Joker (comics)
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The Joker is a fictional character, a DC Comics supervillain and widely considered Batman's archenemy. The character was initially conceived by art assistant Jerry Robinson and re-designed by Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger. He first appeared in Batman #1 (1940).
The Joker is a master criminal with a clown-like appearance. While Golden and Silver Age writers of Batman comic books portrayed him as a goofy trickster-thief, Modern writers more often depict him as a violent psychopath who murders people with fatal hilarity. In this interpretation, the Joker has been responsible for numerous tragedies in Batman's life, such as the killing of his parents in the 1989 film, the murder of Jason Todd, the second Robin, and the paralysis of Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl. The Joker also killed Alexander Luthor, Jr., hero of Crisis on Infinite Earths and villain of its sequel Infinite Crisis.Newsarama [WIZARDWORLD PHILADELPHIA 06: DC NATION], retrieved July 12, 2006
The Joker has been featured throughout Batman's comic book history and has been an enemy of the Caped Crusader in most adaptations in other media. Well-known interpretations of the Joker include Cesar Romero's in the 1960s Batman television series, Jack Nicholson's in the 1989 feature film and Mark Hamill's in and other DC Animated Universe shows.
Along with Lex Luthor, he is possibly the most well-known villain in American comic books. As played by Nicholson, he ranks #45 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 50 film villains of all time. He ranked #1 in Wizard's list of the top 100 Villains of all time.
Character analysis
The Joker is also referred to as the Clown Prince of Crime, the Harlequin of Hate, and the Ace of Knaves. Throughout the evolution of the Batman universe, interpretations and incarnations of the Joker have taken two forms. The original and currently dominant image is of a sadistic, fiendishly intelligent lunatic with a warped sense of humor, deriving pleasure from inflicting horrifically morbid death and terror upon innocent people. In this interpretation, he is a textbook example of antisocial personality disorder; in a sense, he is Charles Manson cursed with a clown's grinning face and a grotesque sense of showmanship. The other interpretation of the character, popular in the late 1940s through 1960s comic books as well as the 1960s television series, is of an eccentric but harmless prankster and thief. The 1990s cartoon is notable for blending these two aspects, but most interpretations tend to embrace one characterization or the other.Part of the Joker's prominence among Batman's enemies likely derives from the fact that he, represents the antithesis of Batman's personality and methods. Batman is almost always depicted, even in the campy 1960s television show, as a serious, stoic man who pursues his campaign against crime with utter earnestness and a disciplined, focused mind. In the darker portrayals of the comics and more recent films and television, the Dark Knight is further depicted as a brooding and humorless avenger who pursues justice as an enigmatic shadow striking from the dead of night. The Joker, by contrast, is literally a killer clown, driven by a disordered mind to pursue destruction and chaos with as much panache as possible. His appearance and actions suggest the bright and garish pomp and circumstance of the circus. Nightwing has stated that he believes the Joker and Batman exist because of each other; that Batman represents order and Joker the chaos that challenges it. Like Superman and Lex Luthor, it has been suggested that Batman and the Joker need each other.
The Joker's victims have included men, women, children and even his own hench men. An issue of Hitman in 1996 stated that the Joker had once gassed an entire kindergarten class. In the comic "Devil's Advocate", the Joker is stated as having killed well over two thousand people, making him perhaps the most prolific killer in comic book history. Despite having murdered enough people to get the death penalty thousands of times over, he is always found not guilty by reason of insanity. He is then placed in Arkham Asylum, from which he appears able to escape seemingly at will. In fact, it is hinted the Joker will deliberately allow himself to be captured so he can "unwind" at Arkham before his next scheme.
In the 1996 special issue "Devil's Advocate", the District Attorney of Gotham City used a once-in-a-lifetime loophole to have the Joker found guilty and sentenced to death. However, Batman found the fact that the Joker did not take credit for the crime in question out of character, and soon discovered the bitter irony: the Joker was about to be executed for the one series of murders he didn't commit. The Joker was in the electric chair and about to be killed when Batman managed to bring the true guilty party to justice.
