Post by chadwilliam on Oct 6, 2019 1:52:56 GMT -5
Michael Eury and Michael Kronenberg's The Batcave Companion (2009) provides some insight into the title.
Why did Batman's arch-nemesis receive his own book? Then DC-editorial assistant Bob Rozakis recalls, "In the mid-70's, DC was trying all sorts of things to see what would sell. The Joker was probably the most recognizable member of the Batman family and seemed a good way to expand the line".
But making a character known as an antagonist the protagonist posed problems. The Joker had to jettison the character's recently revived homicidal tendencies, a taming made "to appease the Comics Code", the industry's standards board, according to Rozakis. "You could not have the main character of the book getting away with murder. As I recall, The Joker ended up back in a cell at the end of most of the issues".
Denny O' Neil agrees that "the Comics Code had enough teeth left that we had to kind of follow their rules." One of those rules was that anyone shown committing a crime also had to be depicted receiving punishment, creating a problem for O'Neil in writing the star of an ongoing series: "How are you going to manage that punishment thing and bring him back and retain any credibility or any narrative interest in all? So we did an odd sort of hybrid, and I don't think my stories worked very well".
'A Gold Star for The Joker' written by Eliot S Maggin and drawn by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Vince Colletta for The Joker #4 (Nov-Dec, 1975) featured an interesting twist on the Joker-returns-to-incarceration endings. During a stand-off against Green Arrow and Dinah Lance, The Joker falls from the Star City bridge to his apparent death. This was a nod to the just reprinted in full Batman #1 in Famous First Edition, in The Joker's very first story [article should actually read 'second story'] in 1940, the villain accidentally stabbed himself in the chest and died - or so it appeared until the last panel, added at editorial command, where a doctor discovered that the Joker had somehow survived. Gradually, The Joker's ability to shrug off certain death worked its way back into the character's depiction, as in the climax of 'Sign of The Joker!' in Detective Comics #476 (Mar-April, 1978).
My thought is that as much as I hope to God to never read another Joker story written with the character as he's been portrayed for the past few decades, the cancellation of this title was a mistake as the character hadn't yet been reduced to the dull serial killer he is today. In 1975/76, a Joker story almost certainly meant something special and unique. I suppose if the title wasn't selling, that's all there was to it, but it bugs me that at the same time we were getting some very entertaining Joker stories on a monthly basis, we were also being "treated" to some of the worst Batman stories at the pen of David Reed. The comic industry couldn't support what was essentially a Brave and the Bold title but with The Joker squaring off against the likes of Two-Face, Scarecrow, Catwoman, and Luthor every month, but was champing at the bit for four straight issues of "The Underworld Olympics of 1976" over in Batman?
Also, as much sense as overexposure seems to make, I'm not really buying it. I mean, Batman had four titles during this period (Batman, Tec, Brave and the Bold, World's Finest) and I don't hear complaints about how overexposed he was (or perhaps I'm just not listening). The fact that Batman's a good guy doesn't really persuade me that you can do more with him 48 times a year than you can with The Joker a dozen times over the same period. Theoretically, Brave and the Bold and World's Finest shouldn't have worked. "We have to have Batman encountering a problem which requires Superman's help but doesn't make him redundant and can't really develop the character since that's what his main titles are for and these stories have to resolve themselves in a single issue and should showcase Superman's world as much as it does Batman's and must also..."
The Joker #10 frustratingly ends on a cliffhanger of sorts - frustrating because there is no issue 11 - and yet this fact does highlight a possible way around "how are we going to punish The Joker at the end of each issue?" Multi-part tales could have addressed this since it seems that the Code allowed for the villain to still retain the upper hand at issue's end assuming that when the final part of the tale was told, he was punished. And as noted, "punished" could have meant "apparent death", "jail", or even The Joker simply shrugging his shoulders and returning to Arkham since he was the kind of guy who was crazy enough to miss the place after a while. Sure, still not ideal, but is it any more of a limitation than say Super Friends having to figure out ways for the good guys to fight the bad guys without throwing punches?
Incidentally, when The Joker #9 (cover date October, 1976) appeared on stands, it did so at the same time that the villain was already appearing in Brave and the Bold (issues 129-130 in a Two-Face two-parter cover dated Sept and Oct, 1976 respectively), a month prior to his appearance in Justice League 136 (or his Earth 2 counterpart at any rate) cover dated Nov, 1976, and he would be prominently featured in DC Super Stars presents Strange Sports Stories #10 (cover date Dec, 1976). Meaning, whatever else might have motivated the cancellation of this series (and The Batcave Companion does cite "poor sales" as the straight forward and arguably only important answer) overexposure of the character didn't seem to be a concern. If you still wanted a monthly dose of The Joker, it was available at least until year's end.
