The Joker is a terrorist of Gotham City and Batman's most widely known villain.
History[]
Origin[]
No one knows who the Joker really is and little can be confirmed regarding his early life before he turned to a life of crime. No traces could be found on his fingerprints, dental records or DNA matches against the GCPD's databases. The Joker described his past events during conflicting situations, more specifically how he got the scars of his Glasgow smile. This included having a supposedly violent and alcoholic father who attacked his wife with a knife and then turned the blade on the young man, creating his mutilated smile. Another story he told was when his gambling wife told him not to worry so much and he should smile more, but he took the advice overhead when she was carved up by enforcers of loan sharks with the couple discovering they didn't have enough money for surgery. To show he didn't care about the damage done to her appearance, he took a razor to his cheeks to make his Glasgow smile to match hers but the disturbing image caused her to leave him, damaging his psyche. It is not revealed to what degree these stories are truth, if any, and it is possible the Joker himself is unaware of his background.
Joker without his makeup
In a report filed by the GCPD, there were three theories presented for the Joker's origin and identity. The first was that Joker was instutionalized as a patient at Arkham Asylum who got released when his scars were almost healed or escaped during Ra's al Ghul's and Scarecrow's reign of fear when all the other patients at the time are in even worse condition, however this was debunked on the basis that his identity has no basis with no records. The second theory was that the Joker worked as a disgruntled employee or attraction the Haley Brothers Circus which was documented to have connections with the mob, explaining the clown makeup he always wears for his persona. The third theory presented was that the Joker served as a soldier or army private until he was sent home suffering from acute PTSD, explaining his cool demeanor and familiarity with weapons as well as a devastating effectiveness in various forms of combat.
Batman Begins[]
Shortly after the death of Ra's al Ghul, Batman discussed with Lieutenant James Gordon the effect that he had made on Gotham City since his appearance. Gordon then revealed that a criminal with "a taste for theatrics" recently committed a double homicide and an armed robbery, leaving behind a Joker playing card as his calling card. Some
Joker's calling card
time later, the Joker would orchestrate a theft of a large shipment of ammonium nitrate from the Gotham Docks. The explosive chemical was saved for storage in the Gotham General Hospital and on two passenger ferries some time later.
The Dark Knight[]
Several months later a group of bank robbers under the direction of the Joker, robbed Gotham National Bank which was used as a money laundering front for Gotham's gangs. The clown mask-wearing robbers whittled down in numbers within minutes in a series of calculated betrayals. Finally only "Bozo" remained, who revealed himself as the Joker to the bank manager. In addition, largely because he couldn't resist appearing on-camera, he also deliberately unmasked himself in front of a surveillance camera and posed. The Joker then escaped with the bank's cash in a
Joker robbing the Gotham National Bank as Bozo
school bus, concealing his identity by driving within a convoy of other buses, and also leaving the manager at the mercy of a gas grenade stuck in his mouth.
Shortly following the bank robbery, Italian crime boss Sal Maroni mentioned the Joker's recent theft of mob-owned money to his fellow crime lords at a business meeting, dismissing him as a threat. The Joker, overhearing this comment and the plan presented by Chinese mobster, Lau, arrive unannounced at the meeting while faking a laugh, as he saw their plan as a bad joke. The mobsters were at first unwilling to hear him out, and Gambol, a crime lord, took most dislike to the Joker, sending one of his men to take him out.
The Joker unexpectedly performed a "magic trick" by embedding a pencil on a table and shoved Gambol's thug head-first into the pencil, killing him. He then proposed that it was Batman's interference that had resulted in idealistic leaders like Harvey Dent rising in popularity, and offered his services to kill him for half of all the money that Lau, an illegitimate Chinese accountant, took away from Gotham for safe keeping. He also warned them that
Joker presenting his calling card to the mob
Lau would betray them if arrested and while The Chechen, a Bratva mobster, and Maroni were interested, Gambol attempted to attack him only for Joker to reveal his insurance policy: several grenades hidden under his coat, allowing him to make a quick escape.