There have been times when Batman has been tempted to put the Joker down once and for all, but has relented at the last minute. After capturing the Joker in one story, he threatens to kill his old foe, but then says "But that would give you the final victory, making me into a killer like yourself!"
The Joker's obsession with Batman, and vice versa, is somewhat unique to other superheroes and villains. In the movie ', Terry McGinnis, the successor to the mantle of Dark Knight, said to the Joker that the only real reason he kept coming back was because he never got a laugh out of the original Batman. The Joker has also said that without Batman, his life is nothing. In ' a catatonic Joker becomes animated only after seeing a police report that Batman has returned to action, setting in motion a final confrontation. In an episode of Batman: The Animated Series entitled "The Man Who Killed Batman", when a young upstart in the crime syndicate appeared to have killed the Dark Knight, Joker held his own funeral for his old foe at the very place he had his accident (see Character history below), and nailed the hapless crook in the coffin and dropped it in a vat of acid. In "Going Sane", a story featured in Legends of the Dark Knight, the Joker thought he finally succeeded in his ultimate goal of killing Batman, reverted to sanity, and got plastic surgery in order to look like a normal human being. He tried to lead a normal, honest life, donning the name Joseph Kerr (a pun on his criminal moniker) and engaging in a small romance with a neighbor. Normalcy did not last for the Joker, however, as he discovered Batman to be alive; he once more went insane, mutilated himself to restore his trademark white skin, green hair and crimson lips, and resumed his quest to destroy Batman.
In a 1970s comic, the Joker accidentally knocked Batman out and considered unmasking and killing him. He decided not to, however, his logic being that his victory over Batman had to be public and astounding, rather than a random accident. In another issue, the Joker threatened to kill crime boss Rupert Thorne if he uncovered Batman's secret identity. Thorne had Hugo Strange discover Batman's identity, but, when Strange would not tell him who Batman was, had him killed. The Joker, who was also bidding for Batman's identity alongside the Penguin, told Thorne he was lucky Strange took whatever secrets he held with him to the grave; he explained that he was destined to defeat Batman in a manner worthy of his criminal reputation, and that no one else had the right. During , the Joker tortured Robin into revealing Batman's identity, but found this information somewhat anti-climactic, as he now thought of Batman as nothing more than "a little boy in a playsuit crying for Mommy and Daddy."
The Joker is renowned as Batman's most unpredictable foe. While other villains rely on tried-and-true methods to commit crimes (such as Mr. Freeze's freeze gun or Poison Ivy's toxic plants), Joker has a variety of weapons at his disposal. For example, the flower he wears in his lapel sprays (at any given time) acid, poisonous laughing gas, or nothing at all. In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, the Joker has a gun which at first shoots a dart saying "BANG!", but then, with another pull of the trigger, the dart fires (in the censored version, the gun shot out laughing gas instead of the dart). Sometimes he commits crimes just for the fun of it, while on other occasions, it is part of a grand scheme; Batman has been noted to say that the Joker's plans make sense to him alone.
Character history
Originally conceived as an evil "court-jester" type, the character was initially rejected by studio writer Bill Finger as being "too clownish," but he later relayed the idea to Bob Kane. Kane, who started out as a gag artist, loved the concept and encouraged its production. Finger found a photograph of actor Conrad Veidt wearing make-up for a silent film entitled The Man Who Laughs (which was based on a novel by Victor Hugo) and it was from this photograph that the Joker was modelled.
The definitive origin of the character was never established in the comics, although in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #50, a retelling of the Joker's origin (including revealing exactly who invented the gas that gives its victims the Joker's telltale grin), his cousin, Melvin Reipan, an idiot savant, presumably thinks his first name is Jack; Melvin calls the Joker "Cousin Ja-" before he cuts him off, saying that he's now "Cousin Joker."
