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If you want to see a take that's really good on this, I'd look up Jeb McKays moon knight run
Which currently goes Moon Knight 1-30, Vengeance of the moon knight 1-8(?), and will be followed by Moon Knight - Fist of Konshu because marvel has an addiction to doing new #1s.
Genuinely though, it's a very good look at a street level hero engaged in his actual community, trying to support people.
Also it has Reese and Solider, who are both great. And a Vampire pyramid scheme.
I've been rereading Grendel (because the new series just started) and also Moon Knight (.. I guess because reading two series of mostly monochromatic main characters fit together?).
I don't have much Moon Knight from the 90s, just the early stuff and the most recent stuff so I have no clue what they did with him in the years between. Currently still on the early years. I wish they would have used one of the early ideas for Moon Knight, where he just has a lot of identities set up so if one of them gets compromised, that he would just move on, but that idea never got any use and they just stuck with Spector, Grant and Lockley.
Also his first appearance is basically completely retconned right after that: they just keep that Spector being a mercenary, but his costume is immediately changed, he longer has his superhero identity just being established by somebody else and given to him and the whole werewolf hunter just comes up every now and then.
Also weird to see that in recent years the Lockley identity is played as the more ruthless one of the three persona's, while orginally Lockley is the one he feels the most comfortable with; Spector has too much bad history, he doesn't like the people around Grant, but Lockley just wants to hang around in diners and talk to people on the street.
I've been rereading Grendel (because the new series just started) and also Moon Knight (.. I guess because reading two series of mostly monochromatic main characters fit together?).
I don't have much Moon Knight from the 90s, just the early stuff and the most recent stuff so I have no clue what they did with him in the years between. Currently still on the early years. I wish they would have used one of the early ideas for Moon Knight, where he just has a lot of identities set up so if one of them gets compromised, that he would just move on, but that idea never got any use and they just stuck with Spector, Grant and Lockley.
Also his first appearance is basically completely retconned right after that: they just keep that Spector being a mercenary, but his costume is immediately changed, he longer has his superhero identity just being established by somebody else and given to him and the whole werewolf hunter just comes up every now and then.
Also weird to see that in recent years the Lockley identity is played as the more ruthless one of the three persona's, while orginally Lockley is the one he feels the most comfortable with; Spector has too much bad history, he doesn't like the people around Grant, but Lockley just wants to hang around in diners and talk to people on the street.
FWIW, that's how the current run handles thing
Locekley is the "Avuncular dirtbag". He's the man on the street, taxi driver, friends with everyone in all the werid places. Grant is the money, the high roller, smooth and polished, good at leveraging high society connections to get the info they need. And spector is the damaged one who does immense violecne to things, but also, cares a lot and is trying.
Seriously, this series manages to redeem 8 ball and make him call. EIGHT BALL. it's awesome and crazy and wonderful.
(For those of you who don't know eight ball - He's a looser super villain who's costume is the standard skintight thing with... a giant 8-ball over his head, and gimmick vehicles & poleques as his weapon)
Tom brevoort managed to fuck things up spectacularly in just one month
I mean, i'm gonna bluntly say that Marvel had already fucked up x-men, this is just hte contuing paying the piper.
NYX #1 today was good, and even that had issues (pardon the pun).
I wish it wasn't so hard for creator owned series to get eyeballs and traction, because i honestly think they're the best approach overall - tell a story, be done with it, move on!
Comic recommendation: The Night Eaters. Trilogy of TPBs, third one coming this fall.
By Marjorie Lu & Sana Takeda, who you might recognize as the dream team behind Monnstress.
Chinese American twins, Milly and Billy, are having a tough time. On top of the multiple failures in their personal and professional lives, they’re struggling to keep their restaurant afloat. Luckily their parents, Ipo and Keon, are in town for their annual visit. Having immigrated from Hong Kong before the twins were born, Ipo and Keon have supported their children through thick and thin and are ready to lend a hand—but they’re starting to wonder, has their support made Milly and Billy incapable of standing on their own?
When Ipo forces them to help her clean up the house next door—a hellish and run-down ruin that was the scene of a grisly murder—the twins are in for a nasty surprise. A night of terror, gore, and supernatural mayhem reveals that there is much more to Ipo and her children than meets the eye.