Frustrated, Gambol placed a bounty on him so the Joker took revenge that night by having his men come to Gambol, claiming they have killed the Joker. The Joker's "dead body" is brought inside a garbage bag before attacking Gambol and proceeding to tell him a origin of how he obtained his mouth scars, then when Gambol is most terrified and shaken, the Joker proceeds to kill him with his knife. Then with the remains of Gambol's men overpowered and at his mercy, he took a pool stick and broke it in half, saying there's only spot left to join him and throws the piece in the middle of Gambol's men and has his gang, made up mostly of mentally ill and unstable vicous crooks escaped from Arkham Asylum who seem to have taken Joker as their leader, to make Gambol's men fight to the death.
Eventually, realizing that Batman had retrieved Lau from Hong Kong and that the police had struck a deal to testify against them, Sal Maroni and the Chechen relented, finally hiring the Joker to kill Batman. The Joker first kidnapped a Batman impersonator, filmed his murder and hung his body, complete with white makeup and scars, outside the mayor's office. Joker demands Batman to take off his mask and turn himself to the authorities and every day
The Joker in the video featured on GCN
Batman refuses to do so, he will murder innocent people every day. As a result of Batman not turning himself in, the first major victims were Janet Surillo, the judge presiding over Dent's indictments, and then Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb, the former via car-bomb and the latter via inserting acid into his scotch. Later, the Joker and his gang stormed a fundraiser at Bruce Wayne's penthouse to kill Harvey Dent. When he was unable to get the guests to inform him of Dent's location, he decided to settle by killing the guests. He then attempted to threaten a guest whom he noted bore a
Joker threatening Rachel Dawes
resemblance to his hated father, to which Rachel Dawes intervenes. The Joker then tells her another chilling story about how he got his Glasgow smile however she knees him in the crotch, but he laughs off it and says he likes it people with a fight in them. Suddenly, Batman appears and fights the Joker. The Joker only managed to escape by throwing Dawes out of a window, who Batman leaped after and rescued. This encounter also initially made him suspect that Dent was Batman's true identity.
The killings then continued with two innocent victims and an attempt on the mayor's life at a memorial for the murdered police commissioner. The Joker appeared in public without makeup, impersonating one of the honor guards, as well as having his gang impersonate the other guards. In order to ensure that the GCPD is kept on it's toes, he also placed a sniper rifle on the windowsill of the apartment room as well as a timer to release the blinds for the GCPD sharpshooters to shoot at anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the trap. Afterwards, a still disguised Joker shot his rifle at Mayor Anthony Garcia, Lt. Gordon was struck in the back after willfully leaping in front of Garcia in order to fake his death to avoid any future attempt by the Joker of attacking him with his family at home. As a result of this, Batman told Dent to call a press conference so he could reveal his identity and stop the murders. In a surprise move, Dent instead claimed to be Batman himself and was subsequently arrested.
While being transported the Joker and his gang attacked the caravan of police vehicles, attempting to kill Dent and they managed to nearly destroy all the vehicles but when he attempted to destroy the armored car carrying Dent, Batman intercepted his rocket launcher at the cost of destroying the Batmobile. Realizing that Dent wasn't Batman, the Joker broke off his pursuit and attempted to ram the Batpod instead; Batman though managed to dodge him and then capsize the Joker's eighteen-wheeler using his cable launchers.
Batman then bore down on the Joker but stopped short of ramming the maniac at the last second, forcing him to crash. The Joker prepared to unmask Batman however Gordon, newly resurrected from his hoaxed death, stepped behind him and held a shotgun to his head. The Joker was successfully jailed at MCU and as a direct result, Gordon was promoted to Commissioner by Garcia with Joker sarcastically clapping.
