The straps slip, its texture changes, and its developing greenish hue begins to attract the flies that ultimately move along with the story pace from page to page. There is nothing more frightening as a child than what one can imagine is hiding in the shadows or under the bed, but Snyder propels that fear into adulthood, leaving the horror of the Joker’s true face always just out of reach and imagination. We never quite get to see what’s happening underneath the slippery leather of his original skin, and its to both Snyder and Capullo’s credit that the mystery takes over such a haunting space in the readers’ minds. The Joker himself has never been as much a bogey man, a man of the shadows, as he is in this tale, beginning with his return visit to the GCPD to retrieve his shapeless face. Snyder’s craft on this story, from beginning stages where the portends of superstition raise their ugly heads to Bruce’s last moments of reflection, is exemplary and so far above form for so many comics on the stands today. Encapsulating Batman #13-#17 in their entirety, Death of the Family is not only a brilliant piece of comic book horror - the ultimate face-off between Batman and the Joker - but also resonates as a beautifully rendered piece of literature, complete with foreshadowed elements, mirrored motivations, half-truths and truths that only seem like lies on the surface. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have been lauded for their Batman run since the beginning of the New 52, but no story has such perfect pitch and resonance as the one contained in this volume.
With his once frightening face now ripped from its place and reattached in the most gruesomely terrifying manner, the Joker will stop at nothing to convince Batman that his family is the cause of all that is bad in his world, even if it means revealing what truly lies under their skin as well. For some time, the Dark Knight has surrounded himself with the very best soldiers, but from his adversary’s perspective, they only weigh him down - and none could love him as much as the Joker does, as loyal court jester to Batman’s king. One year after the madman known as the Joker is seemingly the victim of another serial killer’s machinations, the Crown Prince of Crime resurfaces in Gotham City with a plan to reassert his dominance in Batman’s life. Written by Scott Snyder, with James Tynion IVĪrt by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion, with Jock
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