On a rare day when the sun was out during this Seattle-like spring, my 13-year-old talked me into not only going to Six Flags Great America but also going on four roller coasters in less than 90 minutes.
Not a good idea on this side of 50.
The rides were, in order, the American Eagle, which I waited for more than two hours to ride when it debuted in 1981; Batman: The Ride, which I once outran a group of teenage boys to be the first to board one day in October 1992; Vertical Velocity, which is basically a louder version of the Tidal Wave that I once rode three times in a row on a low-attendance day in the late 1980s; and Superman: Ultimate Flight, which I tackled multiple times with college students half my age in 2003.
Now that I am somewhat more than twice the age of college students, the above experience was very nearly a disaster. In fact, as I wobbled my way off Superman, it was an open question whether or not I would vomit for the first time since the White Sox were in the World Series.
That last statement is factual, though correlation does not necessarily imply causation in this case.
Through sheer force of will and/or good fortune, I managed not to shame myself in front of my offspring. But the near-hurl misadventure was a reminder that my days of freely boarding motion rides are long gone. As Jay Pitchett explained on “Modern Family,” “the fluid in your inner ear is thickening. That’s what happens when you get old.”
And then Thursday arrived, bringing with it an invitation to be among the first to ride The Joker, a new roller coaster at Six Flags Great America that from even a casual inspection appears to deliver not only rolling and coasting but also tumbling and spinning.
Like a dog that keeps eating wood chips or blades of grass despite the result, I had long since decided that I would ride The Joker. Life, after all, is meant to be lived. Preferably without nausea, but still.
Naturally, Thursday dawned with ominous clouds, but Mother Nature somehow carved out conditions acceptable for riding a roller coaster. The Joker’s purple-and-green, 120-foot-tall profile stood boldly against the drab sky, ready to roll after a long winter and spring of assembly within mere feet of the now-iconic Batman: The Ride.
After an opening ceremony that featured an acceptable Cesar Romero version of the famed DC Comics villain, it was time to try out this “free spin” coaster designed by Utah-based S&S — Sansei Technologies. While strapping in, I noticed a sign that I might have ignored in my youth, advising me to “sit upright” and “hold onto handle bars at all times.”
This turned out to be good advice. After floating straight up to the top of the track, you find that the car almost immediately starts tumbling — in some cases, slamming you back and forth in your full-torso harness. If that’s not your thing, don’t say I didn’t tell you.
From there, Joker is an entertaining if remarkably brief series of somersaults and sudden drops that defies you to orient your location on the map of Gurnee. This is not a ride that invites you to admire the view.
Among the tips that were passed along by park officials who had been on the ride often enough to get a read on it: Joker has two tracks — green and purple — and the green side is wilder; by choosing between not only the different tracks but also between front- and rear-facing seats, it’s possible to get up to eight different variations on the ride; and if you kick your legs out at certain points, the side-hinged seats allow you to tumble more than once (one rider said he had gotten three complete somersaults out of this tactic).
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What I can tell you is that the green side did deliver more impressive motion. I can also rank The Joker somewhere in the second tier of Great America coasters, somewhere below the Raging Bull and Goliath category but better than, say, The Demon, which is not aging well.
Oh, and Batman is also better than Joker, both in fictional and ride form. This should come as no surprise.
Of course, full disclosure compels me to report that my review is limited — I decided that two rides of this new kid on the block were enough. Even if you have never been afraid of roller coasters, you do earn a healthy respect for them — or, perhaps more accurately, an unhealthy respect — at some point in your existence.