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| As a result of the New 52 in 2011, the entire line of DC characters was relaunched, incorporating properties belonging to the company's imprints: Wildstorm, Milestone, and Vertigo. As such, elements of this character's history have been altered in some way from the previous incarnation. For a complete list of all versions of this character, see our disambiguation page. |
Jackanapes is a gorilla kept as a pet by Joker.
History
During his early years, the Clown Prince of Crime feels nostalgic about his youth, portrayed here as an abusive childhood by his Aunt Eunice. As his crew are watching a snake devour a man at the zoo, he goes to the gorilla habitat and knocks out the mother gorilla, taking the baby with him. Deciding to raise it as the son he never had, he calls him Jackanapes and teaches him everything he knows of crime.
Eventually, the baby ape grew to an adult, having learned basic communication and comprehension of the English language, as well as being a weapons expert and inventor, a source of unending pride in Joker.
Hearing word that a councilwoman planned to close the Gotham City Zoo, he and Jack, using recently invented rocket packs, break into the woman's plane, killing many with machine guns and mutating others with a gas grenade. Handing Jack a frequency remote, Joker orders him to set it to the right pitch, which would make the mutated and confused people kill each other. For the first time, Jack feels regret for what he'd done, setting the device to force the people to attack them, instead.
Pushed out of the plane, Joker calls to his son to activate his rocket pack, only for Jack to ignore him, having accepted his fate. Joker lands unharmed, searching for Jack, only to find his hat in the river. Though it appears Joker is devastated at the closest thing to family he had was apparently killed, he merely suggests he should get a refund on swimming lessons and laughs it off.[2]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
Abilities
- Genius Level Intellect: Jackanapes is a highly functioning gorilla after being raised and taught everything he knows from the Joker himself.
Notes
- Jackanapes was created by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert, first appearing in Batman #666. However, in the rebooted Prime Earth continuity his first appearance as part of the DC Universe is in Andy Kubert and Andy Clarke's New 52 Batman #23.1: The Joker one-shot.
Related
- 14 Appearances of Jackanapes (Prime Earth)
- 4 Images featuring Jackanapes (Prime Earth)
- Quotations by or about Jackanapes (Prime Earth)
- Character Gallery: Jackanapes (Prime Earth)
Footnotes
  Batman Villain(s) |