The Joker is pregnant in DC's new Batman comic

It’s difficult to write a story where the Joker is the main character. That’s the case with a lot of villains, but the Clown Prince of Crime’s traditional stream-of-consciousness approach to crime doesn’t exactly help.

I mean certainly the ones by James Tynion (et al.). The joker is a fantastic comic – but that’s mainly because it’s secretly a story about James Gordon chasing the Joker, and not just a simple Joker story. Still, Matthew Rosenberg (What is the furthest place from here?) and Carmine Di Giandomenico (Batman: The Knight) try exactly this: The Joker: The man who stopped laughing is really just a book about the Joker.

And it comes with some actual Stream of Consciousness powered stories drawn by Francesco Francavilla (The joker) in which, well. Yes. The Joker appears to be pregnant for a page or two.

What else is happening on the pages of our favorite comics? We’ll tell you. Welcome to Monday Funnies, Polygon’s weekly list of books our comics editor has enjoyed over the past week. It’s part society pages about the lives of superheroes, part recommended reading, and part look at this cool art. There may be some spoilers. There may not be enough context. But there will be great comics. (And if you missed the last issue, read this.)

The Joker emerges from bed in an open dressing gown and boxer shorts and shows his henchmen his swollen and apparently pregnant belly to his henchmen in The Joker: The Man Who Stoped Laughing #4.

Now it turns out he actually swallowed a bunch of mud when Zatanna cursed him, and something magical probably happened, plus he’s throwing up a little Joker mud duplicate – and if that sounds darkly insane, that’s very much the point .

Rosenberg told the press that The man who stopped laughing‘s backstories are his Homage to the Silver Age, an era when superhero comics were getting a bit of dada, with more modern, violent incarnations of the character courtesy of creators like Alan Moore, Brian Bolland, Scott Snyder, and Greg Capullo. Indeed, his backups with Francavilla feature plenty of body halves, point-blank executions, and gorilla-with-a-machine-gun carnage, and it all feels like a complete MPREG fever dream.

Author Steve Orlando sometimes prefers deep leaps in continuity and a frenetic pace that overwhelms me, but his first edition of Scarlet Witch is a beautiful one-and-done fable. As the series continues to portray Wanda solving the problems of each new character who passes through her magical final door of refuge, I can see myself enjoying many more installments of this mundane, episodic adventure comic.

Close-ups of Lex Luthor's back as Superman far away and framed between his legs, catches a car mid-air, then disappears at a breakneck pace, then pats Luthor on the back. In the final panel of the page, a giant POW appears around Superman, whose punch just threw Luthor into the distance in Action Comics #1050.

The Superman mythos took a turn in this new year by giving Superman a secret identity again. Lex Luthor did some scheming with a psychic and now no one except Superman’s closest friends and family knows that Superman and Clark Kent are the same person and if you try to tell them they could be having a massive stroke.

To be honest, I would have liked to have hung around in the place of “everyone knows that Superman is one of the most trusted investigative journalists alive” for a while, but I have to admit that Luthor’s rationale for this – “If the world needs Superman, I give it.” give them the best possible version… The world needs to believe that you are a god. That you’re above them, not one of them” — is such a direct shot across the bow of the Superman movies of the past decade that I think I felt my hair move.

But “Susana,” you say, “this picture has nothing to do with it,” and you’re right. It’s just that this fucking site drawn by Nick Dragotta has rules and everyone should check them out.

Iron Man explains that his plan to hire Skrulls to impersonate him and do superhero work was inspired by Squirrel Girl.

OK, Ryan North didn’t just include a wordless Squirrel Girl cameo Secret Empirethis story about Skrulls and Maria Hill and the Avengers is also a direct sequel to one Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Bow? these rules.

A giant snake suddenly attacks a screaming boy - and walks right through him because they're both ghosts. In fact, the giant snake actually comes out of the throat of a normal boy ghost.

Dead Boy Detectives – these are two ghost boys from different eras who solve crimes and run from death – is my favorite The Sandman spin off. Like most Sandman spinoffs, DBD series don’t usually last very long, but I’m hoping this one lasts a million years because I love how writer Pornsak Pichetshote and artist Jeff Stokely enacted this moment where our usual boy detectives meet some Thai ghost kids.

Johnny Storm reveals to his Minimum Wage peers that he is secretly the Human Torch.

I wasn’t expecting to read a comic this week about the Human Torch unionizing at his minimum wage workplace, but I did and I enjoyed it.

A series of concentric circles depicts the Amazons tearing Hercules apart limb by limb. An outer circle of standing Amazons, a large inner circle of angry Amazons who stab, slash, and hit him as he screams, and a small middle circle of ants overpowering a hunting mantis in Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons #3.

Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons has finally reached its conclusion, which means that for the first time I can officially say that its collected edition will be one of Polygon’s best comics of 2023.