Batman White Knights: Generation Joker #4 // Review
Bryce and Jackie were only playing around with stuff they found lying around the house. There was a toy gun. They were running around with it, playing the way that kids play. Their mother WAS a bit upset when she saw what they were up to...but since their mother happens to have been Harley Quinn and their father was the Joker...well...it was a bit of a concern precisely WHAT they might have found. They find a bit more trouble as young adults in Batman White Knights: Generation Joker #4. The writing team of Katana Collins and Clay McCormack work on a story by Sean Murphy with talented artist Mirka Andolfo.
Years later, Bryce is taking a look at a gun that doesn’t shoot out a flag with the word “BANG” on it. It doesn’t appear to use bullets, either. The guy who wields the thing refers to it as a scientific tool. He IS, after all, a scientist named Victor Fries. He’s also been a criminal, so he knows who Bryce and Jackie’s parents are. They have come to ask him for his help. See: the holographic AI of their father is on a cobalt-vapor drive that’s been damaged...and...they want Mr. Freeze to fix their father. It’s an awkward ask. They might find the request to be a bit more complicated than it seems at first glance...
Murphy, Collins, and McCormack dance lightly around the mythology of Gotham City in another deeply engaging family drama that draws on decades of psychological conflict between Joker, Harley, Mr. Freeze, and...much of the rest of the underworld of Gotham City in the rearview. More so than any other part of the series thus far, the fourth issue would be really, really difficult to follow for anyone not already familiar with all of the characters involved. It’s a fun family drama that DOES play on issues of good, evil, intention, and emotional stability. It doesn’t tackle them in a terribly sophisticated way, but it IS a fun issue nonetheless.
Andolfo does much of the work of selling the drama. Her art style amplifies the emotional end of things in a way that doesn’t feel at all exaggerated. And while it’s clearly the case that all of the anatomy and emotionality of the story is grounded in a very organic realism...it’s DEFINITELY amped-up around the edges of a very stylishly-rendered sort of interpersonal conflict. As always, Andolfo manages to find a razor-sharp line separating reality from fantasy and treads gracefully across it with some gorgeously expressive art.
It’s taken a while for the story of Jackie and Bryce to pick up enough narrative momentum to build into something impressively engaging. By the fourth issue, all of the writers seem to have found a dynamic that works as the story progresses into some pretty poignant territory that explores certain inevitabilities inherent in the pantheon of heroes and villains inhabiting Gotham City.
