Matt Lazorwitz
Jul 2, 2004, 12:54 am
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/headshots/dc/joker.gif" align=left hspace=10 alt="Joker"></a>Real Name: Unknown, probably Jack
Aliases: Joe Kerr, Jack Napier, The Red Hood
First Appearance: Batman #1
Known relatives: Jeannie (wife, deceased), Melvin Reipan (cousin, deceased), Lonnie Machin (Anarky, son)
Group Affiliation: Formerly Injustice Gang II
Known Allies: Harley Quinn, Two-Face, Riddler, The Penguin, The Scarecrow, Lex Luthor, Cornelius Stirk, Rancor
Major Enemies: Batman, Robin III, Nightwing, Oracle, Commissioner Gordon, Formerly Robin II
Height: 6’5’’
Weight: 192 lbs.
Eyes: Green
Hair: Green
The Joker’s own history is lost to him in a haze of madness. He has many versions of his life, but the one that seems to appear most is that he was a worker at Ace Chemicals in Gotham, who quit to pursue a career in comedy, something at which he failed miserably, as he was just not funny. With a wife and son on the way, he agreed to work with a gang of criminals to rob the Monarch Playing Card Company, the building that neighbored his old workplace. The gang had a gimmick, where one member would wear a red metal hood with reverse mirrors for eyes, hiding the identity of the wearer. The young Joker was told he would wear the hood.
As the plan neared fruition, tragedy struck the young man, as his wife and unborn child died in a freak accident. He tried to back out, but it was too late; the gang said he would stay in or he would be killed. Nearly unhinged as it was, the heist went well in the playing card company, but once the gang made it in to the Ace plant, things took a turn for the worst. The security patrols had changed and guards began shooting at the gang. All of them were hit except the young man, who fled along the catwalks, and was just about to escape when a shadowy figure dropped in front of him: The Batman. Knowing the metal hood he wore had an independent air supply, he dove into one of the vats of chemicals.
Emerging from the river where the vat let out, the young man removed the hood and looked into a puddle at his reflection. While he had survived, he had been changed. His skin was chalk white, and his hair was green. This was the last straw, snapping what was left of his tattered sanity. Laughing maniacally, the Joker was born.
After threatening to poison the Gotham reservoir, and not carrying through with it, the Joker made his true public debut by announcing over the radio that he would kill prominent Gothamites. Even under heavy guard, he succeeded, using his new chemical invention, what would become his trademark, “Joker Venom,” a lethal toxin that leaves its victims with a hideous rictus similar to the one the Joker sports. At the end of his spree, Batman confronted Joker, and recognized his voice as that of the Red Hood, and the two shared their first battle. He was ushered to Arkham Asylum, a place where he would spend much time over the years.
Over the next few years, the Joker and Batman crossed swords many times. Joker would leave a trail of bodies and a macabre puzzle, and Batman would solve it and bring him in. On one occasion, he savagely beat then district attorney Harvey Dent while Dent’s wife looked on. After a successful heist involving other of Batman’s nemeses, the Joker had relations with a call girl, leaving her pregnant with the child she would put up for adoption and who would become the anti-hero Anarky. It became more and more important for the Joker to outsmart Batman, to play the game that the two shared. But the game was soon going to change.
Confronting Batman and Robin late in the teaming of the original pairing, the Joker shot and wounded Dick Grayson. Fearing for his safety, Batman told Dick to hang up his costume, causing the initial fight that would drive a wedge between the two for years. Next the Joker committed the first of his truly monstrous acts. Deciding one way to break Batman was through his allies, the Joker knocked on the door to the apartment of Commissioner James Gordon. His daughter Barbara answered it, and the Joker shot her in the spine, crippling her, as well as inadvertently ending her career as the first Batgirl. The Joker took Gordon, and tortured him psychologically and physically, and waited for Batman to arrive.
On his next escape, the Joker headed to the Middle East, searching out an old acquaintance of his, a doctor. The woman turned out to be the mother of Jason Todd, the second Robin. Jason was searching for her, and found her at about the same time as the Joker arrived. She lead Jason into the Joker’s hand, and the Joker, having him at his mercy beat him with a crowbar and left the two, mother and son, in a warehouse as he set a bomb. Batman arrived in time to see the explosion that took the life of his new Robin. Driven by rage, Batman went to finally end the Joker’s life, but he missed his chance, as the Joker apparently died in a helicopter crash.
