Story: "The Joker's Tale" (22 Pages)

Credits: Chuck Dixon (plot, script); Jackson Guice (pencils, inks); Albert De Guzman (letters); Gloria Vasquez (colors); Digital Chameleon (color seperations); Joseph Illidge (edits)

Feature Characters: Oracle, Black Canary II (also in flashback in between #15 and main story), Power Girl (also in flashback in between #14 and main story)

Supporting Characters: Major VanLawton, Lieutenant Providence; James Gordon (in flashback in between Detective Comics #741 and #742)

Villain: Joker (also in flashback in between Detective Comics #741 and issue #15 and in flashback in between issue #15 and main story)

Synopsis:

Barbara faces her personal demons by confronting the Joker, who is holding New York City to ransom. He plans to use a neutron bomb against it - everyone there will be killed, but no real estate will be permenantly damaged. He tells her what's happened to him in the past few months: After his defeat and injuries at the end of 'No Man's Land', the Joker headed to Qurac, where he had a number of acquaintances, to whom he offered help in their current military and diplomatic problems. They appointed him as their ambassador to the United Nations, where he announced that unless the no-fly zones and sanctions around Qurac were dropped, he would kill everyone in New York. And get away with it, since as an ambassador he has diplomatic imunity. Power Girl and Black Canary decided to take actions into their own hands, and the Joker has now been taken back to Arkham Asylum.

Only he's not in Arkham, Oracle has played a trump card and brought him to New York, ground zero of his planned attack. The only detail he can give her, however, is that the attack will come from six cruise missiles launched from a ship in the mid-Atlantic. Oracle isn't sure what she, Black Canary and Power Girl can accomplish on their own, and is advised to contact the Pentagon, who are more than a little surprised at the direct communication.