Characters / Batman Film Series: The Joker

Main Character Index Bat-Family | Villains (The Joker | Poison Ivy) | Supporting Characters

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Jack Napier/The Joker

"Winged freak terrorizes? Wait 'til they get a load of me."

^{Click here to see young Jack Napier} "Tell me, kid. You ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?"

Played by: Jack Nicholson, Hugo Blick (young Jack Napier)

Voiced by: Demon Kakka (Japanese), Jean-Pierre Moulin (European French), Vincent Davy (Canadian French), Giancarlo Giannini (Italian)

Appearances: Batman | Titans (archive audio)

"Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But, as my plastic surgeon always said: if you gotta go, go with a smile!"

A mobster working for Carl Grissom. An encounter with Batman at the Axis Chemicals factory results in him falling into a vat of chemicals, which turns his skin pure white, his hair green, and his lips bright red. A plastic surgeon's inept attempt to repair shrapnel wounds to his face leaves him with a permanent creepy grin and causes him to Go Mad from the Revelation of his own image in a mirror.

Christening himself "The Joker", he's now switched from committing crimes in the shadows to seeking out the spotlight. Since Batman's level of infamy provides some steep competition, the Joker declares the Caped Crusader his arch-rival and plots against him.

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A-L

• Adaptational Job Change: In the comics at the time, pre-Joker was originally a former chemical factory worker who decided to become the Red Hood, while The Killing Joke established that he was a failed comedian who got suckered into being the Red Hood (at least that's how he remembered it). Here, he was a mobster (technically still is, as he decided to run Grissom's organization as an afterthought).
• Adaptational Name Change: The man who killed Bruce's parents in the comics was Joe Chill. Here, Joker's real name (pre-disfigurement) is Jack Napier.
• Adaptational Villainy: The comics more or less implied that the Joker's turn to crime occurred shortly before he was exposed to the chemicals that changed him. When Bruce digs through some old police files, he confirms from reading Jack Napier's criminal records that he was always a violent psychopath.
• Adaptational Wimp: Although it largely depends on the writer, the comic book Joker is generally portrayed as a competent hand-to-hand combatant in his own right. While nowhere near as good as genuine martial artist like Batman, he still managed to give the Dark Knight some trouble when they got physical on more than one occasion. In the movie, however, he seems to be helpless without a gun or goons by his side. When Batman finally meets his nemesis face-to-face in the finale, Joker spends most of the "fight" getting beaten to a pulp and when he tries to strike back, he only ends up breaking his fingers on the Batsuit.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Rather than Joe Chill, it is the Joker who killed Bruce's parents; making his notorious status as Batman's Arch-Enemy much more personal in this adaptation.
• Age Lift: In the comics, it's assumed that the Joker is around the same age as Bruce. Here, Jack Napier is already an adult when he kills Bruce's parents.
• Alternate Self: Has counterparts on Earth-9, Earth-66 and a unknown reality.
• Ambiguously Human: While his pre-clown persona - Jack Napier - is unquestionably human, you have to wonder about exactly what happened to Napier after he fell into those chemicals; after all, No One Could Survive That!. It's undeniably creepy when the Joker tells his first victim: "I've been dead once already; it's very liberating." During his face-off with the Batwing during the parade, he seems almost unafraid of death; does he believe he's become immortal? And just how are we supposed to interpret the Joker's signature line "Did you ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?" (He was already saying that as Napier, but on the other hand it could have been Foreshadowing).
• Ambiguous Situation: Knox's cameo in Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) sees him reading a paper with the headline "Batman Captures Joker", leading to the possibility that either, as Darkseid War and DC Rebirth revealed three people have been the Joker, Napier was replaced as the Joker by a Legacy Character, or, in keeping with being a version of the Trope Namer for Joker Immunity, Napier somehow managed to fake his death in the climax or get resurrected. According to Marc Guggernheim, his explanation is that Napier was either resurrected or replaced by a Legacy Character during the gap between Batman '89 and Crisis. Batman #135 by Chip Zdarsky shows Napier was resurrected thanks to Red Mask (an alternate universe Joker) travelling through the different universes with an energy that ended up empowering any existing Joker, creating ones in universes that didn't have them, or reviving ones who were already dead.
• Ambition Is Evil: The Joker has a glaring inability to appreciate his lot in life. He's sleeping with his boss' trophy wife, but ditches her for Vicki Vale. He takes over Gotham's hidden criminal empire, then decides he wants to be famous.
• AM/FM Characterization: He blares Prince songs when committing crimes. Guess who did the film's soundtrack?
• Arch-Enemy: To Batman. He murdered Bruce Wayne's parents right before his eyes and is willing to endanger all of Gotham just to spite Batman for being more famous than himself. The two of them are even featured in the collage for this trope's page along with other incarnations of these two.
• Art Attacker: At one point in the first movie, Joker and his goons enter the Gotham Art Museum and vandalize many of the artworks on display while making his way up to meet Vicki. The only work of art he spares is the suitably-macabre Figure with Meat, by Francis Bacon.
