| “ | I was waiting for him to come home. We’re bound together, he and I. It's the one thing I knew for certain, the one thing I knew was true. And then he just...abandoned us. Do you know how it feels to have the one, the only thing you love ripped away from you? | „ |
| ~ Jeremiah Valeska talking about Bruce Wayne to Jim Gordon. |
Jeremiah Valeska is the narcissistic and obsessive twin brother of the deranged anarchist Jerome Valeska. He used to work for Thomas Wayne before acquiring wealth and secluding himself from Gotham. After Jerome's death, Jeremiah wants to outdo his brother by destroying and rebuilding Gotham and Bruce Wayne. He is a major antagonist in seasons four and five of the Gotham television series.
His Qualities[]
What Makes Him Entertaining?[]
- He was an exceptionally brilliant actor who was able to impersonate Jerome Valeska by faking a posthumous video of him.
- Jeremiah is shown to let out his true personality going from being a nearly timid and sophisticated individual during his first appearances to being a confident and cold-hearted criminal mastermind.
- He is able to get Jerome's followers to follow him after the latter's death without little to no struggle on securing their loyalty and allegiance.
- Jeremiah is shown to be calm and collected after suffering a beating from Alfred and getting imprisoned by GCPD. He is often seen not taking his situation seriously and is confident about his situation.
- He is shown to be a skilled fighter capable of overpowering Tabitha Galavan in combat.
- His personality is shown evolving by season 5 where is shown to laugh, smile, and emote more.
- He has an iconic laugh similarly to his brother, Jerome.
- He is shown to be more composed and confident in the company of the brainwashed Alfred, the kidnapped and hypnotized impersonators of Thomas and Martha Wayne, and Bruce himself in Bruce's mansion.
- A decade after his defeat, he is shown to become infamous as the Gotham's worst villain.
- He has iconic soundtracks that play during his screen time to highlight the danger he poses and his character.
- He presents a self-awareness of some kind, looking at the spectator in pointed moments of the show. Even implying his transformation into The Joker in the series finale, by saying his line about "Feeling something new" while watching and smiling at the camera.
- He is the most comic accurate version of the character since he shows what others didn't, that is the man behind the clown. His highly hypocrital, deceptive, analytical, cynical, manipulative and megalomaniac personality shows how much he behaves like what Joker hiddes in his supposely nihilistic aproach.
- He is based on many versions of the Joker and it can be say that he thinks like them at some extent.
- Comics: (Golden Age Joker,Joker The Dark Knight Returns, Killing Joke Joker, A Serious House On a Serious Earth Joker, A Death In The Family Joker, Batman Zero Year Joker, The Man Who Laughs Joker, War of Jokes and Riddles Joker, Death of The Family Joker, End Game Joker, and White Kight Joker)
- Games:( Arkhamverse Joker, and John Doe of Telltale)
- Animated:( Timmverse Joker)
- Movies: ( Joker (Batman 1989), and Nolanverse Joker).
- He has many similitutes with The Joker, and could even be taken as the character itself if we take count his evolution.
- First, he shows himself as a paranoid, shy and emotional, yet deeply ambigously moral and extreme person (Similar to The Joker before be The Joker in Killing Joke, but with a morality more close to New 52 Joker).
- Then becomes a more calculate, sadist, calm and indifferent mastermind yet showing a great skill on showmanship and disguise, as well having an explosive temperament. (Golden Age Joker, his first ages, also combined with The Joker of War and Jokes and Riddles).
- He has also many extravagant artefacts and joking, mocking flamboyant behavior that he uses whenever is convinience and is more dom at the pass of the series, although he's stills behing sadist as before, if not more(Joker after the censurship and also references to Super-Sane Joker as he's able to shift the personality he needs to in order to acheive his goals). At this point, he starts to show even more lack of care on his own persevation, as he don't use the armor that Ecco prepared to him, risking himself at recieving many stabs from Selina; all for the sake of threatrics.