Binged the first two volumes last night, it's fantastic. Also very, very funny
Weird that I just discovered that series last month, as I have been reading Monstress in singles since it began. Let's see if I can pick those up next week.
Weird that I just discovered that series last month, as I have been reading Monstress in singles since it began. Let's see if I can pick those up next week.
Yeah, i found out about it via add in montress backmatter, and immediately binge it. Need to get myself proper copies asap, but money is always tight.
So I just checked for ads in the back of the issues:
#42: Did have an add for the Night Eaters book 1.
#52: Had an add for Night Eaters book 2.
No other ads for this in Monstress.
Sorry Marjorie, but you really need to self-promote more. Especially with the way the comic world works with pre-orders (yes, it's a stupid system), but in Monstress you have a captive audience: use them.
Now in her defense: #53 came out this week and I haven't picked it up yet, and Night Eaters Book 1 came out when Monstress was on hiatus, but you still expect a bit more push. (See other Image titles where Lemire, Sejic, Vaughn etc. all have previews for their own upcoming work in other titles.)
I have no idea who Dylan, Meridius, Misery, or the red symbiote that Eddie is wearing are.
Yeah, the current Venom series is pretty crowded at the moment if not complicated due to all the time-hopping on Eddie's side of the story. Which probably would be a little shorter if Dylan wasn't getting his share of scenes in the present too.
Al Ewing is the only reason I'm going to give it a shot eventually as he's earned that goodwill from me from his fantastic X-Men work
This is spoilers, but liek ti's fun enough i have to go into
Meridius is an iteration of Eddie who looked at what being King in Black would actually involve, and ran screaming from it. Just like Knull did. (Yes, it managed to make Knull into a more interesting and better villain by actually having something resembling a motivaiton for him!)
You know how Hickman did the whole Beyonders are the Ivory Kings thing? Ewing took that further. Beyonders are the Ivory Kings - Linear, doing The Work (In a very magical sense, they're White Magic) from outside, not involved keeping their hands clean and prestine. There's lots of them.
The King In Black is their opposite number - down in the sumps and beating heart of reality, not bound by time, doing The Work there, in a very Black Magick sense. Involved down to the very street. There's only one King in Black
This all gets explained to Eddie Brock by another Eddie Brock known as The Eventuality, who's manifesting as a giant symbioite hand with five flames on each finger, one of which goes out every time eddie asks it a question. Yes, Eddie's having a whole conversation with a version of him who's presenting as a Hand of Glory
It is insane in the best way, and i wish this run had been just Ewing and not split between him , Ram V (Who seems to have just vanished from it?) and then Torunn Grønbekk (which no shame to her, she's not my favorite writer, but she;'s obviously getting better and better) - I just think the split focus of the comic has rendered things somewhat incoherent.
GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
Been still on the hunt for a monthly series that is more my language. (Apologies to say but I’m bouncing pretty hard off of Tynion IV’s horror work so far)
Came across Dead Dog’s Bite by Tyler Boss. Four issue miniseries. Small town mystery about a missing girl. You get the gist. Thought it did a great job immediately sketching its characters and did some neat stuff utilizing a narrator. Loved the art too, very clean, very readable, but very stylish. Though it reused a lot of panels which is a big mark against for me usually, but the style works for it and sometimes Boss busts out a 24 panel page that clearly took work to read as well as it does. So I can cut it some slack.
Though the ending of the mystery doesn’t quite work for me on first glance. And kinda takes the stylishness into a sort of literalism where there’s a strict origin to the town’s quirks versus a more organic setting where there are a million reasons why things got weird. But still largely liked it.
It was “well-acted” if that makes sense. Which I find myself responding to lately in comic art.
Some stuff I'd throw out as worth a look, both in the west and also in the manga scene, all monthlies.
Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon(complete)
Monstress (ongoing)
Witch Hat Atelier (ongoing)
Saga (ongoing, about to resume. Does 6 issues on, then Hiatus for six months)
Lazarus (ongoing, on Hiatus, unclear when it'll resume - author and artist are doing the below)
The Forged (ongoing, probably on a brief Hiatus at the end of this month. Unclear how much longer it'll run for, probably 2-3 more chunky 3 issue Arcs?)
