Why were there 3 Jokers? The answer is simple. It is because DC cannot go a year without shoving more Joker down the throats of fans and reminding them why he is "the greatest supervillain in the history of comics."
The problem is everything Johns had planned for Rebirth was delayed and I don’t think Doomsday Clock and Three Jokers ended up being about what they were supposed to be about. Pretty sure he was forced to change a lot. Three Jokers for example was originally in continuity but was then published out of continuity.
Glad to see you again man, we miss you, and yeah, I prefer Morrison’s take a lot more, and don’t get me wrong, I love Geoff Johns, but this was the most lackluster experience reading a comic ever of his, especially with the hype it was carrying, awesome art though
In my opinion, Three Joker should have been written before Doomsday Clock and serve as a Prequel to it. With one Joker from Pre Crisis, one from Post Crisis and the other from New 52. As a way to combat Mahattan, the Metaverse is allowing Jokers from different timelines to show up. And one of them knows that there is something wrong. In the end only the New 52 Joker survives and Batman is kinda aware about the Multiverse has being changed by something.
I thought initially that the Criminal Joker was, like some leftover residue from Earth 2 in the Multiverse, same goes to the Clown with Post-Crisis/Pre-Flashpoint
I think one thing that defined the 2010s in Comics is Geoff Johns' having overextended himself. - Trinity War goes into Darkseid War for a story arc that goes on for over two years. - Fights to make Cyborg a founding member of the Justice League in the New 52. Reportedly doesn't want anyone else writing a Cyborg series because he wants to do it himself. When Cyborg's book finally happens it wasn't by Johns and was too little too late. - While the Batman/Flash "The Button" is pretty good, does well, and has readers looking forward to the big DC Universe-changing event, Doomsday Clock itself takes almost 3 years to get out, so it goes from being a DCU-changing event to an alternate reality story that isn't even any good. - After teasing Three Jokers in the Darkseid War, Johns takes several years to get to it. If it was to take place in continuity it doesn't now and the story seems academic what with the big revelation at the end.
@Darth Pancake Studios Once Doomsday Clock started on the "let's get the public to hate superheroes by habing them think Superman cause a big explosion that was actually caused by making Firestorm explode" plotline I just kept thinking "end this thing already". TBF I think Johns gets Watchmen better than Tom King.
@Darth Pancake Studios I think it's pretty funny how Tom is writing a story that seems to focus on a comic writer/artist that made his fame and fortune on an ersatz version of Rorschach in a world where superheroes in various media weren't that popular since they existed in real life.
Yo I just found your channel like a week ago and thinking “dang doesn’t look like this guy posts anymore.” Well Merry Christmas to me, you got yourself a new sub
@@infinitycomics9049 I understand man believe me life comes first and no rush because oh boy Bendis Superman was just a trainwreck and garbage especially this final issue of action comics by bendis which i did review my channel if you want to check it out no rush but in all seriousness though I am at least happy Bendis Superman is finally over because my god he's ruined everything and I am hoping really hoping the next writer can undo the damage that bendis has done to superman and his family and hopefully give us back something with superman and deage Jon kent back to his little 10 year old self and lois lane being the great mother i knew and loved from tomasi and dan jurgans runs on both superman rebirth and Action comics by Dan jurgans but we shall see.
Unpopular opinion, but I actually like Bendis' Superman. It has its problems, but I thought it was a decent read. Better than Tom King's Batman, that's for sure.
@@smashmaster521 I can understand that and honestly I am glad you enjoyed bendis Superman more then I did because oh boy I found bendis Superman to be a trainwreck but that’s just my opinion.
Was does no one ever seem to think that 2 of the other Jokers come from parallel realities ?🤨Nice way to explain it, it would also help Batman's case as to why his detective skills were deterred from the secret a bit.