The Joker was not dead, of course, and after spending time to recuperate, manipulating Two-Face and continuing to play his game with Batman, he returned. Freed from Arkham during Bane’s campaign, he teamed with the Scarecrow and kidnapped the mayor of Gotham. During Azrael’s tenure as Batman, he faced the replacement Batman and knew that he was not his old enemy. Even after, he continued to escape Arkham, with the aid of his therapist, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, until she was discovered and locked up with him. He also spent some time working with Lex Luthor as part of his Injustice Gang, although his membership was contentious, as he irritated or frightened all his teammates.
When a massive earthquake struck Gotham, many of Arkham’s inmates were released into the city before it was separated from the rest of the country. Joker laid low for much of the year. Dr. Quinzel, having also been released, found Joker and, donning a costume, joined him as his new assistant Harley Quinn. At the end of the year, as things looked like they were going to finally improve in Gotham, the Joker kidnapped all the babies born during Gotham’s time as No Man’s Land, and threatened to kill them on Christmas Eve if he wasn’t stopped. Batman and his allies, as well as the Gotham Police, hunted him down. The first person to find him was Lieutenant Sarah Essen-Gordon, Commissioner Gordon’s wife. The Joker shot her in the head, killing her. Gordon, pushed to his limits, nearly killed Joker, but Batman talked him down. He only shot Joker in the knee.
Sometime thereafter, the terrorist nation of Quarac recruited the Joker as its ambassador, and sent him to the United Nation with a threat and a nuclear device. Taken down by Barbara Gordon, now Oracle, and her allies the Birds of Prey, Black Canary and Power Girl, he Joker was not returned to Arkham. He was instead shipped to the Slab, the prison for supercriminals.
At the Slab, a doctor decided that maybe by telling the Joker he was dying, he would repent his acts. Faking a brain tumor on a Catscan, the Joker did not react as planned. Instead, he decided that if he was going, he would take as many with him as possible. He created a variation on Joker Venom. It drove all the inmates insane, and the Joker led a mass escape. After sending his new minions to create havoc, he waited in a church for Batman to come. Instead, Nightwing arrived first, and with the help of one of the Slab escapees who could manipulate emotions, Joker drove Nightwing into a murderous rampage, wherein he beat the Joker to death with his bare hands. Only the quick intervention of Batman, using CPR, saved the Joker, who was returned to the Slab.
The Joker eventually escaped the Slab, although that tale remains untold. He was one of the villains manipulated by the Riddler and Hush in their gambit to destroy Batman. He was sent back to Arkham, but was sprung by Harvey Dent, for reasons unknown. His current whereabouts are unknown.
The Joker’s deadliest weapon is not his Venom, his electric joybuzzer, or any of his other toys. It is his utter unpredictability. He is entirely insane, completely amoral, and will do anything, and kill anyone, in his game with Batman.
APPEARANCES:
Action Comics #714, 719, 765, 769-770
Adventures of Superman #583
Anarky # 8
Arkham Asylum: Living Hell # 1, 4
Azrael # 27-28
Azrael: Agent of the Bat # 53, 60
Aztek, the Ultimate Man # 6-7
Batman # 186, 191, 200-201, 251, 258, 260, 286, 292-294, 321, 353, 365-366, 373, 400, 408, 415, 426-429, 442, 450-451, 491, 494, 495-496, 511, 544-546, 570, 573-574, 613- 615, 625, 629
Batman Annual # 16
Batman: Arkham Asylum GN
Batman: Batgirl
Batman: Cataclysm- Arkham Asylum: Tales of Madness
Batman: Dark Victory # 8, 12-13
Batman: Ego
Batman: Gotham Knights # 44, 51-52, 54-55
Batman: Harley Quinn
Batman/ Hellboy/ Starman #1
Batman in 3-D GN
Batman: It’s Joker Time # 1-3
Batman/ Joker: Switch
Batman: Joker’s Apprentice # 1
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight # 50, 65-68, 105-106, 126, 142-145, 162-163
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual # 1
Batman: No Man’s Land # 1