As revealed in a 1951 story, the Joker was originally a criminal who called himself the "Red Hood." In an encounter with Batman, he jumped into a pool of chemicals to escape pursuit. The chemicals dyed his skin white, his lips red, and his hair green, giving him the appearance of a ghastly clown.
This origin was greatly expanded upon in the 1988 graphic novel , written by Alan Moore. In that story, the Joker was an unnamed engineer who quit his job at a chemical company to become a stand-up comedian, only to fail miserably. Desperate to support his pregnant wife, he agreed to guide two criminals into the plant for a robbery. During the planning, the police came and informed him that his wife had just died in a household accident. Grief-stricken, the engineer tried to withdraw from the plan, but the criminals strong-armed him into keeping his commitment to them. At the plant, the criminals made him don a special mask to become the infamous Red Hood. Unknown to the engineer, this was simply a way to implicate any accomplice as the mastermind of a crime to divert attention from themselves. Once inside, they almost immediately blundered into security personnel and a violent shootout and chase ensued. The criminals were gunned down and the engineer found himself confronted by Batman, who was investigating the disturbance. In panicked desperation, the engineer fell into a toxic waste vat and was swept through a pipe leading to the outside. Outside, he discovered, to his horror, that the chemicals permanently stained his skin chalk white, his lips ruby red and his hair bright green. This turn of events, compounded by the man's misfortunes on that one day, drove him completely insane and resulted in the birth of the Joker.
In a 2004 comic book ( #54), it was heavily implied that much of the above origin was, in fact, true, with details of it being backed up by a witness to the death of the Joker's wife. In this version, however, his wife was kidnapped and murdered by those same gangsters, in order to force his cooperation in the Red Hood robbery. The witness was none other than Edward Nigma, who would eventually become the Riddler. In this storyline, the Joker's first name is given as Jack.
In the short story "On a Beautiful Summer's Day, He Was" by Robert McCammon, featured in the anthology The Further Adventures of the Joker, the Joker is suggested to have been born a monster, not made one by circumstance. The story concerns him as a young boy who derives pleasure from killing small animals (the second and most serious component of the so-called "homicidal triad") and collecting their bones. The story notes that his father is also insane and, in a chilling scene, beats his mother while the boy listens through the wall, grinning. The end of the story has him graduating to murder, killing a neighborhood boy who discovers his makeshift graveyard. The story identifies the Joker's last name as Napier. (The name "Jack Napier" was first used in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie. In it, Napier is a gangster who falls into a vat of acid, becoming the grinning Joker.)
In Best of All, another story in the anthology, the Joker murdered his abusive, alcoholic father as a child, and spent years afterward in a mental institution. His mother was revealed to be Batman's old friend and confidante Leslie Thompkins, which he revealed to Batman to torment him.
In the short story Case Study by Paul Dini, published in 2, the man who would become the Joker was already a well-established criminal, working for several of Gotham's gangs. After a dispute with a mob boss named Tommy Doyle over a woman, the criminal killed her and framed Doyle for it, taking over his gang in the process. The new mob boss was careful to keep any trace of his involvement out of his gang's activities, meaning the police could never tie him to his gang's crimes. Nevertheless, missing the thrill of personally committing a crime, the gangster constructed a new identity for himself - that of the infamous Red Hood. This strategy worked well until the gang hit the Monarch Playing Card Company, where Batman was waiting for them. The Red Hood leaped into the vat of chemicals and escaped, but emerged transformed into the Joker. Unlike other stories, Case Study posits that the Joker is actually perfectly sane, and that his crimes are carefully planned and researched to look like the work of a maniac, in order to pursue his vendetta against Batman. As in The Killing Joke, the Joker's real name is never revealed in this story.
In both the 1989 movie and the animated series, the Joker was a hitman for the mob. In the movie, Bruce Wayne looks over Jack Napier's criminal record and reads that he was deemed a psychopath. For both these versions of the Joker, falling in the vat of chemicals did not make him insane; on the contrary, it only allowed him to find a way to vent all his insanity among those around him with incredible ease.