I think you were on to something with your explanation involving the Joker evolving throughout the years. To continue with what you said about Grant Morrison proving that the Joker could still be one person because of his innate ability (or curse) which results from his mental disease to warp his personalities in order to work with the intense absorption of whatever setting he is in, I think it implies that Morrison is stating that the Joker is a result of whatever setting he is in, but not just physical setting, like the many times he was in Arkham Asylum or in the few times he was supposedly in the Batcave, but also within the era he is being portrayed. It thus allows his true characteristics to be "multiple choice." What are the choices, you ask? a) criminal b) clown c) comedian Now, obviously Morrison is trying to make a fourth option d) all of the above and make this the official answer, but Geoff Johns wanted to say that the answer d) was irrelevant, because the Joker would just keep evolving using past iterations, to the point where "all the above" wouldn't make any chronological sense, because perhaps a century from now you could get answers which are unseen iterations of the Joker like e) dancer f) fisherman g) software engineer Even if you literally try to kill the past iterations within the comics, they are still immortalized, as Johns tells us when it is told that a new Joker would be created if one of them died. Johns was telling us that the Joker will evolve past the point where even a great writer like Morrison could make the master plot-hole cover up he did, and even past the point where some a new storyline like New 52 would take too long to make to cover all the tracks The following is honestly just my head cannon: I think Johns was trying to point out that that purpose of the Joker should be that he is just a maniacal arch-enemy to Batman, and that should be it - no unnecessary consideration for continuity. Johns was frustrated with New 52 having to be made just to fix continuity errors because comic fans love pointing out fallacies. So he took Morrison's sublime message and made it very literal by breaking the Joker down into three components of his character. It was indeed a near random number - but it wasn't insignificant. He wanted to make a rather meta commentary on how different takes on the Joker over the years influence future iterations, and evolve his legacy, kind of like you pointed out yourself. To parrot what you said, the Joker started as a criminal, but as the time setting around him changed, he evolved into something more relevant or just more interesting, and because many people assert that when the Joker shot Barbara or when the Joker killed Jason that it changed the legacy of the Joker forever, those iterations of the Joker were immortalized. There are three Jokers because each Joker was supposed to represent important iterations of the Joker, and the reason they aren't explicitly identified is because Johns doesn't want to separate them, but combine them: a task he believes is still ongoing. It is ongoing so long as readers subconsciously view these iterations of Joker as separate. He is telling us readers that even if he didn't explicitly separate the Jokers (again, how he divides the Joker is unimportant - three Jokers or fifty Jokers, it's all the same) then we still would've seen them as separate and if Johns tried to combine them for the ultimate take on the Joker we wouldn't be able to palate the new iteration, not because the combined personalities are jarring, but because both the readers and the writers would obsess over our struggle to feign a continuity which allows the Killing Joke and the Death of the Family to be a part of the same canon timeline. The quest of the three Jokers to create the perfect Joker is the reflection of the quest which all comic writers undertake. They want to create the perfect Joker, but they have to follow the rules being enforced by Jokers of the past, and Johns is just venting his frustration with these limits, because no matter how hard he tries to meld these Jokers together, choosing to kill certain aspects of the Joker (which he may find outdated, but we may not) he can never truly create his perfect Joker without creating serious unrest in the community. Okay, let's stop the head canon and get real for a second. Am I creating this elaborate explanation to try and convince myself that the unexplained elements of the Three Jokers were not mistakes of bad writing and were completely intentional? Maybe. Maybe I'm selling myself a dream, but at the end of the day, isn't that what comics do? Sell us dreams? I appreciate that you actually read a youtube comment this long lol :)
Hey, so regarding the story I didn't like it, and as for Jason, so much of his 'growth' under RHATO has been pretty bad. They simplified him and under Winnick, pre 52 was interesting and was OOC at times but when done well is good and I felt like they were making him like UTRH self in #1 but then just made him the Red Simp and too simple, no nuance. Also, what would you have done btw? I had a pitch that Joker is getting old and dying, this new Joker is in order to continue his legacy, the three being parts of him coming out due to the super sane idea and he kidnaps Jason in an attempt to tuen him since he was Bruce 'greatest failure', IDK maybe it could have worked.
