Warning: Spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends #20 ahead!The Joker has always embodied nihilistic chaos, the antithesis to the strict justice and order that Batman seeks to maintain. But DC has taken this philosophy to extremes in their newest iteration of the Joker: a Lovecraftian entity known as “The Laughing One.” This is a natural evolution for the Joker and a perfect foil for the Dark Knight Detective: how can Batman solve and combat what is by its very nature beyond comprehension?
Batman’s confrontation with The Laughing One is inspired by Bloodborne, a video game itself heavily influenced by the Lovecraft mythos. In Bloodborne, the world is afflicted with a plague that turns people into horrible beasts; this plague is eventually revealed to be carried by the blood of an Elder God, whose power over the world waxes with the moon. The more the player discovers about the true nature of the world, the more twisted and alien things become around them.
This influence is on proud display in Jim Zub, Max Dunbar, Romulo Fajardo Jr., and Joshua Reed’s entry in Batman: Urban Legends #20, ‘Castle Arkham: On Haunted Wings.’ In the world of Castle Arkham, the city of Arkham is plagued by monsters and dark cultists who perform horrifying rites, with Batman as one of Arkham’s few protectors. When Batman’s associate Kirk Langstrom comes in contact with the ichor that bleeds from these monsters, he is driven mad and suffers a terrible fate, transformed into a gruesome Man-Bat. Although Batman slays the beast, the threat of the ichor and its influence over Arkham remains.
A Terrible Night Under a Laughing Moon
Although the Laughing One does not directly appear in the story itself, its presence is fittingly felt throughout the world of Arkham. The ghoulish cultists bear the Joker’s ghastly visage; Langstrom’s experiments with the ichor expose him to the truth of the moon (heavily implied to be the Laughing One), whose unbearable laughter causes him to beg for death. Even Batman is not immune to the Laughing One’s influence: after being wounded by a cultist, Batman passes out a short while later and is inflicted with traumatic visions.
Although the story is short, “Castle Arkham” provides a tantalizing glimpse of what is possible when the Joker’s madness is taken to its logical, horrifying conclusion. Lovecraft’s work embodied a sense of nihilism and futility of humanity in the face of powers so vast as to be unknowable, and the Joker’s anarchic attitude comes from the similar belief that humanity itself is one big joke. When the two are combined you get a Joker who not only professes madness but is madness itself; a Joker whose insanity is contagious, who literally cannot be understood or reconciled by mortal minds. There can truly be no more disturbing version of The Joker than this.
Batman: Urban Legends #20 is now available from DC Comics.