  Joker: (stops Bob slashing the aforementioned painting) I kinda like this one, Bob. Leave it!
• Attention Whore: While his transition to a clown did lead to his embracing of a specific type of comedy, it was the medias' priorities over giving more attention to a certain bat-creature that made him decide that he has to share his unique brand with the rest of Gotham. When Vicki Vale asks what he wants, he replies "My face on the one dollar bill" and decries the fact that Batman is getting his (the Joker's) attention in the press.
• Ax-Crazy: As usual for the Joker. Though the film implies that Jack Napier was crazy to begin with. The chemicals just made him worse.
• Badass Longcoat: Jack Napier initially wears a trenchcoat up to the point where he kills Grissom. He switches to more flamboyant outfits for the rest of the film until he hijacks the Gotham parade, where he's seen wearing a purple variant.
• Bad Boss: Even more so than usual. He calls Bob his number-one guy and he means it. Number-one as in the first to die when things don't go according to plan.
• Berserk Button: "HE STOLE MY BALLOONS! Why didn't somebody tell me that he had one of those...things?!"
  • As Jack Napier, he really did not like being called crazy, especially in the way Lieutenant Eckhardt called him an "A-1 nut boy". Just look at the way his eyes widen before slamming Eckhardt against the wall. This changed however along with a few other things...
  • As the Joker, he cannot stand anyone stealing the headlines from him. His hatred for Batman stems less from his little chemical bath (which he has come to see as a blessing) and more to do with the press focusing on Batman's heroics.
• Big Bad: Serves the role as the first film's main antagonist after killing Carl Grissom and taking over his organization, and is Batman's most personal antagonist.
• Blatant Lies: "I can be theatrical, and even a little rough. But one thing I am not... is a killer!" By this point, he's already killed at least six people directly (Bruce's parents, Eckhardt, Grissom, Rotelli, Vinnie), gassed a museum full of patrons, and caused a few more deaths by lacing his Smilex poison into Gotham City's consumer products; pertinent to the "Blatant" part, he did one of these at a press conference, didn't make a secret of his attack at the museum, and bragged about the Smylex.
• Bond One-Liner: Gets a few ("Antoine got a little hot under the collar," "The pen is truly mightier than the sword").
• Bring It: In word and gesture, while waiting for Batman to attack in the Batwing.
  Joker: Come on, you gruesome son of a bitch. Come to me.
• Buffy Speak: After Batman uses the Batwing to steer his Smylex balloons away from Gothamites, the Joker angrily asks (about the Batwing) "Why didn't somebody tell me that he had one of those...things?!"
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Played with.
  Batman: You killed my parents.
  Joker: What?! (chuckles) What are you talking about?!
  Batman: I made you; You made me first.
  Joker: Hey Bat-Brain... I was a kid when I killed your parents. When I said "I made you," you gotta say "you made me." How childish can you get?
• The Caligula: An unusually competent example, but an example nonetheless. Once the Joker crowns himself the kingpin of Gotham's entire underworld, he turns the whole operation into a sideshow while pursuing random whims like courting Vicki Vale and becoming a famous pop artist.
• Captive Date: He has two with Vicki Vale. The first in the art museum, where he brings his entourage to keep her from trying to escape. The second being when he forces her at gunpoint to climb a church tower and dance with him.
• Character Catchphrase: "You ever danced with The Devil by the pale moonlight?" It's how Bruce realizes that The Joker killed his parents, since the gunman said the same thing while pointing a gun into his (young Bruce's) face.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: He definitely shows signs of this, with his desire to get his face out one the $1 bill and his "conversation" with Rotelli's corpse.
  Joker: Your pals, uh, they're not bad people. Maybe we, uh, outta give them a couple of days to think it over. (shakes head) No? (gasps in shock at the corpse) Grease 'em now? Well... okay. You are a vicious bastard, Rotelli and uh... (tightens Rotelli's tie) I'm glad you're dead! (laughs maniacally at his own joke) "I'm glad you're dead!" (laughing) That's a good one, "I'm glad you're dead"! (keeps laughing)
• Composite Character: This version of the Joker takes Joe Chill's role as the one responsible for orphaning Bruce Wayne and therefore setting him on the path to becoming Batman.
• Consummate Liar: He's prone to lying, and is so good at it that he's able to make Blatant Lies absolutely convincing (which is admittedly helped by the citizens of Gotham being Too Dumb to Live).
• The Corrupter:
  • The Joker showers $20 million in cash on the people at the parade as poisoned gas-filled balloons loom over their heads - thus trying to lure them into Death by Materialism. While not shown in the film, the comic and novelization show the cash was actually Schmuck Bait. It was not only counterfeit, it had the Joker's face on the bill. It ties in with the foreshadowing when the Joker says he wants his face on the one dollar bill and Jack Napier's aptitude in art (as well as chemistry). To drive the point home, the crowd is chanting "Money! Money! Money!" - in time with Prince's music.
  • The Joker also tries to tempt Vicki into becoming his girlfriend on three occasions- first appealing to her pride ("We're not like regular people. We're artists."), then using the Wounded Gazelle Gambit in reciting a tragic poem, and finally outright trying to seduce her with a "romantic" waltz. He outright fails on the first two tries, and then seems to have succeeded on the third try when Vicki starts returning his kisses, but it's just a Honey Trap.
