In Batman: The Adventures Continue, the DC Animated Universe version of the Joker just showed that Family Guy is never too far from his thoughts.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman: The Adventures Continue #13 by Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, Ty Templeton, Monica Kubina, and Josh Reed, available now.
The Joker is easily Gotham City’s most recognizable villain, and he’s probably it’s most destructive, too. Aside from breaking Boy Wonders, Joker occasionally does things that reminds readers just how self-awarehe is, too. Batman: The Adventures Continue #13 continues this trend with a sly not that acknowledges his situation’s similarities to a long-running gag on Family Guy.
The Joker states that Harley Quinn has run off with Poison Ivy, and after his assault on Jason Todd the Joker has taken up a new sidekick in the form of the Heisman-winning would-be super-soldier known as Straightman. After the Penguin denies Joker’s request for a loan, the Joker sends Straightman to make Penguin rethink his denial. However, Straightman is quickly stopped by Mr. Wing, a genetically modified super bird created by Emile Dorian. The Penguin’s muscle and Straightman immediately begin trading blows, and the Joker says that it reminds him of the fights between peter Griffin and a giant chicken on Family Guy.
Speaking to Penguin, but looking directly out at the reader from the panel, Joker says “This is better than those fights in Family Guy, though I don’t think your chicken’s gonna last as long.”
Since the Season 2 Family Guy episode, “Da Boom,” Peter Griffin, the loving but oafish incompetent family patriarch of the show, has getting into increasingly violent and destructive fistfights with a giant anthropomorphic chicken named Ernie. While the running joke doesn’t show up often in the show’s more recent years, these extended sequences were a hallmark of the show’s early and middle years. And these fights were just as memorable for their duration as they are their collateral damage.
While what we get in Batman: The Adventures Continue certainly isn’t as over-the-top as the man-versus-chicken battles in Family Guy, it certainly does everything it can to leave its own lasting impression.
When the two first meet, Straightman and Mr. Wing start throwing punches, as well as each other, well before any proper introductions can be made. Before long Straightman is hurling both of them out the glass doors of Penguin’s office and onto the cold, hard surface of one of the Iceberg Lounge’s tiered floors. As Joker and Straightman both seem to relish in their victory, the heckling is cut short by the arrival of Jason Todd as an especially vengeful Red Hood. Jason decides that it’s time to take the clown back to the sewers and pumps Joker with enough tranquilizers to knock him out for a few hours. Since Jason doesn’t need Straightman or any interference, he shoots enough darts into him to make sure he won’t wake up for a long time before kicking Straightman off over the ledge and crushing him with a chandelier.
While it isn’t as dramatic or over the top as a bare-knuckle brawl on the side of a loose Ferris wheel that is tearing a path of destruction down busy city streets, the fight is still similar enough to Family Guy‘s brawls for the Joker to comment on them. And with those comments, the Joker reveals a little bit about he unwinds after a lon gday of villainy, too.
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