A few months before Secret Invasion and Final Crisis began, I predicted that Secret Invasion would be the sales victor. Turns out I was right. Why did I predict it? Audience participation. In Final Crisis, we’re being told a story. In Secret Invasion, we’re being challenged to go through our back issues and find the clues and try to piece together who’s a Skrull before it’s revealed in the series. FC may be downright literary, and this week’s SI may have been more boring than my sock drawer, but one invites the MySpace/American Idol generation to participate, and one doesn’t. But this doesn’t mean Morrison is incapable of producing an audience-engaging work. Just see the very popular Batman RIP. The whole thing revolves around the mystery of The Black Glove’s identity. Again, readers are challenged to try to figure it out before it’s revealed. And as promised yesterday, today I’ll tell you who The Black Glove is.

According to my deductions.

But first, before I say anything and end up totally swaying your opinion with my sterling logic, take a moment to weigh in on the following poll, which is based on the general speculation I’m hearing flying around the shop, where we’re having a contest about it.

Okay.

Here’s my reasoning. More of it has to do with a look at writing choices than specific clues within the books themselves:

1. Morrison’s one real Joker story to date (Batman #663, the prose issue) was all about the Joker shedding his personality and taking on a new one.
2. In DC Universe #0, the five-page story setting up/introducing the RIP storyline features only two characters: Batman and Joker. In the same way that we all knew Winter Soldier was going to be the new Cap simply by the fact he was the only other character Brubaker had been taking the time to flesh out and develop, I find this casting significant.
3. In the same story, Joker deals a dead man’s hand, then comments it’s missing a finger (glove imagry). What does he deal for the fifth and final card/finger? A Joker.
4. Joker is the only character in this storyline, other than Batman, who’s mind we’re seeing inside.
5. Morrison has a history of taking a new character and revealing that they’re an old familiar foe. (i.e. Xorn was really Magneto in New X-Men, the Hyperclan were really white Martians in JLA)
6. Morrison has said it’s a villain everybody knows. On the heels of the juggernaut that is WB’s The Dark Knight, the world has never been more aware of the Joker than now.

Now we’ll just have to wait and see if I’ve called it as acurrately as I called the Final Crisis/Secret Invasion showdown…



[UPDATE 10/5/08 - I have now changed my deduction]