• Crazy-Prepared: Having his own bullets ricochet into his face notwithstanding, the Joker's got a prop or gag prepared anytime he's put in harm's way.
  • Chased up a tower? His goons are already there with an ambush plan ready.
  • Batman punches him in the teeth? He has wind-up chatterteeth ready.
  • Thrown off the ledge of a very tall building? He finds a foothold and pulls his victims over it. For added measure, the Joker also managed to put on a prop hand seconds later without being noticed.
  • Falling to his death? He makes sure to activate a bag of laughs to make it seem like he's still alive.
• Create Your Own Hero: By taking Joe Chill's role in this universe, he's responsible for Batman existing by killing the Waynes. This is even lampshaded by Batman.
  Batman: I made you. But you made me first.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Jack Napier is apparently enough of a savant in "science" (biology) and chemistry to invent a near untraceable poison capable of causing people to laugh uncontrollably before dying with an impossibly huge smile on their face... and apparently works as a run-of-the-mill thug. Justified in that he clearly only wants to inflict violence and suffering upon others and doesn’t really care that much about money.
• Deadly Euphemism: He's quite fond of these (fitting, given his history as a mobster).
• Deadly Gas: This was the Joker's favorite method of killing people. He did it twice, once in the museum where Bruce was supposed to meet Vicki, and once in the big parade scene with big parade-float balloons full of Smylex. Batman took the balloons away in the Batwing and sent them well away from the city in order to stop him.
• Deadpan Snarker: As Jack Napier, at least.
  Jack (To Eckhardt who's pointing his gun at him and Bob is pointing his at Eckhardt behind Jack) Better be sure. (Eckhardt lowers his gun) See ? You can make a good decision when you try.
• Death by Adaptation: Dies at the end of the film.
• Death by Irony: The last thing he says before his Disney Villain Death is, "Sometimes I just kill myself!" He subsequently falls off the helicopter's rope ladder after Batman tethers a stone gargoyle to his ankle and it breaks loose, dragging him to his doom.
  • Fridge Brilliance on this line considering he galvanised Bruce Wayne into becoming Batman, who was responsible for the Joker's ultimate fate.
• Decomposite Character: He is the one who kills Bruce Wayne's parents instead of Joe Chill in this continuity, though his associate in the flashback of him shooting the Waynes has been confirmed to be the Burtonverse incarnation of Joe Chill.
• Diabolical Mastermind: After he takes control of the Gotham mob, which combined with his own smarts enables him to go forward with his own destructive aims for Gotham.
• Dies Wide Open: After he falls to his death, he has his expression frozen with the eyes still open.
• Dirty Coward: In true Joker fashion, he becomes terrified when he sees Bruce isn't going to show mercy. It's the only time in the film he shows any genuine fear.
• Disney Villain Death: We even see exactly how far down he has to fall, as well as a close-up of his corpse embedded in the pavement.
• Distracted by My Own Sexy: A pre-Joker Jack Napier takes a long, loving look in the mirror while preparing to go out. Alicia tells him he looks great, and he brushes her off with, "I didn't ask."
• The Dog Bites Back: The very first thing Jack Napier does after becoming The Joker is kill Grissom as revenge for setting him up to be killed due to his sleeping with Grissom's girl.
• The Don: After killing Grissom and taking control of his mafia outfit.
• Dragon Ascendant: Originally The Dragon to Carl Grissom, before his failed Uriah Gambit that led Jack to stop procrastinating and decide to just take over.
• Electric Joybuzzer: When mob boss Antoine Rotelli asks the Joker what'll happen if he refuses to do business with him, Joker assures him that they'll just resolve things with a friendly handshake. Mollified, Antoine shakes the Joker's hand... but unfortunately, the Joker is wearing a lethal electric joy-buzzer, which fries Antoine to a crisp.
• Enfant Terrible: While reviewing old police files, Bruce discovers that Napier was always a psychopath, spending time in and out of juvenile hall for crimes such as arson, assault, and grand theft auto before he even made it to junior high, and being charged with assault with a deadly weapon at age 15. When begging for his life at the bell tower, he states (mistakenly) that he was "a kid when [he] killed [Bruce's] parents", suggesting he's done even worse crimes than what he was charged for as a young one.
• Establishing Character Moment: In his introduction scene, he establishes that he's part of the criminal element plaguing Gotham City by his first line (in response to Harvey Dent's speech about making the city safe for decent people), "Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be happier someplace else." His next line, "If this clown could touch Grissom, I'd have handed him his lungs by now," establishes that he is a psycho. Next, he comments on how his boss is a "tired old man" and how he "can't run the city without me," suggesting that he wants to run the show himself someday (which is expanded upon later in the "think about the future" scene with Eckhardt). He then admires himself in the mirror, and when the attractive woman he's been talking to (his girlfriend, who is also his boss's mistress) approaches him and compliments his looks ("You look fine"), he is insulting ("I didn't ask"), revealing that he is an arrogant jerk with a focus on his looks, which foreshadows his later transformation and the psychological effect it will have on him.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Subverted. He seems legitimately disgusted that Grissom tried to have him killed over a woman, but he proceeds to kill an entire restaurant full of people as part of an attempt to woo Vicki.
