Joker (character)
| The Joker | |
|---|---|
| File:JokercolorLG.jpg The Joker Alex Ross, artist. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Batman #1 (Spring 1940) |
| Created by | Bill Finger Jerry Robinson |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Unknown |
| Team affiliations | None, Injustice Gang, Harley Quinn, assorted Batman rogues |
| Notable aliases | Red Hood I, Clown Prince of Crime, Ace of Knaves, Harlequin of Hate, Jack Napier, Joe Kerr, Mr. J |
| Abilities | None; Fiendish intelligence, particularly in the field of chemistry. Utterly psychopathic. |
The Joker is a fictional DC Comics supervillain, widely considered to be The Batman's main archenemy. Created by Batman co-creator/writer Bill Finger and artist Jerry Robinson (while on staff under Batman co-creator/artist Bob Kane), the Joker first appeared in Batman #1 (1940) (Bob Kane denied Robinson's claims, stating that he [Kane] created him with Finger). Many simply refer to him as: "Batman's Lex Luthor."
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, who likes to kill people with fatal hilarity. 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, the injury/paralysis of Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl, and the death of Sarah Essen, Jim Gordon's wife.
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 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 Joker 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 victims have included men, women and even children. An issue of "Hitman" in 1996 stated that the Joker had once gassed an entire kindergarten class. Despite the fact he has killed enough people (while not stated, it's believed his personal death toll is well into four figures) to get the death penalty hundreds of times over, the Joker is always found not guilty by reason of insanity. He is then placed in Arkham Asylum, which he appears able to escape from seemingly at will. In fact, it is hinted the Joker will deliberately allow himself to be captured so he can "unwind" at Arkham before his next scheme. The 1996 special "Devil's Advocate" had the Joker captured and the District Attorney using a once-in-a-lifetime loophole to have him found guilty and sentenced to death. However, Batman found the fact that the Joker did not take credit for the crime in question out of character and soon discovered the bitter irony: the Joker was about to be executed for the one series of murders he didn't commit. The Joker was in the electric chair and about to be killed when Batman managed to bring the true guilty party to justice.
There have been times when Batman has been tempted to put the Joker down once and for all, but has relented at the last minute. After capturing the Joker in one story, he threatens death, but then says "But that would give you the final victory, making me into a killer like yourself!" In a short story from the book "Alex Ross: Mythology," Batman, about to shoot a brainwashed Superman with a Kryptonite bullet, thinks "The one vow I made. No one has ever made me break it. Not even the Joker. But for you, I'll do it."
The Joker's obsession with Batman, and vice versa, is somewhat unique to other super heroes and villians. In the movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Terry McGinnis, the successor to the mantle of Dark Knight, 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 The Dark Knight Returns a catatonic Joker becomes animated only after seeing a police report that Batman has returned to action, setting in motion a final confrontation. 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 his old foe at the very place Joker had his accident (see "Character history"), and nailed the man who supposedly killed Batman in the coffin and dropped it in a vat of acid. In "Going Sane," a story featured in Legends of the Dark Knight, The Joker thinks he finally succeeded in his ultimate goal of killing Batman, reverts to sanity, and gets plastic surgery in order to look like a normal human being. He tried to lead a normal, honest life, donning the name Joseph Kerr (a pun on his criminal moniker) and engaging in a small romance with a neighbor. Normalcy did not last for the Joker, however, as he discovered the Batman to be alive; he once more went insane, mutilated himself to restore his trademark white skin, green hair and crimson lips, and resumed his quest to destroy Batman.
In a 1970s comic, the Joker accidentally knocked Batman out and considered unmasking and killing him. He decided not to, however, his logic being that his victory over Batman had to be public and astounding, rather than a random accident. In another issue, the Joker threatened to kill crime boss Rupert Thorne if he uncovered Batman's secret identity. Thorne had Hugo Strange discover Batman's identity, but, when Strange would not tell him who Batman was, had him killed. The Joker, who was also bidding for Batman's identity alongside the Penguin, told Thorne he was lucky Strange took whatever secrets he held with him to the grave; he explained that he was destined to defeat Batman in a manner worthy of his criminal reputation, and that no one else had the right. In Arkham Asylum, however, when the other incarcerated criminals suggest unmasking Batman, Joker tells them that the mask is his real face. This distinction doesn't extend to the DCAU Joker. During Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, it is revealed that the Joker tortured Robin into revealing Batman's identity. He, however, finds this information "sadly anti-climatic," as he now thinks Batman is "a child in a playsuit crying for Mommy and Daddy."
The Joker is also renowned as Batman's most unpredictable foe. While other villians rely on tried-and-true methods to commit crimes (such as Mr. Freeze's freeze gun or Poison Ivy's toxic plants), Joker has a variety of weapons at his disposal. For example, the flower he wears in his lapel sprays, at any given time, acid, poisonous laughing gas — or nothing at all. Sometimes he commits crimes just for the fun of it, while on other occasions it is part of a grand scheme; Batman has been noted to say that the Joker's plans make sense to him alone.