With the Joker in custody, Gordon and Batman believed his madness was finally over, but became alarmed when informed that Dent has gone missing. Desperate, Gordon let Batman interrogate Joker for information however the Joker seemed unshaken by the pain. Instead, he gleefully told Batman his view of people as selfish and violent, only needing a little pressure before descending into madness. He also admitted he could never kill Batman, considering
Batman interrogates Joker
him his only equal. Dent's kidnapping was part of a test to see if Batman would either save him or Rachel, whom the Joker could tell Batman cared for. The Joker willingly informed him of their locations however Joker knew Batman would want to save Rachel but tricked him into saving Dent instead by giving him his location instead and telling him it was Rachel's, and vise versa. After most of the police were gone, the Joker took his guard hostage and escaped by detonating a phone-activated bomb he surgically planted in the stomach of one of his own men who was arrested with him, with Lau in tow. After failing to save Rachel, Gordon had realized it was a setup and Joker had planned to obtain Lau.
The Joker in custody
Dent and Rachel each awoke tied to chairs with barrels of explosive material surrounding them and a speakerphone hooked up to the other's location. Rachel confessed her love for him and agreed to marry him and Batman then rescued Dent, learning Joker lied to further crush his morale. However, the building's explosion caused half of Harvey's face to badly burn while Gordon was unable to save Rachel as she died in the explosion. In the hospital, Dent was driven insane and blamed Rachel's death on Batman, Gordon and Joker. This act caused Maroni to tell Gordon the Joker's location, finding him and his craziness "too much" for business. The Joker later met the Chechen in a container ship with Lau and was given his reward: half of the mob's smuggled money, which he then doused in gasoline, and set alight with the Chechen's cigar, which Lau on top was burned with
The Joker burning his share of the money
the cash. He then betrayed the Chechen and took over his gang, declaring Gotham deserves a new breed of criminal: one unmotivated by money or power but who commits crime purely for fun.
The Joker made a call to a news program where Coleman Reese was threatening to go to public on the news with information about Batman's identity. He was interrupted by Joker who stated he had changed his mind, believing Gotham to be too boring without the Dark Knight. To "give others the fun" he threatened if someone didn't kill the employee in sixty minutes he would blow up a hospital. Gordon then abandoned his ambush on the Joker to focus on evacuating all city hospitals.
During the mass evacuation, Joker disguised himself as a nurse and entered the hospital room of Harvey Dent. He first apologized to Dent, maintaining that he was not responsible for Rachel's death as he lacks any idea for the repercussions for his actions, while the restrained Dent attempts in vain to kill him. Joker introduces to the scarred D.A. his view of the world that people are the truest form of evil and to prove his argument, he points out that if his threats were aimed at soldiers or gangbangers, the people wouldn't really care as society trains them to see death of such people as acceptable. Thus, he turns the disillusioned Dent against society who put his and Rachel's life in danger, namely the corrupt cops who kidnapped them, and those who viewed her life as expendable, namely Batman and Gordon.
Giving Dent a gun, the Joker advised him to break away from the law that failed him and turn to chaos, which Joker describes as the only true fair system as everyone's fate will be decided by chance. Dent responded by flipping a
Harvey Dent/Two-Face and Joker at Gotham General Hospital
coin to decide the Joker's fate, giving him the same chance Rachel had. Soon after Dent escaped, Joker detonated the Gotham General Hospital, skipping merrily away down the street before pausing, noticing most of the explosives haven't gone off, before tapping the detonator again which explodes the remaining explosives. He and his men then steal one of the nearby evacuation buses and kidnapped the TV reporter and his crew inside.
The Joker publicly declared that Gotham would be his at the end of the night. He told people they could leave now, but that anyone leaving by the tunnel or the bridge would discover a "surprise", leading many fleeing citizens to avoid those two routes. As a result, two ferries sailed from the harbor that night, one ship full of ordinary citizens and one of inmates. However, before their departure, the Joker had arranged for both ferries to be loaded with explosives, and provided with the detonator to the bombs on their counterpart's ferry, at which point he hijacked the ferries' PA system to explain the rules of what he referred to as a "social experiment". The Joker would blow up both ships if one didn't choose to destroy the other by midnight or if anyone tried to escape, killing everyone onboard.
