LISTEN UP, NERDS AND NERDETTES! This is my self-demonstrating page. As scintillating as it is, you don't want to link to it when you're referring to me. Use Characters.Batman The Joker instead—unless you really want the mods (who else?) to get up close and personal with you. Wouldn't that be fun? And by the way...
Well! Finally got my own page, did I? 'bout time! I was created in The '40s, for Pete's sake! I've been around way longer than Superham's cousin! Why'd SHE get her own page first?!note Weelll, it's not too bad, I guess... at least I can still gloat to Lexy about getting my own page first... As for that guy with the yellow ring...? He only wishes he was half as scary as me!
Oh, you were looking for information on moi? I'm flattered, really, but, uh... SHOULDN'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM ALREADY?! All right, all right, fine. Here's My Card (from the bottom of the deck of course) and the lowdown...
I am the Monster Clown hiding under your bed!note
Of course, a true fan would want all the gory details fleshed out, yes? So then. There's me, and there's the Bat, two peas in a pod. I'm the better-looking pea, of course, but that's beside the point. Billy Finger and Bobby Kane, inspired by both the playing card and Conrad Veidt's deliciously chilling title character in the 1920s film The Man Who Laughs, conjured me up in 1940, back when heroes were allowed to kill, everyone Asian spoke with their R's and L's mixed up, and the art was worse than something drawn by a six-year old brat with colored pencils ('course, Jerry Robinson said he had a hand too, but that's not my department)... I gave that flying rodent a good runaround in Batman #1 (I was modest enough to give him the title...), and soon enough, I began carving out my own little niche.
But, as it turned out, that wasn't enough! No, they planned to whack me in my second appearance! Can you believe that?! But, someone (in this case, Whitney Ellsworth) came through for me, and I lived through a self-inflicted stabbing after all. So, instead of dying painfully, I only had to endure six months of agonizing hospital time! Those were the glory days... I'd show up, make a bit of trouble, kill a couple of people, get foiled by Fatman, and escape at the last minute. Gambling rackets, sniping FBI agents, I've seen (and done) it all. I was even executed once, y'know. 'course, The Grim Reaper couldn't hold me, and I came back... just in time to witness the rising of The Comics Code. (Hoo... and some people thought I was evil and insane... heh heh heh...)
Maybe I should've stayed buried a bit longer, cuz, you all know what happened next. The Dork Knight and that brat Robin were joined by Batwoman, Bat-Girl, Bat-Hound, Bat-Mite (yeesh, what's next? Bat-butler?), and no one was allowed to kill ever again. And we all lived happily ever after... NOT! Then again, I can't say that it was ever boring. I was allowed to play with bigger toys — everything from my own utility belt to giant record players. (Where the heck does Gotham get all that stuff, anyhow?) I even managed to get all of Gotham City to marvel at my enormous BONER!note
But nothing lasts forever, does it? (Save the memory of Tom and Jerry.)
Come The Bronze Age of Comic Books, I was finally allowed to roam free again, and what a joy it was! Blowing off people's heads with exploding cigars and feeding them to sharks! It seems that finally, the heads at DC Comics got brains - it was here that I got my own series! And it lasted all of... nine issues... And I had to lose most of the time.
Ah, well, who cares about all that? The '70s might have returned me to life, but it was The '80s that were really my heyday. You might recall an obscure little book called The Killing Joke written by some nobody called Alan Moore. If you haven't... GET OVER THERE AND READ IT, AND DON'T CALL YOURSELF A FAN OF MINE UNTIL YOU'VE MEMORIZED EVERY WORD!
Done? Good. Less than a year afterward, DC made the historical decision of killing off Robin — 'bout time, too. But just a little heads-up, it was Jason Todd, not Dick Grayson. Who was Jason Todd? Who cares? All you need to know is that every reader hated his guts, enough that they voted to have him die. But with an outfit like that, can you really blame them? Heck, at least thirteen of those votes came from yours truly!
Anyhoo, the poll was set up, the calls were made, and I gave poor li'l Jason a spanking he'll never forget. Rest in pieces.note Then I got shot. And got trapped on an exploding helicopter. And vanished for all of a few months. And I still made it back in time for the holidays! From there on, my life's been just one giant rollercoaster ride, 'specially since I killed Jimmy Gordon's wife during that earthquake.
