Batman: The Man Who Laughs

Year One finishes with Gordon mentioning an attack that was going to happen at the hands of a man who calls himself The Joker. The Man Who Laughs picks up from there and I have to say that didn't enjoy this story as much as Year One.

There is still a double narrative, changing perspectives between Gordon and Batman, but I found that everything I liked about Gordon's character in the previous story was not present in this one. Batman was more on the front of the action and he truly took charge of the situations.

As regards The Joker, I wasn't really impressed with his introduction. As he often gets the title of Batman main rival, I was expecting a more grandiloquent story and this wasn't the case.

However, I quite enjoyed the second story Made of Wood. In this one, Batman teams up with Green Lantern to find copy-cat murderer who is killing the same way as serial killer did ten years before. Green Lantern was an interesting character to read and I liked that we got flashbacks to the previous investigation as well as Batman and Lantern current investigation. In this story, Gordon has an active role again, which I appreciate very much.

Overall, I liked the stories but I was expecting more.

Neat

This was really quite good. This volume has two stories is it, One has the first appearance of the Joker and is an early experience Batman tale. (Apparently a sequel to Batman: Year One?) I'm a sucker for early experience Batman tales and love to see Gordon and Batman work side by side. Gordon especially has some good dialogue. Although, I have to say I actually enjoyed the 2nd story “Made of Wood” much much more. I really don't know anything about Alan Scott Green Lantern, except that his weakness is wood. It was interesting to hear more lore about him and how he was the early hero of Gotham. This was really his story with Batman doing the detective work and it really had a touching ending. [ Can you imagine having such an obsession/grudge against Green Lantern that you kept that baseball bat that knocked him out and that even got passed on to your kid? I felt great sympathy for the villain in this volume. It was a brief explanation but made so much sense. When Alan got hit with that bat I even felt it! I cried at the end seeing the signed bat memento and Batman's picture of his father meeting Alan Scott was really heartfelt to me. (hide spoiler)] The art in these are really nice and each of the two stories I felt were compelling and really felt like a detective series getting clues and observations from Batman to piece things together. I finished it rather quickly and I highly recommend. ~Ashley