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} A Joker occurs as DC Comics supervillain, widely considered to be Batman's archenemy. Created by Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson, he first appeared within Batman #1 (1940).

Sculptural when Conrad Veidt’s character in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs (which was based on the novel by Victor Hugo), the Joker occurs as prank-obsessed criminal with a clown-like appearance. Writers use instead portrayed him as a zany trickster-thief or even as a murderous psychopath with a warped feel of humor. Recent writers of the Batman comic book series have favorite a latter, & a Joker has been responsible many tragedies around Batman's life, like a murder of Jason Todd, the successor to the mantle of Robin after Dick Grayson, and a injury/paralysis of Barbara Gordon, a.k.the. Batgirl.

A Joker has been featured throughout a Batman comic book saga & has been an enemy of the Caped Crusader withwithin virtually all adaptations in more media. Interpretations of the Joker that use mass produced him easily-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
A Joker is besides known as a Clown Prince of Crime & a Harlequin of Hatred. Throughout a evolution of the Batman universe, interpretations & incarnations of the Joker use taken ii forms. the original & presently dominant image is of a sadistic, fiendishly intelligent sociopath by owning the warped feel of humor, deriving pleasure from either inflicting grotesque, morbid dying & terror upon clean-handed population. Therein interpretation, he occurs as schoolbook lesson of antisocial personality disorder; in a sense he is Charles Manson cursed with the clown's smiling face & the grotesque feel of showmanship. A more interpretation of the Joker, popular in the late 1940s through 1960s comic books when well as a 1960s television series, portrays the Joker as an eccentric however harmless prankster and thief. A 1990s cartoon Batman: The Animated Series is notable for even blending these two aspects, however virtually all interpretations tend to embrace 1 characterization or a more.

A share of the Joker's prominence among Batman's enemies in all probability derives from either a fact that he, to a higher degree any more villain, is a antithesis of Batman's personality and methods. Batman is just about universally depicted, potentially in the camp 1960s television show, as the good, stoical human world health organization pursues his campaign against crime by having utter earnestness & a disciplined, focussed mind. In a darker portrayals of a comedian & extra recent films & television, the Dark Knighttime is farther depicted as a broody & humourless retaliator world health organization pursues justice as an enigmatic shadow striking from either the dead of night. the Joker, by counterpoint, is literally a killer clown, driven by the unordered & chaotic mind to pursue destruction & chaos by using when much panache as conceivable. His appearance & actions indicate a brilliantly & cheap pomp & circumstance of the circus. Nightwing has stated that he believes a Joker & Batman survive because of both more, that Batman is choose & a Joker is the chaos that challenges it. Rather Superman and Lex Luthor, it has been suggested that Batman and a Joker want both more. A Joker's obsession using Batman is somewhat unique to more extremely heroes & villians. In the film Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, a freshly Batman said to the Joker that the exclusively really cause he saved coming back was because he never had a laugh away from the original Batman. A Joker has likewise said that while forgoing Batman, his life is nothing. Around an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, when it was thought a immature upstart in the syndicate flushed Batman, Joker held his have funeral for Batman at the super place he experienced his "accident" & possibly nailed the human world health organization purportedly flushed him within the casket & dropped it in a vat of acid. Inside "Going Sane", the story featured around Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, The Joker thinks he eventually succeeded around his ultimate goal of killing Batman. A work leads him to revert to saneness, which resolutions inside him contracting plastic surgery in order to look like the normal human. Donning a title Joseph Kerr & engaging within a little romance by owning his neighbor were among numerous items the Joker did to try & lead an honorable life. Normalcy did non go for a Joker though, after he found a Batman to exist as alive it drove him back to insanity, stimulating him mutilate himself & restore the trademark whiten skin, green hair & redden lips again. A Joker so resumed his quest to cripple Batman.