- Finally at the end of the show, after Ace Chemicals confrontation with Bruce, he takes a more nihilsitic, devious, playful, charismatic and cold hearted personality. A combination of everything presented on the show before, and some aspects more. Despite remians his mastermind obsessive persona, he is much more psychotic, don't remembering how exactly his past is, yet being self aware of his actions and reasoning behind them. Even despite claiming love for Bruce and tells that he's bonded with him, the final episode implies that he wanted to kill him, even after discover he is Batman. He laugh manically at his own pain, as he also makes jokes about the Ace Chemicals accident, and had no problem with be bad treately in Arkham, even calling it "the funny farm." Showing how much deeply monstrous he became.(Post Crisis Joker/Modern Age Joker).
What Makes Him Detestable?[]
In General:[]
- Despite his seemingly harmless state in his first appearance, Jeremiah proved to be quite cruel deep down, in fact Jerome himself called him incorrigible, a murderer, which is as crazy as him and which is his nature.
- Jeremiah might be the more jumping level villain of all the series, starting with a seemly ambigous moral to become the most detestable and villanious of all, he never cared about anyone but himself.
- Even that self care is called into question, due to how he allows himself to be stabbed several times by Selina, despite being able to wear the armor that Ecco made for him, all just in name of versimilitute. Also as he laughs about his own pain in his fights with Bruce, and had no problem to being abused in Arkham during a decade.
- The "love" he feels for Bruce is an unhealthy fascination that is born due to his own inflated ego.
- This is shown when he emphasizes his importance, belittles Bruce's ideas, and is even amused when he sees him emotionally destroyed, and even tried to to kill him just because he didn't act the way he wanted.
- He seems to attract the madness around him, for example Jerome and Ecco, who due to having Jeremiah around, ended up becoming people with empty morals and full of desire for chaos and death.
- With Jerome being one of Gotham's most notorious criminals and not forgetting the mark Jeremiah left on him, despite 15 years of being apart.
- And Ecco first becoming a cold and stoic proxy capable of committing horrible acts for Jeremiah, and then she became a sadistic, murderous and manipulative servant who worshiped him like a god. In addition to the hundreds of people who joined him and his Church, even though there were still loyal followers of Jeremiah despite the 10 years of his supposedly brain death.
- While it is true that Jerome has proven to be quite manipulative, Jeremiah is precisely the only one who could not justifice himself using Jerome's manipulations as an excuse.
- Jerome has only lied in situations where the recipient didn't know the whole story; for example, Jim Gordon didn't know he hated Lila, and he didn't actually tell Dwight he would kill him; those lies were without context of Jerome's intentions. While with Jeremiah, he was speaking precisely with someone who shared the events that Jerome describes.
- Although Jerome mentions that his memory is confused, Jeremiah does not even try to use this as an excuse, but appeals that Jerome was born bad, which is pretty low.
- Jerome admits that as a teenager he wanted to kill everything in sight, however, the fact is that Jeremiah left the circus at age 8, so even Jerome's murderous desires could very well be a consequence of Jeremiah's actions.
- Despite his apparent delusions when declaring himself sane, or stating that he wants to help Bruce, or rebuild the city; In several other moments he freely admits his madness, sadistically and openly enjoys the suffering of others, including Bruce's, and his desire to rebuild the city in his image so that in the end he settles for No Man's Land show how he sees the chaos like the construction you want to do.
- He is aware of his actions, he simply considers himself above social moral standards, calling his behavior the natural way of acting in response to order.
- Jeremiah is a boogeyman figure, causing deep fear, respect, hatred and admiration in all the characters in the series.
- Lee saw him as a threat to the people of the Narrows.
- In Harvey's opinion he was sicker than Jerome, and later he even feared disobeying him because of what he might do if he didn't follow his plan.
- Oswald Cobblepot did not mess with him again in No Man's Land, showing that their first meeting left a great impact on him.
- Edward Nygma calls him a legend.
- Bruce explicitly avoids mentioning Jeremiah in episode 9 of the fifth season while mentioning the people who hurt Gotham because of him, demonstrating how deeply damaged him.
- Alfred Pennyworth feels a deep resent me towards him, since he caused so much damage to Bruce and feels impotent about it.
- Barbara Kean ended up being terrified of him, knowing that not even Jerome managed to terrify her.
- And James Gordon himself, who was the bravest against Jerome, felt helplessness and despair against Jeremiah.
