Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok’s long-teased Three Jokers story is coming, and it’ll be part of DC’s new Black Label imprint.
During his San Diego Comic-Con panel, Johns shared a look at Fabok’s first cover for the three-issue miniseries, which the writer described as “a grounded, emotional story about the mystery of the Joker… it will focus on Bruce, Barbara and Jason.” Johns promised, that while the book will be part of the Black Label imprint, it will still have elements that take place in the main DC Universe continuity.
“I’ve never really done a Batman story beyond Batman: Earth One, and if I’m going to tell a Batman story, I want it to be amazing and cool and something no one’s ever seen before. This is a story about the shared pain between Bruce and Barbara and Jason and the way that some scars heal wrong and some heal right,” Johns said. “I think of this as a Joker story.”
“By the end of this series, Bruce and Joker will have a relationship that is completely different than the one they have now,” Johns added. “There’s a really fun scene where Joker drives this truck and he gets to the woods and he goes up to this cabin in the woods and there’s another Joker standing there in the door wearing a Hawaiian shirt and the Joker who drove up says, ‘That’s my shirt.’”
The project was first announced during April’s C2E2 convention, where a fan’s question regarding the three Jokers mystery led to the revelation that Johns and Fabok had begun working on the project.
It was in Justice League #42 – part two of Johns and Fabok’s “Darkseid War” storyline – that Batman used the newly acquired powers of the Mobius Chair to ask two questions: Who really killed his parents, and what was The Joker’s real name? However, it wasn’t until eight months later – the day Justice League #50 and DC Universe: Rebirth #1 hit stands — that we finally got our answer as to what the Mobius Chair told Batman: “There are three.” And, from what Johns revealed today, that answer was literal rather than figurative.
Three Jokers, by Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok and Brad Anderson, will debut as part of DC’s Black Label imprint. The three-issue miniseries does not yet have a release date.