The 1992 episode of called "Joker's Wild" also implied that the Joker's original name was Jack Napier. This is suggested while Batman is looking through a dossier about the Joker.
Any recountings of the Joker's origin are largely unreliable, however, as he is an expert liar and manipulator who tells a different life story depending on how much sympathy it will get him; according to the graphic novel Mad Love, he ensnared his accomplice, Harley Quinn, into service with a story about an abusive father and a runaway mother, a story that Batman easily exposed as a fabrication. Even the Joker himself confuses his real memories with the lies he has told for years. As he himself puts it in The Killing Joke, "I'm not exactly sure what happened. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!"
Powers and abilities
It is often implied that the Joker was transformed both physically and mentally by the accident in the chemical plant. In various DC Comics Who's Who publications, it has been stated that due to his level of insanity, at times the Joker manifested a degree of superhuman strength. Batman: The Animated Series and certain comics stories such as The Joker's Last Laugh storyline and Batman: The Man Who Laughs go so far as to imply that exposing others to the same process will grant them similar powers; specifically, this occurs in the episode "Beware the Creeper," which created a new version of the DC Comics character the Creeper. In Elseworlds: Distant Fires, the Joker is rendered sane by a nuclear war which deprives all super beings of their powers (though contrarily, in Act of God, another Elseworlds storyline, a more mysterious yet widespread "de-powering" event takes place which leaves the Joker unaffected).
In the Joker implies that he knows who the Hangman killer is, long before Two-Face, the police, or even Batman find out. It is implied that he withheld the information in hopes that he'd get his chance to kill the Hangman himself and get rid of "the competition"; in The Long Halloween, the precursor to Dark Victory, he remarked that "this town isn't big enough for two homicidal maniacs." In Dark Victory, when Two-Face stops the Calendar Man from revealing that in fact Two-Face himself was Holiday, The Joker seems to realize what is going on, but he keeps quiet about it.
Another of the Joker's "super powers" is his ability to endlessly cheat death. Even when he has been caught in explosions, he has returned without a scratch. In ', after Joker attacks the United Nations, Batman chases him to a helicopter. During the ensuing battle, Joker is shot in the chest by accident. The helicopter crashes and explodes, with the Joker still inside. Even with Superman seeking his body, Batman knew he would never find him. In , Andrea Beaumont captured the Joker and planned to kill him as revenge for murdering her father. Despite both characters' apparent demise in an explosion, he survived. In the Batman/Superman crossover episode of , the Joker was seemingly killed in Lex Luthor's private jet when it exploded, and yet no remains were found. In "The Laughing Fish" episode of ', he falls into a harbor inhabited by a shark, which attacks him. However, Batman comments on his unnerving feeling that this is not the Joker's end, and sure enough, the Joker returns many more times in the series.
However, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker served as an exception to this rule, as both cuts of the movie featured Joker dying (shot with his own poison laced Bang Flag gun in the uncut, electrocuted by accident in the cut) and being buried under the ruins of Arkham. The Joker that returned was somewhat of a clone with a memory implant.
Insanity
Grant Morrison's graphic novel Arkham Asylum suggests that the Joker's mental state is in fact a previously unprecedented form of "super-sanity," a form of ultra-sensory perception. It also suggests that he has no true personality of his own, that on any given day he could be a harmless clown or a vicious killer, depending on which would benefit him the most. During the Knightfall saga, Scarecrow and the Joker team up and kidnap the mayor of Gotham City. After Batman rescues the mayor, Scarecrow turns on the Joker and uses his fear gas to see what Joker is afraid of. To Scarecrow's surprise, however, the gas has no effect on Joker, who, in turn, beats Scarecrow with a chair. This suggests that, due to his insanity, the Joker literally has no fear, or at least has no hidden demons.
Because of Joker's insanity, the character is sometimes portrayed as having a sense or knowledge that other characters do not, such as being aware of being in a comic book. This fourth wall awareness also seems to carry over to Batman: The Animated Series. The Joker is the only character to talk directly into the "camera", and can be heard whistling his own theme music in the episode adaptation of the comic Mad Love.
