Only a small section here, due to the original stories back in the 40s being only 12 pages long, but I'm kind of trying to make a point.
The original story of the Joker's plan of basically poisoning prominent businesspeople and announcing it publically first to make them as scared as possible, has been redone at least twice. One time in the 90s and another more recently by Ed Brubaker, in the story the Man Who Laughs.
The interesting thing is that people complain when the Joker doesn't use clown gimmicks or has "murder superpowers" when really, they're a more consistant part of the character from his inception.
People seem to get hung up on the idea that he's trying to tell a Cosmic Joke in the same way that they buy into his lies in the Dark Knight that he's actually a "servant of Chaos", which are valid interpretations, but like with Batman there are so many ways you can handle the character that saying any one way is right or wrong can get a bit tedious. Every version has it's postives, even that kungfu juggalo one from 'the Batman' cartoon.
Heck, even Paul Dini, considered by many to be one of the, if not THE, co-creator of the definative version of the Joker from the past twenty years aknowledges that spreading fear and terrorising people is a huge part of the character.
Kind of a shame that they're not bringing him back for the Arkham City sequel/prequel, really.
My point? People have been bashing Scott Snyder's interpretation of the Joker sight unseen, based on a misdrawn, pixellated cover and an uncoloured panel, without actually seeing what the Joker does or behaves within the story. Scott Snyder covers some of the complaints here. Snyder has repeatedly shown himself to be one of the better Batman writers of recent years, and I think that we should at least give him the benefit of a doubt until we can actually read the story he's put together, ye ken?
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