Why did Batman's arch-nemesis receive his own book? Then DC-editorial assistant Bob Rozakis recalls, "In the mid-70's, DC was trying all sorts of things to see what would sell. The Joker was probably the most recognizable member of the Batman family and seemed a good way to expand the line".
But making a character known as an antagonist the protagonist posed problems. The Joker had to jettison the character's recently revived homicidal tendencies, a taming made "to appease the Comics Code", the industry's standards board, according to Rozakis. "You could not have the main character of the book getting away with murder. As I recall, The Joker ended up back in a cell at the end of most of the issues".
Denny O' Neil agrees that "the Comics Code had enough teeth left that we had to kind of follow their rules." One of those rules was that anyone shown committing a crime also had to be depicted receiving punishment, creating a problem for O'Neil in writing the star of an ongoing series: "How are you going to manage that punishment thing and bring him back and retain any credibility or any narrative interest in all? So we did an odd sort of hybrid, and I don't think my stories worked very well".
'A Gold Star for The Joker' written by Eliot S Maggin and drawn by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Vince Colletta for The Joker #4 (Nov-Dec, 1975) featured an interesting twist on the Joker-returns-to-incarceration endings. During a stand-off against Green Arrow and Dinah Lance, The Joker falls from the Star City bridge to his apparent death. This was a nod to the just reprinted in full Batman #1 in Famous First Edition, in The Joker's very first story [article should actually read 'second story'] in 1940, the villain accidentally stabbed himself in the chest and died - or so it appeared until the last panel, added at editorial command, where a doctor discovered that the Joker had somehow survived. Gradually, The Joker's ability to shrug off certain death worked its way back into the character's depiction, as in the climax of 'Sign of The Joker!' in Detective Comics #476 (Mar-April, 1978).
My thought is that as much as I hope to God to never read another Joker story written with the character as he's been portrayed for the past few decades, the cancellation of this title was a mistake as the character hadn't yet been reduced to the dull serial killer he is today. In 1975/76, a Joker story almost certainly meant something special and unique. I suppose if the title wasn't selling, that's all there was to it, but it bugs me that at the same time we were getting some very entertaining Joker stories on a monthly basis, we were also being "treated" to some of the worst Batman stories at the pen of David Reed. The comic industry couldn't support what was essentially a Brave and the Bold title but with The Joker squaring off against the likes of Two-Face, Scarecrow, Catwoman, and Luthor every month, but was champing at the bit for four straight issues of "The Underworld Olympics of 1976" over in Batman?
Also, as much sense as overexposure seems to make, I'm not really buying it. I mean, Batman had four titles during this period (Batman, Tec, Brave and the Bold, World's Finest) and I don't hear complaints about how overexposed he was (or perhaps I'm just not listening). The fact that Batman's a good guy doesn't really persuade me that you can do more with him 48 times a year than you can with The Joker a dozen times over the same period. Theoretically, Brave and the Bold and World's Finest shouldn't have worked. "We have to have Batman encountering a problem which requires Superman's help but doesn't make him redundant and can't really develop the character since that's what his main titles are for and these stories have to resolve themselves in a single issue and should showcase Superman's world as much as it does Batman's and must also..."
The Joker #10 frustratingly ends on a cliffhanger of sorts - frustrating because there is no issue 11 - and yet this fact does highlight a possible way around "how are we going to punish The Joker at the end of each issue?" Multi-part tales could have addressed this since it seems that the Code allowed for the villain to still retain the upper hand at issue's end assuming that when the final part of the tale was told, he was punished. And as noted, "punished" could have meant "apparent death", "jail", or even The Joker simply shrugging his shoulders and returning to Arkham since he was the kind of guy who was crazy enough to miss the place after a while. Sure, still not ideal, but is it any more of a limitation than say Super Friends having to figure out ways for the good guys to fight the bad guys without throwing punches?
Incidentally, when The Joker #9 (cover date October, 1976) appeared on stands, it did so at the same time that the villain was already appearing in Brave and the Bold (issues 129-130 in a Two-Face two-parter cover dated Sept and Oct, 1976 respectively), a month prior to his appearance in Justice League 136 (or his Earth 2 counterpart at any rate) cover dated Nov, 1976, and he would be prominently featured in DC Super Stars presents Strange Sports Stories #10 (cover date Dec, 1976). Meaning, whatever else might have motivated the cancellation of this series (and The Batcave Companion does cite "poor sales" as the straight forward and arguably only important answer) overexposure of the character didn't seem to be a concern. If you still wanted a monthly dose of The Joker, it was available at least until year's end.
