What is jokers story

But the creation of the Clown Prince is shrouded in controversy, with the three men involved — writer Bill Finger and artists Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson — each offering a different account of how the Joker came to be.

The exact order of events varies depending on who you believe, but in essence, the character was a hybrid of influences.

Robinson produced a joker playing-card design. Finger provided inspiration in the form of a clown-face logo from Coney Island and, crucially, a picture of actor Conrad Veidt playing the disfigured, permanently grinning title character in the horror film The Man Who Laughs.

The result was a villain unlike any of the gangsters and mad scientists Batman and his recently added sidekick Robin had ever faced before. From Sick Jokester to Merry Prankster In his first outing, the Joker is a cold-blooded maniac with an unnerving smile, who goes on two separate murderous crime sprees before Batman brings him down.

After that, his crimes evolved into traps and heists that were elaborate, comical, and largely harmless — see Batman 44 , in which the Joker wins big at a casino and is inspired to build a huge slot machine to try and off Batman and Robin by dropping giant coins on them.

When that fails, he tries to crush them with massive dice. His tendency toward such spectacular set pieces grew even more pronounced after the rise of the censorious Comics Code Authority in Published in , Detective Comics revealed that the Joker was once the Red Hood, a masked criminal who fell into a vat of acid while attempting to escape from Batman.

When he emerged from the cauldron, the villain was cursed with green hair, corpse-white skin, and that unnerving perma-grin. TV Icon! The Joker had largely faded into obscurity when pop-culture superstardom came calling. More importantly, they added murder back into his repertoire for the first time in over 30 years. The Joker, like a terrorist, is trying to seed confusion and chaos.

His enemies cannot study him or his motivations, nor predict what he is going to do. A certain contingent of fans embraced his brand of anarchy during a time of economic upheaval, rather than regarding the Joker as a threat to the nation.

Based on his Twitter presence, the Joker seems to have left Gotham behind in favor of expressing so-called anti-Social Justice Warrior SJW views about how society has become too politically correct , whether that means adding empowered female characters to video games or favoring women in custody battles in court.

When Warner Bros. Leto reportedly went full method for the role, sending used condoms and live rats to castmates including Will Smith on set. It was maybe all for naught: the Joker was largely cut out of the already haphazardly edited film. Later, he murders a man who tries to flirt with her. These scenes did not appear in the final cut. Director David Ayer has defended the original script as a journey of independence and empowerment for Harley, who eventually rejects the Joker.

For better or worse, the Joker being largely cut out of the film helped to maintain his status as a mysterious onscreen figure. His motivations — besides his unhealthy obsession with Harley — go largely unexplained. Like The Killing Joke before it, Joker tries to explain the enigmatic villain. He has mental health issues.

He is treated poorly by people around him because of these issues. He feels abandoned by a father he never knew, infatuated with the mother who stayed. He stalks a woman and feels rejected by her. Eventually, he gets his hands on a gun and wreaks havoc. Damian revealed that he knew Sexton was not really English, but was faking his accent. He asked Sexton if he was really Bruce Wayne. The Joker denied this, saying he was worried that Wayne was the target of a serial killer.

However, he went on to hint to Damian that he was not really who he seems. Eventually, Dick Grayson figures it all out and confronts Oberon about all the domino killings really being a set routine of jokes.

Oberon takes off his mask to reveal the Joker, grinning at his old foe. After the Joker is arrested once more, he underestimates the current Robin Damian Wayne , by trying to win the Boy Wonder's pity before the Clown Prince of Crime begins his attempts on killing the young hero.

Instead, he receives a beating with a crowbar mirroring Jason Todd's murder from Robin, whom he realizes is a son of his old foe after noting the resemblance between the child and the original Batman. The officers at GCPD ignore the Clown Prince's pleas for help, as they think Robin can handle the villain easily, and seem to take pleasure in the Joker's suffering. The Joker seems to attempt to retreat from Robin in fear, apparently completely under the Boy Wonder's mercy.