Yomi No Tsugai (ongoing, by the Author of Full Metal Alchemist)
The Wicked + The Divine (complete)
Die (complete)
Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips have been doing yearly releases of various noir/horror/etc tpb, and they're a great team. Next one lands next month.
The Power Fantasy starts next month, same author as Die & Wicked/Divine. It's getting rave reviews already, so I'm looking forward to seeing it, I trust the author to be good.
Hopefully something in there catches your interest!
grocery stores used to sell big Archie digests and my mom always bought them for me
I had a bookshelf that was all Archie. I threw them out when I was getting too "I'm a grownup and these are for babies." and I regret it to this very day.
Comic recommendation: The Night Eaters. Trilogy of TPBs, third one coming this fall.
By Marjorie Lu & Sana Takeda, who you might recognize as the dream team behind Monnstress.
Chinese American twins, Milly and Billy, are having a tough time. On top of the multiple failures in their personal and professional lives, they’re struggling to keep their restaurant afloat. Luckily their parents, Ipo and Keon, are in town for their annual visit. Having immigrated from Hong Kong before the twins were born, Ipo and Keon have supported their children through thick and thin and are ready to lend a hand—but they’re starting to wonder, has their support made Milly and Billy incapable of standing on their own?
When Ipo forces them to help her clean up the house next door—a hellish and run-down ruin that was the scene of a grisly murder—the twins are in for a nasty surprise. A night of terror, gore, and supernatural mayhem reveals that there is much more to Ipo and her children than meets the eye.
Binged the first two volumes last night, it's fantastic. Also very, very funny
Picked up volume 2 (they didn't have volume 1, so I'll be waiting with reading it). One thing to comment: I got a nice hardback, 260 pages thick for the same price Marvel expected for the 144 page softcover of Immortal Thor (though that one seems to be an aberration).
Also picked up Antarctiva volume 2, which feels really disjointed from volume 1 (as it's basically a prequel) so I have now two volumes that both end on unresolved cliffhangers. It was also published as originally a 5 issue limited series, so I'd expect some resolution, but they could have changed that at the end. Still love the covers though.
I had mentioned that I was looking to read Batman: Dark Knight, Dark City but it was prohibitively expensive.
Well, since then I found out that DC had actually started releasing trades covering the beginnings of Post-Crisis Batman. The Batman issues are collected in volumes of Batman: The Caped Crusader while the Detective Comic issues are collected in Batman: The Dark Knight Detective.
It turns out that Dark Knight, Dark City is included in The Caped Crusader Vol. 3 (for reference, that Blind Justice story I talked about a few pages ago turned out to be in The Dark Knight Detective Vol. 3).
I haven't gotten to Dark Knight, Dark City yet, but I have read all the other issues in the volume. The first storyline is the only storyline with NKVDemon, the poor knockoff of KGBeast. I don't know how I knew this guy existed when apparently he only ever appeared in these three issues.
Next up is a Penguin story arc that is the introduction of Harold, Batman's mute hunchback mechanic that disappeared from the series after Cataclysm until resurfacing in Hush only to be shot and killed. He doesn't actually start working with Batman in this storyline, so I assume that comes later.
Next up is a two-part Joker storyline that is the reason I was making this post.
This is apparently the first Joker story to take place after the death of Jason Todd (with that story having taken place right after The Killing Joke). Now, Joker has appeared to die a lot of times, only to turn up later without an explanation. I figured his apparent death at the end of Death in the Family (where he was shot and then the helicopter he was in exploded) was no different.
It turns out, no. Joker has spent months in hiding while recovering, and also has been seriously traumatized from nearly dying. He trembles at the thought of committing crimes due to fear that he might get killed. Unfortunately for him, during his months of being presumed dead, a rich investment banker jackass decided to impersonate the Joker in order to get even richer with some old fashioned robberies.
However, the new Joker kind of sucks at jokes, which offends the real Joker on a deep level. He feels this guy is ruining his reputation and knows he needs to come back, but can't bring himself to do it. He even tries to commit a crime while dressed as his old Red Hood persona instead, but ends up freaking out when he attacks a guard with a crowbar and suddenly has a Jason Todd flashback.