Batman/ Poison Ivy: Cast Shadows
Batman: Shadow of the Bat #1-2, 4, 37-38, 80-82, 83, 86, 93
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Last Angel GN
Batman: The Long Halloween # 3-4, 13
Batman Villains: Secret Files #1
Birds of Prey # 15-17, 35-36
Black Orchid (1st series) #2
Brave and the Bold # 68, 77, 111, 118, 129-130, 141, 191, 200
Catwoman (2nd series) # 38-39, 63-65
Catwoman: When in Rome #1
Creeper # 7-8
Crisis on Infinite Earths # 2, 9
DC Comics Presents #41, 72
DC Firsts: Batgirl/ Joker
DC Super-Stars #10
Detective Comics # 332, 341, 365, 388, 472-472, 475-476, 486, 504, 526, 532, 569-570, 617, 661, 664, 668-669, 671-673, 726, 737, 740-741, 778, 780-781, 788
Detective Comics Annual # 5
Doctor Fate (Vol. 1) #1-2
Genesis #1
Gotham Central # 14-15
Green Lantern (Vol.2) #117
Harley & Ivy: Love on the Lam
Harley Quinn # 1, 13, 25-26, 28, 32
H-E-R-O # 10
Hitman # 3
Hourman #16
Impulse # 50
JLA # 10-12, 15, 35, 59, 84
Joker #1-9
Joker: Devil’s Advocate GN
Joker: The Last Laugh # 1-6
Joker: The Last Laugh Secret Files #1
Justice League International Annual # 2
Justice League of America # 14, 34, 126, 136
Justice Leagues: Justice League of Arkham # 1
Legends # 4
Legends of the DC Universe # 26-27
Millennium # 2
Nightwing (Vol. 2)# 62
Outsiders (Vol.3) # 2-3
Punisher/ Batman: Deadly Knights
Robin (Vol.2) # 85, 94-95
Robin II #1-4
Saga of the Swamp Thing # 30
Secret Origins (Vol.2) #23
Secret Origins Special # 1
Showcase ’94 # 1-2, 12
Showcase '95 # 11
Spectre (Vol.3) # 51
Spectre (Vol. 4) #10
Spider-Man & Batman
Superboy (Vol. 3) # 93
Superman (Vol.2) # 9, 161, 175
Superman/ Batman: World’s Finest # 1-3
Superman & Batman: World’s Finest # 3
Superman: Emperor Joker # 1
Superman: Man of Steel # 105
Superman: Man of Tomorrow # 3
Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #125
Swamp Thing (Vol.2) #52, 66
Titans East Special (2008) #1
Underworld Unleashed #1-3
Wonder Woman (Vol.1) #280
Wonder Woman (Vol. 2) # 96-97, 164-167, 175
World’s Finest Comics # 156, 159, 177, 276
Zero Hour # 4
Aliases: Joe Kerr, Jack Napier, The Red Hood
First Appearance: Batman #1
Known relatives: Jeannie (wife, deceased), Melvin Reipan (cousin, deceased), Lonnie Machin (Anarky, son)
Group Affiliation: Formerly Injustice Gang II
Known Allies: Harley Quinn, Two-Face, Riddler, The Penguin, The Scarecrow, Lex Luthor, Cornelius Stirk, Rancor
Major Enemies: Batman, Robin III, Nightwing, Oracle, Commissioner Gordon, Formerly Robin II
Height: 6’5’’
Weight: 192 lbs.
Eyes: Green
Hair: Green
The Joker’s own history is lost to him in a haze of madness. He has many versions of his life, but the one that seems to appear most is that he was a worker at Ace Chemicals in Gotham, who quit to pursue a career in comedy, something at which he failed miserably, as he was just not funny. With a wife and son on the way, he agreed to work with a gang of criminals to rob the Monarch Playing Card Company, the building that neighbored his old workplace. The gang had a gimmick, where one member would wear a red metal hood with reverse mirrors for eyes, hiding the identity of the wearer. The young Joker was told he would wear the hood.
As the plan neared fruition, tragedy struck the young man, as his wife and unborn child died in a freak accident. He tried to back out, but it was too late; the gang said he would stay in or he would be killed. Nearly unhinged as it was, the heist went well in the playing card company, but once the gang made it in to the Ace plant, things took a turn for the worst. The security patrols had changed and guards began shooting at the gang. All of them were hit except the young man, who fled along the catwalks, and was just about to escape when a shadowy figure dropped in front of him: The Batman. Knowing the metal hood he wore had an independent air supply, he dove into one of the vats of chemicals.
Emerging from the river where the vat let out, the young man removed the hood and looked into a puddle at his reflection. While he had survived, he had been changed. His skin was chalk white, and his hair was green. This was the last straw, snapping what was left of his tattered sanity. Laughing maniacally, the Joker was born.
