Last week, we covered Three Jokers, a comic published under the DC Black Label imprint that was all about what would happen if the Joker was actually three guys and one of them got killed by Jason Todd, the second Robin. There was more to it than that, though, and you can go back to last week’s newsletter if you really want to know.

But if we’re talking about the J-man getting killed in a DC Black Label comic, than we might as well go back to the very first one: 2018’s Batman: Damned, the Brian Azzarello/Lee Bermejo comic that launched Black Label and opens with Batman having apparently just murdered the Joker. The book is sort of a sequel to the creators’ 2008 non-canonical standalone Joker comic, which was a super-bleak crime story, but Damned makes the very interesting choice of being a supernatural mystery instead.

With no memory of his recent battle with the Joker — which ended with the two of them falling from the Gotham Gate Bridge — Batman begrudgingly accepts help (or “help”) from magical ne’er-do-well John Constantine, who introduces the Dark Knight to some of his magical buddies to see if they can offer some insight into what happened. Or at least that’s what seems to be happening. In reality, Constantine is putting his thumb on the scale in a supernatural fight over Bruce Wayne’s soul, hence Damned being the title, with the Enchantress (a mean witchy lady best known for appearing in a bad movie) popping up in some flashbacks to torment young Bruce Wayne during traumatic experiences in his childhood.

Constantine takes Batman to meet with Zatanna, Etrigan, and Swamp Thing (comedy podcaster voice: Swamp Thing?!), and everyone kind of hates the whole experience. Batman just wants answers, because he’s a detective, while the magic people all prefer vague non-answers and ominous prophecies. Then there’s Constantine, who just wants to screw around and drive everybody crazy.

It’s a cool story, but the thing that really makes it work is that Constantine — not Batman, and not some omniscient voice — is the narrator. He has his own angle on what’s happening and on Batman’s psyche, which is a really interesting approach to this kind of non-canonical story. That’s always a great way to tell a Batman story anyway, since he’s such a big personality who has such a distinct effect on the world around him, and you can say something about Batman without even needing him to be the central figure in a narrative (see also: Gotham Central).

The story has a neat/weird ending that takes a big swing, and it does a good job building up to the ultimate solution of the mystery and a fateful choice that Batman has to make. It’s really interesting, and it seems to be setting up a follow-up that could also be really interesting. And very cool/intense art!

We’re still doing Weird Batman, even though this manga-inspired Elseworlds comic about a Teen Titans-esque superhero team in the future doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Batman… Hmmmmmmm! (Seriously, though, this features what could be my favorite alternate-universe version of Batman, and it’s totally off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots.)

I’m not sure how hard it is to find, as this one’s coming from my actual collection and not the unnamed corporate comic app I usually use, but I know it’s part of Justice League Elseworlds Volume 1.