This fall, Gotham City will finally have the hero it deserves: the Joker! And we’re serious, the Joker might be the man to finally save the city from Batman. That’s the premise for Batman: White Knight, a new alternate universe miniseries that imagines a world where the Joker has been completely cured of his madness and his homicidal tendencies.
“We know the Joker is a genius,” said Sean Gordon Murphy during an interview with Wired. “We know he’s relentless, and we know he can play the crowd, so why not make him a politician? Why not strip away the psychosis (the thing that’s holding him back) and let him challenge Batman unimpeded? And to make it even scarier, what if he did it legally and without breaking any rules, so that Batman couldn’t stop him?â€
Murphy is writing and penciling the White Knight miniseries, which gives the Joker sanity and a real clarity of purpose. Judging from this preview page, it looks like the Joker’s ambitions for his old enemy may come to pass.
Within the story, the Joker reinvents himself as a politician named Jack before leading a crusade to take down Batman. The intriguing thing is that the Joker isn’t wrong about Batman’s impact on the city. He views Batman’s war on crime as a never-ending cycle of vengeance and violence that can only be stopped by taking the Dark Knight out of the equation. One of the ways that Murphy is exploring that issue is by showing the readers that comic book morality doesn’t even work in comic books anymore. Crime can’t be stopped by a violent vigilante. Even with an army of sidekicks and associated heroes, Batman has failed to save his city.
The real question is whether Gotham City will be saved before the Joker inevitably slips back into madness. Since this story is freed of the DC Universe’s continuity, it could end with the Joker victorious. However, we think that the Clown Prince of Crime will always be true to himself, even if it means shedding the White Knight image that he creates for himself. But at least he’s got Harley Quinn by his side!
Batman: White Knight #1 will be released on Wednesday, October 4, and the miniseries will run for seven issues. You can see more preview pages in our gallery below!
Are you eager to see the Joker become a White Knight? Let us know in the comment section below!
Images: DC Comics