Batman discovered that only the Joker's location was at an unfinished skyscraper, but the majority of his "gang" were actually the people he kidnapped earlier, wearing clown-like masks with unloaded guns taped to their hands, and that the people dressed as hostages were the actual criminals. Batman was forced to not only fight the thugs but the SWAT team as well before confronting Joker himself, ensuing a final battle between the two. The Joker managed to pin Batman under the scaffolding, gleefully waiting as the ferries' deadline neared and was visibly disappointed when both passengers to refused to kill the other to save themselves. As the deadline passed, Batman asked Joker if he was trying to prove that everyone was as ugly as him deep down, bluntly informing him he was alone in his corruption and insanity. Before Joker could detonate these bombs, Batman hit him in the face with his shooting wristblades and threw the man over the edge. The Joker begins to laugh as he falls to his death, but Batman, refusing to kill his enemy, instead caught him with his grapple gun and left him hanging for the police to
Joker defeated by Batman
capture.
With this act, the Joker acknowledged that Batman is truly incorruptible but that Dent is no longer the "White Knight", his unleashed the scarred man on Gotham. Joker states that Dent was his "ace in the hole" in his plan to show the city's people that everyone is corruptible, thus undoing Dent's work before his transformation into Two-Face. Batman then angrily left the Joker to dangle helplessly as he started laughing maniacally and he was then approached by a SWAT team who held him at gunpoint.
The Dark Knight Rises[]
Through the Joker is neither seen nor mentioned, his prediction of the citizens in Gotham were proven correct as the city shuns Batman in the wake of Dent's demise. His prediction about civilized people's code being a "bad joke" is also proven true, as Gotham falls into chaos in the wake of Bane's "liberation" and the citizens "eat each other" as he had predicted, by way of homes being looted and the Scarecrow's kangeroo court.
Personality[]
The Joker claims not to be insane, but rather "just ahead of the curve" and is extremely calculating, cunning and a competent strategist. He has no problems going underneath people's skin and can manipulate people into corruption as well as appealing to the mentally ill. This extreme scenario of cruelty, sadism and precision proves that the Joker is more in the realm of a psychopath or sociopath than insanity as he is neither delusional nor has he lost his grip on reality. He also seemed to have some awareness about his lacking a sense of humor.
Joker subscribes to a morally nihilistic mindset and is obsessed with the limits of morality with no empath; the two may come together to reflect the Joker's doubts about the depths of human morality based on his belief that "when the chips are down; these civilized people, they'll eat each other". He is also masochistic and immune to pain and intimidation, taking assault with pleasure as, under multiple occasions, laughed when being beaten by Batman.
Joker does not care for the people who work for him and has no problems inflicting pain on his associates and goons. Along with being extremely sadistic through psychological torture, physical pain and intimidation, the Joker has very little care over his own safety although he believes that Batman would not directly murder him but implies that the only way to stop him is to end his life.
Joker also has an utter lack of self-preservation, gambling on his life and does not care about himself at all. He also exhibits various symptoms of antisocial personality, blatantly disregarding laws and social norms far beyond standard deviant behavior. The Joker also has a low level of inhibition and a relentless drive to disturb the status quo. He is driven by something other than greed and does not attempt to control Gotham City by recruiting mob henchmen, appearing to hold a philosophy of chaos higher than himself. He describes himself as merely an "agent" of chaos, seeing some usefulness to money; using it to create his custom suit, acquire his equipment and weaponry and hire others to form his own gang as the mob's agents were simply used as a means by Joker to gain control of Gotham's infrastructure and cripple the mob's power. He is shown to be very literal in his word usage, which allowed him to carry out his crimes and even betray his own minions while at the same time technically keeping his word.
Powers and Abilities[]
Abilities[]
- Genius Level Intellect:
- Basic Hand-to-Hand Combat:
- Expert Psychology:
- Intimidation:
Weaknesses[]
- Mental Illness:
Equipment[]
- Firearms:
- Knives:
- Explosives: