Fearsome Five: Top Five Books to Recommend to Fans of the Joker Movie

With so much great horror to read, I haven’t had the time to actually talk about the new Joker movie starring Joaquin Phoenix and depicting yet another origin of the Clown Prince of Crime. Purists may quibble about a superhero movie being discussed here, but if there’s any villain who embodies the horror aesthetic, it’s the Joker. Looking at the movie, I can see where they get the comparisons to Taxi Driver. The Man-Who-Would-Be Joker Arthur Fleck does seem like a modern-day Travis Bickle, Gotham is portrayed as an urban pressure cooker as real as New York, and the one percenters in charge become the figureheads of everyone’s misery. Comparisons aside, Joker is a fascinating view of one man’s descent into insanity exacerbated by the circumstances of his existence.  When everything that Arthur has believed in is revealed to be flawed or outright lies, he begins to believe that nothing matters, that existence is a joke, and that is when the Joker that has been fascinating and terrifying audiences is born.

But Joker has been around nearly as long as his nemesis, and like Batman, Joker has gone through some evolutions and depictions which have evolved him into a truly scary villain that pushes Batman to his limits. Joker will be a story that, while not canon, will sculpt the mental image people have of Joker, just as these five graphic novels have shaped the dynamic between Batman and the Joker.

5) Batman: Under the Red Hood. While the story focuses on Batman and Jason Todd, the one Robin who was killed by the Joker and was later resurrected (Comics!), it does offer some explanation as to why Batman, who already takes the law into his own gloved hands, hasn’t simply snapped the clown’s neck or done something to truly end his horrific cycle of escape, terrorize, and get recaptured. It’s when Jason Todd, who has taken up the masked identity of the Red Hood (a historic name for fans of the comics), says that Batman must kill him or the Joker, a gun to the madman’s head. Todd explains that if their positions were reversed, he would hunt down the clown and kill him, something Batman refuses to do. He even tries to rationalize it by saying that it’s not Scarecrow, or Two-Face, someone who, according to Todd, had filled graveyards. Batman, his voice full of pathos, confesses that he thinks about killing the Joker every day and in many brutal ways, but he ultimately doesn’t because he knows that going down that path, where murder is seen as a solution, means never coming back. Because that could mean becoming . . .

4) The Batman Who Laughs. This is a Batman from a dark universe, one that is identical to our Batman except he finally makes the choice and kills the Joker. The Joker is, of course, prepared (one could argue he has always been prepared), allowing Batman to be infected with a toxin that slowly turns the Dark Knight into an amalgamation of Batman and his greatest enemy, a whipsmart tactician with no moral compunctions about killing everyone who can impede his goals, which typically involve the destruction of everything. This is also not hyperbole. This guy has taken out entire universes. Yes, universes.

 It is in this collection that the Batman Who Laughs tries to not just destroy the Batman but make sure he suffers the same fate. Batman, Joker toxin changing him, must marshal his forces and use his wits and deteriorating self-control to basically defeat himself. We talk about the Batman Who Laughs killing off entire universes, but he also stems from a dark universe, once created out of others’ nightmares. This villain and the circumstances that made him, that made Batman into the villain is what Batman probably fears the most.

3) Batman: Death of the Family. Fans may have been aware of Batman and Jokers’ battles in comics for years, but this collection acknowledges that the Joker in particular is aware of that dynamic. In fact, it is his whole purpose for the heinous acts he commits on Gotham and its citizens (bringing up a salient point about how much crime Batman causes versus how much he stops, but I digress). The Joker has returned, with a renewed mission, depicted by wearing his recently removed face as a mask. He strikes out not at Batman directly, or threatens Gotham overtly. Rather, Joker turns his attention to the various Robins and other sidekicks Batman has accumulated over the years, his family. They are indeed more to Batman than cannon fodder. They are the people he trusts the most, but they are also his support system. The Joker, however, sees the Family differently. He sees the Family as holding Batman back, so he sets out to eliminate them, ultimately forcing Batman to encounter another fear that probably motivates him, his actions being ultimately futile in preventing their deaths.

What this comic also exposes is how Joker genuinely believes (as much as the Joker can believe in anything ) that he is helping Batman become better by getting rid of what he sees as dead weight. In the Joker’s eyes, it has always been he and Batman, locked in eternal conflict until one or both are dead. It is the Joker’s true purpose for being, these tangles with the Dark Knight. Everything else, in his mind, is a distraction. The Joker’s relationship with Harley Quinn is a textbook abusive relationship that the Joker never reciprocates. His true love, always was and always will be, is Batman, who gives his twisted existence meaning.

