Batman #17 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

All right, before I say anything else, I will say that this issue is beautifully crafted.  Snyder's script is flawless.  Joker sounds like Joker and Bruce sounds like Bruce.  Moreover, his pacing is perfect.  I was stunned by the reveal that the platters contained the faces of the Bat-family and I felt an overwhelming sense of panic over the next few panels, even as my mind knew realistically that I had also picked up an issue of "Batgirl" today with Barbara's face clearly in tact on the cover.  But, when it was revealed to be, as Damian put it, a joke, this sense of logic didn't undermine the relief I felt, a relief that Bruce also clearly demonstrated when he hugged Damian.  Moreover, I loved Snyder flipping the issue of identities at the end, revealing that Joker doesn't know who Batman is but Batman knows who he is.  In the art department, Capullo is also firing on all cylinders here, whether it's tight reaction shots, like Bruce realizing that Alfred wasn't dead, or grand underground vistas, like where Joker and Batman have their climactic battle.  It's all just beautifully, beautifully crafted.

But...

At the end of the day, I just have to call bullshit on Joker not knowing.  I mean, Snyder does his best here.  I thought the revelation that Bruce essentially told Joker his secret identity years earlier, after he found the card in the Batcave, was a brilliant effort to show just how intimate the relationship between the two of them is.  It shows how unbalanced Joker makes Bruce, how he is willing to take risks when it came to Joker.  I'm not entirely sure that I buy that Bruce would actually take that risk, but I get where Snyder was going with it.  It shows that the issue of Bruce's identity and Joker's identity is less important than the roles that they play for one another.  Moreover, this scene shows us why Bruce therefore was so convinced that Joker didn't know the Bat-family's identities, since he knew in that moment what many of us have long theorized, that Joker doesn't really care.  It's why he left on everyone's masks when he "cut off" their faces.  He's confirming that he really doesn't want to know, because it would undermine the fun.  It would be like reading the last chapter of a book, but then trying to muster the energy to read it now that you knew how it ended.  He's in it for the thrill, not the resolution.

However, Snyder and his fellow authors have told a story over this arc that makes it completely implausible to believe that Joker doesn't know.  Joker just happened to kidnap Batgirl's mother?  He just happened to destroy Haly's Circus?  He just happened to know that Jason's father was a deadbeat dad?  It's incredibly difficult to believe that.  (I mean, it's just unbelievable to believe that he managed to do all those things in the time frame allotted, but I'm just going to concede that issue.)  Moreover, even if you're willing to accept alternative possibilities to these attacks, like Barbara Gordon, Sr. being kidnapped because of her ex-husband and not her daughter, you have to consider everything that Lobdell gave us when it comes to Joker "creating" Jason.  He couldn't not know.  It would literally be impossible.  You can't have an alternate explanation for that.

But, perhaps even worse than not buying that Joker doesn't know their identities, I also don't buy that Joker successfully destroyed the bonds that the Bat-family has to Bruce.  This criticism is particularly damning, since it's the whole damn point of this arc.  Going beyond just "revealing" that he had been in the Batcave, we're supposed to believe that Joker undermines this trust by apparently telling the Bat-family what Bruce "really thinks" of them.  Snyder leaves it a mystery what Joker told them but, honestly, I don't find it all that interesting of a mystery.  Joker didn't get into the cave and his book was empty; anything he would've told them would be a mere fabrication.  He's not reading some sort of mystery file that Bruce prepared marked, "Deepest, Darkest Thoughts:  Bruce's Eyes Only!"  Moreover, Bruce was right that Joker didn't know their identities.  Sure, he should have told them about the Batcave incident, but, at the end of the day, it's really Bruce's only transgression.  Snyder, though, seems to want us to believe that Joker said things to the Bat-family that forever changed their opinion of Bruce, building on their anger that he hadn't told them that Joker might know their identities.  Truthfully, I just don't see that happening.  They know that it's Joker.  I mean, sure, maybe they're shaken, but, as X predicted, it's hard to argue that we're going to see the ramifications of this event past next issue.  Someone at some point will tell Bruce what Joker said, he'll deny it, it'll be awkward for a while, and then they'll return to where they were.  After all, they're all estranged anyway in the DCnU.  How much worse could it get?

In the end, despite how brilliantly crafted this issue was, I just feel like this story was a disappointment.  Snyder makes it difficult to believe that Joker doesn't know their identities and that the Bat-family would abandon Bruce, even though we're supposed to draw exactly those conclusions.  To be honest, after the Court of Owls and "Death of the Family," I'm really excited to get a few stand-alone issues on this title for the first time since it launched.  I need to be reminded of why I collect this title, since this arc made me continue to wonder.