  • He considers Antoine Rotelli a "vicious bastard" and he's "glad he's dead" after electrocuted him. But he's probably being sarcastic considering that he's very vicious as well and even more so.
• Evil Genius: His police reports describe him as highly intelligent and it shows through his scientific prowess, poisoning much of the city with nothing but common household objects.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: In keeping with tradition, the Joker makes some rather ghoulish jokes.
  • After he fries Tony Rotelli, he "converses" with Rotelli's charred corpse and then takes its "advice" to have all of Grissom's other lieutenants killed, before laughing at how glad he is that an evil bastard like Rotelli is dead.
  • When he gives Vicki flowers, they turn out to be all dead and presented with a severed mannequin's hand.
  • When his product tampering starts killing people, he hijacks a newscast with a Do Not Adjust Your Set "commercial" for his Smylex poison, complete with using his victims as spokesmodels and a helpless bound and gagged man who was using Joker's "Brand X" competition.
• Evil Is Hammy: Jack Nicholson was having the time of his life.
• Evil Is Petty: To him, anything can be countenanced by society—or, at least, should be countenanced—as long as it is funny; and if it is what one would presumably call a "misdeed," the question of whether it results in great suffering or mere irritation is simply irrelevant. So he goes about doing every "naughty" thing he can think of, just to see what will happen as a result. For example, he electrocutes a fellow gangster just so he can make a bad pun and "comically" talk to the corpse. He hijacks a television broadcast with an irreverent "commercial," taunting Gothamites for having unwittingly bought poisoned household items. He sends the girl he lusts after a jack-in-the-box that pops up with a handful of dead flowers, which causes her to faint because she was expecting something far more deadly.
• Evil Sounds Deep: In the Flashback scene. In the present day, courtesy of Nicholson, his voice is still deep and gruff although not demonic-like as in Bruce's memory. Actually this is one of the few Jokers who speaks in a deep voice in contrast of many others who more often than not talk in a Creepy High-Pitched Voice.
• Exact Words: The Joker during the climax says to Vicki Vale, while she and Batman are hanging for dear life, "Here, let me lend you a hand!" He really meant it. Unfortunately, he meant it literally (as in, supplying her with a fake hand that snaps off upon contact), and only Batman's intervention prevents her from falling to her death.
• Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: And a permanent one that he can't erase.
• Extendo Boxing Glove: Uses one of these to smash a TV when Batman gets more publicity than he (the Joker) does. So he decides to create wanton chaos to grab the headlines.
• Facial Horror: How Napier becomes the Joker. Face torn up and nerves severed from shrapnel caused by his own gunshot; falls into a vat of chemical waste that turns his skin white and his hair green; left with a permanent grin after a back-alley surgeon tries to fix his face.
• False Reassurance: He grabs henchman Bob by his shoulders and promises him: "You…are my number-one...guy [i.e., "You're irreplaceable"]." And that's true. But what Bob doesn't know is that their old boss, Carl Grissom, had said the same words - and in the exact same rhythm, too - to Jack Napier (the man who became the Joker) just before setting him up to be nearly assassinated. It's clearly a Foreshadowing that the Joker will scheme to have Bob eliminated the same way Boss Grissom had tried to have him eliminated...until the subversion toward the end where the Joker does execute Bob, but merely in a fit of anger when Batman foils his big murder plot. He just saw it fit to kill him at some point.
• Fame Through Infamy: After seeing Batman on the front pages of Gotham Globe, the Joker plots to make headlines in all the newspapers and news channels in Gotham. And how does he intend to get those headlines? By taking over the entire mob through public and violent means, and then committing mass murder on the Gothamites with his signature Smylex toxin.
• Faux Affably Evil: Like in his scene with Vicki at the museum and his scene with Bruce and Vicki at Vicki's apartment as well as his "commercial" for "Joker products".
• For the Evulz: His motive for pretty much anything post-transformation. He doesn't care if killing Gothamites left and right with his insidious pranks would deprive the criminal underworld of people to rob. He's only in it for the carnage he makes.
• Freudian Excuse: Averted. Bruce Wayne reviews Napier's personal history and learns that he was a complete psycho even before he made it to junior high. At best, Bruce muses that he might have a Darwinian excuse ("He had a head full of bad wiring, I guess....").
• From Bad to Worse: Jack Napier was at first merely a cowardly criminal who only killed for money. And after his toxic transformation into the cesspool of chemicals, he becomes an insane serial killer who is hellbent on mass murder for his own entertainment. Also, his attempt to get his face fixed. It was already bleached white by the chemicals, which also turned his lips red and his hair green. The facial surgery didn't fix any of those problems but instead gave him a new one by giving him a permanent grin.
• Frozen Face: The shrapnel completely severed his facial nerves, and the best his plastic surgeon could do is patching up damage with crude tools and materials. The result is a permanent rictus grin that never changes expression whether he's happy, sad, scared or angry. Also, the Joker has a chemical nerve agent called Smylex, which leaves his victims dying with a frozen smile.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Happens when he gets a good look at himself in a mirror after the back-alley doctor tries to repair his face.