The Joker then wrapped his handcuffs around Damien's neck, scratching Robin's cheek with the metal. Joker then smeared his own blood on Damien's face causing him to fall under the effects of the Joker Venom in Joker's blood. Damien collapse to the ground with a smile on his face while Joker snatches away the crowbar he had been victim to.

Going on to reveal that he has once again manipulated events toward his own ends and mocking Robin for going so far as to provide his own crowbar another reference to the murder of Jason Todd.

Appropriating Robin's utility belt, the Joker escapes to execute his attack on the Black Glove, unleashing his signature venom on an audience gathered under Professor Pyg via tainted popcorn and guiding Batman and his allies to a climactic confrontation.

The Joker is seen in an undisclosed location, with Robin bound and gagged, and possessing what appears to be a nuclear weapon. Help arrives in the form of the original Batman who just returned after the events of Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne , who aids his successor and his son in their battle against the Black Glove and the Clown Prince of Crime in Wayne Manor and the Batcave.

Joker is later re-incarcerated in Arkham Asylum, where he is bound by a straitjacket and a muzzle. He eventually sees his opportunity to escape when some correctional officers died due to becoming infected with Joker Venom by inadvertently touching his skin while escorting him to a psychologist. However, upon fighting and being defeated by the Dark Knight, Joker reveals that he had absolutely nothing to do with her predicament when warned to stay away from the Gordons, and reveals that it was actually James Gordon's son, James Gordon Jr.

In "The New 52," the Joker is reintroduced as a homicidal killer being hunted by Gotham's police force in Detective Comics. His appearance in the relaunched DC universe has changed relatively little. After a skirmish with Batman, the Joker is caught and taken to Arkham Asylum.

Dollmaker , a new villain, visits Joker. The two speak for a short time about their arranged meeting before the Dollmaker cuts the Joker's face off. Detective Comics 1. Afterwards, the Joker is assumed dead by virtually everyone except Batman, and hundreds of mourners have surrounded the GCPD building in a mock vigil, calling for the Joker's face and Batman's head.

Soon afterwards Harley Quinn learns of her "puddin's death" and literally betrays the Suicide Squad, orchestrates a massive prison break in Belle Reve Penitentiary, deactivates her nanite bomb, and kidnaps two guards before hijacking a car and driving off to Gotham City to retrieve the Joker's face and avenge his death.

He later returns, having stuck his face back on with a belt as well as several staples, and proceeded to relive some of his crimes. This included trying to kidnap the mayor for a ransom similar to his first appearance, although this time he kills the mayor's staff instead.

He then arranges a meeting for Batman at the chemical plant, where he states his motives: He's going to kill both his own allies and Batman's allies so they can only focus on each other and be the best villain and hero, respectively, they can be. He then abducts Alfred after apparently killing him with a hammer. The Joker then confronted Harley Quinn and locked her in a dungeon full of skeletons with Harley Quinn outfits that resemble other incarnations of the character.

It is unknown whether the Joker is lying to emotionally abuse Harley, or has in fact had many female accomplices before the current Harley. The Joker goes on to confront other members of the Bat family individually, such as staging a wedding with Batgirl and capturing Robin, as well as the other members, presenting each with a silver tray with unknown contents, and flaunting a small book he has written that contains the secrets of the Bat family. Later on, the Joker lures Batman to Arkham Asylum, in which Batman is invited to claim his "throne" which in reality is an electric chair.

The Joker himself takes the role of court jester. Batman is sent to sleep and awakens at a dinner table in a cave, with the other members of the Bat family bound and hooded around the table. The Joker presents the "meal", taking the bags off the heads of each of the Bat family, revealing them wrapped in bloody bandages.

He has a Jokerized Alfred "serve" the family and reveal the contents under the silver platters; the face of every member. The Joker reveals the reason he removed his own face, which was to prove a point: no matter how deep you go, behind the Joker's face is more Joker, and he says the same for Batman, that behind his mask, he is the same person underneath.

The Joker says no matter how deep you go with the other members of the family, you'll only find weaker people, nothing like the face they put on to the public. The Joker ends up having the entire room set on fire, however Batman releases the pipes above to douse the fire.

