Details regarding DC Comics long-awaited Batman: Three Jokers miniseries have finally been announced. For Batman readers, especially fans of Batman: The Killing Joke and Batman: A Death in the Family, Batman: Three Jokers will be a truly eye-opening series that will change the iconic Batman villain forever.
Batman: Three Jokers by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok has been teased for a while, as the upcoming three-issue book will reportedly feature three different Jokers existing in the same universe. Fabok got fans' attention when he wrote on Twitter the ending of the series was " going to cause quite the stir and is the gutsiest thing written in Batman in 80 years." That's a huge promise to make, but the comments just made the hype for the book even bigger. Johns said the series will build on some classic Batman stories, specifically The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland as well as A Death in the Family by Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo.
The book will have an aesthetic inspired by The Killing Joke according to Fabok and will feature characters who've been personally impacted by the Joker's trauma. The story will reportedly "heavily feature" Barbara Gordon and Jason Todd's Red Hood - both characters whose lives changed at the hands of the Clown Prince of Crime.
Barbara and Jason have gone through so much, as has Bruce, and it’s really focused on healing, on scars and wounds and what that does to somebody. If you suffer some trauma, you don’t just get over with it and move on with your life, it changes who you are. Sometimes it changes you for the better, sometimes it changes you for the worse. You can heal right, and you can heal wrong. That’s really what the book’s about: Healing right, healing wrong, and surviving.
Batman: Three Jokers will also go back to the time Batman first met his most menacing villain. Johns told Entertainment Weekly that the new miniseries will add new layers to the characters and their relationships with the Joker.
The world doesn’t need just another Batman-Joker story, Johns tells EW. One of the reasons I've never done one before is because there are so many amazing ones, so I was only gonna do one if it was different and surprising and looked at the Joker and the meaning of the Joker and his effect on Batman and his family in a new way. We’re not introducing a multiverse of Jokers, we’re not out to change these characters forever, but we are turning over some rocks about these characters and their relationships.
The book was originally announced back in 2018 and Fabok told EW the wait will be worth it. We'll see if that's the case, but this new tease for the book is extremely encouraging. Batman: Three Jokers is coming this summer and it's going to be fascinating to see how it shifts the Joker and Batman's world. Check out the three covers for the series below.
- Batman: Three Jokers #1 (of 3)
- Written by Geoff Johns
- Art by Jason Fabok
- Colors by Brad Anderson
- Letters by Rob Lee
- Cover art by Jason Fabok and Brad Anderson
- "After years of anticipation, the epic story is finally here: find out why there are three Jokers, and what that means for the decades-long battle between the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime," reads DC's description. "In this powerful, emotional story Batman, Batgirl and Red Hood—all past victims of the Joker—work together to solve a mystery unlike anything they've ever faced before!"
- In comic shops June 17, 2020.
- For more preview panels visit Entertainment Weekly.