Chaos in Its Purest Form
Joker's Asylum has to be, hands down, one of my all time favorite collection of tales. There's only about one or two that aren't stellar, but they've all got some unique spark or charm to them that brings them over the edge beyond a normal Batman tale. In fact, many have minimal involvement from Batman himself. Joker is sitting in his cell in Arkham and decides to break the 4th wall, or perhaps we're genuinely seeing him simply talk to himself, to tell these twisted tales that glance deep into the quintessence of Batman's amazing rogues gallery. Here's hoping DC will someday soon give this a third go-round.
Of course Joker in his infinite ego would begin with a tale about himself. The cover is exactly the kind of creepy you would expect from the Joker, but what follows is anything but expected. Few stories prove, so definitively, how much of a force of 100% PURE chaos Joker is. Chaos is not inherently evil, it's simply a source of unexpectedness that lives to stir up trouble.
The artwork is rather bizarre, but not in a wild trippy way, just very awkward and almost grotesque. It makes things normal look pretty creepy. When I was first reading it, I struggled to push through. It seemed like a very standard Joker story, and the artwork was rather odd. Once I got through it once, I gained a significant appreciation for the skin crawling unnerving atmosphere the artwork brings; and a lot of credit for changing my mind is the story.
I can't say much, but what begins as a bafflingly ordinary story took a geniusly executed turn into classic definitive Joker. Joker pulled the ultimate joke on everyone, including the reader, or an impressive level of layers. The Joker forces you to stop and reconsider every subsequent Joker tale you read, because it plants the seed of uncertainty in his future actions. Well, maybe it won't affect you THAT much, but it certainly CAN.
In Conclusion: 5/5
Of course it would be the Joker's own tale to give this 'series' a strong start. It's honestly a Joker tale like no other, setting the bar high for the rest of Joker's Asylum, but also setting some concrete conditions for the bar. Joker's Asylum is meant to give you stories that both define their focused character, and give you something new and unexpected in the tale or the telling of it.