• Gratuitous French: The Joker enjoys speaking French a few times to spice up his way of talking: "Bruce... Wayne, n'est-ce pas?" and "I love a good party, so truce. Commencé au festival!"
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Joker's massacre of various mobsters created a power vacuum to be filled by more bizarre villains such as himself, along with petty crooks and gangs who get knocked around as soon as they show up.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He loves the attention of the press and Vicki Vale, and he gets jealous when someone steals them away from him, namely Batman for the press and Bruce Wayne for Vicki. Ironically, they're secretly the same person.
• Hammerspace: In the final battle when he pulls that gun out of his pants. The thing is about is long as he's tall!
• Hand Cannon: The gun with the really long barrel is both large and powerful, since it can take down Batman's plane. In the novelization, the Joker was Recoiled Across the Room.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: When Jack Nicholson was brought in, his interpretation of the character was that Napier was always highly intelligent, violent and sadistic; his transformation into the Joker just released him from whatever restraint he had beforehand. Everything Jack Napier fantasizes about and kept vaguely under control, the Joker does the instant it occurs to him.
  Jack Nicholson: The story says, "Here's a man plunged into nuclear waste, and comes out this other identity", right? So my simple thought on it is the guy is from then on short-wired. I love that.
• The Hyena: Laughs in pretty much every scene he's in after his freak accident.
• Iconic Item: His lucky deck of cards, which has been shot through by a bullet.
• If I Can't Have You…: It's never explicitly stated, but this seems to be how he feels at the climax. Once it finally becomes clear to him that Vicki Vale will never love him, he just tries to kill her along with Batman. Being a psychopath, however, it's most likely he would have eventually killed her anyway once he got bored with her; much like he did with Alicia.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: He's got to get Vicki to the church on time.
• I Just Like Saying the Word: Always utters "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" when he kills someone. He later comments to a confused Bruce Wayne that he always asks that of all his prey, and that he just likes the sound of it, which is how Bruce finds out who murdered his parents.
• I Kiss Your Foot: Sort of. While being forced up the steps of Gotham Cathedral by the Joker, Vicki Vale falls and loses one of her shoes. The Joker then picks the shoe up, kisses it suggestively and throws it over the side of the bannister.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Takes down the Batwing with a revolver, albeit one with a ridiculously long barrel.
• Improvised Weapon: He used a quill pen to kill a local mob boss.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: Inflicts one on Ricorso in broad daylight using a razor-sharp quill pen.
  Joker: (with a flourish) The pen... is truly mightier than the sword!
• Insane Equals Violent: Notably averted. Unlike some other (possible) backstories for Joker, Jack Napier was a ruthless murderer even before he (completely) lost it.
• Insult Backfire:
  Vicki Vale: You're Insane!
  Joker: (feigning surprise) I thought I was a Pisces.
• Ironic Last Words: When he is about to make his escape via the chopper, he says "Sometimes I just kill myself!" A few seconds later, his leg is attached to a gargoyle that promptly breaks off, then he falls to his doom.
• It's All About Me: Being a gigantic narcissist, the Joker definitely has this attitude; he does his best to attract all the attention he possibly can to himself, gets angry whenever he feels someone is stealing his spotlight, and doesn't care how his actions will affect others so long as the result proves entertaining to him.
• Joker Immunity: Averted. He dies at the end of the first film and stays dead throughout the remainder of the film series.
• Karmic Death: Jack Napier murdered Bruce Wayne's parents when he was a kid. This comes back to bite him when Bruce becomes Batman decades later and kills him by grappling a fragile gargoyle to his ankle, causing Jack (now the Joker) to fall several hundred feet off of the Gotham City Cathedral to the pavement below.
• Kick the Dog: Had a number of examples of this, such as terrorizing Vicki Vale, disposing of his last girlfriend Alicia off-screen so he could be with Vicki, and gassing a museum and later a parade full of innocent people (though the last one was foiled by Batman), but the worst was probably cold-bloodedly executing Bob, his unquestioningly loyal Battle Butler, after asking him for his gun following said foiling.
• Klingon Promotion: After his transformation, he kills Grissom and takes over his operation.
• Lack of Empathy: When Batman revealed to The Joker that he murdered his parents, thus meaning that The Joker made him first, The Joker mocks Batman for the way he explained it, culminating in "How childish can you get!?"
• Large Ham
  The Joker: We've got a flying mouse to kill, and I want to clean my claws! (complete with wringing hand movements)
• Laughably Evil: If we ignore his homicidal actions, he does have some success as a clown.
• Laughing Mad: Being that it's The Joker, there's a fair bit of this, but it especially applies when he gets his first look at himself in the mirror after his disfigurement.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: He was never anything other than dangerous, but once he decides to (temporarily) stop fooling around he takes a few threat levels. Like the balloon scene.

