Profile of Jack Napier on Famous Like Me

The Joker is a DC Comics supervillain, widely considered to be Batman's archenemy. Created by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson, he first appeared in Batman #1 (1940).

Modeled after Conrad Veidt’s character in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs (which was based on a novel by Victor Hugo), the Joker is a prank-obsessed criminal with a clown-like appearance. Writers have alternatively portrayed him as a goofy trickster-thief or as a homicidal psychopath with a warped sense of humor. Recent writers of the Batman comic book series have preferred the latter, and the Joker has been responsible for numerous tragedies in Batman's life, such as the murder of Jason Todd, the successor to the mantle of Robin after Dick Grayson, and the injury/paralysis of Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl.

The Joker has been featured throughout the Batman comic book saga and has been an enemy of the Caped Crusader in most adaptations in other media. Interpretations of the Joker that have made him well-known to the general public include Cesar Romero's in the 1960s Batman television series and Jack Nicholson's in the 1989 feature film.

Character analysis

The Joker is also referred to as the Clown Prince of Crime and the Harlequin of Hate. 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 psychopath with a warped sense of humor, deriving pleasure from inflicting grotesque, 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 Joker, popular in the late 1940s through 1960s comic books as well as the 1960s television series, portrays the Joker as an eccentric but harmless prankster and thief. The 1990s cartoon Batman: The Animated Series 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, more than any other villain, 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 and chaotic 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 the Joker represents 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 obsession with Batman is somewhat unique to other super heroes and villians. In the movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, the new Batman 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 an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, when it was thought a young upstart in the crime syndicate killed Batman, Joker held his own funeral for Batman at the very place he had his "accident" and even nailed the man who supposedly killed him in the coffin and dropped it in a vat of acid. In "Going Sane", a story featured in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, The Joker thinks he finally succeeded in his ultimate goal of killing Batman. The act leads him to revert to sanity, which results in him getting plastic surgery in order to look like a normal human being. Donning the name Joseph Kerr and engaging in a small romance with his neighbor were among many things the Joker did to try and lead an honest life. Normalcy did not last for the Joker though, when he discovered the Batman to be alive it drove him back to insanity, causing him mutilate himself and restore the trademark white skin, green hair and crimson lips once more. The Joker then resumed his quest to cripple Batman.

In one of the comics in the 1970's, the Joker, by a random and unexpected occurence, knocked out Batman and considered unmasking and killing him there but decided not too, his logic being that his victory over Batman had to be public and had to be something astounding; not some accident the Joker didn't mean to do. In another issue, the Joker threatened crime boss Rupert Thorne to stop trying to find out Batman's identity. Thorne had Hugo Strange find out and when Strange would not tell him who Batman was, Thorne had him killed. The Joker was also bidding for Batman's identity, alongside the Penguin, and said to Thorne he was lucky Strange took whatever secrets he held with him to the grave. Thorne replied "you're actually defending him?" and Joker explained that he's destined to defeat Batman and his death has to be something worthy of the Joker and no one else is to defeat Batman except for him.

What also makes the Joker Batman's greatest foe is not only his insanity, but also his unpredictablity. While certain villians have one method to commit a crime or to fight, such as Mr. Freeze with his freeze gun or Poison Ivy with her plants, Joker has many different methods. He has a variety of weapons at his disposal, and you never know what kind of weapon it is. For example, Joker always has a flower on his jacket and it almost always has a different use. It either sprays acid or his trademark laughing gas, or it could on some occasions just be an ordinary flower. Sometimes he commits crimes just for the fun of it, or it could be a small part of a much grander scheme. Batman has been noted to say that you always have to expect the unexpected when it comes to the Joker and that his plans make sense to him alone. The Joker's unpredictability makes him one of the most dangerous villains of all time.

Character history

The definitive origin and actual name for the character was never established in the comics (although some people now assume his real name is Jack Napier as in the 1989 Batman movie). In a 1951 story, an origin was told in which he 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, and this permanently dyed his skin white, his lips red, and his hair green, giving him the appearance of a ghastly clown. (In the light of later developments, it is worth noting that even in this story, the only source of information about who the Joker was before his fateful run-in with Batman is the Joker's own recollection.)

