Wed Jul 16, 2008 — by Alan Kistler

ComicMix Six: Greatest Joker Victories

The Clown Prince of Crime's greatest hits!

Sometimes the villain wins.

Sure, you might stick him or her in jail -- or in an asylum -- for what they've done, or maybe you could even throw them off a rooftop, leaving them paralyzed for life. But that won't change the fact that they already did it. They scored a victory, even if it was short-lived.

The Joker is definitely a villain with a better track record than most. Lex Luthor may have become President and nearly destroyed Superman a few times. But he never killed Lois Lane or tortured Ma and Pa Kent. The Clown Prince of Killers, however, has had quite a few shining moments. I mean, he once turned an entire prison full of super-villains into copies of himself and then set them loose around the world (it happened in a story called Last Laugh, now available in trade).

And in the crossover Underworld Unleashed, the villain James Jesse (AKA Trickster I) actually admitted that when supervillains in the DC Universe want to scare each other, they often tell "Joker stories."

What drives this evil mass murderer? Some have claimed the chemicals that altered his pigmentation also damaged his brain. Some have claimed he suffered such psychological trauma that he simply snapped. Some believe his brain actually acts on a higher level of perception, forcing him to operate with a logic we simply aren't equipped to understand.

The Batman himself has often spoken his belief that half of the Joker's craziness is just an act to convince people he's out of control, to hide the fact that he is a calculating psychopath so that he can be sent to lower-security asylums rather than prison or death row. Considering how the Joker always acts more serious and collected when he and Batman are alone, this last idea has a lot of merit. Half of his crimes seem to be a way of trying to bring Batman to his own way of thinking, that there is no hope in the world, only chaos.

The fact that we can argue about the Joker's sanity (or lack thereof) is part of what makes him so interesting and makes us want to keep seeing more. And so, with this week's release of The Dark Knight -- and the Joker -- looming near, we've sifted through the long and bloody history of the Harlequin of Hate to find those victories which stand out above the rest. Steel your nerves and enjoy ComicMix Six: The Six Greatest Joker Victories.

And if you're interested, you may want to check out our related article, 11 Batman Stories to read before The Dark Knight.

 

6. THE MURDER OF SARAH ESSEN

Years after Jim Gordon got divorced and his wife moved to Chicago with their son, his old partner Sarah Essen returned to Gotham. One thing led to another and the two finally got married. Around the tough cops of the Gotham City Police Department, Sarah became a very well-respected detective and even served as commissioner for a short time. Above all else, she was known for standing by her principles and her faith in the legal system, never agreeing with her husband that the Batman was a necessary force at times. In a city full of corruption and cynicism, she was an idealist.

Then came the horrible Christmas Day when the Joker kidnapped several newborn babies. Batman's forces and the GCPD all did their best to scour the city and find the children. At one point, Sarah returned to Police HQ to stock up on some supplies. To her amazement, the Joker had been hiding with the children in the basement of the HQ building the whole time.

Seeing the killer holding an infant, she brought out her gun and demanded that he surrender. The Joker tossed the baby to Sarah, forcing her to drop her weapon as she caught the child. With Sarah now defenseless, the Joker shot her in the head. He didn't laugh or even smile. He just said "Merry Christmas" and walked outside, surrendering himself to the police so he could taunt Gordon in person.

This is not higher on the list mainly because the Joker's murder of Sarah was not the result of a plan but rather just his taking advantage of an opportunity once she had discovered him.

This event happened at the end of the year-long story Batman: No Man's Land, which has been collected in several trades.

 

5. THE PARALYSIS OF BARBARA GORDON

After engineering yet another escape from Arkham Asylum, the Joker decided he was going to prove to Batman that his madness was completely understandable and that anyone who had one really horrible, traumatic day was capable of exhibiting the same mentality. To this end, he decided he would kidnap Commissioner Jim Gordon, as he was both Batman's friend and the second toughest man in Gotham City, and would drive him insane.