Also as for 3 jokers I feel like this story was supposed to be connected to dc rebirth which it was hinted within both darkside war and dc rebirth special but the second Geoff Johns left his position Dan didio came in and messed everything up badly, and now we don’t know if even 3 jokers is actually connected to anything within the dc universe and that’s just sad because 3 jokers had so much potential to be amazing but they dropped the ball on this one and that’s not fun that’s sad and depressing.
@@smashmaster521 yeah that's true and honestly in my opinion that sucks because 3 jokers had so much potential and should've been connected to the mainstream dc universe.
@@TevyaSmolka I think I'm the only person who shrugged at the idea of there being 3 Jokers. Then again, I've been far more interested in the Metal Saga, which got me to dive headfirst into the rich history of the DCU simply because of how rewarding it felt when I recognized a reference to a prior storyline in the Metal Saga.
The only time the Joker making another Joker made sense to me was in Batman Beyond Return of the Joker in which him making Tim Drake into a little Joker was done to hurt Batman and as a plan to continue his legacy because he would eventually die. This reminds me of Batman Arkham Knight where the Titan infected Joker blood turns people who have been injected with it into him. WHAT?! The Joker's entire personality can be recreated using a botched blood transfusion? And now we have this story where he repeats the same process that turned him into the Joker on other people. Gee that kind of undermines the whole one bad day thing if it's the chemicals, heck that even undermines the concept of the Joker if he can just be duplicated that easily. You bring up a good point, why would he want to make more Jokers? He's too vain to do something like that. He is in no concern of his legacy being upheld after his death because he's still in his prime and none of these people except for Joe were people close to Batman.
At first I thought the “they” when talking about Morrison was plural, referring to the team of the comic. But no, you were using their correct pronouns!! You know how rare that is in comic book circles?? You seriously rock
I've missed your videos man, my IQ gets higher with all these analytical takes you have and all 😂, plus, you helped me get into more Wally West comics so thanks for that :)
The 3 jokers in the story are actually meta and want to drive us the readers insane from trying to figure out why there’s 3 of them to hopefully make more jokers.
Yo, discovered your channel a month ago and was sad when you stopped uploading for a while lol. I would love for you to do the crisis’s, like COIE, zero hour, infinite crisis, final crisis, and death metal. I’m a huge superboy prime fan and his recent death metal issue was fantastic, so would love to hear your take on the character as well as how insane the crisis’s can be.
The whole thing doesn't make sense. He asks what the Joker's name/identity really is. Chair says there are three. 3 Jokers ends with Batman revealing that he knew Joker's identity all along. So....the whole thing is just pointless.
Batman was testing the Mobius Chair by asking what is Joker's real name and when the chair said there were 3 that's when Bruce was shook because he only knew that they were jus one. The "better joker" line means the Joker wanting to create someone able to make Batman break his moral code. The whole comic jus leaves more questions than answers because that's what it was intended for. The Joker isn't jus a person but an idea and this comic proves it by having multiple literal jokers lol.
Batman "not caring" doesn't mean he didn't at least try to solve the case which he has in the comics. He even teamed up with both the victims of the joker who knew him best, Jason Todd and Barbara Gordon. The Criminal doesn't need to inflict trauma with Bruce, he already has plenty of times in the past which u you've stated. He jus wanted Bruce to break his code and finally kill someone, that was his goal.
u act as if the character development for both Jason and Barbara were seemingly bad. Barbara got crippled by the joker but was able to get back up and still be Batgirl while Jasin still can't live with the trauma he had in da past and tries to erase it with Barbara. These are comic books u act as if these are some Shakespearian books u are reading. Yes, killing is bad and u shouldn't do it because of personal reasons. A pretty good lesson to be taught in a comic book.
