Line #12 Fridge/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker


1	[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
2	* The brilliance comes when tying in another Paul Dini work: “Mad Love”. “Mad Love”'s key factor is playing on the irony that Harley succeeds at everything the Joker fails to achieve. In the climax of the movie, Terry mocks Joker by saying that his fixation to Batman was because he never could get him to laugh. In “Mad Love”, Harley gets him to laugh completely unintentionally and effortlessly.
3	** Another detail that ties in - at the end of the movie, it's revealed that [[spoiler:after the Joker was killed, Harley moved on and started a family, apparently abandoning her life of crime and being angry at the thought of her granddaughters becoming criminals]]. In Mad Love, we see that much like real life abusive couples, Harley is continuously lured back to crime and the Joker by his little PetTheDog moments towards her, which keep her rationalizing everything else he does to keep from realizing what a horrible person he is (at the end of the adapted episode, for example, she's mentally calling him out for all of his worst traits before seeing he sent her a flower and a get-well-soon card). [[spoiler:It's likely that with the Joker dead, there was nothing to interrupt Harley's doubts about him the next time they arose, leading to her rejecting his memory and ideals.]]
4	** Another reason why she was the best? She got JokerImmunity. [[spoiler:He didn't.]]
5	** There's a problem with the whole Harley besting the Joker in Mad Love interpretation, though: she only succeeded because she followed one of the Joker's plans, something she admitted. The Joker had previously rejected it for not being funny, which he considers a requirement for a successful plan: just defeating Batman isn't enough, he must be funny while doing it. Even after the plan succeeded in catching Batman, it still wasn't funny, so the Joker still thought of it as a failure. The Joker had no reason to consider Harley to have succeeded.
6	*** Plus, when he arrived she had to explain the plan and why it was a joke to him.
7	---->'''Joker''' "If you have to explain a joke, [[DontExplainTheJoke there is no joke!]]"
8	*** Joker didn't know how to make the fish smile. Harley succeeds in making them appear to be smiling. Joker has never caught Batman in a death trap that he couldn't escape on his own. Harley did that on her first solo try. Harley is able to devise a plan all on her own that is far more effective at killing Batman than anything the Joker has ever done. Joker would never consider Harley to have succeeded, but the readers (and probably even ''Batman'') definitely would.
9	* I've been watching some of the original ''Batman The Animated Series'' episodes (working my way through the entire series). You know what? Joker ''isn't'' funny. He makes terrible puns and stupid (and destructive) pranks, but the only thing he ever got a chuckle was when he was singing the Batman Jingle Bells song or saying jokes in a different persona... and neither of those were made by him (at least, in a meta sense). Aside from that, he's only unintentionally funny.
10	** This is especially notable when one considers Terry's snide comment about how the Joker might get a laugh if he dropped his pants or something of the sort. In the ''Batman: The Animated Series'' episode "Make 'Em Laugh", he gets the biggest and only laugh out of Gotham as the Joker when he unintentionally drops his pants after Batman beats him again.
11	*** Yet it was also shown in "Make 'Em Laugh" that the Joker ''is'' funny, at least to the citizens of Gotham, and the thing that keeps people from laughing at his jokes is that he's recognized as one of the most dangerous criminals in the entire city. When he was disguised, he had the entire room in stitches. It was ''only'' when they realized he was the Joker that they didn't laugh; although for his second act, he revealed himself immediately, so that may not be the best gauge of his comedic talent.
12	*** Yet even then, that falls under the above list of "jokes made outside of his persona." For all we know, the Joker stole those lines from a basic comedian list; which again underscores the point that the Joker himself is a good super-villain... but an absolutely terrible comedian.
13	** The movie could be seen as a deconstruction of the character as a clown at all. As much as The Joker bills himself as the Clown Prince of Crime, he's not really a clown beyond his superficial gimmicks as see in the ''Batman: The Animated Series'' episode "Be a Clown" where he impersonates a party clown: he can do some impressive "magic" tricks and sleight of hand, but he never actually makes anyone laugh or find anything funny (beyond one clown-obsessed boy who is really more awed than anything). The clown thing is more a convenient gimmick than anything else, since despite not being ''funny'' the Joker is a competent showman in regards to getting and keeping attention and so would choose a theme to let him do that on some level.
