Actually, Batman may have killed the Joker back in 1989
(from the commentators, it seems that the most recent edition of The Killing Joke indicates that this was a deliberate ambiguity, and one which has been noticed by a lot of people).
You know, the moral issue of killing the Joker is a little puzzling from a in-story and out of story perspective.
Out of story, DC heroes generally do not kill. Compared to their longest standing rival, Marvel, a hero who does use lethal force, vigilante or otherwise, will be disdained if not used as an utmost necessity. This is traditionally solved by making the villains the worst people ever:case in point Joker. While Riddler may just be a preferably nonviolent legitimately crazy man who is too shrewd to be contained by the local asylum, whom Batman returns as part of his community service and whom further benefits by being an interesting target for him that limits the damage this insane man might also cause Joker is basically a kill stick. Has not always been so, but has been for most of his existence.
Poison Ivy also kills people, not without cause mind you, but she still does. Ra's Al Ghul kills people, Two Face Kills people, its is not much of a moral hangup for them. Out-of-story, killing one of Batman's rogues is an easy task, Batman will not do it unless forced to and the legal department won't execute this crazy man but there are plenty of murderers who will off Joker, given the chance, so give it to them.
In-story it would be perfectly acceptable for a villain to kill Joker without discrediting Batman or the police. Just make it incidental. Venom and Carnage's efforts to kill each other do not make either of them heroic, nor do Mephisto and the rival hell lord of the month or King Pin vs the Hand. Make it incidental, Freeze's efforts to save his wife just so happen to cause Joker's car to slip on black ice and cause him to parish in a fatal collision. Bane releases a bunch of prisoners and Joker is trampled in the stampede, Joker is trying to mess with Batman while Batman is trying to stop Poison Ivy or Ra's latest scheme and ends up dead from a giant pitcher plant or bomb meant to knock Gotham's grid offline. Dead Joker, no one worse for wear in story or out. In fact if Joker had not been in such a situation that lead to his death Batman might have been able to save more people from another villain so even in death he gets some measure of victory.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackWell, the reason I don't think DC would go for that idea is because they like Joker to be their "marquee" bad guy. Even over Lex Luthor. Sometimes, they'll pay lip service to Lex and make him a marquee villain for a short time, but in practice, they always make the Joker the centerpiece villain. Case in point, it was The Joker's actions that kicked off the plots of both Kingdom Come and Injustice: Gods Among Us—stories which were specifically about the fall of Superman, and with him, the superhero dynasty.
Basically, the Joker has to look like he's top of the villain food chain at all times.
edited 21st Aug '13 1:18:13 PM by KingZeal
Honestly, while I've never been a huge comic book fan, it just seems to me like DC wants to have their cake and eat it too on this issue. I don't find Thou Shalt Not Kill to be the problem, and I'm not sure if too many people really do.
What I think most people have a problem with is the fact that, due to DC not wanting to lose their most marketable antagonist, Joker only gets incarcerated in Cardboard Prisons that he will invariably escape from. The more innocent lives are endangered due to this, the more Batman looks incompetent at best and spineless at worst.
I do have some issues with the reasoning behind some invocations of Thou Shalt Not Kill, but that's just me.
edited 22nd Aug '13 9:35:52 PM by Robotnik
I agree with the sentiment that the "problem" can be fixed without killing Joker, by simply altering his character into something a little less homicidal, something more psychological or even just petty, and that may be the only way if DC really does consider him to be a mascot or centerpiece of sorts.
But for pure in story logic and out of story writer's perspective, there is no hangup with the DC setting itself that says Joker cannot be killed. Just as there is nothing about the Marvel setting, either from an in story or writer's perspective that says Wolverine must be everywhere. Hey, there was a post asking which Marvel and DC villains best mirrored each other but given where this discussion has gone I don't think that was the right question to ask.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackI thought it was cool how he got the "last laugh" in Infinite Crisis, but one the other end you have stuff like Salvation Run in which the only logical end should have seen him being literally torn to pieces by someone like Gorilla Grodd.
For we shall slay evil with logic...What's the point in killing a character the publisher would be obligated to resurrect in a year or two anyway, either by rebooting the series or retconning the death (Joker has "died" several times, either by falling down on a chimney or by being struck by a lightning and still has always come back)? This is really what happens when a series carries on infinitely.
It's a matter of perceptions. Most villains mostly kill 'stadistics'. Their bodycounts, regardless of their being smaller or larger than Joker's, don't resonate that much with the public because rarely they inflict lasting personal damage on the cast (even Bullseye's murder of Elektra didn't even stick ten issues, for instance). For the readers, Joker's damage tends to feel more atrocious and resonant because things like the murders of Jason and Sarah, or Barbara's crippling, lasted for more than one decade, and they were widely publicized to boot. Someone like Red Skull would be even more deserving of an instant death penalty, for instance, but his damage to the heroes isn't as deeply felt by fandom, and he indeed does die frequently (even if it only makes his endless resurrections look even sillier than Joker's Immunity).
Additionally, the Joker is the one who frequently asks the question himself, and so far The Cowl has yet to come up with an answer to shut him up. It's not that he doesn't get killed but that, as currently written, he just can't be beat. The guy gets off on pain, treats Arkham like a vacation spot, cannot be intimidated in any way, and his trump card in all situations has become "I live, therefore I win" which Batman simply cannot deny.
To contrast, guys like Scarecrow, the Penguin or the Mad Hatter may be equally deserving of ol' Sparky's warm embrace, but it was just as satisfying to see them squirm in their own paranoid terror over a simple Halloween trick the Bat pulled on them. Consequently, whenever they do die and come back, their own Joker Immunity need not be an issue, so long as it's not recognized and angsted about in-universe. Much like video game Mooks lose all relevance should they point out the unbeatable power of Save Scumming, perpetual villains in superhero comics are a Necessary Weasel that should never be acknowledged onscreen. Alan Moore did it, but he also had Batman finally snap and throttle the life out of the clown, regardless of later retcons.