Publication history
In his initial dozen or so appearances, starting with Batman #1 (1940), the Joker was a straightforward mass murderer, much like a typical Dick Tracy villain, with a bizarre appearance modeled after the playing card. He was a master thief who liked to leave smiling corpses in his wake. In these early appearances, he would steal any number of things, but he seemed to have a particular fondness for jewels. It is of note that in his second appearance ("The Joker Returns", also in Batman #1), the Joker was actually slated to be killed off, with the final page detailing the villain accidentally stabbing himself and lying dead as Batman and Robin run off into the night. Fortunately, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson quickly changed their minds and added a panel implying that the Joker was still alive.
For the next several appearances, the Joker would often escape capture but suffer an apparent death (falling off a cliff, being caught in a burning building, etc.), from which there would be no body and thus he would quickly recover. In these first dozen adventures, the Joker killed close to three dozen people, which was impressive for a villain who didn't use giant robots, mutant monsters, space lasers, or the like. This was the status quo from 1940 until around 1942. Ironically, the turning point came in "Joker Walks the Last Mile" (Detective Comics #64), where the Joker was actually sentenced and executed via the electric chair, only to immediately come back to life.
Alas, while the Joker was back, he was decidedly less deadly than ever. At that point, the editors decided that only one-shot villains should commit murder, so as to not make Batman look impotent in his inability to punish such recurring foes as the Joker or the Penguin. As the Batman comics as a whole softened their tone, the character's emphasis was soon turned to jokes and comedy-themed crimes, and the Joker became a harmless, cackling nuisance. He quickly became the most popular villain and was used almost constantly during the Golden Age of Comic Books. The use of the character lessened somewhat by the late 1950s and disappeared almost entirely when Julius Schwartz took over editorship of the Batman comics in 1964.
In 1973, the character was revived and profoundly revised in the Batman comic stories by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams. Beginning in Batman #251 with the story "The Joker's Five Way Revenge", the Joker became a homicidal maniac who casually murdered people - even his own henchmen - on a whim, but enjoyed the battle of wits with Batman. This take on the character has been predominant since. Steve Englehart, in his short but well-received run on the book, added elements deepening the severity of the Joker's insanity.
The character even had his own nine-issue series during the 1970s where he faced off against a variety of foes, both superheroes and supervillains. Although he was the protagonist of the series, certain issues had as high a body count as stories in which he was the antagonist. Of the nine issues, he committed murder in seven of them.
A major addition to the character was the introduction of Harley Quinn. Originally introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, Quinn was a clinical psychiatrist who fell hopelessly in love with the Joker in Arkham and now serves as his loyal, if daffy, sidekick, costumed in a skintight harlequin suit. Their relationship often resembles that of an abusive domestic relationship, with Joker insulting, hurting, or even attempting to kill Quinn, who always comes back for more. She was popular enough to be integrated into the comics in 1999 and a modified version of the character (less goofy but still criminally insane and utterly devoted to the Joker) was also featured on the short-lived live-action TV series Birds of Prey.
Appearances in other media
In live action television
With the success of the 1960s television series, the character was brought to the forefront along with the rest of the classic rogues gallery. During that period the Joker, as portrayed by Cesar Romero in 18 episodes, was a goofy, harmless character akin to his comics persona up to that point. The Joker of this series is characterized by a cackling laugh and comedy-themed crimes that were silly in nature, such as having henchmen dressed as court jesters or bank robberies based on stand-up routines. The only reference to his early life is a remark by Batman that, in his youth, the Joker had been a hypnotist. Visually, the look of the character is basically the same, although his hair is less vibrantly green than in the comics, due to how the green hairpiece would photograph on film.[[Citing sources citation needed]] Also, Romero refused to shave his mustache for the role; it is still partially visible beneath his white face makeup.
In animation
The Joker appeared as a recurring adversary in the 1969 Filmation series The Adventures of Batman. A 1972 episode of the series The New Scooby-Doo Movies featured a meeting with Batman. The Joker was one of the villains, voiced by Larry Storch.