14	*** The classic clown tricks he uses as weapons, like the joy buzzer, flower, and so on, are only funny as clown tricks when ''acted'' properly, something the Joker doesn't do (he loves drama and terror too much to manage to get laughs), or with a partner who reacts, which the Joker does not have in his chosen partner of Batman; thus showing how the Joker failed even to comprehend how the items he was using were supposed to be thought of as funny in the first place.
15	*** Also, as Terry notes during his heckling, the original Batman really didn't have a sense of humor, so he had no reason to call out the Joker's tricks as not being funny since he didn't find anything funny. ''Terry'' meanwhile has a reference point and so can definitively call the Joker out as not being funny.
16	*** Furthermore, Terry not only has a sense of humor, he doesn't have the same sense of storied "tradition" that the Joker holds towards the famed Batman-Joker rivalry: it's not that Terry doesn't ''understand'' the "rules" (ie. no fighting dirty, no attempting to bring the Joker in instead of letting him run off to plot the next stupidly complicated EvilPlan, etc.) that Joker thinks exist, it's that he ''doesn't give a shit.'' So he has no scruples about insulting his enemy, because he isn't really ''his'' enemy. He's Bruce Wayne's.
17	*** With all of this considered, the Joker is so narcissistic that he took this title of being a clown for granted along with the supposed "villainy" he established as the arch rival to Batman. Terry makes fun of how the Joker is so obsessed in getting Batman to laugh that when it does happen it becomes an inverted case of [[GoneHorriblyRight getting something much worse.]] Instead of driving Batman insane, he simply has a new unsuitable Batman laughing at the Joker for being incompetent and ''pathetic.'' So Joker not only lost his status, but he also lost any worth that could be pulled from the "victory" of getting Batman to laugh. The end result? A Joker that is completely unhinged with the façade of being funny completely erased. Notice what happens when he's throwing bombs at Terry after screaming "You're not Batman!" No quips, no humor, no puns, not anything. Just empty rage. Even his attempts to laugh at Terry when the later is pinned feel hollow because he's now obsessed with trying to get Terry to take back his mocking attitude to him. He can't kill him because that would be admitting defeat in that Batman got to his head but he can't let him live because this Batman doesn't respect him in any way shape or form. With this single act of mocking the Joker, Terry really took everything away from the Joker, reducing him to just another criminal...the worst fate the Joker could ever conceive.
18	* Unlike many of his other incarnations, [[spoiler:"Joker Beyond" doesn't get very distinctive last words -- he goes from sneering, "I can't hear you!" to "GAAAAAH!" But in between? Batman gives him a "Ha... ha." Batman got the last laugh.]]
19	* Joker's meltdown in response to Terry's insults becomes even more brilliant when you remember that no comedian can stand a [[TheHeckler heckler]].
20	** Check that: no comedian can stand a heckler, but the good ones are capable of ''not letting them get to them.'' As has been mentioned above, the Joker is actually at his core a ''terrible'' comedian. Naturally, a good heckler (re: Terry) would have oodles of material to throw at him.
21	* During Joker's fight with Bruce, he misdirected Batman with his right hand while flicking the knife into his left. It's a very basic magic trick and probably would never have worked if Batman wasn't so upset. It also symbolizes how what he did appeared to be just brainwashing Tim, but [[spoiler: he was ''actually'' making a backup of himself as well]].
22	** If you listen closely, he even makes a joke about it. "I/eye on the other hand..."
23	* For all the hellish torments Joker brought to every life he touched, this movie amounts to a long-term HumiliationConga for him: ''everybody'' ultimately defeated, upstaged, or otherwise achieved some form of retribution on him, good and bad alike:
24	** Bruce Wayne [[spoiler: successfully kept both versions of the Joker from divulging his secret about being Batman to anyone else, and is still living at a ripe old age with his biological son there to take up his legacy by the time "Epilogue" rolls around]].
25	** Tim Drake [[spoiler: killed the Joker the first time and managed to shake off his brainwashing both times]].
26	** Barbara Gordon [[spoiler: finally broke up Harley Quinn's abusive relationship with the Joker for good and succeeded at making a career of fighting crime and helped Terry overcome the Joker long after Bruce made her hang up her Batgirl costume]].
