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Quote1 But if Owlman's another you, he craves control. And who better to take down a control freak than the Nemesis of Order? The Clown Prince of Chaos? Quote2
The Joker src

The Joker was a supervillain hailing from Gotham City, who chiefly menaced Batman but clashed with many other active superheroes.

He was often aided in his crimes by other supervillains, henchmen, and his girlfriend Harley Quinn.

Criminal Career

According to the Joker himself, one of his chief inspirations for becoming a supervillain was Mortimer Gloom, AKA the Weeper.

The Joker led a long, persistent criminal career and came with a hair's breadth of killing Batman countless times, to the point where Batman eventually devoted an entire wing in the Batcave's trophy room to his deathtraps. Every one of the Joker's capers, however, would eventually end in defeat, and the Clown Prince of Crime would inevitably be returned to the confines of Arkham Asylum.

A Bat by Another Name

When Batman was impersonated by his alternate-universe counterpart Owlman, the Joker alone believed that the new, criminally-minded Batman was an imposter. After tracking down the real Batman (now on the run from the superhero community), the Joker offered his arch-nemesis a proposal; the two of them would team up to defeat Owlman, since Batman's mind alone would be too evenly matched against Owlman's. Batman, remembering the heroic actions of the Joker's alternate-universe counterpart, reluctantly accepted on the condition that the Joker was not to hurt any innocents.

After a brief visit to the Batcave, the mismatched duo tracked down Owlman, who by then had captured every other hero in the city. Owlman demanded that Batman give him the phase oscillator (a device that enables travel between parallel universes and timelines) in exchange for the lives of the heroes, to which Batman and the Joker refused. After a long and hazardous chase, Batman and the Joker finally cornered Owlman in his own headquarters, only to find that Owlman had recruited several other villains (Black Manta, the Brain, Gorilla Grodd, Doctor Polaris, Gentleman Ghost and Clock King) to his cause. Though Batman and the Joker fought well, they were eventually overcome by Owlman and his allies.

With Batman at his mercy, Owlman offered the Joker a chance to betray Batman, and kill him via a custom-made deathtrap. The Joker cheerfully accepted, using the deathtrap to encase Batman in boiling wax. Batman, however, had anticipated this betrayal, and used the phase oscillator to travel back in time and bring several different (heroic) incarnations of himself into the present. A battle royale ensued, which ultimately ended in the defeat of the Joker, Owlman, and all of the other supervillains.

The Spirit of Competition

On one occasion, the Joker attempted to escape Batman by having his Jokermobile deploy enormous pieces of popcorn as a barricade. The timely intervention of Green Arrow foiled this strategy and forced the Joker to convert the Jokermobile into hot-air balloon mode in a last-ditch escape attempt. Looking to impress each other, Batman and Green Arrow punctured the balloon as quickly as they could, leaving the defeated Joker to the police.

Mongul's Death Race

The Joker was one of the racers selected by Mongul to participate in his "Death Race" competition, along with Batman, Green Arrow, Huntress, Plastic Man and Woozy Winks, Guy Gardner, Catwoman, Black Manta, Gentleman Ghost and Steppenwolf. For the race, the Joker drove his trademark Jokermobile, and gave commentary on the other racers' progress as he competed alongside them.

During the race, the Joker and his fellow racers, Black Manta and Gentleman Ghost, ganged up on the Batmobile, trying to force the Caped Crusader out of the race. Although the three supervillains succeeded in pushing the Batmobile off of a cliff, Batman simply converted the Batmobile into jet form, escaping any injury. Manta then turned on the Joker, but the Clown Prince of Crime knocked Manta's vehicle off of a cliff by deploying an oversized whoopee cushion. The Joker then went on to eliminate Guy Gardner from the race as well, by flinging a jack-in-the-box onto the Green Lantern's construct vehicle. The toy triggered Gardner's fear of clowns, breaking Gardner's concentration and, by extension, the vehicle.

By the last leg of the race, the Joker found his vehicle being hounded by both Batman and Huntress. The Joker temporarily stalled Batman by flinging an oversized Joker Fish through the Batmobile's windshield, and destroyed the tires on Huntress' motorcycle with a spray of acid. Huntress, refusing to go down alone, punctured the Jokermobile's tires with her crossbow, resulting in both her and the Joker being eliminated.

Like the rest of the race's losers, the Joker was teleported into a holding cell on Mongul's War World headquarters. When he saw Green Arrow, Plastic Man, and Guy Gardner organize an escape, he called out for them to free him, and was loudly rebuffed. Later, after the artificial moon had been destroyed, the Joker (along with all of the other supervillain racers) was saved by Guy Gardner and returned to police custody.

Joe Chill's Auction

Along with several other Gotham-based supervillains, the Joker participated in Joe Chill's auction for a weapon known as the "sonic disruptor". The auction was quickly interrupted by Batman, who had recently discovered that Chill was the gunman who had shot his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne. Batman quickly beat the Joker and all of the other supervillains into submission, before confronting Chill man-to-man.

While the Joker and his fellow supervillains recuperated, Batman, in a fit of passion, revealed his true identity to Chill. A horrified Chill escaped from the Caped Crusader, admitting to the supervillains that he had inadvertently "created" Batman and begging them for help. The Joker and his fellow criminals violently beat Chill as punishment for being the catalyst to forming their greatest nemesis, until Batman leaped back into the fray. In the ensuing struggle, the auction house was destroyed, and the Joker managed to flee along with most of the other supervillains.