M-Y

• Mad Artist: Describes himself as "the world's first, fully functioning homicidal artist," disfigures his girlfriend Alicia and fails in his attempt to disfigure Vicki Vale. After all, death and violence are the highest and most refined art form, according to his new standards of beauty.
• Mad Scientist: Has shades of this, as his case history notes an aptitude with chemistry, and it's implied he personally recreated and refined the CIA's rictus-causing DDID nerve agent into Smilex, a poison that stretches the face muscles impossibly wide and can be separated into binary compounds.
• Malevolent Mugshot: Done a lot with his face.
• Mask of Sanity: It's implied that Jack has always been insane underneath, hiding it under a professional mobster persona that occasionally slips up when someone calls him crazy. If anything, the chemical bath didn't really break his mind as much as it just set Joker's impulses free.
• Meaningful Name: Jack Napier—jackanapes, two meanings of the word being "an impudent or conceited fellow" or "a saucy or mischievous child."
• Monster Clown: Of course, since he's The Joker.
• Multiple-Choice Past: A notable aversion; this is one of the only versions of the Joker with a real name and definitive backstory.
• Named by the Adaptation: The Joker's real name was never revealed in the comics and this is still so far one of the few adaptations that has definitively given him a real name and backstory.
• Narcissist: Even a saner person would have a breakdown over seeing their face being bleached and reduced to a clown's, let alone someone who spent so much time looking at themselves in the mirror. After his rebirth, he grew to love the reflection that grinned back at him and instead of disappearing his narcissism went into an even more twisted direction.
• Nightmare Fetishist: In particular, he really seems to have a thing for mutilated bodies — he takes a liking to Vicki's Colto Maltese coverage, spreads DDID victims' pictures across the floor of his lair like he's scrapbooking, and considers Francis Bacon paintings too good to improve. His declaration of being a "homicidal artist" shows that he'll even disfigure beautiful women himself in the name of his "art".
• No, You: When Batman expresses the desire to kill him, he indignantly retorts, "Kill me?! You made me!", acting as if it's some kind of devastating comeback. Ironically, after he learns that murdering Bruce's parents as Jack Napier made him much more responsible for Batman than vice versa, he tries to accuse Batman of one-upping him this way ("how childish can you get?").
• Non-Action Big Bad: Oh, sure, he'll kill someone himself if his "prey" can't fight back, but when it finally comes to a fight with the battered Batman at the end of the movie, Joker, here, turns out to be surprisingly, painfully out of his depth in a bloody Curb-Stomp Battle, only regaining the upper hand with a last-second trick.^note This contrasts with an earlier script, which had him match Batman blow for blow and effectively use improvised weapons to get the edge.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Does one as Napier when his men open the vault at Axis Chemicals and the vault's empty, meaning that someone knew they were coming.
  Jack: We've been ratted out here, boys. Watch it.
  • Once Batman has him cornered and the Joker can't even bruise him, he's visibly shaken. It doesn't stop him from trying to find some humour in the situation when he puts on some prop glasses.
  • When the Joker prepares to make his getaway via helicopter, Batman tethers his ankle to a gargoyle statue, which breaks off and weighs the Joker down. The Joker is given mere seconds to comprehend that he's definitely going to die.
• One Degree of Separation: The movie decided that having him threatening everyone in Gotham City wasn't enough of a reason for Batman to hate him, so it turns out that he was also the one who killed Bruce Wayne's parents.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • At the beginning of the movie, the city officials are concerned with Grissom and want to nab Jack Napier only because he's his "number-one guy". It takes until almost the end of the movie for the media and the police to finally confirm that Grissom is dead, and that the Joker has already taken full control of Gotham City's underworld:
    Joker: Joker here. Now, you fellas have said some pretty mean things, some of which were true, about that fiend Carl Grissom. He was a thief and a terrorist. On the other hand, he had a tremendous singing voice. He's dead now, and he's left me in charge.
  • Despite Joker's claim that he's taking care of the boss's operations while he's on vacation, the mob more or less knows that Grissom's been rubbed out — but they think they're still dealing with Jack Napier, aspirant mob kingpin, not an unrestrained psychopath clown who wants to "grease 'em all" for the fun of it and is just using Grissom's assets as his own personal piggy bank, so they have no idea how to properly react. When Rotelli refuses to take orders, he clearly expects "Jack" to target him later; instead, he's roasted by a joy buzzer. Vinnie Ricorso later tries to usurp Jack by filing a forged affidavit that grants himself interim control over Grissom's "business", and the Joker arrives in a tuxedo to stab him in the neck with a quill pen. By the end of the movie, Grissom's mob is left in shambles.
• Pants-Positive Safety: Pulls an ENORMOUS revolver out of his Trouser Space to shoot down the Batwing.
• The Pen Is Mightier: Declares that "The pen is truly mightier than the sword!" after he kills Vinnie Ricorso by stabbing a really sharp ink quill into the man's throat.
• Pet the Dog: Parodied. While defacing several priceless works of art with his henchmen, he takes a liking to one of them (Figure with Meat by Francis Bacon, to be precise) and decides to spare it, even stopping Bob from driving a knife into it.
• Phallic Weapon: An example that pays off twice. First, he shoots down the Batwing with a ridiculously long gun pulled from the front of his baggy clown pants. Then, immediately afterward, he uses this gun to take Vicki hostage and keeps it pointed at her throughout the film's long and sexually-charged climax.
• Poison Is Evil: He's quite fond of using Smylex toxins, which causes people to die laughing and twists their faces into permanent smiles postmortem. The Joker first attempts to poison the citizens of Gotham by lacing the city's hygiene products with Smlyex, then attempts to just gas the entire city during the climax using parade balloons filled with the toxin.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Gets in a few of these alongside the Bond One-Liners.
  • (To Eckhardt): "Think about the future!"
  • (To Grissom): "And as you can see, I'm a lot happier."
  • (To Ricorso): "Hello, Vinnie. It's your uncle Bingo. Time to pay the check!"
