Joker's Asylum II: Mad Hatter

This tragic tale of the origin of the Mad Hatter is just as deranged as the madman telling it. The story was quite good- though last year I read another version of the Mad Hatter's origin in the pages of Batman: Arkham City that I thought was just perfect. This one is good, but it's not instant classic material.

   The same cannot be said of the art. Bill Sienkiewicz draws the main layout. But for some reason, parts of the artwork is overlapped with doodles by the great Keith Giffen. It looks like someone is scrapbooking for the insane or something here.

   If this sort of layout had appeared in a Justice League Europe issue or a volume of Ambush Bug (and I'm pretty sure it has), then I would say it's great and necessary for the work in question. But in this edition of Joker's Asylum, well it's a hot mess. I hate that DC didn't do further volumes of this series but if this issue was the only sample offered to the masses for review, I can see why further minis and one-shots were never greenlit.

   This series can do better.

   Not Worth Consuming

   Rating: 4 out of 10 stars.