27	** Ace (the dog) [[spoiler: helped Terry against the Joker at a crucial moment, thereby avenging his injuries]].
28	** Terry [=McGinniss=] [[spoiler: heckled the Joker into one final humiliating defeat, got the very last laugh on him, and killed him off for good with ''his own joy buzzer'']].
29	** Harley Quinn [[spoiler: got over her abusive relationship with the Joker, married somebody else, settled down, and now has granddaughters; and she's even won them back from him and got them under her disciplinary care again by the end. On a meta-level, she also stole his JokerImmunity away from him as she's still alive at the end and he isn't]].
30	** His Jokerz [[spoiler: are out from under his thumb, and probably reconsidering their career choices at the end, while his very final death avenges Bonk's untimely demise]].
31	** Amanda Waller [[spoiler: succeeded in her plan to engineer a biological son for Batman to carry on his legacy, and thereby indirectly avenged the telepathic girl Ace for the way Joker manipulated her by having someone there to put a stop to his second incarnation]].
32	** As noted in parts above, ''nobody'' ever voluntarily laughed at his jokes, only at ''him''; to the Joker, that was the very ''worst'' kind of humiliation he could possibly suffer, even worse than defeat and death. In the final analysis, he's an abject failure at ''everything''.
33	* During the climax, Joker's henchman Chucko falls a great distance when the Batmobile crashes into the smokestack he was climbing down from. Maybe that's why he was a cyborg when he showed up again in ''Justice League Unlimited''?
34	* A subtle one, but remember ''Batman: Mask of the Phantasm''? In a clever plot twist, if the viewer looks up the credits before watching the movie, they find that one of the characters expected to be the Phantasm would be the same voice actor, Stacy Keach, [[spoiler: but, it was Andrea Beaumont that was the Phantasm, not Carl]]. This movie pulls off the same sleight of hand, where one might expect Price to be the Joker because he's also voiced by Mark Hamill, [[spoiler: but, it turns out to be Tim Drake]].
35	* In "The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne", the Joker's response to Hugo Strange about Batman being Bruce is "And people say ''I'm'' crazy." No wonder he seemed so disappointed to learn the truth here, it meant that Strange was actually ''right''.
36	* A combination of this ''and'' FridgeHorror: while many view Harley's involvement in what happened to Tim Drake as a MoralEventHorizon, she becomes more sympathetic when you realize they are not so different: she too was brainwashed and abused into being completely loyal to the Joker. (With that said, FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse came up a few times in the original series, with Poison Ivy and Batman ''both'' telling her to leave Mr. J for her own sake.) The BrainwashedAndCrazy Tim Drake was effectively meant as The Joker's Harley 2.0
37	* It's probably worth noting that for all of his bluster, Joker is essentially taken out just like poor Bonk. Batman irritates and distracts them with taunts, and when they're (literally) too focused on wringing his neck, uses the environment to them out. The first fight with a low-level thug and the final fight with the mastermind are resolved with the same strategy. Except, of course, Bonk escapes!
38	* WordOfGod has repeatedly stated (jokingly and half-hearted, but nevertheless) that miraculously, [[NoEndorHolocaust no one was killed in the Joker's death laser attack]]. If we want to try to help them out, a case could be made that [[spoiler: despite the GrandTheftMe Joker pulled on him, Tim Drake]] was able to subtly exert enough influence on Joker's actions so that he ensured the beam wouldn't actually hit any inhabited buildings or areas, greatly reducing the chances of anyone dying from the blast.
39	* When Bruce tells Terry (near the end of the film) that it's Terry who makes Batman worthwhile (and not the other way around), he sincerely means that, on a far deeper level than first apparent. Terry has had his demons, what with his juvenile delinquent history and the murder of his father, but he's gotten past that and hasn't allowed the darkness to overwhelm him and dominate his life. Bruce on the other hand, has let pain, tragedy and vengeance define his whole life since he was 8 or 10 years old, and it has prevented him from having a steady, loving relationship and a semblance of a normal life. Joker even points this out during their final clash, calling Bruce nothing more than a wangsty ManChild, which cuts deep, because on some level, he knows it's true. Terry, with his deep wellspring of emotional support (Dana, his immediate family, Bruce and the extended Bat-Family) is a Batman who is far more sociable and mentally well-adjusted and with a far more positive outlook on, well, everything, which is why he can slice through Joker's bullshit and break him via talking, and inevitably finish off Batman's greatest foe once and for all. This version of Batman can be the symbol of hope and inspiration the original could never be.