Around one of a comedian 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, a Joker threatened crime boss Rupert Thorne to stop looking for out Batman's identity. Thorne got Hugo Strange find out and while Strange would non tell him world health organization Batman was, Thorne experienced him flushed. A Joker was too bidding for Batman's identity, alongside a Penguin, and said to Thorne he was lucky Strange took whatever secrets he held by having him to the grave. Thorne replied "you're actually defending him?" & Joker explained that he's destined to kill Batman & his demise has to become something worthy of the Joker & there are no 1 else is to kill Batman except for him.

What likewise makes a Joker Batman's greatest foe is non simply his insanity, however as well his unpredictablity. Spell certain villians use 1 method to commit the crime or even to fight, such as Mr. Freeze with his freeze gun or Poison Ivy with her plants, Joker has many different methods. He has the rather weapons at his disposal, & wise shoppers never understand what kind of weapon these are. For instance, Joker universally has the flower in his jacket & it virtually universally has the different apply. It either sprays acid or even even his trademark laughing flatulence, or it can in a few occasions good exist as an average flower. Periodically he commits crimes good for even the fun of it, or it can be the little the share of a lot grander scheme. Batman has been noted to say you universally keep close at h& to require a unexpected while it comes to the Joker and that his plans add up to him alone. A Joker's unpredictability makes him one of a most serious villains ever.

Character history

A definitive origin and actual title for the character wwhen never established in the comedian (although a few humans nowadays use his really name is Jack Napier as in the 1989 Batman movie). Around the 1951 story, an origin was told in which he was originally a malefactor world health organization known as himself the "Red Hood." In an encounter using Batman, he skipped into the pool of chemical substance to escape pursuit, & this for good dyed his skin white, his lips red, & his hair green, returning him the appearance of a ghastly clown. (row a weak of late developments, these are worth noting that potentially therein story, a lone source of reference just about world health organization the Joker was prior to his fateful rerun-in by owning Batman is the Joker's have recollection.)

the foremost origaround to stand been given to the Joker was in a 1956 comic where a Red Hood returned to rob a univeristy of Gotham. In a issue, Batman states that a Red Hood has been the sole villain to ever escape him. At a prevent of he issue, Batman & Robinside discover that a Joker was a Red Hood & donned a hood over again in weak of the out break existence reopened. Joker tells Batman that fallowing trying to break into a Ace Monarch Card Company, he escaped across the chemical plant next to the manufacturing plant & swam through a chemical pipe retired into the flow of any stream. Only he experienced residence & took the mask murder did he discover he had been transformed & designed himself when a swimming card since he surfed such as a clown. He said he experienced saved this page from either Batman for years and so he would keep guess. This originside, existence a foremost origin offered for a Joker, states that he was in crime yearn prior to the accident occurred. Notwithstanding, once again due to late developments, this is from either a Joker's possess memory & is largely undependable.

This origin was greatly expanded upon in the 1988 graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke written by Alan Moore. In this story, the Joker was an nameless engineer world health organization quit his job at the chemical company to turn into a stand-up comedian, only to fail miserably. Desperate to trend lines his pregnant wife, he agreed to guide two felon into the plant for a robbery. inside the period of a planning, the police force come & informed him that his married woman got good died in a domestic accident. Grief-stricken, a engineer tried to withdraw from either a project, however the crook heavy-armed him into keeping his commitment to the two. At a plant, a felon processed him don a favorite mask to be the notorious Red Hood. Unknown to the engineer, this wwhen only how else to implicate any confederate as the mastermind of a crime to divert attention from either themselves. Another time in, it nigh immediately blundered into security personnel & the violent gunfight & chase ensued. A felon were gunned down & a engineer observed himself confronted by Batman, world health organization was investigating a disturbance.

Within panic-struck desperation, the engineer escaped by diving into a toxic waste vat and swam across the pipe leading to the outside. When there, he found, to his horror, that a chemical substance for good stained his skin chalk white, his lips cherry-red red & his hair brightly green. This turn of cases, compounded per human's misfortunes thereon 1 day, driven him to last totally mad & resulted in the birth of the Joker.

