The down and dirty for Dead to Rights can be found at http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Batman:_Dead_to_Rights_(Collected) if anyone is interested.
The long and the short of it though is that I seriously LOVED this comic. I read it for the first time in trade format last night and I was hooked from the start. It basically tells a story (of dubious continuity) after the Joker's first arrest. What he did to get arrested is actually kind of incidental. The bigger issue is how unprepared GCPD was to jail him and the DA's office was to prosecute him.
What probably works best for me about DTR is how it hits a similar beat as TDK. See, to me the Joker being around should always cause havoc and chaos. And this story GETS that. One thing I love about TDK is the pandemonium of it all. The Joker calls in the bomb threat to a hospital and all hell breaks loose. Same type of thing here. The Joker is handcuffed, he's tossed in the back of police cars, he's put on trial, but literally nobody is ever safe. If he's not killing somebody at the moment, it's because he doesn't want to. He kills somebody in the story just by making one phone call.
But he's never shown to be a demented weirdo about it. He kills because he thinks it's funny. He kills somebody else in the story with a peanut because he thought it would be amusing to do so. That's it! No bigger reason, really.
A lot of writers try turning the Joker into a serial killer, basically. And to me, that's wrongheaded. Yeah, human life means nothing to the Joker. But he doesn't take life arbitrarily. Hell, he may not even take life with malice. Rather, he kills because he sees an opportunity for comedy. Sick, twisted, insane comedy. But comedy nevertheless.
The Joker recognized that his murder weapons (the telephone for one victim and a peanut for the other) were literally both victims' worst nightmares. There was literally no better way to murder them so that's the way he chose... because it's funny (to him) to kill them that way. He might have spared them if all he had available was a gun.
Though maybe not.
Also, the art is done by Scott McDaniel. I'm a McDaniel fanboy from way back so he's always welcome as far as I'm concerned.
If I had to fit Dead to Right into my head-canon, to me this is the aftermath of 'Images' from Legends of the Dark Knight #50. It might not be a perfect fit. But in my mind Images is Batman's definitive first encounter with the Joker. And so DTR is the aftermath of Images.
To circle back to TDK for a moment, I can't help thinking there's some TDK-influence going on here. Because in the jail, the Joker tells Batman "You complete me". It seems a little too coincidental.
Anyway, not sure if any of the rest of you have ever read this story but it's definitely worth picking up.
The long and the short of it though is that I seriously LOVED this comic. I read it for the first time in trade format last night and I was hooked from the start. It basically tells a story (of dubious continuity) after the Joker's first arrest. What he did to get arrested is actually kind of incidental. The bigger issue is how unprepared GCPD was to jail him and the DA's office was to prosecute him.
What probably works best for me about DTR is how it hits a similar beat as TDK. See, to me the Joker being around should always cause havoc and chaos. And this story GETS that. One thing I love about TDK is the pandemonium of it all. The Joker calls in the bomb threat to a hospital and all hell breaks loose. Same type of thing here. The Joker is handcuffed, he's tossed in the back of police cars, he's put on trial, but literally nobody is ever safe. If he's not killing somebody at the moment, it's because he doesn't want to. He kills somebody in the story just by making one phone call.
But he's never shown to be a demented weirdo about it. He kills because he thinks it's funny. He kills somebody else in the story with a peanut because he thought it would be amusing to do so. That's it! No bigger reason, really.
A lot of writers try turning the Joker into a serial killer, basically. And to me, that's wrongheaded. Yeah, human life means nothing to the Joker. But he doesn't take life arbitrarily. Hell, he may not even take life with malice. Rather, he kills because he sees an opportunity for comedy. Sick, twisted, insane comedy. But comedy nevertheless.
The Joker recognized that his murder weapons (the telephone for one victim and a peanut for the other) were literally both victims' worst nightmares. There was literally no better way to murder them so that's the way he chose... because it's funny (to him) to kill them that way. He might have spared them if all he had available was a gun.
Though maybe not.
Also, the art is done by Scott McDaniel. I'm a McDaniel fanboy from way back so he's always welcome as far as I'm concerned.
If I had to fit Dead to Right into my head-canon, to me this is the aftermath of 'Images' from Legends of the Dark Knight #50. It might not be a perfect fit. But in my mind Images is Batman's definitive first encounter with the Joker. And so DTR is the aftermath of Images.
To circle back to TDK for a moment, I can't help thinking there's some TDK-influence going on here. Because in the jail, the Joker tells Batman "You complete me". It seems a little too coincidental.
Anyway, not sure if any of the rest of you have ever read this story but it's definitely worth picking up.