The Joker paid a visit on Gordon at his home. When Gordon's adopted daughter Barbara answered the door, the Clown Prince of Killers promptly shot her, damaging her spine and paralyzing her for life. The Joker didn't realize just how momentous this action was, for Barbara was the (then semi-retired) hero known as Batgirl.

Because he didn't know that he'd paralyzed a crime-fighter he'd fought several times and because Barbara was able to overcome her injury and become even more formidable as the hacker extraordinaire known as Oracle, this is not higher on the list.

This event can be found in the critically-acclaimed graphic novel The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland.

 

4. THE CORRUPTION OF HARLEEN QUINZEL (HARLEY QUINN)

What can be worse than murder? The corruption of innocence, some would say.

Harleen Quinzel was a young hotshot intern studying psychoanalysis who requested to work at Arkham Asylum in the hopes that it would help further her career and possibly lead to a best-selling tell-all book. The Joker was amused that her name could be altered slightly to resemble the word "harlequin" and took an interest in her.

Believing she was smart enough for his tricks, she began attempts to analyze him through therapy. Over several weeks, she found herself shocked and touched by the criminal's tales of a traumatic past and the brutal treatment he recieved from those who didn't understand his unique view on life. Quinzel had underestimated the psychopath's own knowledge of psychology and manipulation. She believed they loved each other, but he had simply found her name amusing and decided to turn her into a co-dependent accomplice just to show that he could.

Over the years, Harleen herself was a major reason why the Joker kept finding ways to escape Arkham. When she was finally caught, her superiors made her a patient herself. Harleen later escaped and began a new life, adopting a jester's costume and renaming herself Harley Quinn. A later chemical treatment given to her by Poison Ivy granted Harley heightened strength, speed and agility, making her the perfect muscle for the Joker's various schemes and allowing her to give Batman a good fight.

After a few years of working with him and attempting to win his love, Harley finally left the Joker when he attempted to kill her (again) and has since tried to go straight, actually helping heroes from time to time. Because of this, and because she never became quite as bloodthirsty as the Joker or some of Gotham's other crazies, this crime is not higher on the list.

Harley's origin and introduction into mainstream DC continuity can be found in the graphic novel Batman: Harley Quinn (which takes place during the events of No Man's Land),  written by Paul Dini, Harley's own creator. The original version of her origin can be found in the story Mad Love (and you should check out the Batman animated series episode of the same title).

 

3. THE THEFT OF MR. MXYZPTLK'S POWER

Superman has often found himself powerless against the machinations of the imp called Mr. Mxyzptlk, a fifth-dimensional being whose super-science powers can only be described as magical. Fortunately for the Man of Steel, Mxyzptlk is a prankster at heart rather than a killer.

So you can imagine how bad it became when the Joker tricked the little imp into giving him the secret of all his powers. The Clown Prince quickly used his new god-like abilities to remake the world. He created a new version of Bizarro (an imperfect duplicate of Superman) to serve him, altered the Justice League into ineffectual bumblers, caused Superman to think he was insane, and killed Batman on a nightly basis only to resurrect him each morning. He even turned the Earth into a cube with his face on each side, just because he could, and then forced the incredibly powerful villain Darkseid to re-enact Budweiser commercials.

The Joker was finally defeated by Superman, partly because the Last Son of Krypton realized that despite all of his power, the crazed killer still couldn't actually permanently destroy the Batman. Because without him, without his "straight man", his life had no meaning. In the end, Mxyzptlk took back his power and neither the Joker nor the world at large remembered what he had done.

This story of the Joker attaining god-like power is in the trade Superman: Emperor Joker.

 

2. THE CORRUPTION OF CATWOMAN

After years of fighting Batman and occasionally teaming-up with him, Selina Kyle decided she was done being a criminal as Catwoman and offered to start fighting on the side of heroes. She joined the Dark Knight and Jason Todd (the new Robin) on a few cases, even helping them to capture and imprison her old henchmen. The Dymanic Duo was now a Dymanic Trio and Batman at last had a woman with whom he could share all aspects of his life. For once, he didn't need to be afraid of scaring her away or endangering her.

