Batman: The Man Who Laughs | Ed Brubaker

Batman: The Man Who Laughs | Ed Brubaker | Batman: The Man Who Laughs

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Batman: The Man Wh...

	Batman: The Man Who Laughs Ed Brubaker DC Comics, 2008 - 144 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Witness Batman's historic first encounters with his deadliest foe, The Joker, in this hardcover volume featuring two tales written by Ed Brubaker (GOTHAM CENTRAL, Captain America), winner of 2007 Eisner Award for Best Writer.

A mysterious homicidal maniac is murdering prominent citizens of Gotham City, each time leaving a ghastly grin on the victims' lifeless faces. Batman soon tracks down the killer: The Joker!

This volume gives readers new insight into the early encounters between Batman and The Joker that led the Clown Prince of Crime down the path to insanity. Guest-starring original Green Lantern Alan Scott.

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My Favorite Joker Story

Don't get me wrong, I did like "The Killing Joke". But I think that this story is so much better. The Killing Joke seemed so rushed to me, and this one didn't feel that way at all. I read the first joker story from Batman #1 (1940) before I read this, just because I wanted to see where the joker started. I liked the story a lot, and thought then that a modern version would be great. Well then I heard about this "The Man Who Laughs" and knew right then that I needed to get it. I looked online and found out that it was out of print, I couldn't even get the stores to order it. Then I went to my local comic book store and they had 4 copies laying right there. I bought it right away, after I read it I was so surprised, they kept the same story from the original and added more flavor to it, more plot. Needless to say, I love this book. This is when Gotham learned to fear The Joker.

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Batman: The Man Who Laughs

The book arrived quick and in good shape, just what my son wanted.

One of the Greatest Batman Graphic Novels?

I bought this title for a few reasons:

1) Amazon had a great price of 13.59 and free shipping on combined orders over $35. The original prestige edition was 48 pages (only $5 or so) and sold out a long time ago and now sells for over $50.

2) It was ranked #22 on a list of the "25 Greatest Batman Graphic Novels".

3) Heath Ledger's Joker in the movie "The Dark Knight" is partially based on this story.

Overall, the Joker story was pretty good. However, I didn't like the art style that much. As noted by another reviewer, the story ends abruptly and the final fight betweent Batman and the Joker is anti-climatic.

As I didn't grow up with the original Green Lantern, I didn't like the character that much. However, the 2nd half of the story does delve into the detective aspect of Batman and contrasts it with the Green Lantern.

Overall, to me it was worth buying for the reasons that I listed above. However, better value could be gained by buying other Batman graphic novels. In fact, many of the others from the top 25 list sell for $20 or less on amazon.com.

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An Odd Collection

Buy this book to read Ed Brubaker and Doug mahnke excellent redux of the Joker's first encounter with batman. In a shocking turn, DC hires a great artist to do a high profile Batman tale. I only fault this story on being too short.
The Man Who Laughs was orignally published as a 48 page soft cover graphic novel, but deserves the hardcover format. Sadly, the cover graphics are not very well done. The white spine with the ugly blue at the bottom doesn't look good on the book shelf, particularly next to it's natural companion, the recently released Killing Joke hardcover.
As a filler, a Batman/Golden Age Green Lantern story is also randomely reprinted here. This story originally appeared in Detective Comics which Mr. Brubaker wrote for a little over a year. I remember his run as well written (as most of his work is), but laden with poor fill-in art unworthy of his scripts. The artwork by Mike Lilly is just OK, but I fail to see why it was included in this hardcover.
It would have been much better to reprint the Joker's first two appearances from Batman #1, as well as Dennis O'Neal's Legends of the Dark Knight #50, from 1993, which retold the same story of Batman's first encounter with the Joker. Dennis O'Neal wrote a spot on story with some great moments, but the particularly bad art from Brett Blevins is not something which should be seen again. At least the theme of the book would have been consistant.

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Good, but not the pay-off I expected.

This is the first thing I've ever read from Brubaker, so I don't have much to go on in terms of how different or new it is from his other stuff. What I can say, is that it's a much better written Joker story compared to a lot of the other ones out there. The book builds nice tension up until the last confrontation Batman and Joker have; which I felt was very lackluster and not even close to as memorable at The Killing Jokes end. The Joker taking over televison and what not is old at this point. However, the additional story of the Green Lantern I thought was great, that managed to invoke more emotion from me than the TMWL. What is top-notch here is the art. I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the Joker as it is a short and fun read.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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