- Even Jerome showed some kind of twisted admiration for him, finding "interesting" his inventions, obsessively planning how to take him down, and expose his madness, calling him the essential ingredient to bring Gotham into lunacy, and the one and only "worthy" of make the city a hell apart of himself.
- He has caused Selina Kyle to go into depression, to the point where she atempted to suicide out of desperation.
- Although Bruce initially tries to make Jeremiah see that his ways are wrong, he eventually comes to see him as someone who is beyond salvation and hopelessness. Which is ironic, considering that at first he thought that Jerome was born bad, but then he began to feel empathy for him because of the situation with his family. Although of course, this doesn't justifice Jerome.
- He was indirectly responsible for the creation of Killer Croc and so many other mutated humans.
- He was indirectly responsible for the more than 1 year No Man's Land lasted, spreading chaos, suffering, death, destruction and horror throughout Gotham.
- Cameron Monaghan describes him as: Vile, vicious, nightmare-fuel horror.
- He doesn't care at all about his family, being able to use them as pawns to get what he wants, as is seen in Ace Chemicals, where he uses the fact of losing them as a tool of manipulation to make Bruce fall in his game.
- Not even Ecco, the most loyal person to Jeremiah that dedicate her life to him, and was at his side during more than 17 years of the 34 years of life he has during the lore of show, was important to him, since he at first tried to abandon her in the first episode their appeared and in the series finale he decides that will replace her with no remorse.
- All this makes clear that, behind all the hypocrital prententions of a greater artistical purpose, love, or improve; he is in the end a thrill seeker nihilist who fullfith his ego in cause chaos, suffer and death while enjoying his own pain as well. All while showing a sadistic humor and deep detachment for life.
Childhood:[]
- Alongside Jerome, he stole his uncle Zach's cookies.
- Due to both calculated and brutal nature of his future crimes even previous to Jerome's special gas, and considering his mathematical and artistic fixations, is very likely that he might be the one who mutilated the alley cats, and blames Jerome for it.
- He frames Jerome for trying to kill him, causing his family to turn against him, in what amounts to 9 years of abuse. Years later, Jeremiah admited that he wasn't fully honest about the stories he told, and even try to justifice himself with the death of their mother, that happened after his betray.
- While Jerome stills being responsable for his own actions, Jeremiah's betray still influented in the nihilist monster he became.
- Jerome himself stayed that during his puberty he develpoment an extreme murderous desire, leaving with two options, that the abuse made him develmpoment sociopathy, or that as he himself stayed, it's in his DNA, this looks to be the most possible, having the example of Lila Valeska and Zachary Trumble who looks to be unestable and cold hearted. Meaning that just as Jerome, Jeremiah had these instincts of murder as well.
Pre-Special Gas:[]
Mandatory Brunch Meeting:[]
- Jeremiah wanted Jerome to get to him, so he could capture him. So he deliberately endangered his uncle Zachary Trumble, and his boss Allan Heyes, this is because the first one knew about St Ignatius and the second one knew about the address of Ecco. This ultimately caused the death of both of them, alongside various of Jeremiah's coworkers.
- Once Jerome is captured, it can be seen by the condition of the room he is in that Jeremiah intended to starve his brother to death as he watched.
- He lied about the age he had when he scaped out of the circus, declaring that he had 10, but just by watching on Bruce's age, it's implied that Jeremiah in fact went at 8. Showing he is able to lie even in the most unrelevant things.
- He lies to Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock about Jerome's location and when his deception is discovered, he refuses to cooperate with authorities and even insults Jim.
- Despite saying that he will not abandon Ecco, Jeremiah decides to leave her, as well as Gordon and Bullock, to their fate, focusing solely on his own self-perservation.
- During his conversation with Jerome, Jeremiah does not regret any of his actions, and in fact reaffirms them as right, even in the face of the danger that Jerome represents.
That's entertainment:[]
- Jeremiah was ready to let many people to die, even when his pressence could avoid that result.
- Jeremiah responses to Gordon's demands with a mocking face, looking him as he's an idiot for not understanding his plan don't gonna work.
- Once Jerome kills the members of the SWAT team; Jeremiah barely seems interested on it, and just get concern when Jerome calls him.
- He gives to Gordon an annyoing sight, showing his arrogance at how he "wasn't listened" priorizing his ego instead of the social benefit.
