First Look At John Carpenter’s The Joker: Year of the Villain #1

Back in July, DC revealed that horror icon John Carpenter and Borderlands 2 writer Anthony Burch are collaborating on a special one-shot comic, The Joker: Year of the Villain. This in-continuity tale will be illustrated by artists Philip Tan and Marc Deering. While speaking with EW, Carpenter and Burch revealed how the one-shot ties into “City of Bane,” the current storyline in Batman.

“The main thing that’s changed in Gotham is that Bane is in charge and there’s basically no law anymore to speak of,” explained Burch. “The inmates are running the asylum, except the asylum is now the entirety of Gotham City. So what we wanted to play with is the idea of, ‘Well, Joker exists to create chaos and throw a wrench in the works. What does that look like in a city where chaos is already reigning?’ How do you be the crazy guy that’s surprising everyone when the world has already gone insane?”

“He basically decides, ‘Well, maybe I’ll try to be a vigilante,'” continued Burch. “And he does a very, very Joker-centric version of that.”

RELATED: John Carpenter Will Co-Write a Joker Comic One-Shot

Carpenter added that “you’re going to read some disturbing material…Anthony came up with this outline, and it was brilliant. We sent it to [DC] and they said, ‘Oh, it’s great, go ahead.'”

He also went on to note that Burch is more of a comic book authority than he is.

“Anthony is steeped in the lore of Batman, much more than I am,” said Carpenter. “So he leads. He leads, and I follow through the darkness.”

The Joker: Year of the Villain #1 will hit comic book stores on Wednesday, October 9. You can see Tan and Deering’s preview pages below.

What do you think about the first look at The Joker: Year of the Villain #1? Let us know in the comment section below!

Recommended Reading: Joker (DC Black Label Edition)