Speaking of which, here's a simple way to fix the situation: Next time Robin asks why he doesn't just kill the Joker, have The Cowl say this:
Which would basically mean that he can kill him at every turn, but until Batman finds a way to conclusively deconstruct what the Joker is and represents, there will always be a Joker to haunt Gotham's streets, and his own nightmares. There will always be another innocent pushed by a really bad day, and this is the person that Batman knows he will have to kill, over and again. So it is better to just discount killing altogether, and try and find a way to end the mania that is the Joker, rather than the maniac currently wearing his face.
edited 12th Jan '14 3:20:26 AM by indiana404
It wouldn't feel like the same thing, though. You can't make a character, even one as sketchy as Joker, just a mere changing cypher with no past human connection to the hero fighting them. That's why Clayface eventually became such a shallow plot device character, when stories stopped giving a crap or bothering to tell if the Clayface they were using was Karlo, Hagen or whatever his name was, Hush's patsy. It's also why, post Infinite Crisis, when you saw a revived Killer Moth or Firefly, and it was handwaved in a single panel they were new guys using the old identities, but they didn't even bother telling you WHO they were or WHY they were doing it, or when a new Tally Man randomly showed up, but they didn't bother saying who he was or what was his deal other than 'I conveniently kill B-listers the author wants to use as shock value fodder', the basic tragedy motif fueling most Batvillains was lost, and the characters felt flat and shallow.
When writing a Batcharacter, you have to keep the human mystique, even with someone as inhuman as Joker (who makes up for his lack of a clear tragedy element with the unique organic nature of his relationship with Batman).
Well, the Joker already has a Multiple-Choice Past, and being utterly chaotic and inconsistent has become a recognized character trait in his own right. Rather than being a physical opponent like Clayface, or relying on personal tragedy like Hush, it's the ideas he represents that take center stage. Much like what Batman claims to be, the Joker really is a symbol, and so can grow and function beyond any one man wielding the joybuzzer.
Still, I'd much rather have him eventually take a batarang to the jugular, and serve as a Posthumous Character from then on, but that's just me.
edited 12th Jan '14 7:24:39 AM by indiana404
The Joker is a symbolic character, but he isn't a symbol.
The Joker is a person that the audience can assign strong emotions to. Just making a new person every time means that the Joker they see the next time isn't the Joker they were attached to or afraid of last time. Marvel tried to do this same idea with the Goblin characters (Green Goblin II-IV, the Hobgoblin, and the Demogoblin), and it failed.
I wouldn't say it failed entirely. The Hobgoblin has a lot of fans, and Harry as Green Goblin Legacy Character does as well because of his personal connection to the original Green Goblin as well as his strong connection to the story. Venom has an interesting relationship with the Legacy Character concept due to the symbiote being the same but the host being different, and while Eddie, the original, was beloved by the fanbase but the next two Venoms were not, the most recent Venom is the most popular that Venom has been in years.
A Legacy Character can be done well, but it helps significantly if the new character taking on the Legacy is someone that already has a strong attachment either to the role or to the character himself. For example, Harley or Jason Todd becoming the Joker would probably go over much better than Joe Random Douche. People don't like seeing a new face wearing an old name. If a character is going to wear an old name, they want to see a promotion from within. If a character is going to have a new face, they want to see a new goddamn character.
Marvel's Hawkeye also is a good example of this. She's a Legacy Character but from the beginning, she was never intended to replace Clint Barton. She was with a group of other characters emulating core Avengers members, and that premise worked out incredibly well. Instead of going, "Here is the new Hawkeye, just like the old Hawkeye," the story presented us with an Ascended Fangirl and never asked us to believe she was supposed to be anything else.
edited 12th Jan '14 8:45:51 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Legacy Character transitions usually work better with heroes than with villains, because most villains are selfish and self-centered, have little respect to pay others, and other than cashing on another's name (which is usually a warning sign the new guy can't stand on his own legs in-universe or in the meta level), there's rarely much of a reason why they would continue some other criminal's legacy. Harry Osborn is a rare exception that works because the previous Goblin was his father, and I don't consider the Hobgoblin to be a true full Legacy Character, much like Carnage isn't one for Venom. They share some origin, power and motif traits, but the 'successors' worked hard to settle their own identities.
I still say it would be neat to have the Joker repeatedly "die" in a No One Could Survive That! fashion, but no one ever finds his body. That way, when the Joker shows up alive again, he could be the same Joker, or he could be someone new taking up the Joker's mantle, and no one would really know for sure.
The problem with that is the World's Greatest Detective should be easily able to pick an impostor or pretender apart from the original criminal, and it's not like Gotham might have a lineup of men of the same height, built, facial features, voice pitch and mannerisms, all with the same mania and compulsions, all just waiting in line for one to 'die' before taking his place. Even buying the 'reinvents himself' theory, that can't change the height, body type and such physical variants.

The fault I find in your argument is that you are assuming that because a plot has a dark or cynical tone, that it is inherently a cynical story. But that need not be the case. For example, you can tell an inspirational or uplifting story in an otherwise dark world (Robin Hood or any Oscar Bait story about overcoming prejudice is usually this) on the other hand, you can also have a story with a dark tone in an otherwise bright world (Death By Newberry Medal is a very common version).
You can tell a story about the Joker corrupting, testing, or even breaking the virtues that Batman (or other heroes) are sworn to uphold, but still have it be a positive yarn about how those ideal endure, bounce back, or are even strengthened after being forged in flames of darkness.
edited 16th Aug '13 12:35:03 PM by KingZeal