And then the Joker found out about this little romance and decided he would change the ending. Setting up a trap, he kidnapped Catwoman and brought her to Dr. Moon, a sinister scientist who focused on mental experimentation. Using a modified CAT scan, Moon and the Joker reprogrammed Catwoman's mind, blurring her memories of the last several months, when she had begun to reform, and implanting the suggestion that the Batman had callously left her to die once when he could have saved her.

When Catwoman awakened, she was fully dedicated to crime again and now had a new hatred for Batman. Memories of their romance (as well as Batman's true identity) were completely blocked out and she teamed up with the Joker to fight him again before she struck out on her own, ignoring the Dark Knight's cries that the Clown Prince had done something to her mind.

The Batman had finally found a woman he could be honest with, a woman who understood him and his life. And the Joker had ripped her away.

This two-part story first appeared in Detective Comics #569-570, written by Mike W. Barr and illustrated by Alan Davis. It can also be found in the trade The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told.

 

1. THE DEATH OF JASON TODD (ROBIN II)

He'd corrupted Catwoman and altered her memory. Over a year later, he crippled Barbara Gordon for life. And a year after that, the Harlequin of Hate set his sights on the second teenager to take on the mantle of the Boy Wonder.

Even non-comic fans have heard about his event. It all started when Jason Todd discovered that the woman who had raised him was not his biological mother. Using his detective skills, he tracked down his true mother to the Middle East. But the Joker was there too, blackmailing the woman into helping him.

As Batman left to thwart one of the Joker's schemes, Jason decided try and tackle things head on, only to be betrayed by his biological mother and lured into a trap. The Joker couldn't pass up the opportunity to do some real damage finally. Laughing as he did so, he beat Jason Todd to within an inch of his life with a crowbar. Then, to eliminate definitive evidence of his presence, he left him and his mother in a locked warehouse with a bomb. Batman arrived mere moments before the bomb exploded. When he found Jason, the body was already cold.

In recent years, Jason was resurrected (quite literally) but that does not change the fact that his death had a profound effect on the Dark Knight, making him more cynical and emotionally guarded afterwards and forcing him to never forget that anyone he recruited into his war on crime was putting their life into his hands, for better or worse.

What makes this event even more famous was that Jason's fate was decided via a hotline number. If you dialed one hotline, you were voting that Batman would find his body in the rubble in the next issue. If you called a second hotline, you were voting that Jason had miraculously found a way to survive and Batman would find him alive (though seriously injured) amidst the rubble. The final results were by a narrow margin, but the fans made it clear that the Joker would have yet another victory.

This story can be found in the trade Batman: A Death in the Family, written by Jim Starlin and illustrated by Jim Aparo.

 

Though it is not listed here, an honorable mention goes out to when the Joker executed Alexander Luthor of Earth-3 (a man who had threatened the entire universe, helped cause Superboy's death, and had escaped all of Earth's heroes) and to the story featured in Detective Comics #726. A self-contained single-issue story, it features the Joker orchestrating a child-abduction from the safety of his asylum cell as his own way of celebrating the anniversary of Jason Todd's death. This issue, written by Chuck Dixon and illustrated by Brian Stelfreeze, contains some great dialog and is another show of the Joker one-upping Batman by introducing new doubts into the Dark Knight's mind and forcefully reminding him just how well he truly knows and understands the hero.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there and read for yourselves! 

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Alan Kistler has been recognized by Warner Bros. Pictures and mainstream media outlets such as the New York Daily News as a comic book historian, and can be seen in the "Special Features" sections of the Adventures of Aquaman and Justice League: New Frontier DVDs. His personal website can be found at: www.KistlerUniverse.com.

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