“It’s a Criminal Life”
Artist: Marcial Toldedano Vargas
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
Review by Eric Lee
For the past few years, I have scoured comic book depths for the best odd-ball Batman Christmas stories. This year, I found an amazing one from the recently-published and also aptly-titled DC’s Batman Smells, Robin Laid an Egg #1.
Before I dive into the actual story, let’s look at this hilarious cover by Riley Rossmo. Clearly the title and the cover are inspired by the kid’s twist on “Jingle Bells” where Batman smells and Robin inexplicably laid and egg. Rossmo does such a succinct job illustrating the story of the old kid’s playground rhyme.
‘Easy and Dated’
Anyways, the tale that I really want to talk about is about the Joker having a crisis of faith. You see, we open up with him battling Damian Wayne on top a moving truck. Damian completely trounces the Joker, but not before calling him “easy and dated”. Damian takes out the Joker physically. But the Joker is more hurt emotionally that he is now considered over-the-hill and no longer a viable threat. To add insult it injury, Batman couldn’t even bother to try to stop him. The Joker is so sad and downtrodden that he no longer has the magic touch to commit threatening crimes.
After a hilarious “short Arkham escape later…”, the depressed Joker is wandering the streets of Gotham and getting laughed at by civilians. Yes, even the citizens of Gotham think that the Joker is an impotent loser. Similar to George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, the Joker plans to end it all by jumping off a bridge.
However, he was caught by… Jason Todd as a ghost?!? Apparently, Jason needs earn his angel wings by showing the Joker that life is worth living. Even though he personally hates the Joker, he is still trying to help him. However, Jason’s half-hearted indifference towards the Joker is hysterical.
He’s trying to (sorta) help, but he clearly is just using the Joker to get his wings. Overall, he just chalks up the whole experience to “Let’s just get this over with”.
Gotham is a Paradise Without the Joker
However, unlike It’s a Wonderful Life where the angel Clarence shows George how terrible the town has gotten without him, Jason and the Joker see Gotham is a crime-less utopia without the Joker. We even see that Harleen Quinzel is a reputable and highly successful psychiatrist since she never met the Joker.
What makes the whole gag work is how nobody is even remotely scared by an evil clown, because the Joker was never born. The Joker spies Harvey Dent and mistakenly assumes that he’d be Two-Face. But nope, Harvey is a successful politician and tries to slap a campaign button on Joker.
The Joker then tries to somehow beat an already-dead Jason Todd with a crowbar, but a random construction worker happily takes it and thanks the Joker.
This really makes the Joker dejected and open to Jason Todd trying to reform him. Jason’s plan is that the Joker can be redeemed with good deeds. Like, not even a lifetime of good deeds. The Joker needs to just do one good deed. Just one.
The Joker is Bad at Being Good
But the Joker is so evil he can’t do a good deed without screwing it up. Instead of shoveling snow for an old lady, he shovels snow onto an old lady. When he gives presents to orphans, instead of toys, he give weapons and rocket launchers. The worst one is when he fails to open a door for an elderly couple and their adult son to the movies and fails.
Frustrated for not being able to get the door open, the Joker pulls out a gun. But then Jason smacks it away and lands in the hands of an unassuming ice cream seller. The ice cream seller accidentally discharges it and kills the elderly couple. In case you didn’t realize it, the Joker accidentally armed Joe Chill, who in turn killed the Waynes in front of a seemingly well-adjusted, Batman-less Bruce Wayne.
We even see Martha’s pearls dropped all over the ground and everything too.
But Chill’s reaction isn’t remorse or shock… he feels amazing from the murder. This inspires him to go on a further crime spree. This incident inspires the Joker’s spark for crime again. He wants to live now that he can see how much chaos he inspires! After only a few hours of the Joker on a crime spree, Gotham City is in literal flames.
Even crazier, Jason Todd’s ghost tries to murder the Joker and then he earns his angel wings from that. What kind of screwed-up religious implications are there where helping someone find crime and then trying to kill them earns you a place in Heaven? It’s too disturbing to even contemplate!
Anyways, now-angel Jason Todd drops Joker back into the real world, where the Joker is renewed by the Christmas spirit to kill. Yup, that’s what Christmas means to me. Or at least to the Joker.
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