2) Batman: Damned. In this obvious sharp right turn into horror, Batman must find help to solve a mystery: who killed the Joker? To help solve this mystery, he gets help from dashing supernatural rogue archetype John Constantine, who serves as both foil and tour guide, taking the Dark Knight through a Dante’s Inferno-esque head trip that has the Batman rediscover Bruce Wayne, the man, and Batman, the symbol. His understanding of both could be shattered as clues begin to point to himself as the lead suspect perhaps finally breaking his no-killing rule.

While this is a non-canon story, taking place in a much darker DC Universe, it does reveal the dark psychology underpinning Batman and Joker’s relationship. Batman has strictly adhered to his no killing rule, no matter the emotional and physical costs to him and members of his family. And yet the Joker is always testing that boundary, always trying to push Batman to break that rule, even if it means the death of the Joker. This comic ultimately explores the Batman possibly being pushed over the edge, but also the Joker finally succeeding in what he wanted all along: dragging Batman into the muck with him.

1) Batman: The Killing Joke. The one cited by many as the ultimate Batman/Joker story. If you ever watch the DC Animated movie, just skip that completely unnecessary Batgirl storyline and get to the main event. It’s one of many Joker origin stories (this one establishing that Joker remembers his past differently from day to day with him referring to his past as “multiple choice”), and like the Joker movie, it shows a man pushed to his limits until he snaps, leading to the famous remark that all it takes to become the Joker is “one bad day.” And what a decidedly bad day it is.

The Joker movie has lent itself to controversy with some saying it’s a manifesto for how to unravel society, even providing a rationale in that society is controlled by those in the upper echelon of wealth. Some have referred to Phoenix’s acting as he delves deep into the “bad day,” actually a series of ugly truths that, once peeled away, reveal some disturbing aspects of Arthur’s life. But this movie does owe its existence to The Killing Joke, and this work has influenced the works on this list and countless others. It is one of the first works that predicts that the ultimate end of this conflict is the death of one or both. While Batman will do anything he can to avoid it, Joker will happily accept their mutual destruction.

New Arrival: Those Who Came Before by J. H. Moncrieff

There was a time not long ago where detective shows ruled the airwaves. Whether it was the multitude of Law and Orders, everything from the classic to Criminal Intent, or CSI shows in every major city, going back to Starsky and Hutch and even Dragnet, law enforcement has always played well into the heroic archetype. The office in question may be a seasoned veteran who was not too old for this sh** or a fresh-faced rookie eager to prove themselves, but they risked everything to protect the public from the criminals that lurked just outside our vantage point. When involving horror and the supernatural, those evil forces go far beyond masked men or mob bosses in business suits into something truly malevolent, out to maim and murder in the most visceral way possible. J.H. Moncrieff’s newest Those Who Came Before borrows heavily from this hero cop archetype, but also adds its own flourishes that help it stand out from the stories that came before.

Detective Maria Greyeyes has seen a lot of disturbing things in her tenure as a homicide detective, but her most disturbing comes with the gory remains at the Strong Lake Campground where three campers met their grisly end and Reese Wallace, the only camper to survive, claims to have no memory of what happened. Those familiar with the cop archetype are familiar with the strain the job places on her marriage and family, but the case also tests the limits of her sanity, especially as whatever supernatural forces in that campground comes after Sarah. Just like Law and Order, this story benefits from multiple perspectives. Greyeyes is chasing down leads even as those leads take her into darker places while Reese is trying to come to terms with his own survivor’s guilt and basically being the only suspect in the case.

Along with multiple viewpoints, the novel gives us a narrative that borrows from historical fiction and perhaps showcases an overarching theme to the story. Along with the present day mystery narrative, the book goes into the past to show how a meeting between the indigenous people and white settlers has left a stain of evil upon this land. This narrative clearly depicts many of the settlers as the villains (with some historical accuracy), but the acts done by the natives in retaliation are what curses the campground for generations. Readers see how this evil created by blind hatred and revenge still permeates enough to be felt by Maria and Reese, even influencing their actions in the present. In many books about cursed places, much like this one, there is the theme of not necessarily evil spirits staining a place but evil acts that live beyond the people that perpetrated them. Maria in particular has the power to break the cycle, but readers will have to read the book to find out if she can.

Ultimately, this tale is a blend of different genres that, far from being a haphazard mishmash, tells an intriguing story about the permanence of evil and our need to be vigilant against it. Fans of mysteries, of historical fiction, of Native American mysticism, and of visceral horror will find this book has many different ways to sink its claws into them.

