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The Gordon-Becoming-New-Joker would make storytelling sense for a number of reasons:
1. It brings intense emotional tension to the Bat-world using established elements without having to introduce new historically-linked villains like Hush or Red Hood (Jason Todd)--a clunky technique which any writer will need to lengthily justify to a Batman audience, unless it dovetails neatly from prominent old storylines.
2. This one does--it follows up and builds on an Alan Moore thread (we've seen Grant do this in Zatanna)--specifically, Moore's "The Killing Joke", widely considered to be one of the best Batman stories ever (along with "Dark Knight" and "Arkham Asylum"), which I'm sure you've all read. If not, stop reading this post, because spoilers below.
In "The Killing Joke", The Joker goes to great lengths to drive Gordon insane; shooting his daughter Barbara (now Oracle), abducting him, stripping him naked, sending him through a complex series of traumatic events (he showed Gordon Polaroids of naked wounded Barbara, and he even took the trouble of acquiring a decrepit carny park for this purpose). When Batman arrives later on, Joker justifies it as a demonstration to Batman of how any sane, rational man can easily turn to madness, "All it takes is one bad day".
It sorta justifies Joker's motivations in a screwed-up way, but it could be argued that this reasoning is lacking. Portrayals of Joker may vary, but for the most part we know that while Joker is insane, he is also very lucid and calculating within the parameters of his madness (which has a brilliant logic of its own--demostrated by his ability to perpetually vex a man as capable and intelligent as Batman. And if you read Arkham Asylum by Grant, it's also there).
Perhaps Joker was also testing Gordon? Or planting seeds which he could exploit later? A viral facet to Joker's mindset which is more magnified than simply poisoning a victim with his smile and laugh? It would make sense, and would build on Moore's canonized storyline, if people thought such a thing was possible.
3. Grant is on Batman as an ongoing series--not a mini or a contained storyarc or maxi-series. We've seen in New X-men and JLA that his first issues tend to lay rich groundwork for future storylines. Given that, why start off (on his first page, even) with the image of Gordon getting poisoned by the Joker, if not to plant seeds for later use?
It could be argued that the first part of this first issue is a statement on the grim-and-gritty state of Batman now (which doubly serves as a shock-value action/event-packed opening salvo), showing a transition from this violent negative state to a more positive (albeit still violent) state.
But Grant is a better writer than that, and I honestly think he'd plant clues there already, perhaps playing on the whole "Detective" aspect of Batman, in that it's all there for the acute reader to pick out.
4. If so, then there are clues aside from the obvious: Commissioner Gordon was the only person shown to have been poisoned--not Joker's underage hostages, not the false Batman who shot him. Why Gordon, specifically?
Also, as pointed out by Hector, the scene in the hospital ends with Gordon stating "Does this mean I'm getting better, or worse?"--which is definitely a comedic moment, but if stop looking at it as a joke, it's an unnerving statement.
The nurse said "Doctor Kaminsky says the effects of the toxin should wear off by lunchtime"--this strikes me as weird, given how devastating Joker's toxin has been shown to be in previous Bat storylines. While it's entirely possible that they've developed a working antidote to the toxin (which the reader is led to insinuate), one of Morrison's established skills in in engineering the "Reread It: Things Were Not Necessarily What They Seemed" effect on the reader in reference to earlier events in his story. It's also entirely possible that Joker's developed a more insidious iteration of the toxin, targeted specifically at Gordon, one that would follow-through on the whole viral Joker theory.
5. Finally (and this may prove to be entirely irrelevant), we've seen one of Morrison's techniques to revitalize a popular franchise: the "things get better and where do we go from here" situation. This was shown in New X-men, where he took Magneto off the board in the second issue and brought him back much, much later for devastating effect. To address the thread that the Newsarama readers have latched onto--that Grant's statement of a "new Joker" arriving is just the old Joker returned from his gunshot episode bigger and badder--it just feels too soon, storywise. It makes more sense that this "new Joker" is someone entirely new, reserving the classic Joker for a much bigger storyline later on.
This is all theory of course, and I may be wrong, but all signs seem to point in the Gordon-Becoming-New-Joker direction, and in all honesty, it's an exciting way to give the Batman ongoing another shot in the arm, keeping the momentum of engagement established in the first issue. How will Batman deal with it? How will Barbara react? It's a situation that's just full of juicy story potential, and Gordon doesn't necessarily HAVE to remain the New Joker--Batman could resolve the issue, and Gordon would be returned to his regular place in the status quo.
Besides, if there's anything Morrison no doubt learned from writing New X-men, it's that the big comicbook properties eventually have to return to the mass-consensus (or editorially-mandated) status quo. He can build new toys within the status quo, he can even muck around with the status quo for the duration of his story, but the general established elements and their configurations that most people are familiar with HAVE to eventually be restored. Gordon having a brief episode as a New Joker would definitely fall nicely into this mindset--it's shocking, exciting, and it will hook fans, but it doesn't HAVE to deal any lasting damage to the property.
LOL I got a bit carried away here. Blah blah blah. What do you guys think? |
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