Summer of Events Book Club Week 0! DC Nation #0 Story 1

Summer of Events is a new short book club which is just designed to stay current. At most you will have 3 comics but in this case you will have 1 story. The goal of this book club is to forge a community around the DCU continuity and begin my quest to make DCU a place where everyone can experience these comics together.

DC Nation #0 is a teaser of three of the 5 events in DC’s Summer of Events. In our case we are reading only the first story because the others directly show up and will make more sense, next week.

Story 1: Batman is getting married to Catwoman, but Joker has something to say about it! Or he will if he gets invited…

Discussion Questions

  1. What is different about this version of the joker?
  2. Scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the most) how funny is this joker.

Discussion will end on Monday Night around 9 PST at which time the new reading list will begin with Week 0

Next Week: Justice: No Justice #1 (You will love it!)
Optional: Flash Annual #1, Flash #45-46 (Optional because of some continuity requirements and the Road to: Element of it)

For those wanting to know:

What is DC Summer of Events?
https://www.dcuniverse.com/community/boards/comics/what-is-dcs-summer-of-even

What might be useful for Summer of Events
-Well Summer of Events is a jumping on point as most of the titles are reboots.
However, I might think about reading DC Universe: Rebirth #1 before Flash #45 and Flash Annual #1

1 Like

I’m sorry, I’m a bit confused about when the discussion is taking place. Can you please clarify? And are people who’ve already read it when it came out invited?

1 Like

Oh. Sorry! It starts now! And ends Monday night

I’ll kick off the discussion! Joker is hysterical here. I love how the ending is totally predictable, but still has emotional wait.

To me the Joker here is a little more unhinged from reality than I have read, but the comics I have read with him have largely been the older comics. There he is portrayed as more merry and nefarious than downright evil. This one seemed even less connected to reality than I am used to. He so wanted to be invited that he was willing to take any chance on the arrival of an invitation. To me, this Joker was not funny, but often certain humor goes over my head anyways. I enjoyed the overall story though and what purpose it served in a character that has often been seen as the polar opposite and opposing force to Batman. It just made sense to Joker that he would be at the wedding of the Bats because they have been in each other’s life for so long. He never considered that maybe Batman wouldn’t want him at the happiest day of his life. I have heard horrendous things about this entire wedding set-up, so I am interested to see for myself what occurred with it all. To be able to form my own opinion on it, this was a good starting place.

@PrincessAmethyst
The set up is really good for the Wedding. It was more about Bad PR. The result of the Wedding was published by New York Times the day before the comic came out. So everyone was angry at the result, but none of them understood the Why. It got spoiled for me and so many other people by all sorts of other ways. Batman #50 is one of the most beautifully written comics I have ever read. But bad marketing really ruined the experience.

On the Joker, I kinda agree. Reading what you said made me think about the Sadistic Nature of the Joker. I find his stupidity and removedness funny. The line “and when I’m happy, I kill people” is a great line. So I guess Hysterical isn’t the right word but rather maniacal. He’s a hard character to explain.

1 Like

The beautiful thing about comics is that we each can have our own unique experiences with the same material. When he said “and when I’m happy, I kill people” I found it somewhat predictable in a way that I did not want that story to be. I agree that the Joker is a hard character to explain. He is such a complicated character that has evolved almost more than the Batman himself. Joker has went from a funnier character to more maniacal and evil in nature than other versions of him. This is why I find the “3 Jokers” concept fascinating and really hoping for that story sooner rather than later.

I wasn’t reading Batman during the time period of the Wedding, but I have to say that sucks that the New York Times ruined the story for people. Important plot elements, even in comics, need to be closely guarded. There have to be “shocking” moments in comics as well and I feel the need to have comic retailers and comic book buyers to get the issue has resulted in oftentimes the story being leaked and the “fun” or “shock” of moments ruined. I hope that DC and other publishers find a way to figure out ways not to spoil this type of thing in the future. Don’t let media outlets know the important plot beats before they occur. Definitely don’t let them publish them either.

I liked this story. It wasn’t anything special, but it was pretty solid in my opinion. I think Tom King works better in slightly more restrictive environments, like a short story (like this one) or a miniseries. His version of the Joker is interesting. Definitely not my favorite, but I kind of like how he chooses his actions based on his illogical thought process.

1 Like

@Princess My understanding is DC told New York Times and gave them the permission to release the story. They said they learned from that experience. Hopefully 3 Jokers is an August Title given that the solicitations aren’t out yet, and its planned for this year. Black label is kind of a mess though…

@Awesome Squid I like King’s ability to tell the long story and continually add new ideas. That being said I get what your saying. If I have to compare this story to the other DC Nation Titles, this is definitely the best story.

@Nathan.Payson Definitely agree with it being the best of the three. It’s probably because it’s the only story that’s actually a story. The others are just fragments that serve as exciting teasers.

The other 2 how back up DIRECTLY. Like Panel For Panel. Fortunately Story 2 begins next week!