The 3 jokers did serve the theme of the story by having each character that has been inflicted the most by the joker actions coming to terms with themselves
Not gon to lie I couldn't even finish this vid lmao is like u didn't understand the point of the story and its characters, or maybe u did but brush it off and wanted something else. It seems like u didn't even like the dynamic between Jason and Barbara which sucks because to me that relationship has the potential to be really great and imagine the storyline that can come out of it. Both inflicted by the joker's dark action, both have fought alongside Batman. Barbara understands Jason more than any of the other Bat-family members and yes that includes Dick
Agreed, the whole thing tried to bring mystery back to the Joker but instead it trivialised the character putting forward the stupid idea that anyone can be the Joker. If that where true then anyone can be Batman, of cause they’d never change Bruce Wayne because then the audience would have to reinvest in a new character and that’s to risky. I think that’s why Jokers back story was made vague because they didn’t want to introduce a new character that would then need to be explained and then potentially hated by the audience, so basically there was no need for this comic to exist. Bruce Wayne is still Batman and Arthur Fleck is still Joker.
Okay, I’ll be totally honest, I had no clue what to expect in a “Three Jokers” story. I mostly just imagined (after New 52 Joker) a disturbing, dark and chilling story explaining the Three Jokers as they mentally torture Batman through another one of their twisted schemes. The main problem is that when you tell the audience there are 3 Jokers, people spend more time asking “How are there 3 Jokers?” then actually thinking what this story would be. Hell, I only really gathered an idea after issue 2 because it seemed issue 1 and 2 weren’t really explaining much. My main theory after issue 2 would be Jason would completely snap after the torture he went through in issue 2 and the way Batman just seemingly neglects him all the time. I thought that by the end of issue 3, Jason would snap and kill either the remaining Jokers, Batman, Batgirl or all of them and become the Joker. The more I think about it, it might make more sense for Jason to just kill the last 2 Jokers and then become the Joker but at the time (and still do) I thought this took place in a different universe. I enjoyed what we got but can’t help but feel disappointed that they literally had *THREE JOKERS* and did nothing, just your average TP comic you’ll find anywhere. On another note, glad you’re back!
Yeah, DC really dropped the ball. From what i understand is that Johns was supposed to be the guy who would helm the whole Rebirth-reboot, but then he got pulled to the DC movies and TV-shows, so DC-comics gave the Rebirth-plan to Scott Snyder after the succes of Metal. Johns probably still wanted to make Doomsday en Three Jokers, with soms major DC-universe-shaping things in it. But DC probably said “nah, my dude, that’s Snyders job now. We’ll put Black Label label on it and view it as an Elseworlds kinda thing”...
Every word you said is exactly what I am still thinking after this story. This story could have been done absolutely fine with just 1 Joker, hell it would've made more sense. I mean the story ks cool and all, but i cannot phathom why Johns would introduce such a concept if he didn't intend to explain it ?
I bought the first issue day one extremely excited I bought the second one optimistic but dissapointed I reluctantly bought the third and still haven't read it Like wtf was the point
you know, this may be petty but this whole comic all I kept thinking was why is it that people seem to always forget that the killing joke happened BEFORE death in the family? like it happened in the same year, very close to eachother to the point that in death in the family someone even says soemthing along the lines of the last time the joker was free he crippled Barbara and all. If they were going in order and all with the clown being all the silver age stuff then he would have to have done that too, its either that or the comedian did the death in the family thing too rigth? I dont know, it kept bugging me the entire timeXD but then again, as Sasha from casually comics wisely said, my reaction to this comic was just "that was definetly a thing that I read" XD
Do a CLOSE READING on ROLAND BARTHE’s The Death of the Author. The ESSAY is not very EXHAUSTIVE OF CRITICAL THEORY but the style is EXISTENTIAL and it has the scariest REVELATIONS FOR FURTHER LITERARY ANALYSIS.
I dont even read comics and being a batman and joker fan through and through, i knew this was garbage. Them just wanting to get people to buy their comics to see who done what and who is who. Joker done it all not this one or that one, such a cop out reason for batman to use the chair, just to ask what’s my greatest enemies name. Half the fun of joker is not knowing batman or the reader like come on. Yeah best dc has got to write comics my ass, if it was put in as a multiverse thing i can back it, but 3 in the same earth and wanting to make more and then not even being able to finish the line for another 5 years. What a fall from a tall height my clown prince of crime has been watered down to.