- When Jerome brings him up on stage and proceeds to tell everything he went through because of his lies, Jeremiah rolls his eyes, not caring about the damage he caused.
- Even with the excuse that Jerome is telling it in a humorous way, reacting so indifferently to a horrible situation for which one himself is perhaps directly responsible is still quite inhumane.
- When Jerome shows the knife to Jeremiah, despite briefly having doubts, he screams in anger and attempts to kill him on the spot, despite having failed, the desire was there.
- He doesn't even care about Jerome's death. In fact he "wipes his tears" only after Jim Gordon watches him approach the corpse of his brother, indicate that his sadness was just an image he showed to Gordon in order to avoid any suspicious of his previously mentioned crazy tendencies.
- After recieve Jerome's special gas, Jeremiah listens a recording of Jerome while the gas is making effect, Jerome confess that his days were numbered, and at Jeremiah hears this, he gives a delighted smile.
Post-Special Gas:[]
That Old Corpse:[]
- He manipulates Bruce Wayne into building special bombs under the guise of batteries to improve the city.
- He makes Jerome's followers to release a wake in Jerome's memory at the GCPD, spreading chaos around.
- Jeremiah has his followers beat up Alfred and kidnap him.
- He murder one of Jerome's followers just for the sake of teatrics.
- While he considers Bruce his best friend, he says without any hint of emotion that he would have to kill him if he tries to stop his plans.
- He blew up his bunker in an attempt to kill Jim Gordon.
- He make Ecco kills two guards in Wayne Enterprises.
One Bad Day:[]
- Jeremiah blows up the clock tower, perhaps killing several people, just to prove a point.
- He gives the city 6 hours to evacuate, being aware that it is impossible for everyone to get out of there alive.
- He guides Bruce into a trap and with the help of Scarecrow, makes Bruce witness Alfred (an impersonator who looked similar due to the effects of fear gas) being tortured into murderous madness, all to drive Bruce to a breaking point. Well, without Selina's intervention, Bruce could have died or had to kill "Alfred" in order to stop the threat to Gotham that Jeremiah had made earlier.
- Despite his claiming for rebuild the city, this is more related to his narcissistic approach, since he stayed that he will make it at his image, showing no care for a real improvement apart of what glads him. Lee Thompkins describes the possible consequences of Jeremiah's plan at the follow way: Cause disrupt food distribution, water supply, and power. Making a lot of people suffer, specially the one of Narrows.
- He murdered Jungleur, who had been his right-hand man in the first part of his plan, with a bazooka, exploding him along with the nuclear relay to which he was tied. Just to show how futile Penguin's efforts were, since Jungleur didn't know about the backup plan.
- When Jerome's followers turned against him, he escaped and locked them in a room where he burned them all alive. Given the fact that the fire was activated by a switch, Jeremiah had planned to kill them at some point anyway.
- He shoots Selina Kyle in Bruce's mansion nearly killing and maiming her.
No Man's Land:[]
- He set up a bomb that blows up a building, killing Mayor Burke, an unnamed commissioner and an unnamed woman.
- He mocking on Gordon, staying on how he was unable to keep the one he loves to be safe. Probably talking aobut Barbara and Lee.
- When confronted by Bruce about Selina's state, he jokes about it to try and get under Bruce's skin.
- He attempts to manipulate Bruce, into become leave away his moral restrictions and become a monster like him.
- He kills 2 soldiers before scaping with Bruce.
- He kills one of Barbara's groups members.
- Using Ra's Al Ghul's League of Assassins, Jeremiah causes No Man's Land with the bombs of his original plan, separating Gotham from the mainland and turning it into a savage war zone ruled by chaos.
Ultimate Project:[]
Year Zero:[]
- He's indirectly responsable for all the plot of No Man's Land, with many villains dividing territories and leading chaos around all the city during months.
- He made Ecco shoot herself in the head, making her even more unhinged and eccentric.
- He send Ecco into the GCPD to make her spy Gordon and his allies, and posibly order her to mock on Gordon by painting old Jerome's(now his) symbol over Gotham's maps.
- In Gotham's maps, guided by Ecco's draw, we can see The Church of Jeremiah occupates big part of GCPD control zone, part of the street demons, Low Boyz, Robinson Park, Zasz territory, Sirens's territory, and more.
