Death of the Family / YMMV

Aluminum Christmas Trees: Hahnium sounds like a chemical made by Joker, but it was an actual proposed name for element 105, after chemist Otto Hahn; the element ended up being dubbed "dubnium" instead. Hahnium's periodic table symbol would have been Ha; hence why the Joker picked it.
Broken Base:
- Fans are split between whether this is a story that intelligently analyzes Batman, the Joker, and the relationships the two have with each other as well as their cohorts under a very dark and amazing lens, or a retreading of the same storylines and themes that almost all encounters between the two deal with nowadays while turning Joker into a Villain Sue.
- Similarly, Joker losing his face (and some of the gory acts he commits in the storyline) is either creepy and edgy in terms of character demonstration, or ridiculously over the top and impossible to take seriously. Interestingly, Detective Comics #1, where Joker gets his face removed, was written by Tony Daniel, but before his plans with that idea were revealed, he left Batman, and the Death of the Family saga's writer, Scott Snyder, had to deal with the removed face and go in his own direction with it, since it would be very difficult to effectively retcon.
Complete Monster: After being absent for over a year, The Joker makes his return by attacking the Gotham City Police Department to retrieve the face he had cut off, murdering 19 police officers and Mayor Hady's police guards. Reenacting his old crimes, the Joker poisons many people and blows up the Gotham reservoir. Hunting down the whole Bat-Family and trapping them in the Batcave, Joker leaves them soaked in gasoline while he forces Batman to watch as he attempts to set them ablaze.
Harsher in Hindsight: There are multiple images of Batman jokerfied, years before the introduction of The Batman Who Laughs in Dark Nights: Metal, also created by Scott Snyder.
- The cover of Batman #13 has a Batman with the Joker's face.
- In Batman #15 and #16, Damian has to fight a Batman who fell victim to the Joker toxin, only that unlike Giggles, this one is a fake. The cover of issue #16 even as Damian jokerfied, like it happened with Earth -22.
Joker: Oh, I love it! Who could have thought Bats would have been more terrifying while he laughs?
- Batman #14 has the Joker, in his insanity proclaim the sidekicks are the ones responsible for Batman turning soft, and his scheme is for Batman to kill them himself. More or less, Joker succeeds in The Batman Who Laughs, with his last toxin infecting Batman and turning him into a Jokerized freak with his first act is killing the same sidekicks.
- The Joker specifically invokes his heart when asking why Batman hasn't killed him yet. It turns out that The Joker's heart is what turns Batman into the Batman-Who-Laughs specifically when Batman kills him.
Ho Yay: The Tim/Jason relationship, including the way the Joker positions their bodies after knocking them out, gives off this vibe.
Jerkass Woobie: Harley Quinn. It's no secret that she is a villain. However, when you see the Domestic Abuse Joker puts her through and the fact that she's not really enjoying it this time around, you will feel sorry for her. She goes so far as to tell Batman how whacked out the Joker is this time. Now that's jarring for her character. In hindsight, this was where she truly broke free from him and started becoming the character she is now.
Narm:
- In Batman #16 Joker at one point dramatically in a one page spread yells for Batman to "Sit. [His] Ass. Down!" Only for the word "ass" to be censored, in a series that involves the Joker wearing his decomposing face as a mask, as well as beating a child on-panel. The scene itself has a closeup of The Joker's face on his head, fluids oozing from him and exposed flesh on display right next to the dialogue bubble. If one were trying to intentionally parody illogical censorship of things while allowing untold amounts of violence through without complaint, they'd just draw that.
- Joker wearing his own face as a mask can come off as really dumb and trying way too hard to be freaky.
Nausea Fuel: The Joker's face has begun to rot in the year since its removal.
Squick: Joker got his face back, and he's used a belt to wear it like a grotesque mask. He wears it upside down at one point, with his eyes visible from its mouth and vice versa. Towards the end of the story it even begins to rot.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The aftermath of the story was swiftly forgotten about less than two months later, with the fallout of Damian Wayne's death in the unrelated Batman Inc. #8 taking precedence in the Batman books. Nightwing and Red Hood & the Outlaws were the only two titles directly affected, with Nightwing relocating to Chicago after his Trauma Conga Line and Red Hood choosing to have his memories erased because of how much the Joker has affected his life, whilst Teen Titans and Batgirl carried on as if nothing had happened.

YMMV / Death of the Family

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