The Joker was planned to be a part of the Legion of Doom on Challenge Of The Superfriends, but Filmation already had the rights to the character for The New Adventures Of Batman. He only made one appearance on Super Friends. The final season's episode, "The Wild Cards" featured a version of the Royal Flush Gang. The leader of the group, Ace, turned out to be a disguised Joker, who was working with Darkseid.
Batman: The Animated Series - mainly in the episode "Beware the Creeper" and the spin-off movie - offers another version of the Joker's history: he is portrayed as a former anonymous hitman for the Mafia with ties to the Beaumont family, later responsible for the death of Carl Beaumont. As in the 1989 movie, he was not wearing any disguise when he made his fateful attempt to rob the chemical factory. And unlike many portrayals, evidence shown in both the Animated Series and the related comics indicate that Batman intentionally pushed him into the chemicals. Unlike the movie, however, no attempt has been made to connect him with the death of Bruce Wayne's parents (although "Jack Napier" has been mentioned as one of the hitman's aliases.)
He was also the main villain of , in which he returns to Gotham after 40 years, during which he was believed to have died. The movie, a Batman Beyond spinoff, was heavily influenced by A Death in the Family and The Killing Joke. The title Return of the Joker was also taken from a comic story line. In the future, the Joker is the inspiration for a mischievous petty biker gang called the Jokerz, three chapters of which were shown. They have a Joker clown-style motif and wreak havoc on the streets of a futuristic Gotham and occassionally can be a problem for the new Batman. In the movie, the original Joker reappears more youthful than he should have been, aged just past his prime in his 50's and appoints himself the boss of a handful of Jokerz. It's eventually learned that the real Joker did in fact die 40 years ago, and that the Joker controlling the gang is actually Tim Drake whose body was being possesed by the Joker due to an implanted chip encoded with his DNA into the boy during the time Drake was held captive and tortured, the same chip that controlled Drake when he was 'JJ' (Joker Jr.)persona. The Joker is eventually killed for good when Terry McGinnis fried the chip with the Joker's own electrocuting joy buzzer, thus destroying the chip's hold over Drake.
On Batman: The Animated Series, the Joker made easily the most appearances of any villain in Batman's rogues' gallery, helping solidify his presence as the Batman's arch-foe. The relationship between Batman and Joker in the animated universe is one of a constant back-and-forth as to who is really angering the other. Often, it is the Joker that aggravates Batman, with the Joker thrilling at Batman's glowering inappreciation of his "comedy". Once in a while, though, Batman or Robin manages to get the upper hand, as in "Mad Love" or "Harlequinade", finally provoking the Joker into losing his cool. Like his comic book persona, the Joker in the animated series is obsessed with Batman; he often says he is the only one who "deserves" to take out Batman, halting those who try (like Harley Quinn in "Mad Love") or punishing those who he thinks beat him to it (Sidney Dupree in "The Man Who Killed Batman"). In fact, when the Joker finally joins several supervillains as a group (in the Justice League episode "Injustice for All"), he does so by proposing a plot that allows Batman to be removed from the other supervillains so that the Injustice Gang can kill the rest, while he gets Batman all to himself. When he offers his services, ringleader Lex Luthor wants nothing to do with him, but Joker says he can offer what none of the other villains can: "I know how the Bat thinks." With the gang agreeing to cooperate, the Joker shows his usefulness by arranging a trap that enables them to capture Batman. When the gang does have Batman bound, the Joker is amazed that they're leaving him alive, knowing he'll break free (which he eventually does).
This version of the character is widely regarded as the definitive interpretation of the character in either live-action/television adaptations or other cartoons (most especially in the less restricted feature-length movies), as it combined a wacky sense of humor with a psychopathic violent streak. Mark Hamill is the most famous and most acclaimed actor to supply the character's voice, in Batman: The Animated Series and its various spin-offs, including Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Justice League and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Hamill even provided the voice to the Joker on a special feature to the DVD of Batman, the 1989 film.