Within the 2004 comic book (Batman: Gotham Knights #54), it was heavily implied disobliging of a above origin was in point of fact avowedly (& that the Joker's number one title was Jack), using details of it existence backed higher by the witness to the dying of the Joker's married woman. Therein version, yet, his married woman was kidnapped and murdered by victims equivalent mobster, sequentially to click his cooperation in the Red Hood robbery. A witness was none otherwise Edward Nigma, world health organization would sooner or later get a 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 develop been born a monster, non processed of these by bad luck. the story concerns him as a immature son world health organization derives pleasure from either killing little fauna (considered a hallmark sign of a budding psychopath) & collecting their bones. a story notes that his father is besides mad &, inside a scary scene, beats his mother when the son listens through the wall, smile. the prevent of the story has him graduating to slaying, killing a front yard son world health organization discovers his improvised burial ground. A story identifies a Joker's cognomen when Napier.

Within "Best of All," a second story in a anthology, the Joker murdered his abusive father as a child. His mother was revealed to exist as Batman's old friend & confidante Leslie Thompkins, which he revealed to Batman to torment him. Any relation of the Joker's origin come largely undependable, nonetheless, when it is taken directly from either his have memories, & when 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

A Joker's powers come his multitudinous "comedic" weapons (like razor acutely swimming cards, acid-spewing flowers, & lethally electrical joy buzzers) & Joker venom, a fatal poison that can lead to illness in his outdoor enthusiasts by having a morbid rictus smile when it die when laughing uncontrollably (although a few versions stimulate quick dying, forgoing the painful laugh cramps advance.) This venom comes inside numerous forms, from either either flatulence to darts to liquid poison, & has been his primary calling card from 1940 till a present. In the 1989 flick, it was dubbed "Smilex." A Joker is likewise super skilled in the field of chemistry and is a adept hand-to-hand scrapper.

A bit of stories keep close at hand speculated that a Joker's insanity may be a extremely power intrinsically. These are typically implied that the Joker was transformed two physically & mentally per accident which bleached his skin, good deal such as a traditional superhero origin. Batman: The Animated Series goes so far when to indicate that exposing others to the equivalent run may grant the two Joker-prefer "powers"; specifically, this occurs in the episode "Beware the Creeper", which created the freshly version of the DC Comics character The Creeper. Around Elseworlds: Distant Fires, a Joker is rendered sane by the nuclear war which deprives all extremely beings of their powers. Around 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 a Joker's perception extends beyond the restricts endured per just reasonable, as much as & including awareness of existence a comic-book character. Within its short start, Amalgam Comics had super beings from either Marvel Comics and DC Comics appearing in both more's universes, very much confused & unrecognized per native people. Still, upon encountering a Wonder character Spider-Man around Gotham the Joker spoke in familiar terms & potentially commented in Spider-Human's costume vary, an devious information to an older cross-all over tale which got afterward been retcon-ed out of being.

When you took a "Knightfall" saga, Scarecrow & Joker team up and kidnap a city manager of Gotham. Fallowing Batman rescues him, Strawman turns on the Joker & utilizes his fear flatulency to understand what Joker is afraid of. To Strawman's suprise, the flatulence has there is no affect in Joker & he, successively, beats Scarer by having a wooden chair. This suggests that due to his insanity, a Joker literally has there is no fear.

Publication history

Around his initial xii or even therefore appearances, starting by using Batman #1 (1940), the Joker was a straightforward mass murderer, much prefer the average Dick Tracy villain using a flaky appearance sculpturesque when the swimming card, however with simply relatively modest nonconcentric behavior. He was an expert stealer world health organization liked to leave beamish corpses in his wake. Inside these early appearances, he would steal any total of items, however he seemed to have a particular fondness for jewels. These are of note that inside his 2nd appearance ("The Joker Returns", besides inside Batman #1), a Joker wwhen actually slated to become exterminate, by having a final document detailing a villain inadvertently stabbing himself & fabrication dead as Batman & Robin redo slay into a nighttime. Luckily, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, & Jerry Robinson quickly changed their minds and added a panel implying that the Joker was however alive.