At the same time, Gordon and Batman are both struggling with whether or not they will be able to stop themselves from killing the Joker after what he did to Barbara and Jason.
The new Joker enjoys how easy it is to commit crimes due to most people being paralyzed with fear when facing the Joker. However, he knows that Gordon and Batman are the only people who will stand in his way so he plans on killing them. He sends out a message to all media as the Joker for Gordon and Batman to meet him alone "where it all began."
I thought that was going to be the Gotham Reservoir (since the message was also for Gordon), but it turned out it was Ace Chemical. However, the new Joker's plan is ruined when the real Joker shows up, having also heard the message. When the new Joker is on the verge of losing, he decides he is going to be an ever better Joker than the washed up one and dives into a vat of chemicals.
Unfortunately for him, it wasn't the same mixture that made the Joker, so he just melts in the acid and dies. He made the same assumption that many writers do and just assumed every vat of liquid at Ace Chemicals will turn you into the Joker, even years later.
The real Joker is then apprehended by Batman and Gordon who send him to Arkham. Unfortunately for them, being in Arkham finally puts Joker's mind at ease as he feels like he's at home and so he makes a full recovery from his trauma.
I'd somehow never heard anything about the events of this story. I just assumed Joker returned after his apparent death in the helicopter crash and continued on with business as usual.
The next issue is an annual that was the original post-crisis Two-Face origin before The Long Halloween superseded it. It was pretty good, I might talk more about it later.
Next up is Dark Knight, Dark City when I can sit down and read it.
Do my long ramblings about Batman stories from over 30 years ago bug anyone? I can cut it out if so.
On another note, apparently the Kindle versions of a ton of Batman volumes are on sale for $3-5 each. Here's two lists that show a bunch of them but there are probably more.
Posts
Which currently goes Moon Knight 1-30, Vengeance of the moon knight 1-8(?), and will be followed by Moon Knight - Fist of Konshu because marvel has an addiction to doing new #1s.
Genuinely though, it's a very good look at a street level hero engaged in his actual community, trying to support people.
Also it has Reese and Solider, who are both great. And a Vampire pyramid scheme.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
I don't have much Moon Knight from the 90s, just the early stuff and the most recent stuff so I have no clue what they did with him in the years between. Currently still on the early years. I wish they would have used one of the early ideas for Moon Knight, where he just has a lot of identities set up so if one of them gets compromised, that he would just move on, but that idea never got any use and they just stuck with Spector, Grant and Lockley.
Also his first appearance is basically completely retconned right after that: they just keep that Spector being a mercenary, but his costume is immediately changed, he longer has his superhero identity just being established by somebody else and given to him and the whole werewolf hunter just comes up every now and then.
Also weird to see that in recent years the Lockley identity is played as the more ruthless one of the three persona's, while orginally Lockley is the one he feels the most comfortable with; Spector has too much bad history, he doesn't like the people around Grant, but Lockley just wants to hang around in diners and talk to people on the street.
Linkara follows up from the psudo-event of Avengers Disassembled with a proper one, kicking off his fifth Event Coimics Month with Secret Wars II.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
They'd better fucking include it in any subsequent TPB collections.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
FWIW, that's how the current run handles thing
Locekley is the "Avuncular dirtbag". He's the man on the street, taxi driver, friends with everyone in all the werid places. Grant is the money, the high roller, smooth and polished, good at leveraging high society connections to get the info they need. And spector is the damaged one who does immense violecne to things, but also, cares a lot and is trying.
Seriously, this series manages to redeem 8 ball and make him call. EIGHT BALL. it's awesome and crazy and wonderful.
(For those of you who don't know eight ball - He's a looser super villain who's costume is the standard skintight thing with... a giant 8-ball over his head, and gimmick vehicles & poleques as his weapon)
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
I mean, i'm gonna bluntly say that Marvel had already fucked up x-men, this is just hte contuing paying the piper.
NYX #1 today was good, and even that had issues (pardon the pun).
I wish it wasn't so hard for creator owned series to get eyeballs and traction, because i honestly think they're the best approach overall - tell a story, be done with it, move on!
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
By Marjorie Lu & Sana Takeda, who you might recognize as the dream team behind Monnstress.