And THEN, I had a shiny new show opening for Bratgirl, the Dead Hood and all Batsy's little sidekicks! Those brats who make my Bats fat, slow, and weak. Tsk TSK. They found my lack of face... disturbing. HA! And if you thought that was bad, wait 'til you hear about Eric Border-
Hold on, where're you going? D'ya think we're done with my life? Not even close! I've poisoned all the fish on the eastern and western seaboard and tried to patent them! I've become God and brought the whole universe to its knees! I've killed Siskel & Ebert, fer Pete's sake!
But no, you don't care about any of that, do you? I bet you came to this page because you were so impressed by that pencil trick, or my apocryphal shenanigans afterwards. No? The dreadlocked barefoot monkey-man with that sexy, sexy laugh, then? Perhaps you remember the days when I faced off with Adam West (who it looks like I rubbed off on?) with a mustache? The pointy-chinned me who's still fighting the Dark Side? The young, handsome version of me with the fiery red hair, running amok in Gotham? (Too bad Lexy had to clone him into his very own ersatz Superham!) The meaty ol' me played by Jack Nicholson? The tattooed fella, coming to your Knightmares via a quick stop by ol' Cal Swanwick's pad? The washed-up comedian turned giggling anarchist who ruled the Roman Empire once upon a time? Oh, what about the mangled-looking maniac who's ready to take on that sparkly vampire in a Batsuit after saving the world from giant space gods? Or the Silver Age-esque me, sounding a lot like that jolly good sport who even I'm not crazy enough to address? Or was it God's gift to Gotham, the world, and that Grinchy old bat (delivered on Christmas Eve!, even!)? Kept on giving, too, when, instead of killing the second bird-brain, I tortured him into joining the dark side (just like I did with little Timmy in the Batman Beyond continuity), faking his own death, and becoming an Arkham Knight, years before taking over Arkham Asylum and turning into a twenty-foot tall muscleman! (Although that one didn't end too well. Object lesson on steroid use, kids! Oh yeah, and I still continued to torture the drug-induced Bat-Jerky to the point of insanity from beyond the grave! What FUN! That is, until he managed to lock me away forever in the depths of his subconscious. NO FAIR, BATSY! (How was I supposed to know that the exact moment I took over Batsy's psyche was the moment that Good ol' Doctor Crane was injecting him with enough fear toxin to make the entire eastern seaboard go bonkers…and thus I was the one that ended up getting scared, somehow protecting Fatman from psychological harm?)
OOH! Or when I got Birdbrain to bite my shiny metal crowbar? No? The one with all those kid superheroes, who knows his way around a contraction? The old classic model, fresh off that weird island and going up against RoboCop? Or how about those times where I was a woman? Maybe that neat little corner of the multiverse where I've got teeth to die for, coattails longer than my whole body, and managed to accomplish every other escapade on the list? note Or how I made Super-freak go nuts by trading my joybuzzers for real sparks out of my hands and tricking him into killing his wife and making Metropolis go BOOM by placing a nuke? That one has earned the ire of a lot.
'Course, any version of me is good as long as you don't think I'm that other psychotic, fourth-wall breaking clownnote who works for those Marvel guys. I'm not really fond of Mr. Wilson, but I do love friending him on that Facebook thingy and asking him to "do that pencil trick". It just gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Oh, and if you value your lifenote , please don't confuse me for anyone on this Long List of punks who are apparently just dying to get my attention:
- Those teenage biker punks who swiped my look.
- I also don't work for the British Library.
- Nor am I that so-called magic anime clown Kefka, who has the gall to steal my infectious laughter!note
- I'm also not related to that game show with the big slot machine.note
- Nor am I that pilot of the biggest starship of Earth!note
- Don't you get me mixed up with that masked punk who's movin' on up the bad-guy food chain, either, no matter how well he apes my gimmick!
- I'm definitely not one of those phantom thieves who go around robbing folks who just wanna have a good time, but hey, I do like their funky-fresh moves!note
- Nor am I that cultist jester trying to bring Lovecraftian beasts into the world with rumors. Avant garde ol' boy, you're far more ambitious than Blackfire and his sewer rats I'll give you that at least (although your god taking the form of that hack painter of all things costs you a ton of points in my book). That wannabe successor of yours Leo certainly pulled off my act better in that second go around!note
- I'm not the alias to that flamingo-themed pirate with the power of strings.
- I'm certainly not some run-of-the-mill jarhead who took verbal abuse from R. Lee Ermey lying down!