For the next many appearances, the Joker would typically escape capture however suffer an apparent demise (falling off the drop-off, existence caught inside a burning building, etc.), from either which there would exist as there are no system & so he would quickly recoup. Around these number one xii dangerous undertaking, the Joker flushed about trine xii population, which was telling for a villain world health organization didn't have gargantuan robots, mutant monsters, space lasers, or a rather. This was a status quo from either 1940 until around 1942. Ironically, a turning point come inside "Joker Walks the Last Mile" (Detective Comics #64), in which a Joker was actually sentenced & executed via a electric chair, only to immediately are back to life. Alas, when a Joker was back, he was in spades less fatal than ever. At that point, a editors decided that exclusively a single-shot villains should commit execution, thus when to non produce Batman look impotent around his inability to punish such recurring foes when a Joker or even the Penguin. When a Batman comedian as a whole softened their tone, a character's emphasis was presently off to jokes & comedy-themed crimes, & the Joker became a harmless, cackling nuisance. He quickly became a virtually all popular villain & was utilized nearly constantly when you took a Golden Age of Comic Books. A have of the character lessened somewhat per late 1950s and disappeared almost totally whilst Julius Schwartz took over editorship of the Batman comedian inside 1964.

Inside 1973, the character was deeply revised in the Batman amusing stories by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams. Beginning around Batman #251 sustaining a story "The Joker's Five Way Revenge", a Joker became the murderous maniac world health organizatiin casually murdered population - possibly his have henchmen - on a whim, however enjoyed the battle of wits with Batman. This choose on the character has been predominant since. Steve Englehart, in his short however easily-received dog on a book, added elements deepening the rigor of the Joker's insanity by owning a Joker's want to trademark fish subjected to his toxins.

A character possibly got his have nine-issue series when you took a 1970s where he faced off against a kind of foes, each superheroes and supervillains. Although he wwhen a hero of the series, certain issues got when high a person count as stories in which he was the antagonist. Of the nine issues, he committed execution inside 7 of the children. a major addition to the character was the introduction of Harley Quinn, an insane psychiatrist who fell hopelessly within love by owning a Joker in Arkham Asylum and now serves when his truehearted, in case daffy, sidekick costumed in the skin-tight harlequin suit. Their relationship typically resembles that of an abusive domestic relationship, with Joker insulting, hurting, or attempting to obliterate Quinn, world health organization universally returns for thomas more. That this kindthe poop actually manufactured its debut inside a cartoon arranged for kids (Batman: The Animated Series, which aired from September 1992 until October 1999) is particularly of note. A comic book story "Mad Love" from either a Batman Adventures series (a book elysian per '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 plenty to become integrated into a comedian inside 1999 & potentially got her have periodically successful mirthful series which exclusively recently ended its process by owning 38 issues. The limited version of the character, less cockamamie however however criminally harebrained & absolutely devoted to the Joker, was featured on the survive-action TV series Birds of Prey which lasted only Xiii episodes.

Appearances in other media

In the animated series

The Joker as he appeared in Batman: The Animated Series. His voice was provided by Mark Hamill.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. after in a 1989 pic, he was non wearing any disguise when he mass produced his fateful attempt to rob the chemical mill. Unlike a moving-picture show, there is no attempt has been processed to attach him by using a demise of Bruce Wayne's parents (although "Jack Napier" hwhen been mentioned as one of a hit man's false name, & in the episode Dreams darkly, Dr. Bartholomew identified him therewith title.)

