All Croyd Crenson wants to do is be alert and look ‘normal’ for his sister’s wedding. The trouble is, his ‘Joker’ mutation sees him changing his form completely – and unpredictably – every time he falls asleep.

Can he stay awake to make it through the wedding while passing as a ‘normal’ human?

The third issue of this mini series felt pretty unfocused. The series started out strongly – with a focus on the big events that led to an alien bomb being detonated and huge numbers of humans mutating or perishing as a result, but issue three largely tried to tell a more personal story as well as paint a picture of the effects of the bomb overall.

It’s more successful in this final issue at the personal tale it tells, with the poor people afflicted with unsightly and impractical mutations – Jokers – proving to be a potent race and class metaphor.

It does feel slightly anti-climactic as a result, though there’s a brief attempt at a coda after we see what happens to poor Croyd.

Unfortunately, this leaves the series feeling pretty disjointed and messy, but it has served its purpose as a Wild Cards prequel for readers who have never read the prose fiction the series sprang from.

With that origin infodump out of the way, hopefully the next Wild Cards series can be a bit more consistent and focused.