Knight Terrors: The Joker #1: Got A Batman In Your Closet?

DC Comics’ big summer event has kicked off with a bang, releasing a slew of one-to-two-part stories encompassing the bigger narrative. In Knight Terrors: The Joker #1, Joker finds himself in a nightmarish hellscape perfectly fit for the clown prince of crime, a nine-to-five job. The issue kicks off in a hilarious manner, with Batman slipping and dying during an everyday confrontation with the Joker. The concept of “what would the Joker do if Batman died?” has come up a few times in the last several years, however; Matthew Rosenberg and company choose to take this in a comedic direction. This is a nice change of pace, considering this whole event is about nightmares and fear. Only Rosenberg would come up with the fantastic premise here, making the Joker’s nightmare just the average life of a middle-class American.

Rosenberg’s signature humor is on full display here, with many of Joker’s one-liners packing a bit of a punch. While the entire premise of this is built upon the ridiculousness of the situation, there is a significant level of care put into the characterization of Joker to keep him consistent with the regular ongoing Joker book, Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing. For instance, Joker’s eyes are colored in by Romulo Fajardo Jr. to look the same as the main series, with the two colors striking out amongst everything else on the page. Joker’s sense of humor and his free-spirited murderous nature are also portrayed precisely like they have been. These conjunctive aspects help maintain consistency for this tie-in, making it easy for regular readers to hop in and feel at home.

As for how this story works as a tie-in, it’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, anyone could pick this up, read the opening blurb about this event and have a nice and coherent story. On the other hand, completionists aren’t going to find anything here that builds upon the events of the larger narrative. This story is exclusive to the Joker and his cast of characters. So fans can enjoy this story whether or not they are reading the main book, don’t look too hard into it.

Stefano Raffaele’s pencils look lovely here. Raffaele beautifully explores the various slight time jumps throughout the story. Raffaele also provides an excellent juxtaposition between the regular life of the Joker and the nine-to-five he starts working. One of the best segments of the book is when Joker starts asking about the purpose of his division. Rosenberg’s signature humor is on full display. Still, Raffaele sells it with dramatic takes on Joker that show him slowly recoiling into frustration as the seemingly effortless response turns into a long and drawn-out explanation, resulting in nothing. Joker’s face slowly morphs from intrigued to disappointed and then into despair as he’s fed up with the conversation. 

Tom Napolitano concludes the creative endeavor with the lettering of this issue. The lettering stays consistent with the rest of the main run. Joker has his signature, funky-looking dialogue bubble that makes all his lines read like Mark Hamill himself is saying them. This juxtaposes perfectly with the mundane setting he’s in and adds a sense of unease to the situation, namely that he is this larger-than-life character that people are just brushing off as a jokester. This heightens the stakes for the Knight Terror event overall while also further emphasizing the insanity of the Joker.