Jeff Lemire is set to pen two new miniseries for DC’s Black Label (mature) imprint: Joker: Killer Smile and The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage.

In Joker: Killer Smile, the Clown Prince of Crime is once again locked up in Arkham but may be able to maneuver his way free – if he can find a way to dig far enough into the mind of his doctor, an idealistic young man with a young family. And we know what the Joker likes to do with those sorts of people…

The art for Killer Smile will be done by Lemire’s longtime collaborator Sorrentino who said of working on the iconic villain, “This story has pushed me as a creator to aspire to new heights in storytelling. That little spark of madness in the Joker gives me an opportunity to play with the pacing, the layouts and the storytelling in a way that few other characters would allow.”

The Joker: Killer Smile will debut on October 30th (the same day as Basketful of Heads #1 by Joe Hill and Massimilliano Leomac, the first issue of DC’s Hill House horror line) and will publish every other month for three issues.

The second miniseries, about which I am nigh unto obscenely excited, is The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage. The Question is a fascinating character who pops up throughout the DC Universe and, like the Spectre, is a legacy character – meaning the title and role can be passed on as Sage eventually did, naming Reneé Montoya his successor.

As an objectivist, The Question deals in absolutes and is willing to do things like let thugs drown in sewers as a natural consequence of their actions. Oh, and he doesn’t have a face. Also, during one of his appearances on Justice League: Unlimited, Batman commented on how tightly wound The Question was. Think about that for a minute: Batman thinks this dude is uptight.

Artists on The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage are Denys Cowan, who worked on DC’s first The Question solo series in 1987, and Bill Sienkiewicz, with colors by Chris Sotomayor. The story will center around “an early Hub City where an unsolved mystery has led to the demise of the Question – and history will soon repeat itself. Beginning in the Old West and continuing through the lawless 1930s, the answers needed to solve the problem are out of reach – and may doom The Question once again.”

Issue #1 will drop November 20th and will publish every other month thereafter for a total of 4 issues.