- Selina tries to suicide due to her paralyzed state, showing how much Jeremiah did affected her.
- He's inderectly responsable for almost break the relationship between Bruce and Selina, since Bruce asked Ivy to cure her, making Selina to become more violent and ruthless because of her special miraculous plant.
Trespassers:[]
- Through Sykes, Jeremiah uses entire families, including children, mature people, and teenage, as slaves to dig a tunnel to Wayne Manor.
Penguin Our Hero:[]
- The Church of Jeremiah is formed, where Ecco, representing Jeremiah, recruited the most insanely devout followers, enough to commit murder-suicide. Taking the survivors to serve as labor in the plan to dig a tunnel under the river. All with the promise of making them get out of Gotham, Jeremiah played with their hopes and emotions in order to achieve his plan to suceed.
Ruin:[]
- Due to that they failed at keeping the slaves alongisde the Church of Jeremiah to work at the tunel; Jeremiah punished Sykes and his gang by making them take the places of the scaped innocent families.
- Jeremiah kills Sykes by slitting his throat, just because he had a bad attitude, and then proceeds to lick the blood off his knife with a sadistic smile.
- He becomes much more aggressive against Ecco, choking her at times, and even mocking her devotion to him.
- During his dance with Ecco, Jeremiah smiles with delight as he remembers how he paralyzed Selina. Demonstrating how happy he is for the suffering of others.
- He fakes his own death in order to cause discord between Bruce and Selina so they don't interfere with his plans.
Pena Dura:[]
- Jeremiah kidnaps an innocent couple based on their facial structure to turn them into exact copies of Bruce's parents.
13 Stiches:[]
- Jeremiah kidnaps Alfred on his own this time, and then has the Mad Hatter mind control him.
Ace Chemicals:[]
- Jeremiah uses 4 random men to create his special Mark of Zorro movie, in which he gives each of them Z-shaped cuts. When they try to escape, they are hit by a toxic gas that kills them painfully and leaves scars on their faces that form smiles.
- Using the impostors of Bruce's parents and a hypnotized Alfred, Jeremiah forces Bruce to recreate the worst day of his life step by step. All with the reason that Jeremiah wasn't part of it, and he wants to be connected to Bruce through hate.
- During the breakfast in Wayne Manor, Jeremiah delights with Bruce's agony as he remembers the tragedy of the death of his parents. Also tries to manipulate him by staying on that he losed his family too, however this feeling of lose is proved false when the camera angle shows how Jeremiah is just cruelly smiling at it.
- Jeremiah blows up Wayne Manor, not only destroying Bruce's home, but also sealing what was once the only way out of the city.
- In the Mark of Zorro special movie, Jeremiah does a twisted parody of Bruce's childhood hero, attacking the aforementioned people who would later be killed by poison gas.
- It is in that same movie that Jeremiah psychologically tortures Bruce even more, blaming him for the death of his parents for not having been brave enough to stay in his place.
- He decides to kill the 2 copies of Bruce's parents, all so that they will be replaced by Jim and Lee.
- Jeremiah had planned to commit a populicide through a toxic rain that would end up ruining the city even more, causing the government to cut it off the line forever. While this ended to fail, it caused the river to get poisoned leaving terrible consecuences for the citizens for months.
- In his confrontation at Ace Chemicals against Bruce, not receiving the response he expected, he tries to kill him, but Bruce manages to save himself by dodging the next blow.
- It's implied that he could pretend to be catatonic during the whole time that Bruce was out of Gotham, showing that the gas is not forcing him to act chaotically, and that all of his actions are drived only for the purpose of fuck up with Bruce the most possible, to break him or, now, kill him.
Aftermath[]
(Despite being "comatose", and having his orginal plan failed, Jeremiah still affected some of the events of No Man's Land indirectly.)
Nothing's Shocking:[]
- With the river infected, the people of Gotham had a very hard trouble, living in hungry, and pain.
- Jeremiah's toxic chemicals also mutated some of the civilians into ravenous monsters.
The Trial of Jim Gordon:[]
- Ivy Pepper decided to use the chemicals to poison all of Gotham, although she failed in the end.
