I recently finished The Further Adventures of The Joker, edited by Martin H. Greenburg. In the past, I tended to stay away from short story collections, thinking that I just didn’t want to handle the constant rolling of the dice. Sure, you might read one story and really dig it. But the one right behind it may be a total stinker. I since realized that was a very dumb thing to do, and I had to be missing out on some gems. And because I’m the type of guy that tries to avoid doing dumb things, I decided to read The Further Adventures of the Joker.
The book came out right on the heels of the first Tim Burton Batman movie, and you still see a lot of Silver Age influence. Not that this is a bad thing … as anybody who’s read my work can attest, I enjoy me some campy every now and then. What did stand out to me about this book was how mature most of the stories were, especially given the time it was released. I know, I know … Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen had already established a mature ground for this genre, but still–you just didn’t see it much.
I’m not saying everything in this book is great. Far from it. But there’s enough good here that–if you’re a Batman fan–you owe to yourself to check it out.