Binged the first two volumes last night, it's fantastic. Also very, very funny
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Yeah, i found out about it via add in montress backmatter, and immediately binge it. Need to get myself proper copies asap, but money is always tight.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
#42: Did have an add for the Night Eaters book 1.
#52: Had an add for Night Eaters book 2.
No other ads for this in Monstress.
Sorry Marjorie, but you really need to self-promote more. Especially with the way the comic world works with pre-orders (yes, it's a stupid system), but in Monstress you have a captive audience: use them.
Now in her defense: #53 came out this week and I haven't picked it up yet, and Night Eaters Book 1 came out when Monstress was on hiatus, but you still expect a bit more push. (See other Image titles where Lemire, Sejic, Vaughn etc. all have previews for their own upcoming work in other titles.)
The Forged is damn fun so far, despite it's clearly intentional cheesecake trappings
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
I assume some characters (like Black Widow) having a symbiote is for this event and not the current status quo?
Who is the female Daredevil? Is Elektra also Daredevil now?
It's great gonzo Al Ewing stuff
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Yeah, the current Venom series is pretty crowded at the moment if not complicated due to all the time-hopping on Eddie's side of the story. Which probably would be a little shorter if Dylan wasn't getting his share of scenes in the present too.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
This is spoilers, but liek ti's fun enough i have to go into
Meridius is an iteration of Eddie who looked at what being King in Black would actually involve, and ran screaming from it. Just like Knull did. (Yes, it managed to make Knull into a more interesting and better villain by actually having something resembling a motivaiton for him!)
You know how Hickman did the whole Beyonders are the Ivory Kings thing? Ewing took that further. Beyonders are the Ivory Kings - Linear, doing The Work (In a very magical sense, they're White Magic) from outside, not involved keeping their hands clean and prestine. There's lots of them.
The King In Black is their opposite number - down in the sumps and beating heart of reality, not bound by time, doing The Work there, in a very Black Magick sense. Involved down to the very street. There's only one King in Black
This all gets explained to Eddie Brock by another Eddie Brock known as The Eventuality, who's manifesting as a giant symbioite hand with five flames on each finger, one of which goes out every time eddie asks it a question. Yes, Eddie's having a whole conversation with a version of him who's presenting as a Hand of Glory
It is insane in the best way, and i wish this run had been just Ewing and not split between him , Ram V (Who seems to have just vanished from it?) and then Torunn Grønbekk (which no shame to her, she's not my favorite writer, but she;'s obviously getting better and better) - I just think the split focus of the comic has rendered things somewhat incoherent.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Came across Dead Dog’s Bite by Tyler Boss. Four issue miniseries. Small town mystery about a missing girl. You get the gist. Thought it did a great job immediately sketching its characters and did some neat stuff utilizing a narrator. Loved the art too, very clean, very readable, but very stylish. Though it reused a lot of panels which is a big mark against for me usually, but the style works for it and sometimes Boss busts out a 24 panel page that clearly took work to read as well as it does. So I can cut it some slack.
Though the ending of the mystery doesn’t quite work for me on first glance. And kinda takes the stylishness into a sort of literalism where there’s a strict origin to the town’s quirks versus a more organic setting where there are a million reasons why things got weird. But still largely liked it.
It was “well-acted” if that makes sense. Which I find myself responding to lately in comic art.
Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon(complete)
Monstress (ongoing)
Witch Hat Atelier (ongoing)
Saga (ongoing, about to resume. Does 6 issues on, then Hiatus for six months)
Lazarus (ongoing, on Hiatus, unclear when it'll resume - author and artist are doing the below)
The Forged (ongoing, probably on a brief Hiatus at the end of this month. Unclear how much longer it'll run for, probably 2-3 more chunky 3 issue Arcs?)
Yomi No Tsugai (ongoing, by the Author of Full Metal Alchemist)
The Wicked + The Divine (complete)
Die (complete)
Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips have been doing yearly releases of various noir/horror/etc tpb, and they're a great team. Next one lands next month.
The Power Fantasy starts next month, same author as Die & Wicked/Divine. It's getting rave reviews already, so I'm looking forward to seeing it, I trust the author to be good.
Hopefully something in there catches your interest!
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
I still love the Archie Super-heroes.