• Psycho for Hire: Before he became a Monster Clown, Jack Napier had already been a sadistic killer for decades who loved to make children into orphans just for kicks. Just ask Bruce Wayne.
• Psychopathic Manchild: It's almost obligatory to depict The Joker this way, but this film takes it a step further by showing him as the apparently sane (but still very, very evil) Jack Napier prior to his transformation. In between the vicious murders he committed as Napier and then continues to commit as the clown he becomes, the Joker "punches out" two television sets with a gag boxing glove, blows into a birthday-party noisemaker (possibly the film's single funniest scene), obsessively cuts up photographs to make collages of them, hosts a parade with giant cartoon-character balloons, makes funny sound effects with his mouth, and sends the woman he's stalking a note written in crayon.
• Psychotic Smirk: Only at the subtlest of times, and thus rarely. It's more in play pre-transformation, such as his conversation with Eckhardt early in the film.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": He either laughs while committing his murders or makes mean-spirited puns. The most notable examples of both are when he fries one mobster and cackles like it's a harmless prank, then stabs a second with a quill and quips how the pen is mightier than the sword.
• Rage Against the Reflection: One of the most iconic scenes with the Joker is when he demands a mirror after his surgery and sees his clownish face for the first time. He breaks down laughing and smashes the mirror in rage. It has been homaged and parodied numerous times, most notably Two-Face from Batman: The Animated Series and Lisa Simpson after getting her braces.
• Raised Hand of Survival: After seemingly drowning in a vat of chemicals, it's revealed that Jack found his way through a duct that leads out into the harbour, with his hand emerging from the water. The bleached skin, green nails and corroded glove give off a distinct zombie vibe.
• Red Boxing Gloves: He used an extendable boxing glove device to destroy a television.
• Revolvers Are Just Better:
  • Favors a Colt New Service revolver as his main weapon.
  • Brings down the Batwing using a revolver with a really Freudian barrel. This one is a Smith & Wesson Model 15 with a custom 21-inch barrel.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: The Joker wears a lot of purple with an orange shirt and has green hair.
• Secret-Identity Identity: In his final TV broadcast, the Joker shows up with a normal look and claims that his clownish appearance is just makeup for his recent "art" stunts, emphasizing his sincerity of giving Gothamites 20 million dollars at his special parade. It's all a lie, as the Joker is actually wearing human makeup to hide the fact his clownish skin is his real skin, just as Jack Naiper is now a mask for the Joker to wear.
• Shoot the Television: Shoots a TV set whenever Batman comes on.
• Skin-Tone Disguise: After the Joker's chemical bath that turns his skin chalk white and gives him a clownlike face, he disguises himself by wearing makeup that resembles his original skin tone.
• Slasher Smile: Wouldn't be the Joker without a killer smile. In this case it's a rictus grin, and the version that appears in flashback shows he had it down pat years ago.
• The Social Darwinist: It's not made explicit, but Jack Napier seems to embody this, both before and after he becomes The Joker. Throughout his life, he bullies, victimizes and even murders people who are not as bold or clever as he is, simply because he can (although this could also be strictly For the Evulz). Later, as the Joker, he almost seems to think of himself as a god (he did "rise from the dead", after all) and shows even less regard for his fellow human beings, telling photographer Vicki Vale that "we're not like regular people. We're artists." Finally, at the parade, after luring in thousands of people by promising them $20 million in dollar bills, he casually informs them: "And now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives." He then subjects these "inferior" beings to several parade balloons full of poison gas.
• The Sociopath: Even before his transformation, Jack Napier was a heartless and cold-blooded killer who treated everyone as either his victims, obstacles or disposable tools. Becoming the Joker only loosens his ability to hide it in public.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: As Jack Napier he used to talk in a more collected and calm tone of voice. Although in the flashback sequence when he killed Thomas and Martha Wayne and asked his famous question to a young Bruce Wayne we can deduce by his Slasher Smile (and that was even before becoming The Joker) that he was a sadist and psychopathic monster all the time but just more cold-blooded. After falling into the vat of chemicals and becoming The Clown Prince of Crime he totally abandons this trait once and for all.
• Stalker with a Crush: To Vicki. He gets attracted to her after seeing her in a photo, then has Bob find her phone number to arrange a date between them in the museum, and later visits her apartment to give her flowers... and kill Bruce Wayne to remove the competition.
• The Starscream: Zigzagged. While he was the one who killed Carl Grissom, he did not do so only as part of a plot to take over. He killed Grissom out of revenge, and then decided to take over his empire as an afterthought. Then again, comments Napier made in passing to both Alicia and Lieutenant Eckhardt suggest that he may have been plotting Grissom's murder sometime in the future, or at the very least was waiting for the old man to die.
• Starter Villain Stays: He doesn't seem like this at first, but he's eventually revealed to be the one who killed Batman's parents, technically making him the very first villain for this Batman.
• Stepford Smiler: He claims to Vicki that he's really a Sad Clown "crying on the inside." His fit of maniacal laughter immediately after this makes it clear it's a load of bullshit.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: His real name is Jack Napier, a play on jackanape, an outdated word for "fool" or "jester."
• Teens Are Monsters: Jack has a long and extensive list of crimes dating back to his teen years where he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon at 15.
• That Man Is Dead: Used in the reveal of the Joker's face. "Jack is dead, my friend. You can call me...'Joker.' And as you can see, I'm a lot happier."
• This Is the Part Where...
  Joker: And now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But, as my plastic surgeon always said, "If you gotta go, go with a smile!"
• Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Calls Batman out via a TV broadcast.
• Thrown from the Zeppelin: Brings in the "mob bosses" of Gotham and introduces himself as the new big boss. One of the mobsters, Antoine Rotelli, opts out, and as they shake hands, he gets the "joy buzzer" from the Joker, which rather gruesomely kills him, as a lesson to the other bosses ("I'm glad you're dead!")...then goes on to order the deaths of the other bosses.
