Joker: Killer Smile is exceptional

I do not read many traditional superhero comics these days but I do most certainly read comics written by Jeff Lemire and drawn by Andrea Sorrentino so I had to give Joker: Killer Smile a try.

As you would expect from that team this is not a traditional superhero comic and it is also very good.

I think that it is fair to say that the Batman and Joker world has been milked for all it is worth in the last few decades and while a few stories have stood out, obviously Killing Joke is one of these, the rest have disappeared in a vast sea of sameness. In such a large sea only the exceptional can stand out.

I think that Joker: Killer Smile is exceptional.

There are only two main protagonists, Joker and his psychotherapists  Dr Ben Arnell. Batman makes a brief appearance, because he had to, but makes no material contribution to the story. This is about Joker, not Batman.

The psychotherapist thinks he can cure Joker and spends hours talking to him in Arkham Asylum. Not surprisingly these conversations do not go the way that Dr Arnell hoped but their consequence is a genuine surprise. It's a tight noir tale that grips from the start and drags you into dark unexpected places.

The story is a good one (so far, I have read two of the three chapters) and the storytelling is excellent. Both Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino are masters in their fields, with the awards to prove it, and as a team they are even better.

Joker: Killer Smile shows how superhero comics can tell great, and scary, stories without relying on people punching each other.

Blown away by Gideon Falls

Andrea Sorrentino work has appeared in this blog a few times over the years, usually because I have liked the samples shown in DC Comics Digital Sneak Peeks, most of which I singularly failed to tag with his name at the time. Anyway, the point is I have liked his work for a while.

I have also liked the little of Jeff Lemire's work that I have read, notably A.D.: After Death and X-Men.

The two had worked together a few times before, to great acclaim, but not on anything that I had read. Even so, that reputation was enough to get me interested in Gideon Falls.

It is my favourite current comic.

The art is as decisive as I expected with sharp lines and dramatic page layouts. The story is just as good. It is about an evil barn, a priest who lives nearby and a psychiatric patient who collects small parts of it from waste dumps across the city. If that sound weird then it is in all the ways that you want weird to be.

The two main characters' stories are told in parallel and so far, after four issues, have yet to come together. Happily Gideon Falls is billed as an ongoing series so there is plenty of time for this expected thing and many unexpected things to happen. I'm hooked and will be along for the ride all the way.

Andrea Sorrentino sparkles on the X-Men

I have been reading X-Men for a long long time simply because the characters and their stories interest me. Of the various Marvel teams they are the ones who have been to the more exotic places and done the wilder things.

Unfortunately the time I have available to read comics has decreased while the number of titles featuring the X-Men has increased so I have had choices to make and I now just read the Uncanny X-Men regularly. This has gone through many reincarnations and relaunches since I first started reading it in 1976 and is now being written by Brian Michael Bendis.

I like Bendis' style as it is in the Marvel tradition as started Stan Lee and then developed by the likes of Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway with long story arcs and strong characters. These are good simple stories, and I mean that as a compliment.

X-Men Annual #1 took a slight detour with the story of one of the newer mutants, Eva Bell, and her trouble with time travel.

It also introduced me to the art of Andrea Sorrentino which I found stunning. This was Eva's first time jump into an unknown future. The quality of the art clearly speaks for itself.

I had not read a full comic drawn by Sorrentino before but he had appeared a few times in my selected highlights of DC Comics Digital Sneak Peeks for his work on Green Arrow.

The 27 page comic only told the first part of the story so that I had to get All New X-Men Annual #1 too. Bendis writes All New X-Men too and this is not the first time that he has done a story cross-over like this and I've bought ten copies of the second title now to continue reading stories started in the first.

I was delighted to see that Sorrentino drew All New X-Men Annual #1 too. Here Morgana Le Fey is showing Eva her fractured future.

Bendis' story was fine, though when you've been reading comics as long as you will have seen some of the ideas used before, though not quite in the same way. What makes the story special is Sorrentino's artwork.

DC Comics Digital Sneak Peeks: 6 November 2013

Choosing something by Andrea Sorrentino has become something of a habit and with covers like this it is easy to see why, though the previous examples have been interiors.

The composition has everything, the forceful but patient hero, the dark threat above, the grimy setting neatly set at a slight angle, and the subdued colouring.

Jim Lee is DC's superstar artist and he fits firmly in the superhero tradition that started with Jack Kirby. That style can be a little simplistic for my tastes but sometimes simple is good as it is with this picture of Lex Luthor playing with a Superman doll.