The Reign of Emperor Joker

Eventually, the Joker's escapes grew to be so numerous that Batman began to personally design the supervillain's cell at Arkham Asylum. Nevertheless, the Joker escaped this cell with help from the reality-warping Bat-Mite, and immediately set out to rob the Gotham Comedy Museum with a gang of underlings, including Harley Quinn. Batman, with Bat-Mite in tow, quickly showed up to stop the Clown Prince of crime, but found himself struggling to fight off the Joker's gang. Bat-Mite, wanting to help his idol, attempted to transfer his reality-warping powers into Batman. His poor aim, however, gave the Joker those powers instead.

Upon realizing his new abilities, the Joker immediately began exploiting them as much humanly possible, and transformed the entire universe into his personalized, logic-defying kingdom. He used his powers to conjure up deathtrap after deathtrap, violently killing and reviving Batman countless times for his own amusement. Eventually, a desperate Batman goaded the Joker into a new goal; entering Batman's mind and destroying his sanity. The Joker gleefully invaded Batman's consciousness, but godlike abilities proved to be no match for Batman's highly-disciplined mind, which consciously rearranged itself to show the Joker his worst fear — a world without Batman.

The Joker was utterly horrified by the vision of a world where he had no one to match wits with, and was thus nothing more than an average, ordinary criminal. In a fit of desperation, he relinquished his new abilities, and escaped from Batman's mind a drooling, catatonic shell. Most of the changes that the Joker had made to the universe were then undone by the re-powered Bat-Mite, and the Joker and his gang were returned to police custody.

Big Batman is Watching

After rescuing Atlantis-based criminal, the Fisherman, from Batman, the Joker became aware of a new crime-fighting project that Batman was working on, and set out to stop the Caped Crusader. While searching for information at a supervillain bar, the Joker ran into Mortimer Gloom, AKA the Weeper — the supervillain who "invented criminal shtick as we know it". Upon realizing that a failed caper thirty years ago (and the subsequent prison sentence) had completely destroyed the Weeper's spirits, the Joker tried to recruit Gloom to his cause, citing the aged supervillain as his personal inspiration. The Weeper initially turned down the Joker's proposition, but quickly changed his mind when Batman publicly announced the creation of the "Bat-Probe" — a powerful machine that would instantly detect any crime being committed in Gotham City.

Before confronting Batman, the Joker sought to help the Weeper re-acquire his supervillain expertise, by sending the him to commit crimes around Gotham City. After several disastrous failures on Gloom's part, the Joker finally succeeded by setting Gloom up to steal candy from a baby. Declaring Gloom ready to face Batman, the Joker and his idol infiltrated S.T.A.R. Labs, and attacked Batman as the he was acquiring the final component to the Bat-Probe. Though the two supervillains fought hard, Gloom still failed to land a fatal blow on Batman at the critical moment, and Batman quickly handed the duo a sound beating.

Though the two supervillains escaped capture, the Weeper lost all the self-confidence he had regained, and sadly terminated his partnership with the Joker. Shortly afterwards, the Bat-Probe went into operation, leading to swift capture for every criminal in Gotham — including the Joker himself. The Joker quickly escaped his initial capture, but instead of lying low, rashly chose to pick a fight with the Gotham City Police Department. Though the police eventually overwhelmed him, the Joker was saved by the Weeper, who had experienced yet another change of heart and was now committed to making "the world safe for the criminals of tomorrow."

An elated Joker then took the Weeper to the top of Gotham City Police Headquarters, where the Bat-Probe was located. After another fierce battle, the Weeper managed to destroy the Bat-Probe and incapacitate Batman, finally regaining his full glory as a supervillain. Though the Joker was happy for his idol, he was soon treated to a rude shock; the emboldened Weeper now sought to kill him, and claim the title of Gotham's top criminal for himself. Before the Weeper could do so, Batman recuperated, and took both supervillains down for the count, saving the Joker's life. The Joker was driven to tears by this development, as he had been entirely willing to give his own life to ensure the Weeper's comeback as a supervillain; ironically, his tears caused the Weeper to break into a rare laugh as the two of them were returned to police custody.

The Destroyer of Worlds

Possible Future
The events described here were part of a Possible Future, and may or may not be canon with the continuity of this universe at large.

At one point, the Joker received a psychic distress signal from the the Misfit, a supervillain who inhabited a post-apocalyptic future Earth. By some means, the Joker managed to travel to this future Earth and come to the Misfit's aid, helping the Misfit and his robotic minions defeat the heroic Kamandi and the inhabitants of the settlement known as Tiger City. With the Joker's help, the Misfit assumed control of Tiger City and its "holy deity" — a nuclear warhead missile that was actually the deadliest weapon on the planet. Shortly after their victory, however, the Joker succumbed to his poor impulse control and hit the missile's launch button, completely obliterating the future Earth.

Powers

Abilities

  • Genius Level Intellect: The Joker was very skilled in the fields of chemistry, genetics, and nuclear engineering. He also seems capable of mastering whatever he puts his twisted mind to when he wants to.
  • Firearms: The Joker was an excellent marksman with various firearms.


Transportation

Weapons


Related

Footnotes


Batman Villains 0003
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Batman Villain(s)
This character, team or organization, has been primarily an enemy of the Batman, or the Batman Family as a whole. This template will categorize articles that include it into the category "Batman Villains."

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Legion of Doom member
This character is or was a member of the Legion of Doom, a team of supervillains called together for the purpose of conquering the world and defeating the Super Friends, in any of its various incarnations. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Legion of Doom members" category.

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