Initial impressions, based on a reading after midnight that kept me awake:
I like this a lot. It doesn't have the elegance, perception, coherence and depth of TDK, or the humane complexity and moral balance and perfectly constructed narrative of TKJ, or the ambitious mythology of Arkham Asylum, but it is coherent, startling, kinetic, and gorgeously realized as both a visual narrative and a text. The similarities to several aspects of TDK are really quite astonishing but I think it's simply that both stories went to the same well of inspiration: the question of what if these were plausible characters in our world, a world without superpowers or superheroes? And it remains sufficiently vague on a number of points that those who'd like to see it as part of other areas in the Batman universe might do so as well.
I remember several posts back someone pointing out the similarity between the realization of Harley Quinn (and this is the first story where I really liked and appreciated HQ: she served a real purpose) and some fan art he'd done rethinking the character. I was struck by similarities to my own fan story, especially in the notion of an under-underworld where it seems ordinary extensions of law or government just don't/can't reach, and the triad of the Joker, the Joker's girlfriend, and the driver (although my story is set considerably earlier in the Joker's career, and the driver is a quite different sort of guy, a restless drifter who was in the army and saw active combat, then travelled extensively, worked for a mobster in Hong Kong, did ninja training in Japan, and who is deeply in love with the girlfriend character). But again, it's the issue of the same well, the same sorts of questions. (Disclaimer: no part of my story has ever been published online, and I have the notebooks, with dated entries, to prove I started the first version of it at least 18 years ago, then abandoned it for 17 years.)
I like Jonny's perspective: it's probably the only perspective in this universe that's "relatable" to the ordinary reader, but as in the Harry Potter books, it fills me with a sort of wistful longing for the more daring forays into the perspectives of less relatable characters, but then, the drawn expressions and actions help there.
I LOVE the treatment of Batman. I think it's quite right he's not a character in this so much as a force, an entity. We see him as the underworld sees him. And we never really get a full shot of him; he retains mystery. Great boots; I seriously love those boots. His nemesis relationship with the Joker is firmly established: he cannot rid Gotham of the Joker any more than the Joker can rid Gotham of Batman: they keep each other in check.
On the whole I like the visual look of this. I think there is a conscious nod to the yellowy filter of the original KJ, which I actually like better than the recoloured anniversary edition: it suggested more the sickly nightmare perspective of a deranged mind. Here it suggests the nightmare world everyone dwells in. It's visceral; it LOOKS smelly, if that makes sense, and painful. And the characters on the whole have great personality. There's a sort of timelessness in its collision of classic noir movies of the 1940s/50s and the great crime films of the 1970s.
The narrative has a great premise but in trying to work in a laundry list of famous villains (I wonder if this would have worked better as an extended series?) the surface to depth proportion suffers, and while the gaps might be there deliberately, I found myself curious about how long the Joker had been in Arkham, plus a lot of other little background details (i.e. to what extent does this stick to canon; to what extent does it depart?).
My favourite bit, apart from the arrival of Batman at the end which is just perfectly realized, well done, is a quiet little one, the part where Jonny is wandering through the apartment reminiscing, and ends up spying on the Joker and Harley, where the Joker is fully dressed except for his trenchcoat, and is on his knees with his arms around her waist, surrounded by pills. It's so telling that she's standing there looking sort of bemused, hands both occupied by her cigarette and her champagne glass; she's not stroking his hair or making any sort of affectionate gesture and he seems to be crying. I read this as suggesting that maybe one part of their reunion hasn't really worked out, maybe because of all his years on heavy medication. But maybe that's just because I'm a girl.
Anyway, well satisfied: 8/10.
