Batman: Joker's Apprentice (1999) #1

Batman One-Shots

by C.J. Henderson, Patrick Martin (Cover Art), Joe Rubinstein (Inker)

The Clown Prince of Crime takes a new inmate under his wing, creating a deadly foe for the Dark Knight. Under the Joker's tutelage, serial rapist Arthur Rankel escapes from Arkham and embarks on a twisted plan to trick both the FBI and Batman into believing that a serial killer is heading for Gotham.

Genres: Batman, Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels

55 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 3, 1999

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

CJ Henderson is the creator of both the Jack Hagee hardboiled PI series and the Teddy London supernatural detective series. He is also the author of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies, several score novels, plus hundreds of short stories and thousands of non-fiction pieces. In the wonderful world of comics he has written everything from Batman and the Punisher to Archie and Cherry Poptart.

He also writes under the name Robert Morgan.

Reviews

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad by any means. I just didn't think it was very good. I still recommend this book though.

[Max Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first, when I've read the title Batman: Joker's Apprentice, I've thought woahhh, Batman IS the Joker's Apprentice! What a cool Elseworlds idea! But sadly, no. It's not Elseworlds and here Joker, in one of his peak elaborateness plans, takes an apprentice while being in a prison, just to get under Batman's skin. It takes a whole year and a lot of people die (according to reports, two every week for something like two hundred days, if I recall correctly), stretching believability to a point of breaking and starting to remind me of that moronic Death of the Family Nightwing story arc, the one where Joker tracked and dug up hundreds of bodies just to dick around with Dick Grayson.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feels like this was trying a bit too hard to be gritty. And it also plays off the anniversary like it's supposed to be a surprise when we find out what it is, but it's actually the most obvious and predictable guess.