The Joker, seeing his plan failing, flees, and Batman chases after him. The two-headed lion cub explodes whilst Batman is away, releasing Joker toxin and driving the members of the Bat family to fight amongst each other in madness. The Joker attempts to attack Batman with an axe, Batman counters and the two begin to fight. The Joker almost falls off a waterfall, however Batman stops him, claiming that he wants to be responsible for whatever happens to the Joker. The two continue to fight, the Joker preparing to use a crowbar against Batman a nod to how he killed Jason Todd , but is pinned to a wall.

The Joker uses his acid flower to blind Batman temporarily, but Batman catches the Joker again. Batman starts to intimidate the Joker by saying how in the year the Joker was absent, Batman deduced who he was. The Joker becomes afraid, and uses his joy buzzer to electrocute Batman, and then dives off the waterfall, his face becoming detached and flying off as the Joker plummets to his apparent demise.

Batman finds the small book the Joker was always bragging about, and checks its pages, only to find they are all blank. Bruce is later seen caring for Alfred in Wayne Manor, whilst trying to arrange a meeting with the Bat family. However, none of them wish to turn up, showing the Joker's plan had worked, as now there was an awkwardness amongst the members. Bruce reveals to Alfred that he once visited the Joker in Arkham, as Bruce Wayne, and showed the Joker a joker card that had been mysteriously left in the Batcave.

The Joker looked at Bruce, and at the card, and clearly identifies the situation, but shows no reaction, choosing to ignore it entirely. It is from this Bruce deduces that the Joker does not care who Batman is; he only cares for Batman, and that to acknowledge Batman's true identity would spoil the Joker's "fun". Bruce is later seen in the Batcave, with the Joker's profile on-screen, with "Identity Unknown" displayed, meaning Batman did not know who the Joker was.

The computer reveals a new element in the Joker toxin, "hahnium" Ha. Following an attack by Scarecrow, Batman recovers in his new base of operations; a safehouse seized from the Court of Owls. Suddenly, Batman is attacked by Wonder Woman, who is determined to kill him. Batman instructs Alfred to enact plan "Fenrir", a powerful, robotic-armor designed by Batman to do battle with the entire Justice League, flanked by a gas attack that evacuates Gotham City's citizens from the area.

When Batman asks who has manipulated the League into killing Batman, Superman's mouth stretches into a wide-grin as he and the subdued league members begin to laugh. Batman battles the merciless Superman, finally subduing him with Kryptonite-laced gum.

The League is revealed to be infected with a more powerful strain of Joker toxin, customized to each individual. Batman visits the Joker's former cell at the abandoned Arkham Asylum, where he meets with Eric Border, an orderly at the new Arkham Manor. Border states that he has only tried to help the city and Batman since arriving there, but he sees now that Batman cannot be helped.

Batman is locked in Joker's cell, while Border removes his makeup to reveal himself as The Joker, having been using muscle relaxants and drugs to mask his appearance while revealing the name "Eric Border" is a word play for "Eternal Jester" The Joker confesses he now finds Batman boring following their final encounter, and now intends to bring their relationship to a permanent end. Batman is incapacitated by a paralytic gas, as the Joker announces that he will be left helpless as his plan truly begins.

Batman eventually recovers from his paralysis to find that the Joker has released an incurable airborne pathogen throughout Gotham, transmitted by laughter, that makes the victim look like the Joker, and turns feelings of love into violent hatred, triggering mass chaos. Batman travels to Gotham Presbyterian hospital to research the first recorded infection, but finds an infected Joe Chill, and a recreation of the night Batman's parents died, revealing the Joker knows his identity.

Meanwhile, James Gordon researches the hospital and finds images appearing to be the Joker, taken decades before the Joker's first encounter with Batman. The Joker attacks Gordon, who responds by shooting the Joker dead. While Gordon phones Batman to relay the news, the Joker rises up and incapacitates Gordon. Batman finds Gordon dying, with an axe lodged in his chest. Gordon is revealed to be infected, and he suddenly attacks Batman, but is subdued by Alfred's daughter, Julia.