Roger Stoneburner made a cameo appearance as the character in an episode of Birds of Prey in which Batgirl is caught in the crossfire between Batman and the Joker. Hamill performed the character's voice, and was the only one to claim the credit.
The Animated Series version of the Joker also appears in the Static Shock episode "The Big Leagues." Joker traveled to Dakota, home of Static, to recruit a few bang babies for assistance in battling Batman, Robin, and Static. In the end, Static defeated Joker, who was taken back to Arkham Asylum.
The New Batman Adventures episode Legends of the Dark Knight also featured another animated Joker, in a story inspired by the Dick Sprang comics of the 1950s. This Joker was voiced by Michael McKean.
A very different version of the Joker appeared in the animated series The Batman. He strongly resembles Blanka from Capcom's Street Fighter series. He sports a purple and yellow straitjacket, fingerless gloves, bare feet (which are white with green toenails), wild green hair, red eyes, and athletic prowess that clearly mark him as different from his predecessors. In the end of the first episode, "The Bat in the Belfry," however, he vaguely implies that Batman was somewhat responsible for creating him. Later in the series, he regressed back the more traditional garb of a purple suit and spats, but still had wild hair and wore no shoes, save one episode, where his shoes could elevate to great height. The Joker also moves and fights with a monkey-like style, using his feet as dexterously as his hands, and often hangs from the walls and ceilings (as the series progresses, these abilities do not appear as much). He employs the signature Joker venom in the form of a laughing gas. His voice is supplied by Kevin Michael Richardson. This version of the Clown Prince of Crime more resembles the campy, comic relief character featured in the comics of the 1950s and '60s, and so is often criticized for discarding the darker aspects which many fans feel mark him as Batman's greatest nemesis. While this interpretation is generally lighter in tone, however, it still exhibits hints of a darker side. One episode in particular closely resembled The Killing Joke: during the episode, he tortured a police officer just because he could. He even quoted the comic ("all it takes is one bad day to make a normal man go insane"). The episode also showed the building hatred and jealousy that the Joker felt towards Batman as the police focused more on capturing Batman than him ("You mean to tell me you consider this vigilante more dangerous than me, the Clown Prince of Crime?")
This Joker shares the origin of the others, though it is yet unclear if Batman was present during his fall into the chemicals. The Joker vaguely mentions Batman being responsible for him, but in his flashbacks of his own creation, Batman is not present, whereas in other interpretations of the origin Batman stands out and is quite often a very exaggerated detail of the events. In the episode "Strange Minds", in which Batman literally ventures into his mind (much like the movie The Cell ), features a portion of himself left unchanged by the accident, representing what microscopic percentage of sanity he has left. This figure sports a uniform resembling a security guard's, and tells Batman all he wants is to "make people laugh." This may be a hint that, like in Killing Joke, Joker may have attempted stand-up comedy before his plunge.
In the 2005 direct to video animated movie, The Batman Vs. Dracula, the Joker met his apparent demise when Batman chased him to the edge of a building overlooking a lake. The Joker then tried to use a handbuzzer to shock Batman, but fell off the building with the handbuzzer still on. Landing in the water, he was electrocuted by his own weapon. A fisherman had found him, still alive, caught in his net. Seeking a trove of gold, he chased the Penguin into a tomb, where Dracula rested. Awakened, Dracula turned the Joker into a vampire. He became Batman's test subject for a potential cure to vampirism, which in the end succeeded. After Joker was cured Batman questioned him about Dracula's resting place, but the Joker had amnesia about what he did as a vampire.