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43	[[AC:FridgeHorror]]
44	* [[spoiler: Tim Drake was the Joker]] in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker''. [[spoiler: The Joker killed hundreds with that death laser. Tim Drake killed hundreds.]]
45	** [[spoiler: [[WordOfGod The director commentary]] confirms that [[BlatantLies everyone jumped out of the way really fast, all the buildings were abandoned, and all the cars were being driven by robots.]]]]
46	* [[spoiler: Joker said he had been dormant in Tim's mind for years. It's possible that his career path of engineering may have been a subconscious push by the Joker to develop skills that would elevate his return beyond simple street crime.]]
47	* [[spoiler: Joker is able to cheat death by implanting his personality on a microchip on Tim's neck. This becomes a lot more horrifying when you realize that the Joker wasn't counting on Tim shooting him in Arkham; his plan was to kill Batman and live, then body-jack Tim when old age caught up to him and essentially grant himself a second life.]]
48	* Joker was [[spoiler: in Tim’s mind for thirty+ years]]. ''What else was he up to?''
49	* The New Joker in his introduction scene kills [[spoiler: Bonk]] with a BANG! flag gun. Tim Drake uses that same gun [[spoiler: to kill the old Joker]]. Sort of solves the mystery right there.
50	* The movie shows that Batman is so completely dedicated to his mission that the rest of the Batfamily members and potential lovers (Selina, Diana, Zatanna, Lois, etc.) had no other choice to abandon him. [[GrowingUpSucks They want to grow up, have families, much more of life that playing an infinite]] CycleOfRevenge that implies being the TheCowl, leaving him LonelyAtTheTop. The disturbing conclusion is that the only relationship that ever worked for Batman was the FoeRomanceSubtext ComicBook/TheJoker had with him. He was the only one capable of accepting Batman as the {{Determinator}}, and that thought is the reason Batman never speaks of him.
51	-->'''Terry [=McGinnis=]:''' It's funny, I know about all your other major enemies but you never mentioned him. He was [[ArchEnemy the biggest, wasn't he]]?\
52	'''Bruce Wayne:''' It wasn't a popularity contest. He was a [[AxCrazy psychopath]], a [[YouMonster monster]].
53	* In the revised version of the movie, Joker says [[spoiler: “Make him one of us” when Tim has the gun on Batman.]] What was he planning to do? Was he going to do to [[spoiler: Bruce]] what he did to [[spoiler: Tim?]]
54	* [[spoiler:Considering Robin's UndyingLoyalty to Batman, one can only imagine how bad the torture must have been to make him crack and give away Batman's true identity.]]
55	* Woof the Hyena Joker. It seems the splicing reduced him to a feral, cackling beast incapable of speech. We're never told whether this process was voluntary or not, and even so, what kind of person would ''want'' to do this to himself?
56	** He might have come from the other direction--a [[UpliftedAnimal hyena that was spliced toward being humanoid]]. (This was established as a possibility in a late episode.)
57	** Which is still pretty darn ugly, when you think about it. Presumably Woof the hyena, as an ordinary animal, would've been innocent of evil, [[ScavengersAreScum however distasteful lone hyenas' habits might seem to humans]]. Had he been Uplifted by people with better motives, he could easily have been taught to be a ''good'', if exotic and mute, individual. But he was granted semi-human qualities by a bunch of teenage psychopaths...
58	** A deleted scene, which was in the script but apparently never animated, explicitly showed that Woof's whole schtick is an act (he's still capable of human speech, he just preferred hyena noises [[ForTheEvulz just because]]).
59	* Bruce Wayne falls victim to Joker's toxin at one point in the film. Given his advanced age, there's no telling how much the excessive laughter has shortened his lifespan (though he's still alive at the end of "Epilogue" thanks - most likely - to having the best futuristic medical care).
