The Joker #10Man, those are some thick lines!
Creative Team: Marty Pasko-story, Irv Novick-art, Julie Schwartz-editor, Drew Moore-colors
So; here's the deal. The Joker was cancelled after issue #9, but #10 had been announced in the Daily Planet page and scripted and penciled. However, DC was starting to sharpen up the axe and titles fell quickly, to make way for the DC Explosion, then in the wake of the DC Implosion. Joker was one of those axed to make room, but this one didn't make it into Cancelled Comic Cavalcade or get repurposed in any other form, until the Joker: The Bronze Age Omnibus, in 2019. Why is a bit of a mystery; but, a plausible theory is that it was never reused, since it was part one of a 3-part story and the other two never got started. So, the only way you could finish this is to do a new ending or commission the other two parts. Most of the other canceled material that did get printed elsewhere were stand alone stories. Anyway, it was pulled out of the vault and we can now watch the Joker begin a battle with the Justice League.
Synopsis: Joker is talking to a doctor, in an office talking about how the doctor set the Joker on a path to kill the Justice League. except they are not dead. Whatever. he recounts how he was brought to said doctor's office and was told that he would be subjected to a lobotomy to remove his anti-social tendencies. As you can imagine, Joker flips his lid....more than usual. He sits in his cell, reading Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus, identifying with the mad doctor, who sells his soul to the devil and swears that he would do the same, to stop the procedure. Wouldn't you know it, but Old Scratch turns up, looking rather like Reg Dwight....
Shouldn't it have been this costume?
Lou Cipher (sound it out quickly....) offers Joker his release, in exchange for taking out a scientist who is working on a serum that would cure all known diseases and regenerate tissue, making people immortal. There was a hitch...the JLA knew about the scientist and were debating whether to aid the scientist. So, the JLA needed to be eliminated.
Joker is prepped for surgery, but has the strength to break free of his restraints and escape...
Joker escaped in the chaos and kidnapped the doctor who ordered the procedure. Taking him to a secret location, then beginning his plan to kill the JLA.
He starts in Central City, by stealing some furs and escaping in his Heh-Helicopter. Flash appears and creates a downdraft to counter the helo's rotor, forcing it to land. Joker sprays Flash with a laughing gas, mixed with an amphetamine, which speeds up Flash's metabolism, causing him to laugh faster and faster, until his heart can't take the strain and he keels over.
In Star City, Joker fires a flare, to draw Green Arrow's attention to its origin, at the zoo. GA and Black canary turn up and find a guard, dead, on the roof of the monkey house. They find the Joker's calling card and investigate. Canary follows up an address on the card, while GA searches the zoo. The Joker watches him, from a hiding spot. GA spots him and fires an arrow, but it is only a balloon, which explodes. GA comes to, locked in a cage with hyenas, as Joker leaves. GA draws a tranquilizer arrow, but it curves back and hits GA. Joker switched the tranquilizer head onto a boomerang arrow, so it would come back to GA.
Meanwhile, Canary investigates the studio address from the card and finds herself subjected to a sonic assault from the Joker. Canary is in an echo chamber and her own sonic cry bounces back at her until she falls dead. At the zoo, the guards kill the hyenas and find GA dead.
The doctor questions how he could be in two places at once and he says with the devil's help.
Wonder Woman is drawn to the Statue of Liberty, which has been made over with Joker's face. She lands on the shoulder and is ambushed by the Joker. His punches and chops have little effect and she snares him with her lasso, with unexpected results....
Wonder Woman appears to die, by hanging. The doctor then presses him on the statement that they are not dead and Joker reveals that EEGs still show brain activity, so they are only 99.99% dead! The doctor says the story is ridiculous and Joker sprays him with a water pistol, which causes the doctor's rawhide straightjacket to shrink and constrict, killing him. The Joker then says the rest of the story involves his father...
Thoughts: Completely bonkers story, with a pretty good premise going, assuming that Joker is being aided by the devil, in the form of Sir Elton John (then, just a lowly peasant). One wonders if he would next appear to Joker as Mick Jagger, or possibly Freddie Mercury? Probably a Bee-Gee...
I suspect the ending would have been a double-cross, by the devil...some precise wording in the contract.
This closes out a great era for the Joker, as he is mad, but with a maniacal brilliance that makes him formidable, rather than just a chaotic killer or Lector-esque serial killer. For my money, this wouldn't be topped until "The Laughing Fish", though you can keep most of your post-Crisis Joker stories. Bronze Age Joker had more style.