And I am in great concern that the same thing will happen if Joker loses what has made him so enduring for so many years as one of the more entertaining, menacing, and dangerous villains in the fictional world. Unfortunately, his track record seems to be heading that way over the years. It is my hope that those responsible for the Joker’s rebirth have had time to stop, learn from the past and make ammends to bring back the Joker we deserve.
We know Joker is not good. He is a murderer with no remorse, but he is also a manipulative bastard. He likes to use people, twist them, torture them mentally to the point of breakage (need I to remind you of Joker’s plan to make Gordon as insane as he was in THE KILLING JOKE, or the playful perversity of Nolan’s Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT?). His point is not just murder, but to prove how senseless our very existences are in the process. Death is just the end of a VERY LONG JOKE, the final punchline. And getting you or Batman to understand the joke is a challenge for the Joker. Yes, he works really hard with his methods, because he really believe he is right (even though we know we know he isn’t). And don’t let him fool you, he takes pleasure in taking you through hell and beyond so you get his joke. In that sense he is much like the BTAS Joker that Hamill made so famous. He is a clown inside and out with a very twisted and murderous sense of humor.
I would hate to see that disappear in the reboot.
Joker started in the 52 universe with DETECTIVE COMICS vol. 2 #1 by doing the undescribable…peeling his old self (quite literally, his face) and leaving it behind. Who in his sane mind would have his face carved off just because…and enjoy the final product? Only Joker in his insane mind could see the logic of that. Though it really grossed me out at the beginning, I understood that Joker needed to do it to evolve with the new 52 universe (though I would have preferred a less literal approach). Joker had to evolve, but into what?
The Clown has been everything from a cold hearted murderer in his humble begginnings in the 1940’s BATMAN vol. 1 #1 to a clown who played with his audience in perversely planned pranks in the 50-60’s then back to his murderous nature after BATMAN #251 under the vision of O’neil and Adams. Then his violence has escalated slowly through the years as if he was required to kill even more and more people to show how evil he really was. Then the dark sky cracked and a beam of inspiration hit an English writer. Alan Moore saw beyond the deadly gags and the heavy body count and discovered a story worth telling with THE KILLING JOKE. The classic graphic novel, shows both Joker’s cruelty, and frightens us as to how close this guy is really to us. Does it really take a man one bad day to become a Joker?
Then we have THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, that is not more than a retelling of the Joker’s 1940’s origin, but for a new audience and were the deadlinesss of the killer Clown and his body count was much more important than the plot itself. His short miniseries on GOTHAM CONFIDENTIAL: Lover’s and Madmen I think lost the whole point of an origin story and telling us who/what Joker was while leaving us with the flattest most unappealing version of the clown in history. Then the movies added a new dimension to the clown, with some obvious successes. The 1989 BATMAN brought back Joker’s possible gangster origins, and Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT brought us a very dangerously close Joker to our own nature. Both scary and effective on its own right (NOTE: I say both movies are successful, but don’t attack me for that. Two movies, two different visions, OK?)
I’m not including more, because this discourse focuses in Joker story arcs, but there have been some interesting one shots worth mentioning like DETECTIVE COMICS #726, ARKHAM ASYLUM (though this is really NOT a Joker story, but a Batman story), BRAVE AND THE BOLD vol. 3 #31, and many more that escape my mind.
Then we have the reboot…and what does DC have in store for us? Is it more of the senseless murderer or are we going to start to give him the place he deserves in comic books.
I’m excited, but I am worried at the same time. Joker is not just body count or gore. Joker is like an onion with many layers of complexity that have lead to a mind terribly disturbed. I hope that the editors at DC see what they have in their hands. This is the chance of a lifetime. A chance to reshape an iconic villain and make it BETTER. If you take the layers you have now and forget where thata chacaracter has been for the last 80 years, you are going to be left with a very little piece of what Joker can really be. A piece so small, that it might be lost in the tons of other good things in the Batman universe. I don’t want a repeat of Ledger’s Joker, I don’t want to see BTAS Hamill when I see this new52 Joker in the pages of DC COMICS, I just want to see the sum of all those 80 years of rich history of this villain, thus an improvement in his predecessors. Joker needs to be Joker and nobody else.
Just ask yourselves dear editors, writers, and artists….why are you still writing/drawing a villain from the 1940’s? Because there is something about him that makes him trascend time and the books you make. Something that makes him so close to ourselves that we cannot get him out of our heads. So disturbingly similar to our nature that makes our bones shiver even 80 years after his creation, and even ask for more. Don’t let that magic go away. Learn from those who have come before you and improve from that.
Joker has proven that he can successfully reinvent himself over and over again, but for that he needs people who care to give him the tools to do just that. Without caring for the character you have in your hands, writers, artists, and editors, he could just fade away and disappear into oblivion. Don’t let Joker go there. You can keep this interesting character alive in your inkwells and drawing boards if you just care for the character as much as you care for your audiences… And you have in your hands the ability to make him both entertaining and memorable. Take the chance to do the best. Aim for excellence and maybe this Joker will allow you to make history again in comicbookdom.
