| “ | What's the matter, Batman? No witty comeback? No threat? Then I'll provide the narration. I'll begin with how I peeled back the layers of the boy's mind. Oh he bravely tried to fight it at first. You would've been proud to see him so strong. But all too soon, the serums and the shocks took their toll, and the dear lad began to share such secrets with me. Secrets that are mine alone to know, Bruce. Its true, Batsy! I know everything. And kinda like the kid who peeks at his Christmas presents, I must admit it's sadly anti-climactic. Behind all the stern and bat-o-rangs, you're just a little boy in a playsuit, crying for mommy and daddy! It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Oh what the heck, I'll laugh anyway. HA HA HA HA HA HAA! | „ |
| ~ The Joker's final act of revenge on Batman. |
The Joker is one of the main antagonists of the DC Animated Universe, being the main antagonist of Batman: The Animated Series.
He is a psychotic criminal 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, the Trickster in the 1990 The Flash show and the 2014 The Flash show, the alternate Hobgoblin in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Malefor in The Legend of Spyro, Colonel Muska in Castle in the Sky, Ozai in Avatar: The Last Airbender and Maltruant in Ben 10: Omniverse.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- Although he consistently has many comedic moments, they are never exclusive to his cruelty. More often than not, they actually emphasize it as well as his sadism.
- He also unintentionally admits his cruel comedic edge comes mostly from a place of pride, as he describes himself as the “funniest man” and “greatest comedian” in the world. He also demonstrates to Terry McGinnis his willingness to brutally kill anyone who disagrees with such claims.
- He frequently abuses his girlfriend, Harley Quinn, and is proven to have lied to her about his origins in order to corrupt her to his side and use her as nothing more than a pawn.
- This version of Joker is also notably cruel to Harley, constantly berating and even physically assaulting her, sometimes right in front of others. This is further shown when he knocked her out of a closed aquarium window out of anger for capturing Batman on her own, not caring that she could have died as a result.
- Although they did not start off this way, his own minions started to get more afraid of him as time went on. Even Poison Ivy dislikes him, mainly due to his treatment of Harley.
- Even though he did seem to have a form of respect for Batman as an adversary (even crying during Batman's supposed death), it's not as much genuine respect for him as a person, as it is a parasitic dependance on him in order for his actions and life to have a meaning.
- Either way, the shallow respect he had for Batman is made clear in Batman Beyond, wherein he tells Bruce he “always hated his guts”.
- He is taken so seriously that even people born decades after his death become frozen in terror at the mere mention of his name.
- Even before becoming the Joker, he was shown to be quite perverted when he growled at Andrea Beaumont.
Background[]
- As an unnamed Mafia hitman, he killed Andrea Beaumont's father Carl under Salvatore Valestra's orders even after his debt to his old mob was already paid.
- In the long run, this led Andrea to don the mantle of the Phantasm, an anti-heroic vigilante who would go to kill the Joker's former mobster employers before going solo and killing other targets for money, making him indirectly responsible for the Phantasm's turn to villainy.
- It was heavily implied that he had killed quite a lot of people even before becoming the Joker.
Batman: The Animated Series/The New Batman Adventures[]
- Released his laughing gas into Gotham City on April Fools Day with the intent of driving the populace irreparably crazy. When Batman arrived to foil him, he had his Captain Clown robot spin him around to make him dizzy so he could throw him into a garbage chute.
- While he saved him from potentially suffocating by poking holes into the chute, it was only so that he could have his robot throw it into the water to have him drown.
- Though he was upset when Batman had his robot disposed of by having it turned into a cube, he tried to kill him again by throwing him into an incinerator to burn alive, making his care hypocritical.
- Attempted to bomb Mayor Hamilton Hill’s son Jordan’s birthday party with a dynamite stick while disguised as a party clown, out of spite for him comparing him to Batman. While most of the party guests were adults (making it not so much of an actual party), the dynamite still would have killed them had Bruce Wayne not intervened.
- Tried to make Jordan his apprentice and to get Batman executed through a water trap.
- On Christmas Eve, he kidnapped Commissioner James Gordon, Harvey Bullock, and news reporter Summer Gleeson to make them his “family” since he didn’t have an actual one. While that is rather tragic, it doesn’t excuse this act in any way.