Character history
The definitive origin and actual name for the character was never established in the comics, although in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #50, a retelling of the Joker's origin (including revealing exactly who invented the gas that gives its victims the Joker's telltale grin) the Joker's own cousin Melvin Reipan, an idiot savant, makes the mistake of referring to the Joker by his real name, but the Joker interrupts him before he is able to say any more than "Cousin Ja--," telling his cousin that he's now "Cousin Joker."
In the Warren Ellis-penned one-shot, Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth, a parallel-universe Gotham City has a Planetary cell staffed by a man named Dick Grayson and his partner, Jasper. Jasper has an awkward laugh, pale skin, green hair, and brightly-colored lips, but no overt connection between him and the Joker is made. The canonicity of the Joker's name being "Jasper" is, of course, not established in this comic.
His complete origin is not truly known and who he was before he became the Joker has been a matter of much speculation among fans. The Joker himself does not even remember much of his past (one comic book, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #37, revealed that his name was possibly Johnny Jape, but this may have been an attempt at sarcasm.)
As revealed in a 1951 story, 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, the effects of which included driving him completely insane, permanently twisting his mouth into the appearance of a grotesque smile, and dyeing his skin white, his lips red, and his hair green, giving him the appearance of a ghastly clown.
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!"
The Joker and Infinite Crisis
Lex Luthor determined that Joker was too untrustworthy and unstable to be invited into the Secret Society of Supervillains. Livid at being the only villain in the world not invited to the party (so to speak), he began a one-man war against the Society. As a start, he killed the Royal Flush Gang; he spent most of his time interrogating and torturing King. After King laughed at him, Joker zapped King in the face with one of his "hand buzzers," electrocuting King until the man died. He did not smile as he did so, which - for a man who finds almost everything funny - does not bode well for the remaining members of the Society.
Powers and abilities
The Joker commits crimes with 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 no slouch at hand-to-hand combat.
The Joker's unpredictability has been one of his best advantages. As with the example of his lapel pin, the Joker's weapons vary and no one can ever be sure what it really is. In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, the Joker has a gun which at first shoots a dart saying "BANG!", but then with another pull of the trigger, the dart fires (in the censored version, the gun shot out laughing gas instead of the dart, also showing how unpredictable he can be). Not only are his weapons unpredictable, but so is he. As noted earlier, he could commit a crime just for the fun of it, or it could be part of a bigger scheme.
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 in the chemical plant. Batman: The Animated Series goes so far as to imply that exposing others to the same process will grant them similar 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 a nuclear war which deprives all super beings of their powers (though contrarily, in Act of God, another Elseworlds storyline, a more mysterious yet widespread "de-powering" event takes place which leaves the Joker unaffected). An Alex Ross-penned story in "Batman Black & White Volume 2" has psychiatrists pondering that perhaps the Joker is sane and fakes his extreme insanity to keep himself out of prison. Ironically, the doctor who came up with this theory was Harlene Quinzel, whom Joker later transformed into to his insane accomplice, Harley Quinn. 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 occasionally 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 and DC Comics appearing in each other's universes, confused and unrecognized by the native population. However, upon encountering the Marvel character Spider-Man (Ben Reilly) 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 assumed to have been retcon-ed out of existence.
In Batman: Dark Victory, one line he says implies he knows who the Hangman killer is, long before Two-Face, the police, or even Batman find out. This also suggests the "super-sanity" theory, that his perception has allowed him to figure out who the killer is, but is obviously withholding that information from his allies. Of course though, since he is very intelligent, he could have just figured it out on his own but not bothered to tell anyone, probably hoping he'd get his chance at killing the Hangman himself seeing as he said in The Long Halloween, the precursor to Dark Victory, that "this town isn't big enough for two homicidal maniacs."
During the Knightfall saga, Scarecrow and Joker team up and kidnap the mayor of Gotham City. After Batman rescues the mayor, Scarecrow turns on the Joker and uses his fear gas to see what Joker is afraid of. To Scarecrow's surprise, 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, or at least has no hidden demons.
Another "super power" of Joker is the apparent capacity to deceive death, even though he has been surrounded in very great explosions, he returns in posterior stories without no previous consequences. In A Death in the Family, after attacking the UN, Batman chases him to a helicopter. The fight results with Joker receiving a bullet in his chest by accident, and Batman leaves him and scapes from the helicopter jumping to the water. The helicopter crashes and explodes, with the Joker still inside. Even with Superman seeking his body, Batman knew he will never find him. In Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Andrea Beaumont (The Phantasm), took Joker with the intention of killing him in the middle of large explosions, yet the Joker survived. In the Batman and Superman crossover in Superman: The Animated Series, Joker was in the same situation in a big plane of Lex Luthor's. The enormous plane exploded in flight with Joker inside laughing. Similarly, in the a Batman/Captain America crossover a nuclear bomb exploded in a plane with both the Joker and Red Skull aboard. Batman and Captain America joked that it would not be the last time they would see their greatest enemies.
There is currently no official explanation for this capacity to escape from dangerous situations.
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.
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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 in which 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. Originally introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn is 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. She was popular enough to be integrated into the comics in 1999 and a modified version of the character (less goofy but still criminally insane and utterly devoted to the Joker) was also featured on the short-lived live-action TV series Birds of Prey.