Picked up volume 2 (they didn't have volume 1, so I'll be waiting with reading it). One thing to comment: I got a nice hardback, 260 pages thick for the same price Marvel expected for the 144 page softcover of Immortal Thor (though that one seems to be an aberration).
Also picked up Antarctiva volume 2, which feels really disjointed from volume 1 (as it's basically a prequel) so I have now two volumes that both end on unresolved cliffhangers. It was also published as originally a 5 issue limited series, so I'd expect some resolution, but they could have changed that at the end. Still love the covers though.
Well, since then I found out that DC had actually started releasing trades covering the beginnings of Post-Crisis Batman. The Batman issues are collected in volumes of Batman: The Caped Crusader while the Detective Comic issues are collected in Batman: The Dark Knight Detective.
It turns out that Dark Knight, Dark City is included in The Caped Crusader Vol. 3 (for reference, that Blind Justice story I talked about a few pages ago turned out to be in The Dark Knight Detective Vol. 3).
I haven't gotten to Dark Knight, Dark City yet, but I have read all the other issues in the volume. The first storyline is the only storyline with NKVDemon, the poor knockoff of KGBeast. I don't know how I knew this guy existed when apparently he only ever appeared in these three issues.
Next up is a Penguin story arc that is the introduction of Harold, Batman's mute hunchback mechanic that disappeared from the series after Cataclysm until resurfacing in Hush only to be shot and killed. He doesn't actually start working with Batman in this storyline, so I assume that comes later.
Next up is a two-part Joker storyline that is the reason I was making this post.
This is apparently the first Joker story to take place after the death of Jason Todd (with that story having taken place right after The Killing Joke). Now, Joker has appeared to die a lot of times, only to turn up later without an explanation. I figured his apparent death at the end of Death in the Family (where he was shot and then the helicopter he was in exploded) was no different.
It turns out, no. Joker has spent months in hiding while recovering, and also has been seriously traumatized from nearly dying. He trembles at the thought of committing crimes due to fear that he might get killed. Unfortunately for him, during his months of being presumed dead, a rich investment banker jackass decided to impersonate the Joker in order to get even richer with some old fashioned robberies.
However, the new Joker kind of sucks at jokes, which offends the real Joker on a deep level. He feels this guy is ruining his reputation and knows he needs to come back, but can't bring himself to do it. He even tries to commit a crime while dressed as his old Red Hood persona instead, but ends up freaking out when he attacks a guard with a crowbar and suddenly has a Jason Todd flashback.
At the same time, Gordon and Batman are both struggling with whether or not they will be able to stop themselves from killing the Joker after what he did to Barbara and Jason.
The new Joker enjoys how easy it is to commit crimes due to most people being paralyzed with fear when facing the Joker. However, he knows that Gordon and Batman are the only people who will stand in his way so he plans on killing them. He sends out a message to all media as the Joker for Gordon and Batman to meet him alone "where it all began."
I thought that was going to be the Gotham Reservoir (since the message was also for Gordon), but it turned out it was Ace Chemical. However, the new Joker's plan is ruined when the real Joker shows up, having also heard the message. When the new Joker is on the verge of losing, he decides he is going to be an ever better Joker than the washed up one and dives into a vat of chemicals.
Unfortunately for him, it wasn't the same mixture that made the Joker, so he just melts in the acid and dies. He made the same assumption that many writers do and just assumed every vat of liquid at Ace Chemicals will turn you into the Joker, even years later.
The real Joker is then apprehended by Batman and Gordon who send him to Arkham. Unfortunately for them, being in Arkham finally puts Joker's mind at ease as he feels like he's at home and so he makes a full recovery from his trauma.
I'd somehow never heard anything about the events of this story. I just assumed Joker returned after his apparent death in the helicopter crash and continued on with business as usual.
The next issue is an annual that was the original post-crisis Two-Face origin before The Long Halloween superseded it. It was pretty good, I might talk more about it later.
Next up is Dark Knight, Dark City when I can sit down and read it.
On another note, apparently the Kindle versions of a ton of Batman volumes are on sale for $3-5 each. Here's two lists that show a bunch of them but there are probably more.
List 1
List 2
I can't find details about why they're on sale or for how long, but if there's a story you're interested in then it's probably a good time to grab it.