- He set up a few disasters for Batman and Dick Grayson/Robin, ranging from having a bridge blown up to having a train derail there (Gleeson’s mother was on the train, but he didn’t care less) and attempting to wipe them out with a cannon. In the end, it was all just to throw a pie in Batman’s face, making his plan utterly absurd.
- Psychologically tormented Charles Collins for months as a "hobby" because he cussed him out in traffic, getting him involved in a scheme to blow up the GCPD, intending to have him killed as well.
- Poisoned Gotham’s river, which turned fish into his resemblance, tried to have them copyrighted, and held the city’s copyright office for ransom when they refused.
- When Harvey Bullock came into a set-to-be-opened aquarium to stop him, he attempted to have him (and later Batman) devoured alive by a shark.
- He, along with Two-Face and Penguin, attempted to throw Dr. Hugo Strange off a plane to his death after they saw a fake tape of him planning to scam them about Batman’s secret identity.
- When he witnessed the fake tape of Strange, the Joker threatened Hugo Strange that he would use his head as a bowling ball.
- They then attack Strange’s Goons and presumably kill them with their own guns, as shown by Two-Face and Penguin holding the guns.
- He taunted Hugo Strange about his fear of flying.
- When one of Strange’s goon’s Numbers accidentally drops his case of cash, he threatens him that he will take his nose and head.
- Planned to blow up a casino modelled after him by ex-billionaire Cameron Kaiser out of spite. After discovering that Kaiser had been wanting him to destroy the place so that he could regain the money, he tried to kill him and appropriate the casino for himself.
- Kidnapped Catwoman after she saved Batman from one of his death traps and tried to have her chopped up into mincemeat. He planned on mailing Batman a can of her remains as a means of gloating, should he have succeeded.
- While he seemed to show mournful sympathy over Batman’s apparent death, this sorrow is basically him lamenting at not being the one to have done the deed.
- After he makes a eulogy about it at the Ace Chemical Plant, he tries to have the so-called perpetrator, Sidney Debris, killed by having him locked inside a coffin so that it could be thrown into a vat of acidic chemicals.
- After having a “trial” at Arkham against Batman over having created him and the rest of his rogues, he attempted to have him and Attorney Janet Van Dorn executed.
- He wanted to nuke Gotham and also didn’t care if his inmates at Arkham died too, unlike Harley.
- He brainwashed several comedians into doing his work in an attempt to make them look bad.
- Obtained a radar disruptor to make planes crash into each other out of confusion when they fly over Gotham's airspace.
- On New Year's Eve, he planted a sonic bomb inside a bell at Gotham Square so that it would kill anyone within hearing range. Even though he promised not to resume his killing spree for the whole following year, he changed his mind when Batman foiled him.
- While he seemingly changed himself when he got rich thanks to a letter from one of his enemies, Edward “King” Barlowe, he went back to his old ways once he found out that the majority of the money was counterfeit.
- On the seventh anniversary of the day that he fell into a vat of chemicals, he gassed newscaster Jack Ryder and his crew into insanity and threw him into the vat he fell in that day into an attempt to kill him. However, it turned him into a yellow maniac who calls himself the Creeper, which became a ludicrously embarrassing situation for him.
- Along with Harley, he tried to kill Commissioner Gordon by drilling into his skull as his “dentist”.
- He aggressively attacked and caused Harley to fall out a window to her death, all because he didn’t want her ruining his plans, even though she did catch Batman by herself for him. Even though she survived the fall, he still never felt remorse for it. While he did send her a card telling her to "get well," it obviously wasn't a genuine gesture, and he only gave it to her so he would remain his pawn.
Superman: The Animated Series[]
- Stole a dragon-shaped statue made of Kryptonite inside an antique store and planned to use it to kill Superman, partnering with Lex Luthor in the process. Later on, he kidnapped Lois Lane in order to carry out his plot and intended to have her see him suffer. When Batman intervened, he tried to have the three killed with his gas.
- After Lex gives him one more chance to defeat Superman and Batman, he falsifies a distress signal from an ocean liner to distract Superman while having a bomb blow up by the ship while having one of Luthor’s Wayne/Lex T-7 robots attempt to finish off Batman. When he failed again, he blew up numerous buildings in Metropolis out of spite at Superman for foiling his and Luthor’s plans to kill him using his Lexwing, attempting to destroy the entirety of the city.