  • He decides to kill them all on the "advice" of Rotelli's corpse ^note It's not clear whether the Joker is joking that Rotelli is telling him, or he genuinely thinks the corpse is talking to him. It's the first sign that Jack, who was "just" a psychopath, is now completely unhinged.
• Token Motivational Nemesis: This version turned Jack Napier, the man who would become Joker, into the murderer of Bruce Wayne's parents, presumably to add more chemistry to the Batman/Joker rivalry. However, the Joker got killed in the first film and never appeared in any sequels.
• Tranquil Fury: Has a few episodes of this, like when he confronts Grissom after his plot to kill him, and also as Batman's foiling of his plan takes its toll.
• Trouser Space: He pulls an absurdly long-barreled revolver out of the front of his trousers. It's so long that he shouldn't have been able to walk with that thing down his trouser leg, at least not without a serious limp. It's later revealed to be a collapsible barrel.
• Uncanny Valley Makeup: Wears makeup over his white skin that doesn't have the depth or shading of real skin and gives him a creepy mannequin look. He starts to remove it at the end of his meeting with Grissom's men, and it gets washed off when Vicki throws a glass of water in his face.
• The Unfettered: Nicholson himself described the Joker's mindset as this (see Hair-Trigger Temper above); while Jack Napier's more base urges may have been held back by working for Grissom and keeping the balance of power within the mob, the Joker is free to act on whatever creative, violent, screwed-up impulse he wants to, the instant it comes to him, and he loves it.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Briefly wins the city over by staging a parade and dumping cash on the crowd in an effort to upstage Batman "hogging" the press (and lure a large amount of people into the open so he can kill them.)
  Joker: Me? I'm givin' away free money! And where is the Batman? He's at home, washin' his tights.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • When Jack Napier first looks into the plastic surgeon's mirror and sees his "clown face," for a brief moment we hear a very soft chuckle, which becomes hysterical laughter... and doesn't ever stop.
  Joker: That wasn't easy to get over! And don't think that I didn't try.
  • His "Joker" persona crashes near the end when Batman steals his gas-spewing balloons that he had just unleashed on a crowd. He goes from a cackling, gleefully murderous Large Ham to staring and muttering in disbelief about his balloons, then half-wanders off of the float in a daze, all the zazz gone from his steps, before finally screaming at his henchmen, "HE STOLE MY BALLOONS!", asking Bob for a gun, and shooting Bob.
  Joker: I'll need a minute or two alone, boys.
• Villainous Crush: On Vicki, ever since he got a good look at both her photos and the photos of her.
• Villainous Legacy: He killed Bruce Wayne's parents and set him on the path to become Batman, and his defeat leaves a vacuum to be filled by other villains besides himself. He's only in one movie, but the whole plot of the film series can be traced back to the Joker.
• Voice of the Legion: In Bruce's memories, his voice has an echo.
• Wham Line: Not apparent to the audience at first, his favorite Pre-Mortem One-Liner serves as this to Bruce. They were the same words Jack Napier said to young Bruce as a mugger after murdering his parents.
  Joker: You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: He wonders this about Batman, and in so doing names the trope.
• Wicked Cultured: The Joker enjoys classical (or at least orchestral) music, and he plays it on three "romantic" occasions: Percy Faith's "A Summer Place" while meeting Vicki in a museum café; Stephen Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer" while bringing some flowers (which, in a vile twist, are already wilted) to Vicki's apartment; and a sentimental waltz while he is, uh, ravishing Vicki on the roof of the city's Gothic cathedral. Interestingly, the latter piece - Danny Elfman's "Waltz to the Death" - is actually quite beautiful and grand, and would be completely innocent were it not exclusively associated with a disfigured mass murderer. He also quotes Edgar Allan Poe to Vicki in one scene — and, fittingly, it is a line from "The Raven," which is about a deceased sweetheart (Joker had murdered his previous love interest, Alicia, in order to free himself up for Vicki). He's also a fan of Francis Bacon, it seems. He is also mentioned in his police file as having an aptitude for art, which puts an interesting perspective when he and his goons vandalise most of the works at the Gotham Museum of Art (or when he dismisses most of Vicki's photography... except the ones of war and death). Presumably, he fully appreciates and understands all of this stuff on an artistic level, but still felt like smashing it up to bring it up to his own twisted sense of aesthetic standard. He actually spares Francis Bacon's Figure With Meat painting since it appeals to his warped sensibilities. When he brings Alicia in, she says "Jack, you said I could watch you improve the paintings." Then there's Jack/The Joker's fashion sense. The first thing he does on seeing Knox is critique his tie.
  Alicia: You look fine.
  Jack': (Death Glare) I didn't ask. (glances at her hand on his shoulder as if to say, "Hands off the merchandise!")
• Would Hurt a Child: After murdering Thomas and Martha Wayne, Napier prepares to shoot young Bruce only for his accomplice to shout for him to leave.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Often behaves as if he's the protagonist of a wild romantic comedy and that Vicki is the Defrosting Ice Queen. This fails to explain why he's also cast himself as the Romantic False Lead!
  Bob: She's [Vicki] dating some guy named Wayne.
  Joker: (smug) She's about to trade up.
• You Can't Make an Omelette...: He "improved" the looks of his girlfriend Alicia. After he tells Vicki Vale that Alicia threw herself out a window, this line is used, implying that he may have killed her himself to free himself for Vicki:
  Joker: But... You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. (breaks Alicia's mask)
• You Didn't Ask: Reversed when pre-Joker Jack is preening himself in the mirror:
  Alicia: You look fine.
  Joker: I didn't ask.
• You Have Failed Me: After Batman foils his balloon plan with his Batwing, the Joker kills Bob because Bob didn't tell him that Batman had it (as if he could have possibly known!). It's also possible that he just shot him out of anger.
• You're Insane!: He is called crazy by Vinnie Ricorso after he brutally kills Antoine Rotelli by electrocuting him with a joy buzzer.
  Ricorso: You're crazy.

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"Sometimes I just kill myself!"