The first origin to have been given to the Joker was in a 1956 comic where the Red Hood returned to rob the univeristy of Gotham. In the issue, Batman states that the Red Hood has been the only villain to ever escape him. At the end of he issue, Batman and Robin discover that the Joker was the Red Hood and donned the hood again in light of the case being reopened. Joker tells Batman that after trying to break into the Ace Monarch Card Company, he escaped through the chemical plant next to the factory and swam through a chemical pipe out into the lake. Only when he got home and took the mask off did he discover he had been transformed and designed himself after the playing card since he looked like a clown. He said he had kept this information from Batman for years so he would keep guessing. This origin, being the first origin offered for the Joker, states that he was in crime long before the accident occurred. However, again due to later developments, this is coming from the Joker's own memory and is largely unreliable.

This origin was greatly expanded upon in the 1988 graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke 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 escaped by diving into a toxic waste vat and swam through a pipe leading to the outside. Once there, 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, caused him to go completely insane and resulted in the birth of the Joker.

In a 2004 comic book (Batman: Gotham Knights #54), it was heavily implied that much of the above origin was in fact true (and that the Joker's first name was Jack), 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 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 bad luck. The story concerns him as a young boy who derives pleasure from killing small animals (considered the hallmark sign of a budding sociopath) 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.

In "Best of All," another story in the anthology, the Joker murdered his abusive father as a child. His mother was revealed to be Batman's old friend and confidante Leslie Thompkins, which he revealed to Batman to torment him.

Any recountings of the Joker's origin are largely unreliable, however, as they are taken directly from his own memories, and 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

The Joker's powers are his countless "comedic" weapons (such as razor sharp playing cards, acid-spewing flowers, and lethally electric joy buzzers) and Joker venom, a deadly poison that infects his victims with a ghoulish rictus grin as they die while laughing uncontrollably (although some versions cause immediate death, without the painful laugh spasms beforehand.) This venom comes in many forms, from gas to darts to liquid poison, and has been his primary calling card from 1940 till the present. In the 1989 movie, it was dubbed "Smilex." The Joker is also very skilled in the field of chemistry and is a good hand-to-hand combatant.

Some stories have speculated that the Joker's insanity may be a super power in and of itself. It is often implied that the Joker was transformed both physically and mentally by the accident which bleached his skin, much like a traditional superhero origin. Batman: The Animated Series goes so far as to imply that exposing others to the same process will grant them Joker-like "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 the nuclear war which deprives all super beings of their powers. In Arkham Asylum, a psychiatrist suggests that the Joker's mental condition is an instance of "super-sanity," a unique form of extrasensory perception. It has occaisonally been implied that the Joker's perception extends beyond the limits endured by the merely sane, up to and including awareness of being a comic-book character. In its short run, Amalgam Comics had super beings from Marvel Comics and DC Comics appearing in each other's universes, much confused and unrecognized by the native population. However, upon encountering the Marvel character Spider-Man in Gotham the Joker spoke in familiar terms and even commented on Spider-Man's costume change, an oblique reference to an older cross-over tale which had subsequently been retcon-ed out of existence.

During the "Knightfall" saga, Scarecrow and Joker team up and kidnap the mayor of Gotham. After Batman rescues him, Scarecrow turns on the Joker and uses his fear gas to see what Joker is afraid of. To Scarecrow's suprise, the gas has no effect on Joker and he, in turn, beats Scarecrow with a wooden chair. This suggests that due to his insanity, the Joker literally has no fear.

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, but with only comparatively mild eccentric behavior. 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 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 with the Joker's desire to trademark fish subjected to his toxins.

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 hero of the series, certain issues had as high a body count as stories where 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, an insane psychiatrist who fell hopelessly in love with the Joker in Arkham Asylum 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. That this sort of material actually made its debut in a cartoon intended for children (Batman: The Animated Series, which aired from September 1992 until October 1999) is particularly of note. The comic book story "Mad Love" from the Batman Adventures series (a book inspired by the '90s cartoon), a story that recounts Quinn's origin and shows her actually defeating and single handedly almost killing Batman (she's only stopped by an egotistical Joker, who nearly kills her, only to woo her back in the end), won several comic book awards and eventually became an episode in the cartoon. She was popular enough to be integrated into the comics in 1999 and even had her own sporadically successful comic series which only recently ended its run with 38 issues. A modified version of the character, less goofy but still criminally insane and utterly devoted to the Joker, was featured on the live-action TV series Birds of Prey which lasted only 13 episodes.

