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At the conclusion of James Tynion IV's Joker series, Jim Gordon let the Clown Prince of Crime go free after a chase that took them cross-country.
Now, in the first issue of The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing, the Joker is back in Gotham and ready to play hardball - baseball uniform and all. But is he there to stay?
Spoilers ahead for The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #1
In The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #1, written by Matthew Rosenberg, drawn by Carmine Di Giandomenico, colored by Arif Prianto, and lettered by Tom Napolitano, the titular villain explains how certain jokes are structured, while the crime bosses who rose to prominence in his absence from Gotham suffer his wrath.
But killing a few two-bit criminals isn't enough to scare the bigger, badder villains in the city, as evidenced by Black Mask, Two-Face, and the Riddler telling Joker to leave because no one cares about him or his games anymore.
And Joker acts like it's good advice, offering to leave the three villains for Batman while Joker pursues "bigger and better things." He orders one of his henchmen to shoot a hostage with a bag over his head, and then the clowns follow marching orders to head out.
At this point, the narrative splits. The Joker heads to Los Angeles, where he throws a crime boss out the window of his high-rise office to take the building for himself, then hacks national news to explain his plan.
"I, the Joker, being of soundish mind and tight little body, do hereby decree that I am going to clean up this country once and for all," he declares, as several panels show his henchmen murdering freely.
Meanwhile, the hostage who was shot in Gotham reveals he's not dead after all, as even more of Joker's henchmen mass-bury the bodies he left behind after his kidnapping and killing spree three days ago. Slowly, the narrative is revealed to be the not-dead hostage speaking rather than the Joker.
And on the final page, the hostage removes the bag over his head to reveal his identity: The Joker.
Yes, there do seem to be two Jokers at work in The Man Who Stopped Laughing #1. One is in Los Angeles, and the other is apparently still in Gotham City. This leaves room for a third Joker to return, harkening back to the 2020 Three Jokers storyline in which one of Batman's greatest villains is actually three men rather than just one.
The question is, where will the third Joker pop up?
The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #1 is available now.
In Gotham or out, the Joker is one of the best Batman villains.
