I'll give credit to the "idea" of it all. Watching a more realistic Joker is never a bad thing. Well, unless it's boring. In which case this book is.

SO we start off with a low level thug picking up Joker from prison after somehow getting out on "good behavior" or "not insane" anymore. Cause that's how it works in Gotham. If you killed hundreds but promise to be good from now on, you get out...right...

So we go through the daily routine of Joker the gangster. Slapping up some people, using his people to force other gangs (two face) to back down. Killing people because he can. This is a broken man, a man who relies on pills, who falls to his knees for Harley, who is just a weak man. Not at all like the Joker I wanted, not the master of chaos and destruction, but a bitter man who can't seem to get what he wants in life.

The overall story is pretty meh. There's some great moments (the flaying, the final two pages) but the rest seems "dark" just to be "dark" and "edgy" and it lost me a lot of the time when I expected something surprising but instead was returned with generic mobster movie/book moment.

A 2 out of 5 for the good art, and some wonderful moments, mixed in with a lot of weak storytelling and predictable story overall.