The second part of Joker: Year One showed some improvements over the previous issue, notably with better pacing between the dual timelines. Joker’s (newly revealed) multiple personalities is a nice juxtaposition to the struggles Batman faces with Zur-En-Arrh. My main criticism is there are still no points of differentiation when the story jumps between them. Context clues and a change in art are all the readers have to know they’re jumping between points in time.

I think there is going to be a big divide between people who appreciate the new twist on the three Joker story and those who hate it because of their connection to the influential Geoff Johns story. For me, the Three Jokers was really well done but never made much sense in the traditional DC universe. I’m totally fine if it ends up living as an alt-universe or one-off story after this. That’s not to say this explanation from Zdarsky is fool-proof or a tightly-structured retcon. There are still plenty of holes you could poke here.

The art in the issue was haunting, particularly the future timeline panels by @andreasorrentinoar. They me goosebumps with their hyper-realistic take on an emaciated Joker emerging from a pool of water.

Overall, I can start to understand a bit more of why this Joker story is being told at this point in Zdarsky’s run. It’s not without its flaws, but with more pieces revealed it’s getting space to breath and giving us some interesting personality examinations even if you need to squint to see it make sense.

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sawright20 - Feb 15, 2024

It’s really bizarre if Zdarsky set up Red Mask creating three Jokers, only to have the actual “Three Jokers” be three distinct personalities in a single Joker. Was that supposed to be a red herring? I suspect there may be more to it than just the personalities thing, but we’ll see.

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