Lex
Luthor does what he does for power. Magneto does it for mutant superiority.
Darkseid does it to rule the universe. But the Joker? The Joker does what he
does just for laughs. And that is why The Joker is the most dangerous of all
super villains. His sole purpose in life, his guiding compass, is a warped sense of humor. Sometimes the Joker’s plots are just goofy puns and
sometimes they are sadistic plans that would make the Marquis De Sade blush. Either
way, The Joker remains forever the Clown Prince of Crime.
The
character of the Joker made his first appearance in the pages of Batman #1 in 1940. Since then, he and
the Caped Crusader have been considered nearly synonymous characters, one
perfectly reflecting the other. Two sides of the same coin (which is probably more fitting for Two-Face). Batman being the perfect methodical crime
fighter and the Joker being the living embodiment of just pure chaos. While
there have been stories done featuring the characters fighting other
adversaries there is just something about a Joker vs Batman storyline that
excites every comic book fan. It’s like chocolate and peanut butter, two great
tastes that go great together.
Now
it’s curious why the Joker has become such an iconic character. Batman has such
an expansive rogues gallery with no shortage of maniacs. Two-Face, The
Scarecrow, The Riddler, The Mad Hatter, the list goes on of psychopaths who
fight Batman. But it is the Joker that is most associated with the character of
Batman. Perhaps that is because the Joker has the inciting villain in some of
the most memorable Batman stories.
Besides
the death of his parents, there are two truly haunting stories that shape
Batman’s identity. The first is the memorable A Death in the Family which
featured the “death” of Jason Todd (yes, I know he got better). And the
second is The Killing Joke which showed the crippling of Barbra Gordon
(Batgirl, who in The New 52 has been retconned as not being crippled, which I disagree with) and the
brutal torturing of Commissioner Jim Gordon. The last two are done because the Joker want to drive Jim Gordon insane claiming all it takes to make a sane man crazy is "one bad day."
Part
of the reason that the Joker is so closely connected to Batman is that, in part
at least, Batman helped to create the Joker. Although the definitive origin of
the Joker has never been truly told, the version that most writers tend to
reference is the one that appeared in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. In that story, a failed comedian is talked into
helping commit a crime at a closed chemical plant. While he thinks he will be
sharing in the big score, his compatriots have really just brought him there to
be a fall guy and they dress him up in a garish outfit with a large metal red
hood. When Batman shows up the comedian is knocked into a vat of acid and
presumed dead. A combination of the chemicals, the near death trauma, and the
knowledge that his wife and child died in birth turns him into a man unhinged.
Behold the Joker.
While
the chemical plant story was referenced in Tim Burton’s Batman, the idea put
forth in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight fits more in line with the spirit
of the character. In that, Heath Ledger’s the Joker gives several different
origin stories for how he received his disfiguring scars. Each story is as
likely as the other to be the truth and yet you as the viewer get the feeling
that none of them are true. And that is the Joker. His reality is whatever he
decides it to be at any given moment.
Now
while the Joker is primarily a Batman villain, many other heroes have had
encounters with the Clown Prince of Crime. When Gotham becomes tiresome, the
Joker has been known to go to nearby Metropolis and harass the Man of Steel,
Superman. In the cartoon movie World’s Finest, Lex Luthor hired the Joker to
kill Superman and in the Elseworld tale Kingdom
Come, the Joker is shown in flashback murdering Lois Lane and the entire
staff of the Daily Planet.
Though
to me the crowning achievement of the Joker to the DC Universe was the
storyline Joker’s Last Laugh. In that
crossover, believing he is dying, the Joker infects an entire maximum-security
prison full of super villains with his patented Joker toxin. In essence he
turns the worst criminals that the Justice League have ever faced into
high-powered versions of himself. One Joker is bad enough but a super powered
army of Jokers is pure chaos.
Comic
books are full of iconic characters. But is a rare occurrence when a comic book
villain outshines the hero he was created to face. Moriarty does not outshine
Sherlock Holmes. Pat Garret does not surpass Billy The Kid. But in many ways
the Joker is a far more interesting and complex character than Batman is.
Batman is a tortured hero who will never feel his quest for justice ever be
completely fulfilled. Whereas the Joker is a creature guided purely by his Id.
Whatever whim tickles his fancy he follows. As a person who tends to overthink
things I can’t help but wish I was a bit more Joker in my behavior.
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