Batman: Lovers and Madmen

[Gremlin]

Picked this up the other day and rather enjoyed it.  From a revamp, story-telling view, it's not the finest piece of work ("Jack"?  Come on.), but its depiction of the relationship between the Joker and Batman is phenomenal. From Batman's hand in Joker's origin, to the opposition they define, even to the transition of Gotham from being a town of criminals to a town of supervillains.  It's wonderful in that sense.  I also absolutely loved the slightly shizoid speech patterns of Joker ("It took some strong medicine man to open up these blues..."), and I wished they'd pushed that even further, but it's all good.

I was just wondering what you guys thought of this particular piece.

[bat1987]

Well it wasn`t that bad, but i still prefer Joker`s origin from Killing joke and The man who laughs.

The artwork was horrible, by the way.

[Gremlin]

Well, Killing Joke is amazing, nuff said.  And as much as I enjoyed The Man Who Laughs, it appealed to a completely different side of my Joker fanboy-ness.  It isn't a great origin story canonically, but like I said, the main appeal it had to me was the relationship between him and Batman, which Man Who Laughs didn't deliver on.  Which is alright, since Joker still doesn't know entirely where he's coming from yet.

And I liked the art.  It was very bizarre and...I guess evocative is the right word.  Harsh angles and slightly distorted figures and shadows gave it an almost surreal edge which fit perfectly into the madness of both the Joker and the Batman.