Have You Read This? The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman

Vampires have become such a trope in horror, they no longer belong simply to horror. Whether paranormal romance or in much-less-serious fiction like Christopher Moore’s Bloodsucking Fiends, vampires as a fictional monster have entered a unique place in our mythology. These days, many are seen as either dark, romantic figures or as parodies. Luckily, books like Dracul and Certain Dark Things show that vampires can be mysterious but also terrifying. Add to that list of horrifying vampire depictions Christopher Buehlman’s The Lesser Dead.

The Lesser Dead is written more like a very poignant memoir. Joey Peacock got his “clock stopped” at around age 14. Perpetually young, he also has quite the skill with Charming, or a vampire’s hypnotic powers, to make himself look old enough to enter nightclubs and to get fed without a lot of hassle. He’s lived for many decades, but he’s particularly enjoying the book’s setting of 1978 New York, where he’s discovered disco clubs and prime-time television. However, his freewheeling lifestyle is threatened when a new group of predators move in to claim New York as their own, and he and their little community must defend themselves against a threat for which their many years of unlife had left them ill-prepared.

Buehlman’s depiction of Joey Peacock could simply be a pseudo-memoir since he imbues Joey with such personality and charm (NOT the vampire’s hypnotic powers) that readers will want to read about his adventures without the major plot point of darker forces moving into his city. However, this book gets violent and gets horrifying very quickly, taking very sudden turns into some very dark places. Like many depictions of vampires, Joey’s life is a very romanticized version of vampiric existence (sleep all day, party all night, etc.) but his life is also ultimately a violent and bloody one, particularly when he and the rest of his brood that live under the city must defend their turf. It does not go well. There is blood, but there is also death. FINAL death. BRUTAL death. Buelhman ultimately crafted a book that is designed to not only make a reader uncomfortable, but also to break the reader’s heart. If you’re up for the emotional journey (perhaps freefall might be a better word), you should explore the dark places revealed in The Lesser Dead.

New Arrival: The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman

These days, Hollywood seems to be churning out remakes, and the horror genre seems to be the worst offender, particularly of lackluster remakes. For every IT Chapters 1 and 2, there’s a plethora of rehashes and reimaginings that didn’t seem worth the effort of exhuming. Clay McLeod Chapman’s The Remaking, at first glance, seems like a book that is addressing this trend, and it does. However, it is so much more than a critique of Hollywood’s obsession with remakes. Rather, it is both an ambitious, sweeping narrative which also pays homage to the B-movie horror that many have grown up with.

The story begins with the retelling of an urban legend, that of the Little Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek. Both Ella Louise and her daughter Jessica are burned at the stake for being witches and the little girl’s grave is buried under concrete and surrounded by crosses. Mother and daughter are forever separated, making this a tragic tale that eventually gets the attention of Hollywood.

Amber Pendleton is a child star who just received her big break playing the Little Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek in the horror movie Don’t Step on Jessica’s Grave. What was supposed to be her big break ends up her scarlet letter, particularly after she encounters the ghost of Ella Louise, who is still looking for her daughter. Twenty-five years later, Amber is an adult actress whose most famous role is as that little witch girl. Her life is mostly doing horror conventions and maintaining the pharmaceutical cocktail that allows her to function. Once again, another big break comes with a new Hollywood remake of the Little Witch Girl’s story and another opportunity for both Amber to get a big payday and for the story of the Little Witch Girl to take another emotional piece of Amber.

The readers might feel sad for Ella Louise and Jessica, but Amber is by far the clearest case of collateral damage that their story has created. Readers can see that Amber is a tightly-wound spring. The first-person narration, along with Amber’s own actions in the story, reveals how Amber is barely holding it together. As she narrates, she bounces from talking about the drugs she takes, to the status of her life, to illustrating the panic that swells within her as she tries to get through this major acting gig while revisiting the event that traumatized her. The shorter sentences also reveal Amber’s scattered state of mind as she must go back to the place that has fundamentally damaged her, even as she risks her sanity to do it.

This story may be pointing an accusing finger at Hollywood, and there are plenty of people who would take Hollywood to task for its penchant for recycling old ideas or tossing away child actors once they stop being children, but this story is essentially about when stories stop being just stories, when they have power to exist beyond their mediums and allowed to grow (or, in this case, metastasize) within the collective conscious. The imagery on the book’s cover, a celluloid snake eating its tail, is particularly revealing. The first time the readers hear Jessica’s story, it’s told by an old man. Then it’s told through child Amber’s audition for the role and subsequent haunting by mother and daughter, then adult Amber’s slowly fracturing mind as she is called by the remake of Jessica’s story, despite good sense saying it’s a terrible idea. Finally, the book ends with a special podcast where the story once again is revisited. Stories are supposed to capture our imagination, but when they brand people’s soul, that’s when they can be truly dangerous.