Static Shock/Justice League[]
- He came inside Dakota to recruit several super-powered rogues of Static and went on a crime spree throughout the city. When Batman and Tim Drake/Robin arrived there, he had them captured and tried to kill them by throwing spiked balls at them all while having his henchmen film it all.
- He sprayed laughing gas on the Bang-Baby Rouge Ferret after he kindly rejected his offer of teaming up with him because he was scared of the Joker.
- Joined Lex Luthor’s Injustice Gang to kill the Justice League, and when the Gang captured Batman, he attempted to kill him multiple times despite Luthor and the others ordering him not to.
- Upon discovering Project Cadmus, he broke into one of their facilities, killed some staff members, and recruited the teenagers Cadmus was experimenting with. He made them into a group called the Royal Flush Gang.
- Planted many bombs in Las Vegas and threatened to blow up the city.
- When the Justice League arrived, he sent the Royal Flush Gang to kill them.
- He bent the rules of his own game and detonated one of the bombs early while Green Lantern was still inside a 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 the entirety of Las Vegas insane, not caring if he drove the crew who was helping him broadcast the whole thing crazy as well.
Batman Beyond[]
- Brutally tortured Tim Drake/Robin for three weeks, turning him into Joker Jr. During this time, he forced Tim to reveal all the secrets he knew about his double life, including Batman's identity as Bruce Wayne.
- Showed Batman a slideshow of how Tim became Joker Jr. just to anger him and taunted him about the death of his parents, which made him snap and try to outright kill him.
- Attempted to have Tim either make Batman “die with a smile” or do to him exactly what he did to him prior.
- He ultimately brought an end to the Bat Family by driving Tim into insanity, as this scarred Batman to the point where he forbade him, and anyone for that matter, from ever taking up the mantle of Robin ever again, and Barbara would quit being Batgirl in favor of following in her father's footsteps as the chief of police, now believing vigilantism was the wrong way to solve crime.
- Overall, he's the main catalyst as to why Bruce had cut all contact with his friends and allies, resulting in him becoming a depressed hermit by the time of Batman Beyond.
- Killed Bonk with his laughing gas just because he wanted to leave the Jokerz.
- He breaks into Wayne Manor, injures Bruce Wayne's dog Ace in the process, and subjects Bruce to his toxin while sending the Jokerz to kill Terry McGinnis, resulting in his girlfriend Dana Tan being seriously injured in the process. Had Terry not saved Bruce, he would have been killed as well.
- Attempted to have Jordan Pryce killed by having his gang turn on him after making a deal to kill Bruce and leave him to die on a ship so he could destroy it with a satellite laser.
- Caused massive destruction and possibly killed many people with his satellite laser when he destroyed multiple buildings entirely in an attempt to do away with Terry/Batman when he tried to interfere with him.
- It is revealed that during his time when he tortured Tim Drake, he put a Cadmus chip on his neck with a copy of himself, so that in case something would happen to him, he would come through the chip to possess Tim as an adult, forcing him to commit several acts along the way when it was time for him to make his final plan for Gotham.
- Threatened to blow up a hospital where Dana is recovering from the prior attack, Mary McGinnis' apartment, and Wayne Manor with his satellite laser just to spite Terry.
- Tried to strangle Terry to death for insulting him. That goes without saying how hypocritical this is, considering how often he taunts and makes fun of others himself.
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 killer in the episodes he appeared in. It wasn't until the movie “Mask of the Phantasm” that the Joker first showed his sadistic tendencies in spite of retaining some of his comedic qualities. He 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.
- 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 highlight his Pure Evil status, Mark Hamill actually felt uncomfortable voicing the Joker in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker because of his Moral Event Horizon, despite playing the role for nearly a decade by that point.
- While the Joker is currently Pure Evil, there's a slight (yet very unlikely) chance this may change once he returns for the last time in the upcoming Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three animated crossover film, as it has been announced that Mark Hamill will reprise his role as this iteration of the Joker due to the film bringing back different animated versions of DC characters from past DC animated media.
External Links[]
- Joker on the Villains Wiki
- Joker on the DC Animated Universe Wiki
- Joker on the DC Wiki
- Joker on the Batman Wiki
- Joker on the VS Battles Wiki
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 Animated Universe Pure Evils
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Batman: The Animated Series: Joker |
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