Book Review: The Joker War Saga

James Tynion IV, et.al., The Joker War Saga. Burbank, CA: DC Comics, 2021. ISBN: 9781779511799.

 

Genre: comics and graphic novels

Subgenre: Batman, superhero comics

Format: hardcover

Source: Berea branch, Madison County (KY) Public Library 

 

 

This volume collects the DC Comics Joker War series. It includes Batman comics as well as various related issues of other comics that cross over with the Batman comics.

 

In this series, Joker somehow manages to steal Bruce Wayne's fortune and resources. He then uses them to wage his war on Batman, his allies, and Gotham City. The city becomes a war zone, and Batman and his allies have to stop him. 

To be honest, the main issue with this volume is that the story is a mess. It is a Joker story, so bound to be messy, but this is really a mess. At times, the story is not really coherent. The story just moves along from one scene to another, and things do not always seem connected. Part of that may be the crossovers with other characters like Nightwing, Batwoman, Batgirl, etc., but also it's just not well organized overall. The story feels chaotic and disorganized even for a Joker story. At the end of the day, it's Batman and Joker going at it again. The Joker may be Batman's quintessential villain, but this does feel like more of the same. 

The art is good, but it is not great. The style is mostly consistent throughout; it's the one consistent thing. It does vary a little in one or two issues. 

This is definitely one to borrow if you want to read it. Libraries with graphic novel and comics collections may want to buy it for their hardcore Batman fans, though I would consider it an optional purchase for my library. I would not order it unless a patron requested it, and even then I'd encourage them to do an interlibrary loan request first. 

Overall, I'd say this is optional rather than essential reading. It was just OK for me. 

2 out of 5 stars.