The Batman Strikes! # 16

 By Mark Rodriguez

The Joker was quite a character in The Batman 2004 cartoon series. He was insane and silly but still dangerous and relied a lot more on his laughing gas than in other animated incarnations. He was the first super villain this version of Batman faced in his first year as a crimefighter. Let's see what crazy hi-jinx he's up to now.

"Hit and Run" opens with Batman telling a random jewel thieve he just defeated and tied up that the police will be along shortly to take him away. Batman is expecting the Batmobile to arrive, but it drives past him with the Joker driving it! Batman runs after it, not believing that the Joker somehow stole his car. He pulls out a remote but the overrides aren't responding. Batman pulls out his grappling gun and takes to the high ground. 

Batman radios Alfred and tells him to send the Batcycle to Sixth and Karlo street. Alfred says he sees the Batmobile a block of him and the autopilot is off so he asks who's driving it. Batman tells him to turn on the dashboard mini-cam and the butler is shocked to see the Joker behind the wheel. A van drives near Batman and the back opens up so the Batcycle drives out of it. Batman laments leaving the Batwing at home, but the Batcycle should do. 

Batman drives after the Joker and tells him to stop before someone gets hurt. Just then a woman is crossing the street with her groceries and the Joker shrugs, showing no signs of stopping. Batman leaps onto the hood of the Batmobile, as the Joker says 'and people say the Joer's crazy'. He then leaps off car to tackle the woman out of the way. The Batmobile runs past them and goes into an alley.

Joker leaves out of the car and says to himself that phase one was 'chase the clown'. He activates a device and says phase two is 'track the bat'. He runs off, leaving the Batmobile to be found. Batman makes sure that the woman is alright and runs off, asking Alfred for the location of the Batmobile. Alfred tells him it's just around the corner and had stopped moving.

Batman goes to the Batmobile and find the tracer under the dashboard. He sees no signs of the Joker and wonders how he got past the car's alarm. He didn't see any signs of forced entry, but he does find mud on the car. 

Batman arrives at an abandoned funhouse. He explains that Joker had escaped from Arkham five days ago, but he's been too busy dealing with Bane, Man-Bat and The Penguin to look for him. Batman says it seems that someone else seems even more eager to find the Joker than he is. This person plans to follow Batman and thus, lead him to the Joker. 

Batman smashes through a wall of mirrors, revealing the Joker chillin in a robe and slippers, with a mug of coffee. Joker asked what gave him away. Batman says he noticed a recent delivery of five hundred and one whoopee cushions to a fun house in an abandoned theme park. Joker says he knew he should have ordered just five hundred. Batman notices some plans of the Joker wanting to create Joker fish and says he sees he hasn't just been lounging around. Joker tears up the plans, telling the Batman they're not his and look more Mr. Freeze-type plans. Batman just glares at him.

Joker says if Batman is going to just stand there and be creepy, he'll liven up the party. Joker opens up the bathrobe and has a cream pie strapped to him. Batman says he doesn't like pie. Joker shoots it at him saying that every bite explodes with flavor, and sure enough Batman gets out of the way and avoids an explosion. Batman tells him they should really wait until everyone is here.

Joker is surprised that more company is coming and doesn't know if he has enough punch. He presses a button and boxing glove shoots out from the floor, socking Batman back. Batman tells him their guest didn't come for the refreshments. Just then Clayface appears behind him. Clayface tells the Joker that he's here for revenge.

Clayface thanks Batman for leading him to the Joker saying he knew it would easier for the Dark Knight to find him. Clayface starts wrapping his clay arms around the Joker as the Clown Prince asks what he's done to deserve this. Clayface tells him he turned him into this monster and ruined his life. Joker responds with "oh.... right".

Batman tells Joker that this isn't the way, and shoots him with a Bat-Taser. Clayface explodes and Joker crawls over to him. He says the Batman he knows wouldn't have allowed one of the bad guys to use him like this. Batman says he let Clayface follow him. Joker asks if he walked really slow on purpose and Batman said Clayface put a tracer on the Batmobile. Joker says he wouldn't just leave the doors unlocked and Batman says he seeped in through the door. Joker asks if he really took the Batmobile out for a spin. Batman grabs him and tells him he can check the playback in the rec room at Arkham. Joker asks when he gets a chance to drive the Batmobile. Batman reels back his fist and Joker says he guesses that's a no. 

Batman socks out the Joker. The Dark Knight stands tall as Joker and Clayface both lay there defeated as he states that nobody drives his car except him. 

My thoughts- 

Kind of quick tale, but it's to be expected with the limited page format. I would have liked to have seen this one being a full length episode. The cover is rather deceiving as it makes it looks like the Joker not only steals the Batmobile but also converts it into some sort of wild and wacky Jokermobile. Not only that but 'the Joker' abandons the vehicle early on in the story.

There was actually a little hint to the reveal early on that the Joker that stole the Batmobile was a fake.  At first I thought it was an error when Clayface said 'and they call the Joker crazy'. I mean, if it was the Joker, wouldn't he just say 'and they call me crazy' instead? Seeing that it was Clayface impersonating the Joker, that was a clever little hint. And it still kinda works since the Joker would be crazy enough to randomly refer to himself in the third person 'just because'.

For those that never seen the cartoon series, Detective Ethan Bennett was a partner of Detective Ellen Yin and one of Bruce Wayne's friends in this version of the continuity. At the end of season one, The Joker used Joker Putty to transform Ethan into Clayface. Losing his mind and turning evil, Clayface spends a lot of season 2 either committing crimes or trying to get to the Joker.

I wish we got to see more of the Joker, but he was pretty much caught off guard in his jammies. We didn't get to see him do his wild spinning monkey kung fu he usually does in the show. Maybe next time. I did like the reference to the Joker Fish story. Glad Batman prevented that one this time. 

This time the comic came with about 6-8 pages of a promotion with Batman and Campbell's soup It included a few activities like coloring a fight between Batman and Bane, a word puzzle and so forth. There was also some sort of contest where the winner would appear in a future comic book. I do wonder what issue of The Batman Strikes that would happen in.