Yeah, that whole thing with The Joker's face is serious Squick and High Octane Nightmare Fuel! I wonder how they're going to show him now.
I liked how Snyder said that Joker should be used sparingly, and in fact is being used sparingly. Apparently, Joker getting over-exposure in the No Man's Land arc, and people focusing on every one of the stories starring Joker, have led people to believe that Joker gets used too much by DC Comics. Too bad people forget that there are gaps of Real Life years between these stories!
No, Joker really showed up a lot. Between No Man's Land and the reboot, we had him in Hush, Soft Targets, Pushback, Last Laugh, RIP, Under the Red Hood, Snyder's Jim Jr. arc, the final Gotham City Sirens arc, Streets of Gotham, Luthor's Action Comics arc, the Charlatan arc, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis (IIRC), the Ivar Loxias/Zatanna Detective story, Slayride, the Gaggy story (flashbacks only), Clown at Midnight, War Crimes, Batman Confidential and Man who Laughs(not set in present time, but still major exposures to comics fans), that Birds Of Prey arc where Qurac made him an ambassador again, and I'm sure I'm still forgetting several ones. Granted, a few of those were cameos, but still, that's a whole lot of appearances anyway.
Well, okay, I grant you that that's a lot of appearances!
Still, at least DC Comics tries to keep him off the radar for periods of time!
Barbara Gordon and Jason Todd had better watch their backs. They had been crippled and killed by The Joker before, but he only went after them to get to Batman and Commissioner Gordon. This time around, he's gunning for BG and JT, and I will betcha that It's Personal will not begin to describe it!
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!The problem about how they keep escalating the Joker's evil is at this point is he's pretty much an inhuman entity of evil... in a human-frail body, pissing everyone off, and surrounded from all directions by people who could easily kill him off after being pushed too far. I've never been one of those who whine "Why won't they kill him already", but the thing is the situation keeps rising way past up the ceiling, to the point where pretty much no one, in-universe, has a reason to keep Joker alive, and yet they do. Even the other villains, by now, should be wise enough to just kill him in the spot, because they aren't ever going to get anything good out of him (except maybe Luthor, who seems to be the only one to walk out of Joker team ups without any actual loss over it).
Mind, I'd hate if they ever killed him for real (which we all know won't ever happen as long as he makes money, that is, forever), but dammit, by now he's so dark he's become a caricature of what he stood for.
Maybe they're Genre Savvy and know that, if you kill The Joker, he'll just come Back from the Dead somehow and spend a lot of time tormenting whoever killed him.
Fridge Brilliance: The Joker Was Once a Man who has become a Humanoid Abomination. Think about it. He may have been a normal man once. Of course, with his Multiple-Choice Past, we'll never know for sure. Whatever happened to him before, he has become the mad slasher you see in slasher flicks, who can take a lot of punishment and if you somehow kill him...he'll only come back.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that Joker is beyond killing, especially in the Comic Books.
edited 14th Jul '12 5:10:35 AM by TiggersAreGreat
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!I'm pretty sure it's been hinted at least once that Arkham Asylum is a sentient being that eats madness, and is deliberately keeping its inmates insane to ensure a steady supply of food. If that's the case, are the Joker (or really, any of Gotham's super-loonies) really responsible for their crimes?
I think the Joker would work better if he was never caught. That's more or less the way it was in the very beginning; he'd appear to die or some such, and then show up again later. It would lend more credence to the whole wink wink nudge nudge "agent of chaos" bit. It would make more sense to me that no one has been able to kill the Joker if no one has ever been in a position where they'd be ABLE to kill the Joker.
I'm surprised that no one's pointed out how Arkham is the name of the town in Cthulhu, and Arkham is the name of the asylum in Batman.
Let's face it...the minute you hear the word "Arkham" is the minute you should realize that something supernatural and terrible is going on. I bet there's at least an Eldritch Abomination at the asylum that no one can see or detect, but it corrupts them and turns them into its puppets...and The Joker happens to be its favourite puppet, because he represents it more closely than anyone else. Why would it do this? Simple, because it's an EA, and it does what it does because it can!
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!Eh. The thought that there's an indetectable Eldritch Abomination operating in Arkham really doesn't sit well with me, given that half the magical cast of the DCU have wandered through Gotham without so much as blinking. Given that inludes the likes of Zatanna, Mme. Xanadu, the Demon, Dr. Fate, the Phantom Stranger, and even the Spectre. It wouldn't make a lot of sense for there to be powerful dark magic at work and none of them picking up on it.
Oh well. Hazard of the shared universe and all, I guess.

Yes, this coming October, a storyline will start bearing the title The Return Of The Joker Death Of The Family!
Scott Snyder will be the writer of this story. Apparently, The Joker will resurface after a year has gone by, and go after every member of the Batman family!
If you want to know more details, you should check this
out. I need to say that it's Not Safe for Work, because it does have the picture of the Joker's removed face. Sorry, but there is just no delicate way to put it!
I'll say this much: be afraid...be very afraid.
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!