Aww, who am I kidding? I always loved the jokercopter.

Especially in the first issue of Grant’s new run. Now I don’t know if it was included as a direction in the panel description, but there’s something so Outer Church about the blank, *eyeless* goggles the pilot wears. I couldn’t help wondering, ‘Who is that guy? Where did the Joker get him from?‘ But it wasn’t in some wanky, anally retentive comics fan kinda way, it was more, uh…*fearful* is probably the right word. The dude was just plain creepy and his anonymity made the whole thing that little bit more delicious. Ditto the copter itself. No backstory. No explanation. Just like in the old days. We’re expected to just take the thing at face value. It’s the Joker, he has special supervillain vehicles: nuff said. But this is the post-DKR age and everything needs a rationalisation, doesn’t it? Providing a mature readers-style take on this shit has become so important over the last decade or so and it’s got to the point where things have come full circle. In this reader’s estimation, mystery has, once again, become the most important ingredient in any good superbook. Modern comics readers/stories are so overburdened by the weight of our need to justify and apologise for all the sumptuous, childish conceits (spandex, superhorses, Robins, etc.) that flooded the superstories of yesteryear, that in the end the only antidote for this exhausted trend has to be ? cranked up to the power of n.

More after the jump