| “ | Jack? Jack is dead, my friend. You can call me… Joker! And as you can see, I'm a lot happier. | „ |
| ~ The Joker taking up his new identity before killing Carl Grissom. |
| “ | Tell me something, my friend. You ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? I always ask that of all my prey. I just like the sound of it. | „ |
| ~ The Joker to Bruce, serving as foreshadowing of the fact that he killed Bruce's parents. |
Jack Napier, later known as the Joker, is the main antagonist of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher's Batman film and comic series.
He is a Gothamite mob enforcer-turned-theatrical crime lord, Carl Grissom's former right-hand, and Batman's arch-nemesis, as he killed the former's parents back when he was a child in the mid-20th century.
By the late 1980s, Napier is discovered to be in an affair with Alicia Hunt, Grissom's mistress, so his boss sets him up to be killed by the Gotham City Police Department, but Batman's fateful intervention leads to a freak accident that changes Napier both psychologically and physically, inciting him to don his favorite deck card's mantle, get back at Grissom, and start scheming how to take Gotham City over for himself.
In Batman, he was portrayed by Jack Nicholson. As a younger man in a flashback, he was portrayed by Hugo Blick. In a flashback sequence in Batman Forever, he was portrayed by David U. Hodges.
His Qualities[]
What Makes Him Entertaining?[]
- Jack Nicholson does both a masterful job in portraying the Joker's depraved yet comical personality combined with his maniacal energy that oozes from the character.
- In addition, such role bears the significance of clarifying a unique new adaptation as well as Joker’s splendid presentation whenever he appears, with his performance being the one that inspired Mark Hamill's performance as two of the most iconic iterations of the character, the DCAU Joker and the Arkhamverse Joker.
- He is one of the three live-action version of the Joker that manages to be fully accurate to the character from the comics, it had to pass years until Cameron Monaghan achieved to create the others two comic accurate Jokers with his performances of the Valeska Twins.
- He is the only version of the character to be the one who killed the Waynes, further making him one of the most unique versions, being the only one who is solely responsible for the creation of Batman and his trauma.
- Despite being an extremely cruel, sadistic, and remorseless psychopath, he is full of moments of black comedy, keeping him from becoming too hatable.
- He is shown to be somewhat a fan of art and having a twisted form of respect for those who have cool artistic skills, such as when he commented on Batman's suit looking nice in Axis Chemicals.
- Managed to completely take over the Gotham criminal underworld in just a single night, by killing his former boss and later his other rivals in one fell swoop, even killing one of them in broad daylight with just a pen.
- He has a lot of memorable and funny moments throughout the film, such as the Smylex commercial.
- He also showcased quite a lot of fine taste in music, using Partyman by Prince to vandalize Gotham's Flugelheim Museum. He also plays Trust during Gotham's 200th Anniversary.
- He has iconic lines such as "You ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" and "Wait 'till they get a load of me."
- He made fake money to lure in the citizens of Gotham, as he planned to poisioned them all with his balloons.
- In the first film, he is confirmed as having laundered the money previously owned by Grissom prior to his demise, even having his own portrait printed on every bill.
- Despite his maniacal brutality, he was shown to be highly intelligent, sophisticated, and cultured, speaking French sometimes and being a snappy dresser even after his horrific disfigurement.
What Makes Him Detestable?[]
- His whole motivation for committing crimes is "for the evulz"; Joker commits several heinous crimes just for the sake of it.
- Even before his disfigurement, Napier was already a horrible person, being a psychopathic, brutal, treacherous, narcissistic, and misogynistic man who served as one of the most dangerous enforcers for the Gotham maffia, even having a secret affair with his boss' mistress Alicia Hunt (whom he treats like dirt), even though his boss held him in high regard. Falling into acid only made things much worse as it finally gave Napier an excuse to unleash his hidden madness which made him a nightmarish maniac seeking to cause nothing but anarchy, chaos, havoc, and destruction, making him, arguably, the most evil live action version of the character.
- He killed Bruce Wayne's parents which caused the boy to grow up into becoming Batman and this particular event would cause Bruce to develop post-traumatic stress disorder for the rest of his life. He was planning on murdering Bruce too, only sparing him when his partner alerted him of the cops presence near them.
- He scarred Alicia to turn her into a work of art, only to indirectly cause her to commit suicide just so Joker could replace her with Vicki Vale as his next lover, whether out of will or coercion.
- In addition to this, according to the novelization, he was implied to be a rapist, even the film alludes to this as he when he enters Vicki's apartment commenting that she has "lots of space" he suggestively looks at her private parts, implying that he planned to rape her sometime.
- This also makes this version of the character the very first who was confirmed to be a rapist and the only live-action version who had done such a disgusting act.
- In the Earth-89 timeline, it turns out that Joker lied to Vicki about Alicia's suicide as she is still alive and is seen in an interview by Joker's daughter Dr. Harleen Q. Quinzeel aka Harley Quinn.
- In addition to this, according to the novelization, he was implied to be a rapist, even the film alludes to this as he when he enters Vicki's apartment commenting that she has "lots of space" he suggestively looks at her private parts, implying that he planned to rape her sometime.
- He has absolute zero care towards anyone, as aforementionedly having an affair with his boss' girlfriend while talking behind his back (possibly planning to usurp him in the future), also killing his henchmen whenever they displease him, making him quite a bad boss.
- He tried to poison the citizens of Gotham with Smylex gas by luring them with fake money and spreading it to the crowd while planning to blow up the balloons containing the gas.
- Despite his death, his actions would continue to spread fear and chaos all over Gotham even more for many years, which inspired new villains that Batman would have to face in the future.
- His myriad of negative traits imply that even compared to other villains in the series, he is quite prone to use of foul language and occasionally shows it.
- Even though he does respect Batman as well as his enemies in general, it’s out of caution and doesn’t make him honorable in any way.
- Although he is comedic and somewhat cartoony after his disfigurement, most of his jokes are to prove how much of a depraved and dangerous sociopath he truly is and his jokes are only funny to the audience as he is taken deadly seriously in-universe.
- Also, none of his comedic moments lighten the mood of the series.
- Despite being completely insane and out of his mind, Joker proves time and time again that he still has clear understanding or morality and being capable of planning out deadly schemes just to murder people proving that despite being insane he is still just as, if not even more evil, than he was before his accident.
Other Links[]
- Joker on the Villains Wiki
- Joker on the Pure Evil Wiki
- Joker on the DC Wiki
- Joker on the Batman Wiki
- Joker (Earth-89) on the Batman Anthology Wiki
- Joker (Earth-97) on the Batman Anthology Wiki
- Joker on the DC Extended Universe Wiki
- Joker on the VS Battles Wiki
- Joker on Wikipedia