| “ | Without Batman, crime has no punchline. | „ |
| ~ Joker presuming Batman has died. |
| “ | I do terrible, crazy things, and then you act all grim and gritty and stop me. And I go back to Arkham and you go back to... well, whatever it is you do when I'm not around. Brooding all by yourself in the dark, I suppose. That's just how we are. Or how we've grown to be. And it's never going to change. | „ |
| ~ Joker to Batman. |
The Joker is one of the main antagonists of the DC Animated Universe.
He is a psychotic and homicidal madman with a warped sense of humor, who seeks to cause chaos, destruction and misery wherever and whenever he can. As in all other media in which the Joker appears, he is Batman's arch-nemesis.
He was voiced by Mark Hamill, who also played him in the Arkham games, Malefor in The Legend of Spyro, Colonel Muska in Castle in the Sky, Ozai in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Maltruant in Ben 10: Omniverse, The Trickster in The Flash and Kavaxas in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012).
Contents
Roles
He serves as the main antagonist of Batman: The Animated Series and its sequel series The New Batman Adventures, a guest antagonist in Superman: The Animated Series and Static Shock, a major antagonist in Justice League, a mentioned antagonist in Justice League Unlimited and the main antagonist of the film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
History
This section is too long. Visit here for more details: Joker (DC Animated Universe)'s Synopsis on the Villains Wiki.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?
In General
- While he is comedic at times (as per usual with the character), it does not dilute his evil.
- Murdered countless people with Joker venom.
- Regularly abusing his girlfriend, Harley Quinn, both physically and emotionally. He also lied about being a victim of child abuse/neglect just to corrupt her to his side, having remorselessly knocked her out of a tall building out of anger for capturing Batman on her own, uncaring that she could've died.
- While they did not start off this way (presumably, his minions were still getting to know him), his own minions start to get more afraid of him as time goes on. And Poison Ivy herself dislikes him.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
- Under Valestra's orders, he murdered Andrea Beaumont’s father even after his debt to the mob was already paid, and took sadistic pleasure in it, smiling and stealing his surprised daughter's apple to eat.
- Murdering his former boss Salvatore Valestra by putting laughing gas in his oxygen tank.
Batman: The Animated Series
- Attempted to bomb a child’s birthday party. While most of the partygoers were adults, it still would have killed many people.
- Psychologically tormenting Charles "Charlie" Collins for two years as a "hobby" just because Charlie cussed him out in traffic, getting him involved in a scheme to blow up the GCPD, intending to kill Charlie as well.
- Poisoned the ocean, which turned the fish into Joker-like fish, tried to have them copyrighted, and held Gotham's copyright office ransom when they refused.
- Had his radar disruptor to make planes crash into each other out of confusion when they fly over Gotham's airspace.
- Wanted to nuke Gotham while not caring if the Arkham inmates die, unlike Harley.
Superman: The Animated Series
- Blew up numerous buildings in Metropolis just to spite Lex Luthor, attempting to destroy everything he created, which is most of Metropolis.
Justice League
- Bent the Rules of his own game and detonated one of the bombs early while Green Lantern was still inside the Casino, which temporarily stopped his heart and could have killed him had Hawkgirl not revived him.
- Used Ace, a young member of the Royal Flush Gang, in an attempt to have her use her telepathic abilities to drive 70 million people insane, and not caring if he drove the crew who was helping him broadcast the whole thing insane.
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
- Brutally torturing a young Tim Drake for three weeks and planting a microchip on him to take over his body decades later. He then attempted to make Tim kill Batman with a flag-spear gun.
- Taunted Batman about his parents' murder, which made Batman snap and try to outright kill him.
- Killed Bonk just because he wanted to leave Joker's gang.
- Caused massive destruction and killed many people with a satellite laser when he destroyed multiple buildings entirely.
- It is revealed that during his time when he tortured Tim Drake, he put a chip on the young boy's neck with his DNA and memories, so that in case he would die, he would come through to chip to possess Drake as an adult for the rest of his life-forcing him to commit several attrocities along the way.
Comics
- Convinced Two-Face that his girlfriend Grace Lamont was cheating on him with Bruce Wayne, simply because he was bored.
- Brutally tortured Jason Todd with a crowbar and attempted to blow him up strapped to a clown-themed explosive.
Trivia
- While irredeemably evil in his later appearances, the Joker wasn't originally that bad in Batman: The Animated Series, where he was usually depicted more like a troublemaker than an outright murderer in the episodes he appeared in. It wasn't until Batman: Mask of the Phantasm that the Joker firstly showed his sadistic murderous tendencies in spite of retaining some of his comedic qualities. The Joker gradually became more dangerous and deadly in all his appearances from The New Batman Adventures onwards until he finally crossed the Moral Event Horizon in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
- The reason behind this is that Batman: The Animated Series was subject to censorship when it aired on FOX, as the network had strong rules regarding the show's content. As such, the Joker's plans usually didn't involve murder and his Joker venom could only be used as a mere distraction instead of a mortal weapon. However, since Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was a theatrical movie, the production team was able to skip these rules, and when all subsequent DCAU shows went to be aired on Kids WB and Cartoon Network, rules were less strict, allowing them to make more direct references to death and murder and make the Joker more closely resemble his mainstream counterpart.
- To help drive the point of this Joker being Pure Evil, Mark Hamill actually felt uncomfortable voicing him in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker because of his Moral Event Horizon despite playing the role for nearly a decade by that point.
External Links
- Joker (DC Animated Universe) on Villains Wiki
- Joker (DC Animated Universe) on Vs Battles Wiki
- Joker on DC Animated Universe Wiki
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