Joker War and Three Jokers serve as complementary companion pieces that has Batman’s greatest enemy challenge him in very different ways.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman: Three Jokers #3, by Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson and Rob Leigh, on sale now.
Two very different stories that revolved around Batman’s eternal conflict with the Joker have recently come to a close in James Tynion IV and Jorge Jimenez’s “Joker War” and Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok’s Batman: Three Jokers. The two tales revolved around the Clown Prince of Crime coming at the Dark Knight and Bat-Family in a more personal way than ever, as the supervillain was well aware of the team’s various secret identities. Despite their differences, the two stories work perfectly as companion pieces exploring Batman and the Joker’s never-ending battle, especially with Johns confirming he regards Three Jokers as canon to the main DC Universe.
“Joker War” ran through virtually every major ongoing series in the Bat-Family of titles and, true to its summertime publication schedule, delivered explosive, bombastic action for the fate of Gotham City. After seizing control of the Wayne Family fortune, the Joker armed his goons with the Caped Crusader’s vast arsenal of weapons and vehicles and plunged the city into fiery chaos while Batman was temporarily incapacitated by the Joker’s new righthand woman Punchline. Batman was eventually able to recover and take back his city, defeating the Joker in a brutal confrontation inside of Ace Chemicals.
Three Jokers, despite increasing the number of Clown Princes of Crime to a full trio, went deeper and more psychological rather than bigger and more externally grandiose. Batman, along with Batgirl and Red Hood, were forced to confront their unresolved pain and trauma inflicted by the villains over the course of their crimefighting careers. That isn’t to say there weren’t any major action set pieces — every single issue had at least one — but the narrative focus was always on that psychological terror and pain. It really put Bruce through the wringer — the Jokers kidnapped his parents’ murderer Joe Chill to potentially transform him into one of their own, with Chill intended to become the ultimate iteration of the supervillain as the definitive traumatic blow to Bruce.