With Nightwing's aid, Batman deduces that the Joker is using a serum capable of healing him from fatal damage, and that the virus contains the serum's complete inverse.

They also discover that Paul Dekker, a crazed genius in regenerative technologies, was released into Border's custody a year earlier. Batman confronts Dekker, who reveals that he was only able to develop the healing serum and virus using a rare, natural component found in the Joker's spine; Dekker believes the Joker is immortal.

He injects himself with a serum given to him by the Joker, believing it will make him immortal, but it kills him. Julia informs Batman that a search has revealed images of the Joker tracing back through centuries of Gotham's history, and that if a cure to the virus is not found, the infected will die within 24 hours. Desperate, Batman turns to the Court of Owls for aid. The Court refuses to aid Batman, but he confronts their Talon assassin Uriah Boone, who has survived since the beginning of Gotham, about the Joker's supposed immortality.

Meanwhile, the Joker uses his regenerative abilities to survive the long swim into the Batcave and its defenses. Alfred attempts to subdue the villain, but the Joker chops off his hand before absconding with Batman's crime-fighting trophies. Joker then leads a parade through the city, leading floats bearing the trophies through the infected citizens. Batman rallies his family and several of his greatest foes to band together against the Joker to save the city they all share.

Seeing their combined efforts, the Joker prepares for his "best trick of all". Batman battles the Joker, but he and his allies are subdued by Joker's lethal gas. The Joker removes Batman's mask, revealing that Nightwing was pretending to be Batman as a distraction, while the real Batman searched the cave system beneath Gotham that the Joker would have traveled after falling off the cliff during the end of "Death of the Family". Batman finds a cave rigged with Joker's explosives and housing a pool of Dionesum, the healing fluid that grants Joker his regenerative abilities.

The Joker confronts Batman and detonates the explosives. When the Joker attempts to stab a subdued Batman, he is pushed into the path of a falling stalactite which breaks his back.

As he desperately tries to crawl to the Dioneusum to heal, he is restrained by Batman until the cave roof falls into the pool, destroying it.

Resigned to their fate, Batman reveals that the Joker has failed, as Batman gave his allies small doses of Dionesum, to protect them from Joker's poison, while he has recovered a larger amount of the Dionesum to Julia to cure the citywide plague.

In the aftermath, Alfred refuses to have his hand reattached, asserting that he no longer has someone to tend to, while Dionesum recovered by Batman and given to Julia, allows the city to be cured of Joker's plague.

Discussing Batman's final letter, Alfred asserts that the story of Batman would always end in tragedy, and that while Batman had the resources to be immortal and escape death as the Joker offered, he was determined to only live in the time he had. The note is shown, bearing only the word "Ha". It is revealed that Bruce Wayne had been exposed to the Dionesium pool being restored to life with no memory of his previous life.

While sitting on a park bench with everything but being the Batman revealed to him by Alfred Pennyworth he meets a stranger who smiles a lot It is heavily implied that this is the Joker who has no real memory of who either of them was.

While this is all going on Gotham in under siege by an onslaught created by a criminal known as Mister Bloom who Batman had faced before. Thanks to his is talk with the smiling stranger Bruce Wayne realizes he is Batman and forces Alfred Pennyworth to restore to use a machine Batman designed to turn a clone of him into the next Batman.

During an investigation into Batman's activities, Hal Jordan and Duke Thomas discovered and accidently released him, leading to a brief fight between the trio.

Joker revealed that Batman was investigating metals, specifically Dionesium and Nth Metal, and he needed to be stopped before it was too late.

He escaped shortly before Batman could arrive. After learning that Catwoman was going to marry Batman, Joker lured them to a church where a wedding was taking place, murdering all of the attenders just before they arrived. During the ensuring fight, he knocked Batman out and fought Catwoman, which resulted in the both of them being seemingly fatally injured. Whilst bleeding out, Joker asked her whether Batman would really be happy married and if he could still operate, planting seeds of doubt about their relationship.

Eventually deciding to finish her off, Joker stopped tending his injury to retrieve his gun, though lost consciousness before he could shoot Catwoman.