In film
The 1989 Batman film, directed by Tim Burton, offered a somewhat different origin for the Joker, portrayed by Jack Nicholson, and at the same time made him part of Batman's origin. The Joker's real name in the movie was Jack Napier, a play on the word "jackanapes" and the surname of actor Alan Napier, who had played Alfred in the 1960s series. Napier, the narcissistic right-hand man of Boss Carl Grissom, dressed in black, a tie-in with and contrast to his later playing card incarnation. Napier was having an affair with Grissom's moll, Alicia Hunt, prompting the jealous crime lord to set his lieutenant up to be killed by a corrupt police officer named Lt. Eckhardt at Axis Chemicals. However, Grissom's plan went awry thanks to intervention by both Batman and Commissioner Gordon. After killing Eckhardt and then catching a ricocheted bullet in the face, Napier tumbled into a vat of chemicals.
Although Napier survived, severed nerves and a botched attempt at reconstructive surgery created an eternal "smile," while reaction to the chemicals dyed his hair and bleached his skin. Upon seeing his ruined face, Napier's mind snapped. Assuming his new identity as the Joker, he killed Grissom and took over the gangster's empire, engaging in a violent, chaotic crime spree, the motive being to "outdo" Batman, whom he felt was getting too much press. He also tried to woo Gotham Globe reporter Vicki Vale after Hunt, whom he hideously disfigured as an "artistic statement," committed suicide (at least, according to him). When Bruce Wayne learned about the Joker, he recalled that his parents were murdered by Jack Napier. Only then did he realize the Joker was partly responsible for the origin of Batman in the first place. Batman told Joker this, resulting in Joker trying to kill him and Vicki Vale. They almost fall off of a ledge as the Joker escapes in his helicopter. However, Batman uses his grappling hook to tie Joker's ankle to a large, heavy statue. The statue is pulled off the ledge as helicopter flies away, and the weight of the statue forces the Joker to let go of the ladder, falling to his death. His corpse is found by Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham police. The villain had a smile on his face a laughing box on his person . (In the pre-Zero Hour comics, as well as the 2005 film Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered by Joe Chill.)
Burton proposed the idea to portray Batman and the Joker as indirectly responsible for creating each other. One of Burton's inspirations for the film was the 1986 graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which portrays Batman and the Joker as inextricably linked to each other. Burton thus had the script rewritten to establish the Joker as the murderer of Batman's parents to give the two characters a more substantial history, as the film's time frame did not allow for the long-standing conflict portrayed in the comics over the years. An unused scene would have shown the Joker responsible for the death of Robin's parents as well.
Jack Nicholson was to reprise his role as The Joker in Batman Triumphant. While the character was killed in the 1989 original, he would be resurrected as a hallucination by The Scarecrow's fear gas. However the film was cancelled due to the failure of 1997's Batman & Robin and only ever went as far as pre-production.
As portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the film, The Joker is ranked at number 45 on the AFI's Top 50 Villains List.
The future of the Joker in film is currently in question. A Joker playing card was shown at the end of Batman Begins, where it had been used as a calling card by a costumed criminal who was not explicitly named. Screenwriter David Goyer explained in Premiere magazine that he plans to use the Joker as the main villain for the sequel to Batman Begins.
In Tangent Comics
A female version of the Joker appeared as part of DC's Tangent Comics line in her own one-shot (Tangent Comics: The Joker) in 1997. This Joker bore little resemblance to the traditional interpretation of the character, modeled instead on Duela Dent, the second Harlequin.
She also appeared as a member of the Secret Six. The Secret Six are a covert group of heroes who formed when the Flash, Atom, Joker, Spectre, Plastic Man and Manhunter joined forces to combat Dr. Aquadus, a living ocean.
She returned in 1998 in Tangent Comics: The Joker's Wild. The story focused on three mischievous but essentially good superheroines (Madame Xanadu, Mary Marvel, and Lori Lemaris all masquerading as the Joker) in the post-apocalyptic rebuilt city of New Atlantis.
Infinite Crisis revealed that the Tangent universe was actually Earth-97, part of the recreated Multiverse.
Bibliography
See also
References
External links
- [Joker's Realm (Web.Archive.org)]
- [The Joker's Circus]
- [DC Comics Secret Files: The Joker]
- [DCDP: The Joker]
- [Information about the Joker by Comics 101]
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