Appearances in other media

In the animated series

Batman: The Animated Series—mainly in the episode "Beware the Creeper" and the spin-off movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm—offers another version of the Joker's history: he is portrayed as a former anonymous hitman for a mob 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. Unlike the movie, 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, and in the episode Dreams in Darkness, Dr. Bartholomew identified him with that name.)

The Joker's appearances from The New Batman Adventures:

• "Gotham Holidays"
• "Joker's Millions"
• "Old Wounds"
• "Beware the Creeper"
• "Mad Love"

Mark Hamill is the most famous actor to supply the character's voice, in Batman: The Animated Series and its various spin-offs, including Justice League and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Hamill also provided the voice for the character in an episode of Birds of Prey.

Most recently, a very different version of the Joker appeared in the new animated series The Batman. It's been implied that the origin of this Joker is the result of falling in a vat of glowing green goo. His appearance and costume are decidedly different; 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. However, in the end of the first episode, "The Bat in the Belfry", he vaguely implies that Batman was somewhat responsible for the way he is (which may be similar to his post-Crisis comic book counterpart.) Later in the series, he regressed back to his more traditional garb (but still had wild hair and wore no shoes). Apparently he knows martial arts and is able to spar competently with Batman. 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 is still recognizably the Joker, and he seems to have no motive for his crimes other than enjoying them. He still employs his signature Joker venom in the form of a laughing gas. His voice actor is Kevin Michael Richardson.

The Joker also appears in the Static Shock episode, "The Big Leagues". Joker traveled to Dakota, home of Static, to re-circuit a few bang babies for assistance in battling Batman, Robin, and Static Shock. In the end, Static defeated Joker, who was taken back to Arkham Asylum.

In 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 (portrayed with zest by actor Cesar Romero) was a persistent but essentially silly character in his 18 appearances (out of 120 episodes) spanning from 1966 until 1968. Incidentally, Romero refused to shave his beloved and rather sizable mustache for the role, resulting in the bizarre sight of makeup smeared over his mustache.

In movies

The 1989 Batman movie, directed and designed by Tim Burton, offered a somewhat different origin for the Joker, 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 possibly also adapted from the surname of actor Alan Napier, who had played Alfred in the 1966 series. Napier, the narcissistic right-hand man of Boss Carl Grissom, went by the nickname "Ace" and dressed in black, a tie-in with and contrast to his later playing card incarnation. Napier was having an affair with Boss Grissom's moll, Alicia Hunt, prompting a jealous Grissom to set his lieutenant up to be killed by a corrupt police officer named Lt. Eckhardt at Axis Chemicals. However, Grissom's plan goes awry thanks to intervention by both Batman and Commissioner Gordon. After catching a ricocheted bullet in the face, Napier tumbles into a vat of chemicals, but not before killing Eckhardt.

Although Napier survives, severed nerves and a botched attempt at reconstructive surgery create an eternal "smile", while reaction to the chemicals dyes his hair and bleaches his skin. Upon seeing his ruined face, Jack's mind snaps and he breaks into manic laughter. Assuming his new identity as the Joker, he kills Grissom in revenge and takes 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. The Joker also tries to woo Gotham Globe photographer Vicki Vale following Alicia Hunt's suicide. When Bruce Wayne learns about the Joker, Bruce recalls his own past (how his parents were murdered at the hands of Jack Napier) and only then does Bruce realize the Joker was partly responsible for the origin of Batman in the first place. (In the comics as well as the 2005 film Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered by Joe Chill).

The future of the Joker in film is in currently in question. A Joker playing card was shown at the end of Batman Begins, where it had been used as a calling card. Interviews with screenwriter David Goyer explained in Premiere magazine that he plans to use the Joker as the main villain for the sequel to Batman Begins, and IGN FilmForce reported that Paul Bettany was a frontrunner for the role. However, recent reports state that nothing concrete has been decided.

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