Parodies/References
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 the Mafia 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.) This version is often thought to be the best incarnation of the Joker in any form of media, as it combined a wacky sense of humor with a psychopathic violent streak. The most notable piece is Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, in which the Joker mysteriously returns to Gotham after forty years and believed to have died. It was heavily influenced by A Death in the Family and The Killing Joke, and it shows just how psychotic the Joker really is. The movie shows that even though he can be funny and come up with ridiculous plans, he is truly evil and is quite willing to do anything to get what he wants.
On BM:TAS, the Joker made easily the most appearances of any villain in Batman's rogues' gallery, helping solidify his presence as the Batman's arch-foe. The relationship between Batman and Joker in the animated universe is one of a constant back-and-forth as to who is really angering the other. Often, it is the Joker that aggravates Batman, with the Joker thrilling at Batman's glowering inappreciation of his actions and "comedy". Once in a while, though, Batman or Robin manages to get the upper hand on the Joker, like in "Mad Love" or "Harlequinade", forcing the Joker to reveal his inner rage more readily. (It is this kind of provocation that ultimately allows Terry to succeed against the Joker in Return of the Joker.) This version of the Joker is famously adherent to the Batman-obsessive qualities of the character as seen in various incarnations. On multiple occasions, he expresses his desire to be the only one to take out Batman, halting those who try (like Harley Quinn in "Mad Love") or punishing those who it is thought beat him to it (Sidney Dupree in "The Man Who Killed Batman"). In fact, when the Joker finally joins several supervillains as a group (in the Justice League episode "Injustice for All"), he does so by proposing a plot that allows Batman to be removed from the other supervillains so that the Injustice Gang can kill the rest while Joker gets Batman all to himself. When he offers his services, Lex Luthor wants nothing to do with the Joker but the Joker points out he's needed as he can offer what none of the other villians can: "I know how the Bat thinks." When the gang does have Batman captured, the Joker is amazed that they're leaving him alive, knowing he'll break free.
Mark Hamill is the most famous, and most acclaimed, 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.
This version of 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.
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. In the end of the first episode, "The Bat in the Belfry," however, he vaguely implies that Batman was somewhat responsible for creating him (which may be similar to his 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 is supplied by Kevin Michael Richardson. This version of the Clown Prince of Crime is often criticized to have discarded very important aspects which mark him as Batman's greatest nemesis. Critics aside however, there was one episode of The Batman which had a little touch of The Killing Joke, in which Joker was torturing a police officer, and quoted the comic ("all it takes is one bad day to make a normal man go insane"). The episode also showed the building hatred and jealousy that the Joker began feeling towards Batman as the police force was focusing more on capturing Batman than him ("You mean to tell me you consider this vigilante more dangerous than me, the Clown Prince of Crime???") Other than these slight resemblances, this version of the Joker most resembles the 1950s and '60s incarnation, in that he is more a comical nuisance than a real threat at most times.
In the 2005 direct to video animated movie, The Batman Vs. Dracula, The Joker finally met his demise when Batman chased him to the edge of a building overlooking a lake. The Joker then tried to use a handbuzzer to shock Batman, but, fell off the building with the handbuzzer still on. Upon landing in the water, he was electricuted by his own weapon. However, as with his encounter with the electric chair, the Joker did not stay dead. He returned to life, explaining that a fisherman had found him caught in his net, then was transformed into a vampire by Dracula. He then became Batman's test subject for a potential cure to vampirism, which, luckily for Joker and the rest of Gotham, worked.
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 film
The 1989 Batman film, directed by Tim Burton, offered a somewhat different, darker 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 went awry thanks to intervention by both Batman and Commissioner Gordon. After catching a ricocheted bullet in the face, Napier tumbled into a vat of chemicals, but not before killing Eckhardt.
Although Napier survived, severed nerves and a botched attempt at reconstructive surgery created an eternal "smile", while reaction to the chemicals dyed his hair and bleached his skin. Upon seeing his ruined face, Napier's mind snapped. Assuming his new identity as the Joker, he killed Grissom and took 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 tried to woo Gotham Globe photographer Vicki Vale following Alicia Hunt's suicide. When Bruce Wayne learned about the Joker, he recalled how his parents were murdered at the hands of Jack Napier. Only then did he realize the Joker was partly responsible for the origin of Batman in the first place. (In the pre-crisis comics, as well as the 2005 film Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered by Joe Chill.) This idea was proposed by the film's director; Tim Burton, as one of his inspirations for the film was the 1986 graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, which shows Batman come out of a twenty-year retirement. Due to being set in the future, the book ties Batman and the Joker together as bitter enemies due to their long history together. Burton thus re-wrote the script to establish the Joker as the murderer of Bruce's parents to give the two characters a more substantial history, as the film's time frame does not allow for the two to be as bitter a pair of enemies that the comics establish them to be. Despite Burton's reasoning, many fans considered the move unwise.
The future of the Joker in film is 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 due in 2008. Dozens of actors have been mentioned as possible candidates for the role including: Adrien Brody, Lachy Hulme, Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Bettany, Sean Penn, and Crispin Glover.