In Batman # 13 Scott Snyder is bringing the Joker back to the comic books and by all reports it’s about to get messy. Starting with a short story at the back of this month’s Detective Comics # 12, The Joker is back in Gotham. As always with the Clown Prince of Crime, this promises great things. The Joker presumably wants his face back initially (for those that don’t know Joker had his face removed at the beginning of DC 52 relaunch) and with a title like Death of the Family it looks as if he wants to take a whole lot more.
In Batman history (if it still counts post DC 52, after all lots has changed) Death in the Family saw the Joker captured, beat and ultimately kill Jason Todd (Batman’s Robin at the time). This was a key point in Bat-history and gave the Joker an even more devilish notch against Batman (even though DC have re-introduced Jason Todd since, somewhat undermining the event).
With the Death of the Family looming, this hints at a bigger scale destruction of the ever growing Bat-family. Snyder has said:
“Joker at his most unleashed and vengeful; this Joker has an axe to grind and a point to prove. He’s gone away for a year for a very deliberate reason. During that year, he sort of set all of his traps and sharpened his knives and he’s ready to come back to Gotham and make his point to Batman and the Batman family. He has a very strong mission in mind and he’s very passionate about what he wants to prove to Batman this time around, and it’s really twisted and dark and unpleasant”.
Snyder also refers to making this a genuine event akin to The Killing Joke (which saw the terrorising of Commissioner Gordon and the shooting of Batgirl, placing her in a wheelchair until DC 52 rebooted all that an made her walk again). So as we all know, having Mr. J back in town could mean something major is about to happen to the world of Batman but what might that be? Who is this really going to affect? and could we see some major deaths?
Click “next” for part 2…
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4 Comments
I feel killing Bruce would be an amazing story. Killing Barbara or Jason, who have been edited significantly lately by DC Comics, would basically disregard what they spent the last year doing; Revitalizing and Redeeming them respectively. Damian is safe until Batman Incorporated is finished by Grant Morrison. Dick could be a fakeout. I think Joker knowing Bruce’s secret isn’t actually a problem to story. He’s discovered in some stories (Batman Beyond) and it’s actually presented a great story. I say Commissioner Gordon (who’s loss would hit Barbara, Bruce and Dick hard), Tim (who’s loss would really hit Bruce, Dick, Jason, Damian, Alfred, Cassandra and Stephanie (who hopefully are returning soon) and potentially Barbara really badly in a variety of different ways) and Alfred (who would cause the Bat-Family to self destruct) are the more legitimate opportunities. Unless DC decide to throw Stephanie or Cassandra on the grenade….again. :/
Jason and Barbara just recovered from their attacks by Joker, Gordon already had his wife killed (end of no man’s land) and had his child maimed by him, Bruce only just came back from the dead. I don’t see them as options.
If anyone dies or injured, it’ll be Tim, Dick, Alfred or Damian. And Damian is really too young and new. The editors know we wouldn’t accept Dick’s death. It could be Alfred but I think something else is gonna be happen that’ll exactly what it sounds like, the death of the family. Owls reinforced how strong the bond between Bruce, Alfred and Dick is, Joker’s gonna overcome it.
Also didn’t Joker pretty much find out Bruce was Batman in the story where he, Damian and Dick were investigating where he’d been if he isn’t actually dead.
joker doesnt do things small and ignificent … he will make the bat suffer
i dare to bet he will go after all of them .. but will only succeed in killing one..
alfred
Based on this image, I think he might kill Alfred: http://jonathanglapion.deviantart.com/#/d5iqlqg