After threatening to poison the Gotham reservoir, and not carrying through with it, the Joker made his true public debut by announcing over the radio that he would kill prominent Gothamites. Even under heavy guard, he succeeded, using his new chemical invention, what would become his trademark, “Joker Venom,” a lethal toxin that leaves its victims with a hideous rictus similar to the one the Joker sports. At the end of his spree, Batman confronted Joker, and recognized his voice as that of the Red Hood, and the two shared their first battle. He was ushered to Arkham Asylum, a place where he would spend much time over the years.
Over the next few years, the Joker and Batman crossed swords many times. Joker would leave a trail of bodies and a macabre puzzle, and Batman would solve it and bring him in. On one occasion, he savagely beat then district attorney Harvey Dent while Dent’s wife looked on. After a successful heist involving other of Batman’s nemeses, the Joker had relations with a call girl, leaving her pregnant with the child she would put up for adoption and who would become the anti-hero Anarky. It became more and more important for the Joker to outsmart Batman, to play the game that the two shared. But the game was soon going to change.
Confronting Batman and Robin late in the teaming of the original pairing, the Joker shot and wounded Dick Grayson. Fearing for his safety, Batman told Dick to hang up his costume, causing the initial fight that would drive a wedge between the two for years. Next the Joker committed the first of his truly monstrous acts. Deciding one way to break Batman was through his allies, the Joker knocked on the door to the apartment of Commissioner James Gordon. His daughter Barbara answered it, and the Joker shot her in the spine, crippling her, as well as inadvertently ending her career as the first Batgirl. The Joker took Gordon, and tortured him psychologically and physically, and waited for Batman to arrive.
On his next escape, the Joker headed to the Middle East, searching out an old acquaintance of his, a doctor. The woman turned out to be the mother of Jason Todd, the second Robin. Jason was searching for her, and found her at about the same time as the Joker arrived. She lead Jason into the Joker’s hand, and the Joker, having him at his mercy beat him with a crowbar and left the two, mother and son, in a warehouse as he set a bomb. Batman arrived in time to see the explosion that took the life of his new Robin. Driven by rage, Batman went to finally end the Joker’s life, but he missed his chance, as the Joker apparently died in a helicopter crash.
The Joker was not dead, of course, and after spending time to recuperate, manipulating Two-Face and continuing to play his game with Batman, he returned. Freed from Arkham during Bane’s campaign, he teamed with the Scarecrow and kidnapped the mayor of Gotham. During Azrael’s tenure as Batman, he faced the replacement Batman and knew that he was not his old enemy. Even after, he continued to escape Arkham, with the aid of his therapist, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, until she was discovered and locked up with him. He also spent some time working with Lex Luthor as part of his Injustice Gang, although his membership was contentious, as he irritated or frightened all his teammates.
When a massive earthquake struck Gotham, many of Arkham’s inmates were released into the city before it was separated from the rest of the country. Joker laid low for much of the year. Dr. Quinzel, having also been released, found Joker and, donning a costume, joined him as his new assistant Harley Quinn. At the end of the year, as things looked like they were going to finally improve in Gotham, the Joker kidnapped all the babies born during Gotham’s time as No Man’s Land, and threatened to kill them on Christmas Eve if he wasn’t stopped. Batman and his allies, as well as the Gotham Police, hunted him down. The first person to find him was Lieutenant Sarah Essen-Gordon, Commissioner Gordon’s wife. The Joker shot her in the head, killing her. Gordon, pushed to his limits, nearly killed Joker, but Batman talked him down. He only shot Joker in the knee.
Sometime thereafter, the terrorist nation of Quarac recruited the Joker as its ambassador, and sent him to the United Nation with a threat and a nuclear device. Taken down by Barbara Gordon, now Oracle, and her allies the Birds of Prey, Black Canary and Power Girl, he Joker was not returned to Arkham. He was instead shipped to the Slab, the prison for supercriminals.
At the Slab, a doctor decided that maybe by telling the Joker he was dying, he would repent his acts. Faking a brain tumor on a Catscan, the Joker did not react as planned. Instead, he decided that if he was going, he would take as many with him as possible. He created a variation on Joker Venom. It drove all the inmates insane, and the Joker led a mass escape. After sending his new minions to create havoc, he waited in a church for Batman to come. Instead, Nightwing arrived first, and with the help of one of the Slab escapees who could manipulate emotions, Joker drove Nightwing into a murderous rampage, wherein he beat the Joker to death with his bare hands. Only the quick intervention of Batman, using CPR, saved the Joker, who was returned to the Slab.
