Superman: Emperor Joker

The Superman story with Joker as the all powerful villain !

OLD SPOILERS AHEAD

The basic premise of this is the world has gone crazy. Heroes are villains, Superman is in Arkham, Lois is basically a female version of Luthor, pies rain from the sky etc. Superman knows he's not the man they say he is, he's not crazy or a murderer. Something is wrong yet every time he tries to escape Arkham Bizarro brings him back. All of this is possible thanks to one of Mxyzptlk's schemes gone horribly wrong. It seems he got bored of always losing to Superman and wanted to give someone else a go at challenging Superman with his powers. Unfortunately that person was Joker and he tricked him out of 99% of his power.

In some respects this is a hard story to review since the story is so crazy and often nonsensical. The jokes don't always land although a few made me laugh. The biggest chuckle I got was based on the format of the digital copy making the reveal more of a surprise when Joker did his roll call. He gets to Lex Luthor last and it pans down to a still dead Lex with a kick me sign on his back. Lex even being there makes no sense in story as Superman is supposed to be imprisoned for murdering Lex. Joker lampshades this as he isn't sure why he has him around. He kills Lex then brings him back a couple of times even though Lex always speaks his mind. He talks to Lois at one point which surprised me as I didn't recall him coming back again.

You think he'd stay dead as he's capable of defeating Joker, at least in theory, thanks to his smarts. While he didn't do much he was still entertaining which is why I believe Joker kept him around. Supergirl (Matrix) and Superboy (Kon-El) don't really do much. Supergirl is level headed and Kon is the only one that sees something is off about Lois. Steel slowly loses importance although his introduction was what made it possible for Superman to break the pattern.

The JLA really have no reason to be in this. They snap out of it near the end and don't really contribute anything. Although I suppose it is worth it to discover that Plastic Man apparently stole a certain editor's credit card. Jimmy Olsen is the Grave Digger which might be a nod to the old cover were Superman and Batman make Robin and him dig their own graves? At one point the Turtle randomly bites Jimmy and for no rationale reason he turns into his Silver Age giant turtle self. He eats Superman and the next time we see Clark he's in shock as they wash him off from being in Jimmy's digestive tract. Yes, the substance on him is brown. Despite what happens to him later on his expression still seems the most broken. Oh and after this scene Jimmy is back as the Grave Digger and the incident is never mentioned again.

Lois and Clark's love couldn't be destroyed by Joker yet he's still able to control Lois on some level. BTW I call bull on Harley not getting jealous. He does everything he can to break Superman yet nothing works. Batman is important based on his connections to both Clark and Joker. He's not in most of the plot but his role still leaves a big impact. The first three Robins also appear briefly when Joker visits Quraq (Qurac? *1 It's spelled differently) and talks to their bodies. Jason has a sign asking why more people didn't call in to save him. Joker acts like he was a badly behaved kid. And for some disturbing reason tells Nightwing he misses his green shorts. Eww.

The story never loses it unbalanced feeling as crazy unexplained things keep happening. Is it one of my favorites? No but I don't regret reading it. If nothing else is was a nice change of pace. I already knew some spoiler bits but most of it was very unpredictable.



*1 Qurac was where Jason was killed in RHATO but it was also the canon site under Chuck Dixon when he wrote Birds of Prey. Which makes his reasoning for hanging out with the dead Robins in that location make some sense.