[Criticism Corner] The Justice League Who Laughs (Patreon)

So this is a video that I've been trying to write for MONTHS, but it's such a weird and complicated subject that it's been really difficult.  I think I made it make some bit of sense, but I would LOVE to hear y'all's opinion on it.

So back in 2017, DC Comics revealed the most popular new character that they have had in years, The Batman Who Laughs.  The premise is pretty simple, there’s an alternate universe version of Batman who killed The Joker, but at that moment, Joker’s lifeless body spewed a toxin that drove Bruce Wayne into madness, becoming a Joker/Batman hybrid that really REALLY likes tight leather outfits.

Because of his breakout success, DC threw this guy into EVERYTHING.  EVERY. OTHER. DAY. this dude would pop up to wrench havoc and eventually, DC landed on a pretty obvious storyline.  “Hey, what if the Batman Who Laughs infected other heroes in order to create his own twisted version of the Justice League?”  and you know, I thought that it would be easy to explain.

*Slams down a bunch of comics*  It’s not.

This should have been an extremely straightforward storyline about good guys turned bad, but instead, it turned into one of the most confusing and convoluted messes that DC Comics has ever published.  It involves some really all over the place lore, ideas, and concepts that are a massive pain in the ass to unravel and this is coming from me, a guy who reads and analyzes comic books for a living.

Now don’t get me wrong, I CAN explain all of it, but buckle up because it's going to be a wild ride.

So The Batman Who Laughs wanted to use a satellite from his homeworld to corrupt everyone on Earth with the same virus that turned him into a juggalo, but in order to open the portal, he has to harness six different energies.  So to do that, he made these special Batarangs that are specifically designed to infect six specific heroes that represent those energies. (Batman|Superman #4 - 2019)

Six energies, six people.  So far so good?

Sky Tyrant (Hawkman)

The Batman Who Laughs first target was Hawkman, who is already one of the single most confusing characters in all of comic books.  Like he’s so convoluted that I made a dedicated video explaining his complicated history and since then, he’s only gotten worse!

So here’s the gist of how he factors into the story.  Hawkman heavily relies on his gear which is made out of a special material called Nth Metal.  This stuff pretty much does whatever the writer wants, but one of its main properties is its ability to heal folks around it.  Because of this healing factor, The Batman Who Laughs had to infect Hawkman first since it would take longer for the sickness to take hold.

But here’s the thing.  Hawkman’s whole schtick is that he’s lived a bunch of past lives and is constantly getting reincarnated.  Some of these lives were on Earth, some were on other planets, and some… were in different universes.  So when Hawkman was cut by the tainted Batarang, his consciousness was suppressed, allowing one of his past lives to take the wheel, specifically Sky Tyrant who was the life that he lived on Earth-3, the universe where the alignment of the heroes and villains are swapped. (Hawkman Vol 5 #21 - 2020)  The good Hawkman is still floating around in his head, but he’s helpless to do anything about it and is stuck watching Sky Tyrant kill person after person with his body.

King Shazam

Next up is Shazam.  Since he’s a pre-teen who turns into a big buff adult superhero, he looks and acts like a cringy middle school edgelord.  Now calling himself King Shazam, Billy became obsessed with showing off how strong he is.

King Shazam is somehow able to locate and beat up several gods and demigods like Thor and the Kryptonian god, Rao.  These are some extremely powerful and cosmically significant beings so you would expect that this would have ramifications around the universe or at the very least, we’d see SOMETHING happen as a result.  Yeah no.  These dudes aren’t seen or mentioned again.

What’s crazier is that once she saw how far he had fallen, Billy’s sister, Mary Marvel, swooped in to try and stop her brother.  But it turns out that any of the infected heroes have the ability to spread the sickness to whoever they want so King Shazam beat Mary up and tainted her.

Here’s the weird thing.  Much like how we don’t see or hear about the gods that King Shazam fought, Mary also wasn’t seen or mentioned again in this storyline so we don’t ever get to see her turned to the dark side.  This is a HUGE missed opportunity since much like her brother, Mary is an extremely powerful character and it’s weird that The Batman Who Laughs didn’t use her. (Infected: King Shazam #1 - 2019)

Scarab (Blue Beetle)

So the next of the infected heroes is Blue Beetle.  While DC is always flipping and flopping between if it’s a high tech piece of alien technology or a powerful magic relic, we know that Jaime Reyes gets his powers from a mysterious scarab and that he’s never unleashed its true, destructive powers.

Well that is until The Batman Who Laughs infects him and the Beetle went full on savage alien, complete with a… loincloth for some reason.  Now going by Scarab, Jaime’s whole thing is eating people and spewing this black goop.  That’s really it.  He’s barely used or even seen in this storyline.

Deathbringer (Donna Troy)

That brings us to Donna Troy, another one of the most complicated characters in all of comic history.  Thankfully, all her nonsense isn’t relevant and all you really need to know about her is that she’s basically Wonder Woman.

