brains of those with mental illness. For a long time, the mentally ill were referred to medically as “lunatics” because it was thought to be a disease caused by the moon. The howling mad. And visually, it’s a great representation when the helmet turns red and fizzles and cools down to blue.
Joker could have been so much more if his mind were put to good use, which is one of the underlying themes here. Like Zeller said, maybe Van Gogh would have painted a thousand Starry Nights in good mental health.
Which is a very optimistic view, since a lot of artists get their creative artistry from being a bit coo-coo in the first place. If Van Gogh had been mentally well-rounded, he would probably have ended up painting self-portraits for the rich, boring religious tableaus and other strict academic styles like every other run-of-the-mill artist of that time, and would never have made history.
Back to issue 1, Batman tells Joker he’s “alone,” not “lonely.”
But even an infantile-brained Killer Croc sees through his shit. As Croc accepts help, he asks Batman who will help him?
With Batman replying that his head is A-okay and doesn’t need help. Tss.
Croc says, “Sure,” and hands him a kid’s toy for his mancave.
Joker offering to become Batman’s friend couldn’t have come at a better time.
Alfred is dead, Tim tells Bruce he wants to move on, and Damian is actually considering going to university. So! Bruce is finally going to have the whooooole Batcave to himself.
Maybe Batman will put his own suspension tube in the Batcave, put Joker in there, and use him as his own private insight information bank into the Gotham underworld. Since Bruce is restocking his Batcave with lost trophies, who knows? Maybe Zeller gets killed or disappears, and he will have to take over is he wants to keep a sane Joker.
He already collected the little dinosaur toy from Croc. All he still needs is a coin and something Joker-related. That would be so unhinged, but I wouldn’t put it past his crazy ass. He’s done it before.
SO WHO WANTS TO KILL BRUCE?
We all know that everyone and their grandma in Gotham knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman.
Last time we saw Joker before he was pithed, he was taunting Bruce Wayne at some old lady’s mansion, and Joker got his back snapped in two by Zur-En-Arrh. And going back even further, we have the whole Joker Wars, etc.
So who would want to kill Bruce Wayne?
The Minotaur is friendly with Vandal Savage, and Vandal is friendly with the Court of Owls. Both Savage and the Owls know who Bruce is, last time I checked.
The bird lady got beef? Hugo Strange?
Batman is shocked to hear from Joker that someone is after Bruce, not Batman. He really shouldn’t be, but whatever. I guess the biggest shock is that it just means his Batkids are in danger?
Looking at the summaries of the upcoming issues, it looks like it’s going to be Savage going after Batman with fire and brimstone. Yet that would be too obvious.
I had to do a quick catch-up on what’s going on in these comics because I haven’t really been following any of the storylines. After the huge success of Marvel movies, comics have become one big convoluted hot mess with too many crossover stories and mixed universes, in my humble opinion. Blink and you will miss something important.
So if I am saying something off, please don’t hold it against me.
At the back of Batman #1, there is an interview with Matt Fraction where he is asked about his vision for the series. He says that the story starts somewhere between the end of Chip Zdarsky’s run and where things are in Hush 2.
I’m starting to think the Hush 2 run is being delayed so as not to spoil Fraction’s run. I don’t know for sure, and it could be nothing, just Jim Lee having too much work on his plate, but I can’t help seeing many parallels between the two runs.
Here are some of those parallels:
• Batman is getting beaten up by the Batfamily who hate him = Tim (and maybe Damian) leaving Bruce to go off and do their own thing.
• Batman gains supervillain allies (based on the covers of the next Hush 2 issue). It looks like Joker might even help Batman.
• Batman has Joker in a coma in the Batcave, mentioning his brain chemistry is all overactive and nothing like he has ever seen.
• Joker is put into some kind of medbay machine in the cave = Joker is in a tube.
• Joker got his ass beaten by Hush and tied up = Joker is all beaten-up looking, in a tube.
• Hush (and Batman) both taunt that nobody cares about Joker, “Who would care about you?” = Joker is lonely.
• Joker got his broken jaw sewn shut (but can still talk?) = Joker has a mask on and can only talk via cranial implants.
• Batman/Zeller taking their shoes off = Joker having no footprints.
I just want to point out that I would have loved to see a jaw-broken Joker do some kind of mime routine. I don’t know how well that would work in a comic book, but it looks like he is able to talk just fine with his mouth wired shut. Unless he’s doing some ventriloquism schtick.
Here’s hoping that Joker keeps pushing Batman to take his help, with Batman still giving him the snark. “Nah, fuck you, man, this frog ain't trusting the scorpion.” Then Batman/Bruce gets his ass kicked, and he comes back and says, “Well… what do you got for me?”
Maybe it will turn into a buddy-cop story. Batman somehow (through Zeller’s approval, though I don’t see that happening) connects his comm to Joker’s implants, and Joker feeds him useful insight and connections into the Gotham underworld to solve the case.
Maybe at some point Batman will be in real big trouble, Joker burns through his titanograph cap, escapes the tube, and goes to save Batman, in the meantime sacrificing Patient 10’s sane mind for the Joker’s insane one.
Something like that… it could be anything.
But judging by the upcoming issues, there doesn’t seem to be much mention of Joker, so maybe he won’t be involved at all, or only sporadically. Which is fine.
Sigh… when people yell out, “Another Joker story??” or “Enough of Joker, just kill him already!”, I sometimes find it hard to push back because the stories do suck. But now that we get a really good, fresh start at an interesting Joker story, we might only get a little bit of it. Getting excited for more but being denied, lol. But maybe that’s a good strategy. Keep them wanting more.
Anyway, we shall see! So far everyone, even the haters, have been positive about this issue :)
Fucking finally! This is the line so many at DC Comics were afraid to cross.
We all know Joker will at some point revert back to his nasty self, but Batman will forever now know there is actually someone behind the mask who could have been saved.
Besides all my nitpicking, which is just for fun, nerdy analysis, I really enjoyed the story! In fact, it has made me go out and buy the comic, just to have my money vote for these kinds of stories. And I haven’t bought a comic book in more than ten years.
I’m very excited about where this new, refreshing perspective will lead.
Here’s hoping they don’t fuck it up. Please!
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