A Joker's appearances from either A Future Batman Adventures: "Gotham Holidays" "Joker's Millions" "Old Wounds" "Beware the Creeper" "Mad Love"

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

Last, the super different version of the Joker appeared in the freshly alive series The Batman. It's been implied that the origwithin of this Joker is the effect of falling in a vat of glowing green muck. His appearance & costume come unquestionably different; he sports the purple & yellow straitjacket, fingerless gloves, bare feet (which are whiten by using green toenails), uncivilized green hair, red eyes, & athletic artistry that clearly mark him when different from either his predecessors. But, in the prevent of the 1st episode, "The Bat in the Belfry", he mistily implies that Batman was somewhat responsible the way he is (which can be similar to his post-Crisis comic book counterpart.) Late in the series, he regressed back to his supplementary traditional dress (however however got uncivilized hair & bore there are no shoes). Apparently he knows martial arts and is able to spar by having competence with Batman. a Joker likewise moves & fights by utilizing a monkey-prefer style, using his feet when deftly when his mitts, & typically hangs from either the bulwarks & ceilings. (When a series progresses, these abilities don't come out as much.) He is however recognizably a Joker, & he seems to stand there are no motive for his crimes differently enjoying the babies. He however employs his signature Joker venom in the form of the laughing flatulency. His voice actor is Kevin Michael Richardson.

A Joker as well appears in the Static Shock episode, "The Big Leagues". Joker traveled to Dakota, page of Static, to re-circuit two or three bang babies for assistance in battling Batman, Robin, & Static Shock. In the prevent, Static defeated Joker, world health organization was taken back to Arkham Asylum.

In television

Using a profits of the 1960s television series, a character was bring round the forefront along by having the rest of the classic rogues gallery. In a cycle of that period, the Joker (portrayed by owning zest by actor Cesar Romero) was a lasting however au fond silly character around his Eighteen appearances (away from either Great hundred episodes) spanning from 1966 until 1968. Incidentally, Romero refused to shave his love & like sizable moustache for the role, ensuant in the gonzo sight of makeup smeared across his moustache.

In movies

thumbThe 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. A Joker's really title in the pic was Jack Napier, the play on the word "jackanapes" & even too adapted from either a family name of actor Alan Napier, who got played Alfred in the 1966 series. Napier, a self-loving best-hand human of Boss Carl Grissom, went by the nickname "Ace" & dressed withlink black, the tie-in sustaining and direct contrast to his late playing card incarnation. Napier was getting an affair by owning Boss Grissom's gun moll, Alicithe Hunt, prompting the jealous Grissom to placed his lieutenant as much as exist as flushed by a corrupt policeman named Lt. Eckhardt at Axis Chemicals. Even so, Grissom's project goes awry thanks to intervention by two Batman & Commissioner Gordon. Fallowing getting the ricocheted bullet in the face, Napier tumbles into the vat of chemical substance, but not prior to killing Eckhardt.

Although Napier lives, cut off nerves & the bungled attempt at reconstructive surgery create an eternal "smile", when reaction to the chemical substance dyes his hair & bleaches his skin. Upon seeing his ruined face, Jack's mind snaps & he breaks into frenzied laughter. Assuming his freshly identity when a Joker, he kills Grissom around retaliation & will require all over a mobster's empire, engaging within a violent, chaotic crime fling, the motive existence to "outdo" Batman, whom he felt was sustaining as well good deal click. A Joker besides attempts to woo Gotham World lensman Vicki Vale following Alicia Hunt's suicide. After Bruce Wayne learns all about a Joker, Bruce recalls his have past (how else his parents were murdered at a mitts of Jack Napier) & just so does Bruce understand a Joker was part responsible the origin of Batman in the foremost place. (In a comedian also when the 2005 film Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered by Joe Chill).

A new of the Joker inside film is withwithin presently in wonder. a Joker swimming card was shown at the prevent of Batman Begins, where it got been utilized as a calling card. When interviews using film writer David Goyer explained in Premiere magazine that he plans to use a Joker when a independent villain for the sequel to Batman Begins, recent reports state that nothing concrete has been decided.

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Joker's Realm
Information on Batman's greatest foe.

Carnival of Chaos
A very complete Joker site filled with multimedia and imperative information. Narriated by the Crown Price of Chaos.

The Ha-Hacienda
Covers appearances by the Joker in silver and golden age comics, as well as cartoons and the movie. Includes images and the origin story as adapted in each format.






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