They Did What?:[]
- Thanks to the chemicals contiminating the river, No Man's Land had to be extended, allowing Nyssa Al Ghul and Bane to continue the plan of destroying Gotham more easily.
- To stop the Bane's army, Bruce was forced to use part of Jeremiah's first plan, wich meant to destroy Wayne Enterprises in order to the enemies's advances. It's implied that Jeremiah originally had Wayne Enterprises as one of his targets, showing how much he wanted to hurt Bruce. And just as the whole No Man's Land event was provoked by Jeremiah, he was indirectly responsable for the actual destruction of the build, as even his weapon was used on it.
The Beginning of Batman:[]
- He sends several groups of criminals to collect explosives from the army and has them killed once the job is finished; He orders explosives to be placed on their corpses, hoping to kill whoever comes to investigate.
- He made two guards to take The Riddler out of Arkham Asylum; while making one of them to not go to work that day, tending a trap to the police.
- He coerces an Arkham guard into committing suicide in order to save his family, so he frames Harvey Bullock for murder, who decides to keep his mouth shut and go to the slaughterhouse out of fear of what Jeremiah might do if he doesn't obey.
- He manipulates Edward Nygma by posing as Oswald Cobblepot, all so that he can function as a distraction for everyone. Nygma is proportioned various C4 explosives inside a box, with the Gotham's mayor alredy kidnapped and ready.
- Nygma's involment resulted to be a distraction as well, as the rest of the C4 was alredy puted under the main model of "the new Gotham", ready to blow up the whole building and various others. He would end up killing everyone who ever bothered him being: Jim Gordon, Barbara Kean, Lee Thompkins, Selina Kyle, Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox and Edward himself; it is quite possible that Jeremiah was waiting for the possibility of killing Bruce Wayne since at that point he didn't know he was Batman, so Jeremiah ignored the fact that Bruce wouldn't make it to the opening party for the new Wayne Tower along with a few hundred innocent victims.
- Stopping faking his brain death, Jeremiah attacks Ecco while laughing, grabbing her by the neck in a harsh choke that takes the wind out of her. In a deleted scene, hers makes the two of them have much more explicit contact and about to kiss, Jeremiah stops her in her tracks to continue with her plan; thus demonstrating how he enjoys playing with her feelings.
- Jeremiah shoots Barbara Kean in the abdomen and takes her daughter in his arm, saying with a casual joke that he is going to kill her.
- After seeing Ecco hurt by Barbara Kean, he flatters her by telling her that there will be no one like her, simply to make her die with a smile. He then confirms how little he really cares, as he nonchalantly says that "there are other fish in the sea"; showing his detachment from her and how he sees her as a replaceable toy.
- He kidnaps Barbara Gordon, taking her to Ace Chemicals and setting up Jim Gordon. Once everyone is gathered, Jeremiah attempts to throw the commissioner's daughter into a vat of acid, while he stabs Gordon, wanting to make father and daughter die while each watches the other die.
- Upon meeting the supposedly monstrous urban legend of Gotham (Or discovering that it is Bruce, depends on the interpretation) is real, and realizing that it was this who stopped his plans, he immediately and maniacally decides to shoot him, with the intention of killing; until he receives a batarang in the hand, and is knocked out. (Under the interpretation that he actually knows he is Bruce, Jeremiah is demonstrating that, as he said before, his desire for fun is more important than his friendship for Bruce, which was already based purely on the megalomania he had).
Pennyworth #1:[]
- In this tie comic, it's mentioned that Killer Croc held hostaged Alfred and his friends. Wich shows that the monster Jeremiah created still causing danger around Gotham after many years.
- Many years later, Alfred Pennyworth recalls looking the Joker in the eyes, seemingly referring to Jeremiah. (This could be refering to their encounter in the episode 5x6). This indicates how even after many years, Jeremiah, now adopting The Joker alias, stills being an infamous villain in Gotham City at the point that Alfred resalts his name "The Joker" in a way that makes him sound imponent.
External Links[]
- Jeremiah Valeska on the Villains Wiki
- Jeremiah Valeska on the Gotham Wiki
- Jeremiah Valeska on the Moral Ranking Wiki
- Jeremiah Valeska on the DC Database Wiki
- Jeremiah Valeska on the Pure Evil Wiki