After being infected by a Batarang shot ouf of a VCR player, Donna is now going by Deathbringer and is more or less  just an angry murder girl whos took out the rest of her team, the Titans. (The Infected: Deathbringer #1 - 2019)  Yeah, just like Blue Beetle, she’s barely used or seen.

Commissioner Gordon

With four of his six infected, The Batman Who Laughs was able to start setting his plan into motion.  He kidnapped Commissioner Gordon and was defeated by the good Batman.  Chuckles over here was locked up, but unbeknownst to Bruce, Gordon was infected and was working behind the scenes to enact his master’s plan.

Wait a second.  Wasn’t the whole point of corrupting these specific characters because they each represented a different cosmic energy needed to open up the portal?  What energy does Commissioner Gordon represent?  Nicotine?  Donuts?  Police brutality?

Anyway, the last target was going to be a tough one, Superman.  Alright, get this.  Gordon tells Batman and Superman that a kid was reportedly kidnapped by a Jokerized Superman which prompts the duo to investigate.  When they got to where the kid was held, they found him corrupted and forced into this twisted Robin costume.

The two heroes tried to save him, but it turns out that this was all just an ambush because that kid is actually King Shazam!  Tainted Batarang in hand, Billy tried his best to infect Superman, but Batman and Superman were able to fight him to a stalemate, allowing Billy to get away..

In order to try and figure out the Batman Who Laughs’ plans, Superman went undercover by infecting himself with a small amount of the dark metal and tried to get close to him by pretending to bust The Batman Who Laughs out of his cell.  Laughing Boy saw right through this and tried to egg Clark on into giving into the temptation of the corruption, but the good Batman stepped in and shut the plan down. (Batman|Superman #3 - 2019)

Now, all hell breaks loose.  Gordon attacks the heroes with the mech that he had back when he was Batman, Blue Beetle’s armor hacks both the Batcave and the Fortress of Solitude, (Batman|Superman Vol 2 #3 - 2019) and the rest of the evil dudes join in for a big showdown, but just as things were looking hopeless and that the Batarang was going to infect Superman, BAM!  Supergirl bursts in and catches it before it could touch her cousin, but wait a second.  That heroic save caused her to cut her hand which means that now we have a Supergirl Who Laughs to deal with.  To make things worse, she represented the final energy which means that the group’s plan could still go into motion. (Batman|Superman Vol 2 #4 - 2019)

With the gang all assembled, the Secret Six (dumb name), performed the ritual to open up the portal and start to bring the satellite through, but of course in typical Batman fashion, he was able to shut the portal down and Superman threw the satellite into the sun.

With their plan foiled, the Secret Six scattered to do evil shit all over the world, but Batman and Superman don’t pursue them.  All they were able to do is capture Commissioner Gordon and bring him in, keeping him locked up at the Hall of Justice while they searched for a cure.

This never ends up happening and remember how I said that any of the infected heroes could corrupt anyone they wanted?  Well every time that someone came in to feed Gordon, he tainted them.  More or less every B-List hero got infected including my boy, Booster Gold.

From here on out, Batman and Superman aren’t involved in the storyline because the only person who can stop the Secret Six… is Apex Lex.

Oh god, now I have to explain Apex Lex… *sigh*

Okay, so Lex Luthor met the creator of the multiverse.  Her name is Perpetua and she’s really REALLY evil.  Luthor was able to convince Perpetua into letting him be her right hand man and in doing so, she turned him into an Apex Predator, a perfect killing machine that’s a human/Martian hybrid.  By the way, the Martian that Lex fused with was the Martian Manhunther.  Because comics.

So Apex Lex took on the Secret Six single handedly.  He used EVERY trick up his sleeves.  His new Apex Predator powers, his army of robot drones, his mech suits, EVERYTHING.  After beating the team, he researched how to cure them, but he didn’t account for all the other heroes that Gordon had infected while he was held captive.

In this climactic showdown, Lex was able to get in close to the Batman Who Laughs and inject him with a concoction that he whipped up.  See it turns out that corrupting all these heroes wasn’t as simple as infecting them with Joker toxin.  No.  What actually happened is that the Batman Who Laughs actually radiates dark energy and the toxic Batarangs just allowed him to broadcast that energy into them.  I… what?  Okay…  Sure.

Thanks to Lex’s injection, this energy couldn’t radiate anymore so yep.  Everyone is instantly healed.  Luthor decided to bring The Batman Who Laughs to Perpetua so she could enact the final judgement, but ever the clever manipulator, he was able to convince Perpetua to make HIM her right hand man instead of Lex.

Of course, this was all just a setup for The Batman Who Laughs to usurp Perpetua, take her power, take over the multiverse, and remake it in her image, but that’s the story of the Death Metal event and that’s a story for another day.