- I'm not that lap dog butler serving some dragon brat. Don't think changing your name to Jakob or that cosmic punchline of a knight will keep you safe from me, boy-o!By the way...
- And I'm also not a round nightmare creature! Though I do pride myself on my own nightmarish qualities. At least with this guy, his name was spelled differently from mine most of the time, but they just had to rename him "Joker" in that one game!
And if you value your pitiful life, DO NOT call me "jonkler!" Just because I'm a clown, doesn't mean I always shoot for the low-hanging fruit! Get classier material, pretty please! Hehe!
Well, that conversation was certainly uplifting, wouldn't you say? Look at how widely you're grinning. Ooh, and check it out! Your complexion is clearing right up. And that hair...! So rich a shade of green that only your undertaker'll know for sure. And that laugh! Isn't it beautiful?
Ohhhh, don't give me that look. You were the one who took that card from me! Sheesh, how dumb can ya get? Straighten up. It's not the end of the world. Only yours. Annnd... there you go, now you see the joke. The very biggest and bestest smile of them all.
Let's see all the places I've popped up in the media...
- Batman
- Detective Comics
- The Batman Adventures / The Batman & Robin Adventures / Batman: Gotham Adventures / Batman Adventures
- Joker's Asylum
- The Joker Devils Advocate
- Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
- Villains United
- Infinite Crisis
- Underworld Unleashed
- Tangent Comics
- Planetary Batman
- Batman: Digital Justice (well, after a fashion...)
- All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder (though I really wasn't too happy with that one)
- The Joker (series)
- Joker (graphic novel)
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
- Batman: Nosferatu
- Batman: Bloodstorm
- Batman: I, Joker
- A Death in the Family
- Going Sane
- The Killing Joke
- Mad Love
- Knightfall
- No Man's Land
- Joker's Last Laugh
- Emperor Joker
- Salvation Run
- Last Rites
- Batman R.I.P.
- Final Crisis
- Whatever Happened to The Caped Crusader?
- Batman: Noël
- Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
- Arkham Asylum: Living Hell
- Arkham Asylum: Madness
- Batman and Robin (2009)
- Birds of Prey
- Superman: Distant Fires
- Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight
- Flashpoint
- Death of the Family
- Batman: Endgame
- Dark Nights: Metal
- Judge Dredd as part of a Crossover.
- Batman & Captain America (another Crossover)
- Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds (Wow, another Crossover!)
- Marvel vs. DC (Yup, you guessed it, another Crossover)
- Amalgam Universe note
- Justice
- Batman: White Knight
- Batman: The Dark Prince Charming
- Batman: The Movie
- Batman
- Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (Home to probably my proudest laugh ever!)
- The Dark Knight
- DC Extended Universe:
- Suicide Squad
- Birds of Prey (Fake Shemp cameo. Not even I would be crazy enough to bring back ol' Jerry Leto after last time!)
- Zack Snyder's Justice League (well, turns out Zacky boy was crazy enough)
- The LEGO Batman Movie
- Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (a short cameo with Harley, but I'm there either way!)
- Joker (ooh yes, I got center stage once!)
- Joker: Folie à Deux (something tells me I'll go gaga over my new partner)
- The Batman (2022) (again they end a new version of Batsy making clear I need to appear! I'm certainly the most Eternal thing Barry Keoghan has played!)
- Batman (live-action series)
- Birds Of Prey
- Gotham: Maybe. The show's done a wonderful job of keeping you guessing, eh kiddies? Although if I turn out to be this Jerome boy, that wouldn't be too shabby because he's got such a lovely smile already... Sadly, he was a Red Herring.... Or was he? Hehehehe... either way, he seems to have inspired the one who'll become me... Turns out that shootin' your brother with a nice dose of Joker Venom is an easy way to get your family in all the fun! Jerome may not be me, but this Jeremiah kiddo's proven me right; anyone can have one bad day... but it's nothing that a nice cold dip in toxic waste can't fix, amirite boys?!
- Batman With Robin The Boy Wonder
- The New Scooby-Doo Movies
- The New Adventures of Batman
- The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians
- The DC Animated Universe:
- The Batman
- Krypto the Superdog
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold
- Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
- Batman: Under the Red Hood
- Super Friends
- Young Justice
- Batman: Assault on Arkham
- Batman: The Killing Joke
- Justice League Action
- Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders
- Batman Ninja
- Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Harley Quinn (2019)