It was later revealed that Joker was under the control of Psycho Pirate , which forced him to cooperate in Bane and Thomas Wayne 's scheme to "break" Batman mentally.

When the duo took control of the city, he was one of the criminals patrolling as police officers. After Bane and Wayne's defeat, Joker was contacted by one of his admirers, Alexis Kaye , who sought to join him in his activities. Tutoring her into making his venom, he took her on as his next henchwoman, Punchline, though simply to replace Harley Quinn. As part of a grand scheme to take over the Wayne fortune, Joker acquired the gas and resources of the criminal mastermind Designer , who he had murdered years ago after an attempted formation of a United Underworld.

Hiring many assassins, he orchestrated loose versions of schemes intended for Catwoman, Penguin and Riddler. However, through Punchline, he organized for the Underbroker to steal from Bruce Wayne's off-shore accounts by tricking Catwoman into doing the transfer for him. The scheme was successful, with Joker gaining control of both Wayne Enterprises and Batman's resources. Using it, Joker waged an endless war of destruction in Gotham, targeting every "civil citizen" with an endless army of goons and henchmen.

He also acquired a prototype Batsuit, which he stylized into his own fashion. Joker himself also collected all the corpses of the people he'd killed in fights with Batman, leaving them within the Monarch Theatre for him to discover and reanimate with the Designer's Gas. He also used the corpse of Alfred Pennyworth as one of these puppets, simply as a final resort to get under Batman's skin.

Joker's fight gradually forced Batman to call the entire Batman Family to round up all the criminals and take away his illegally acquired resources. In a final confrontation at Ace Chemicals, Joker overpowered and defeated Batman.

Before he could kill him, Joker was shot in the eye by Harley, subduing him. Tied to a post, Harley attached bombs to herself and Joker, telling Batman to choose between who he was going to save.

Though Joker believed he'd chose him, Batman ultimately chose to save her, leaving him to die. However, his body was never found at the site, leading Batman to believed he'd been able to escape with equipment stolen from his utility belt.

Using their resources, the Jokers each referred as "the Criminal", "the Clown" and "the Comedian" torment the three Bat-Family members and kidnap citizens of Gotham, using the same chemical solution that transformed them into other Jokers. However, this proves deadly and many of their victims die. After a confrontation at the Gotham Aquarium, "the Clown" goads Jason into killing him.

After capturing and sadistically torturing him, the other Jokers kidnap Joe Chill from Blackgate Penitentiary , forcing him to film a confession to why he killed Bruce Wayne's parents.

The Jokers then lure Batman to the Monarch Theatre, with the Criminal threatening to Chill into the same chemical solution and turn him into another Joker.

After Batman rescues his parents' murderer, the Comedian shoots the Criminal dead and surrenders without a fight. In the ride to Arkham, the Comedian reveals to Batman that he is the original Joker and created the others in the chemical vats. Each one had been specifically designed to take on a personality he'd adopted over the years: the Criminal being when they first began their rivalry and the Clown mimicking the more light-heated aspects, though with a sadistic view of the world.

The Joker reveals he'd masterminded the scheme so that Batman would forgive Chill for murdering his parents, allowing him to become his sole focus. Joker also reveals his knowledge of Batman's identity Bruce Wayne and the other Batman Family members, but will never reveal them as it would mean the end of their careers.

The Joker commits crimes with countless "comedic" weapons such as razor-sharp playing cards , acid flowers , cyanide pies and lethal electric joy buzzers and Joker Venom , also called "Happy Gas" by the Joker, a deadly poison that infects his victims with a ghoulish rictus grin as they die while laughing uncontrollably.

This venom comes in many forms, from gas to darts to liquid poison, and has been his primary calling card from his first appearance till the present; he is immune to it. He even created his own utility belt to contain all his weapons.

The Joker is also very skilled in the fields of chemistry, genetics, and nuclear engineering. In a miniseries featuring Tim Drake , the third Robin, he kidnaps a computer genius, admitting that he doesn't know much about computers.