(pics courtesy of DC Comics and IGN)
Only two words for you, Jokerlady: Well said. This is absolutely what I’ve been desperately hoping DC would do for years, and it’s why I continue to so stubbornly defend a character that most comic fans are sick to death of. Because he can be better than what he has been, and while the comics haven’t proven it, the films, games, and animated shows all have.
Ohh…BRAVO!!
oh shit i’m crying :`)
Thats exactly how i feel, and what i’m aiming to see for the Joker.
And yes, he’s like a onion..a tasty, juicy and smexy onion…he sorry i let myself go again, but really, c’mon! We are talking about da joker! the character has such a potential and that’s the best you give us in all this years DC?
That is why I wanted my two cents into the discussion, because I believe that Joker’s characterization has been influenced more by what makes more money, instead of being true to his nature. That is why there are so many ‘sucky’ versions of the clown out there…
Hope someone else did read this…(*coughs)…DC EDITORS…(*coughs)
GOSH, how i wish they read this.
Seconded. Not enough looking at what the fans really want will eventually ruin DC. It’s already happening, and it has been for years.
Okay Anto, smexy I’ll agree with you on. But tasty and juicy?
Show me where on the doll the Batman porn touched you.
hahaha
oh c’mon, you know is tasty and juicy 😀
Well the Joker, like most people, does have blood inside of him, and blood is juicy…
Tasty? Okay. Sure. But only because I find crazy villains willing to tie me up and do awful things to me way sexier than I should.
Don’t we all?
And btw, i think tainted blood must be tasty too
This write-up is spot on with my own worries. This is not a character that can, or should be reduced to a simple minded murder-machine. There has always been a deeper menace with the Joker, he’s not an idiot, hes not simple-minded, and he’s not crazy. He chooses to exist as the agent of chaos he is. GOING SANE showed us that if he wanted to, he could live a normal life, but actively chooses to be the clown prince of crime. It is this conscious choice that I think is most interesting.
He’s complex, and we never really know if he’s going to hand you a million dollars of if he’s going to shoot you with a spear gun.
At the same time, I am interested in seeing how this ‘faceless’ joker will be drawn. I think we’re going to get some incredibly grotesque and creative ways we see the Joker, some of which i am sure will stick out in our memories for years to come. My concern is when this ‘joker mask’ approach to the character will get old. Tearing his face off seems pretty permanent… what will happen when we’ve had enough of the face mask and want to see all his maniacal faces properly attached to his face… just a concern, but probably not an issue for another year or so.
Exactly, the Joker decided to BE the Joker.
If DC keep doing the character like they’ve been doing all this time, it’s going to turn out into another lame villain , one of those who can easily be forgotten.
And as you, i’m super concerned about the faceless thing…something i love about the Joker is his expressiveness, how is gonna be with a mask attaching to his face with some straps ALL the time? don’t know really, but definitely is not going to be funny.
… Did anyone consider the idea of this Joker dying off and there becoming a second Joker, possibly one made by him a la “Return of the Joker”?
Did anyone consider the possibility of some sort of time-altering event changing this back?
Did anyone consider the possibility of the Joker having some sort of regrown skin, and this mask just hiding whatever new face he has, perhaps one he stole from someone else and stitched on?
Did anyone consider the possibility that said person that got his face ripped off was not the Joker in reality, but some crazy, masochistic goon that mimics him so well nobody could tell the difference, and the Joker is actually wearing HIS face?
There’s a lot of ways to explain this… That’s all I’m saying. Besides, I don’t think this change will last, simply because it makes no sense. I don’t think even the Joker, even with comic book logic in play, could last a full year without a face. The infection alone… even with his uniquely poisonous flesh and blood, there are bacteria that can grow in just about any condition. Maybe there’s one that grows in poisonous blood. And if not a bacteria, then surely a fungus or virus.
Mmm yeah, you’re right, there’s a world of possibilities…maybe now under his mask there’s a harley’s face…or a bats face o_O…just kidding
You know? i think they’re gonna re-implant it, cuz all the thing of the guarding of the face have to be for some reason…i mean, it’s safe in a crystal security box( or something like that) and it looks in perfect condition…i think the joker is just playing around and then is going to go for his precious face and ask the dollmaker to put it again (hopes*)
LOL I love how you call him *cutting his face off and wearing it as a mask* “just playing around”. XD
I dunno about sewing it back on. I don’t believe the face was kept on ice, as you’d normally do with a missing body part. The cells in it are probably long dead by now.
… Oh shit I just realized how he could get it to heal back up again. Go take a dip in Ra’s Lazarus Pit thing.
Think about it. That face is dead skin. But if he puts it in the Pit and THEN goes to get it reattached…
Fishie you are a genius.
But maybe there’s something in J’s body that keep the cells alive ( don’t know, tainted blood, or sumthin due to his exposure to chemicals…xd)
Anyway…Joker putting his “mask” in the lazarus pit, and then taking a bath on it…that means a inmortal mistah J…oh yeah, you’re a genius