Batman Tpb - Dark Joker The Wild

Hefte Nachgedruckt / Collecting: Once upon a time, far far away . . . Yes, it's another Batman Elseworlds book, by the Writer/Penciller team from Red Rain. This one is set in the Wild, an place with two moons and a resident sorcerer/sorceress couple. Moments after the magical birth of their second child, their mountain castle is invaded by the hordes of the Dark Joker, a powerful and evil wizard. After killing the magicians, the Dark Joker throws their new-born son off the balcony, believing that he will die on the rocks below. For some unexplained reason, however, the child is possessed of a pair of wings, and flaps away into the night. Twenty years later, the Bat-Man has first his mind, and then his sense of purpose re-awakened by a mysterious stranger, who has come to the Wild to warn against the resurgence of the Dark Joker. The story bears a certain resemblance to Batman: Year one (The chief of the villagers, who believes in the Bat-Man, is named Jaymes), while mixing in several horror scenes, presumably so that Kelley Jones doesn't get bored. That said, the differences are substantial enough to make me wonder if this story was originally written with the Batman in mind at all: The majority of the scenes take place in an open village in broad daylight, and for nearly all of the book, the Bat-Man doesn't rise above the level of Generic Good Monster, more likely to tear out someone's heart than strike fear into it. Kelley Jones's art, though excellent for the horror frames and very nice to look at throughout, still suffers from his complete ignorance of the concept of sequential art. He several times misses the obvious trick of drawing the same character in two consecutive panels as having the same bone structure, never mind musculature. (hint - alternating between beard and no-beard in 8 panels on a page is very bad continuity). Something that amazed and slightly irked me about this book was the lack of a Mature Readers label on the front. The horror scenes are very graphic, and Kelley Jones artwork on them is near-perfect in it's shock-value. One scene is particular which caught my attention featured a woman in a shift being eaten alive by the re-animated heads of the Dark Joker's victims. What surprised me about this horrifyingly effective scene was the lengths the artists obviously went to in order to prevent a nipple being shown! Is this the factor that decides whether a book is Mature Readers or not? Wow.