The Joker eventually escaped the Slab, although that tale remains untold. He was one of the villains manipulated by the Riddler and Hush in their gambit to destroy Batman. He was sent back to Arkham, but was sprung by Harvey Dent, for reasons unknown. His current whereabouts are unknown.
The Joker’s deadliest weapon is not his Venom, his electric joybuzzer, or any of his other toys. It is his utter unpredictability. He is entirely insane, completely amoral, and will do anything, and kill anyone, in his game with Batman.
APPEARANCES:
Action Comics #714, 719, 765, 769-770
Adventures of Superman #583
Anarky # 8
Arkham Asylum: Living Hell # 1, 4
Azrael # 27-28
Azrael: Agent of the Bat # 53, 60
Aztek, the Ultimate Man # 6-7
Batman # 186, 191, 200-201, 251, 258, 260, 286, 292-294, 321, 353, 365-366, 373, 400, 408, 415, 426-429, 442, 450-451, 491, 494, 495-496, 511, 544-546, 570, 573-574, 613- 615, 625, 629
Batman Annual # 16
Batman: Arkham Asylum GN
Batman: Batgirl
Batman: Cataclysm- Arkham Asylum: Tales of Madness
Batman: Dark Victory # 8, 12-13
Batman: Ego
Batman: Gotham Knights # 44, 51-52, 54-55
Batman: Harley Quinn
Batman/ Hellboy/ Starman #1
Batman in 3-D GN
Batman: It’s Joker Time # 1-3
Batman/ Joker: Switch
Batman: Joker’s Apprentice # 1
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight # 50, 65-68, 105-106, 126, 142-145, 162-163
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual # 1
Batman: No Man’s Land # 1
Batman/ Poison Ivy: Cast Shadows
Batman: Shadow of the Bat #1-2, 4, 37-38, 80-82, 83, 86, 93
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Last Angel GN
Batman: The Long Halloween # 3-4, 13
Batman Villains: Secret Files #1
Birds of Prey # 15-17, 35-36
Black Orchid (1st series) #2
Brave and the Bold # 68, 77, 111, 118, 129-130, 141, 191, 200
Catwoman (2nd series) # 38-39, 63-65
Catwoman: When in Rome #1
Creeper # 7-8
Crisis on Infinite Earths # 2, 9
DC Comics Presents #41, 72
DC Firsts: Batgirl/ Joker
DC Super-Stars #10
Detective Comics # 332, 341, 365, 388, 472-472, 475-476, 486, 504, 526, 532, 569-570, 617, 661, 664, 668-669, 671-673, 726, 737, 740-741, 778, 780-781, 788
Detective Comics Annual # 5
Doctor Fate (Vol. 1) #1-2
Genesis #1
Gotham Central # 14-15
Green Lantern (Vol.2) #117
Harley & Ivy: Love on the Lam
Harley Quinn # 1, 13, 25-26, 28, 32
H-E-R-O # 10
Hitman # 3
Hourman #16
Impulse # 50
JLA # 10-12, 15, 35, 59, 84
Joker #1-9
Joker: Devil’s Advocate GN
Joker: The Last Laugh # 1-6
Joker: The Last Laugh Secret Files #1
Justice League International Annual # 2
Justice League of America # 14, 34, 126, 136
Justice Leagues: Justice League of Arkham # 1
Legends # 4
Legends of the DC Universe # 26-27
Millennium # 2
Nightwing (Vol. 2)# 62
Outsiders (Vol.3) # 2-3
Punisher/ Batman: Deadly Knights
Robin (Vol.2) # 85, 94-95
Robin II #1-4
Saga of the Swamp Thing # 30
Secret Origins (Vol.2) #23
Secret Origins Special # 1
Showcase ’94 # 1-2, 12
Showcase '95 # 11
Spectre (Vol.3) # 51
Spectre (Vol. 4) #10
Spider-Man & Batman
Superboy (Vol. 3) # 93
Superman (Vol.2) # 9, 161, 175
Superman/ Batman: World’s Finest # 1-3
Superman & Batman: World’s Finest # 3
Superman: Emperor Joker # 1
Superman: Man of Steel # 105
Superman: Man of Tomorrow # 3
Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #125
Swamp Thing (Vol.2) #52, 66
Titans East Special (2008) #1
Underworld Unleashed #1-3
Wonder Woman (Vol.1) #280
Wonder Woman (Vol. 2) # 96-97, 164-167, 175
World’s Finest Comics # 156, 159, 177, 276
Zero Hour # 4