60	* WordOfGod tried to invoke ConvenientlyEmptyBuilding during the Joker's rampage in Gotham, but at one point his KillSat blazes a path through an open park, and there are many people visible. They never had any room to run before the laser hit.
61	* Regarding Robin's torture - the Joker's main skill set is chemistry, from acid to explosives. The one that has the knowledge needed to brainwash someone? [[KarmaHoudini Trained psychiatrist Harley Quinn.]]
62	* In the edited version, Bonk's corpse unusually has a large forced smile on it, despite being killed by Joker's BANG! flag gun instead of Joker Venom. Then you realize that it's entirely possible that Joker started [[PoisonedWeapon poisoning his weapons.]]
63	* While it could be easy to see Joker's plan to [[spoiler: have his DNA implanted into Tim Drake as contrived, it actually gives the Joker something he has always wanted to do to feed his narcissistic personality. ''Get in someone's head...literally.'']]
64	* In the [[spoiler: Tim Drake incident]], Harley was the only other person (besides [[spoiler: Drake, or course]]) present, meaning she's the one who held the camera for the film of him being tortured that the Joker shows Batman (Ok, The Joker probably [[DomesticAbuse would have beat her up or the like her if she didn't do so]], but it's still disturbing.)
65	* People say Harley is a KarmaHoudini, and, [[spoiler: while she receives no legal punishment, if she really ''has'' become a good person by the end, [[TheAtoner her own conscience probably punishes her all the time.]] At the very least, the lecture she gives to her granddaughters while bailing them out of jail implies she worked hard to keep her descendants from making the same mistakes she did...only for them to wind up getting themselves into the ''exact'' sort of trouble Harley finally got herself out of anyway.]]
66	* On that note, imagine you are Harley Quinn. You gave up a promising career as a psychiatrist to help one of your patients bust out of the city's asylum, becoming his punching bag and HypercompetentSidekick. Eventually, however, you have a HeelRealization [[spoiler:when he dies for real, and you nearly died as a result of him "inviting" his greatest enemies to witness that you both tortured a KidSidekick into thinking he's a Joker Jr.  Robin retires, as does Batgirl, and you have to go into hiding while recovering from what should have been a deadly fall. Forty years pass and you can never reveal yourself or go back to that lifestyle because Batman would not forgive you, and you may not have forgiven yourself after having a child. Soon teenagers are wearing clown makeup and claiming to be the successor to your abusive, murderous ex, creating an instant TraumaButton. Said ex then reappears and recruits your granddaughters to his cause, and you find out they are Jokerz gang members as well]]. You can't blame Harley for reading the riot act to [[spoiler:her granddaughters, with all of this in perspective]].
67	* When Terry found the Batcave completely vandalized by the Joker, the floor is covered in EvilLaughter painted across the floor in bright red. The Joker could have painted the floor in blood and Terry might have feared that it was the blood of Bruce Wayne. It turns out it isn't, but then ''who'' did the Joker kill to paint the Batcave in blood. [[note]] In the censored version the cave is covered in purple instead of red, likely to more clearly suggest that the Joker spray painted the cave instead. Though the idea of using red paint is also possible. [[/note]]
68	* When Terry found Bruce, Bruce was completely frozen with a horrible smile on his face from the Joker toxin. Given how dangerous these toxins are, Bruce's body was likely only able to survive as long as it did due to growing a form of resistance to the toxin from constant experience with the Joker. Even then, he still needed the anti-toxin to recover. Bruce possibly had minutes left to live as without Terry arriving when he did the former Batman would have finally been killed by the Joker in a truly horrific manner.
69	* One has to ask how did Joker find and recruit these particular Jokerz gang? Or better yet, were they the first ones he sought out and what happened to them?
70	* Imagine how poor Alfred felt after seeing Tim Drake post-torture and brainwashing.
71	* Batman once implied in a crossover with ''WesternAnimation/StaticShock'' that Tim is a member of a DCAU version of the Teen Titans. How would they feel about what happened to him?
72	* Joker and Harley didn't seem too particular about which of Batman's "kids" they would mold into their image. If they had come across her alone first, it could very well have been '''Batgirl''' they would torture and MindRape.

Context Fridge / BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker