Joker

**Jack Napier** (ジャック・ネイピアー, *Jakku Neipiā*), also known as **Joker** (ジョーカー, *Jōkā*), was Batman's deadliest arch-enemy who was ruthless, cunning and extremely dangerous. He tried every despicable trick to take over Gotham City, make a profit and ruin Batman's life emotionally and physically. The Clown Prince of Crime had no pity for anyone he forced to take part in his nefarious schemes either by blackmail or deception and was especially unkind to his henchgirl and lover Harley Quinn, such as manipulating her to amuse himself. He also escaped death several times after his defeats with Batman, until his final eventual death many years later.

"*It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic.... Oh, what the heck, I'll laugh anyway!*"

—Joker to Batman.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice actor:* Mark Hamill (English), Keiji Fujiwara (Japanese), Not Known (Japanese), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (German), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (French), Not Known (Latin American Spanish)

### Biography

The self-styled Clown Prince of Crime has no superpowers, beyond a capacity for incredible violence and a skill at creating deadly mayhem. He frequently concocts elaborate schemes to entrap his arch nemesis, Batman.

### Appearance

#### As Joker

He wears his trademark purple suit, the only differences are that he wears a green shirt, only with more detail, and purple bow tie.

* Hair Color: Green
* Skin Color: White
* Eye Color: Red
* Height: Not Known
* Weight: Not Known

### Attributes:

* Unrepentant homicidal maniac, albeit without a precise psychological diagnosis.
* Surprisingly strong hand-to-hand combatant.
* His past is unknown; conflicting, unconfirmed reports state that he was a failed comedian, a petty thief, and a broken family man.
* Employs various deadly weapons, often based on party-gag items.
* Frequently uses a toxin that stretches victim's face into a Joker-like grin and causes death.

## Powers and Abilities

Throughout the years, Joker used a wide variety of instruments to exact his comedic homicides. His equipment included bladed playing cards, guns (of the trick and real variety), joy buzzers (which electrocuted the victim), and a wide variety of laughing gases (which incapacitated the victim with laughter). Most famously, the Joker had an Acid Flower attached to his suit. This flower emitted a wide variety of chemicals, depending on the situation and Joker's mood. Laughing gas and acid were popular variants, but the possibilities were limited only to the Joker's mind.

Despite the state of his greatly warped mind, Joker was a brilliant planner, and never seemed to run out of schemes. Often, Joker's plans were related to comedy, though at the same time, were extremely dangerous, resulting in him being feared wherever his schemes took him. Joker could lie easily, and was remarkably skilled at making up tragic stories that were capable of tricking people into believing that he was simply misunderstood, or in Harley Quinn's case, taking pity on him and making her determined to help him in any way possible. His stories were known to have no limits, varying from a brutal and violent father, to a runaway mother.

Joker was a downright sadist, and always seemed to take pleasure in frightening, assaulting, and even killing even the most innocent people. His greatest delight, on the few occasions it came, seemed to be beating Batman to a pulp, as demonstrated when Ace used her mind warping powers to weaken Batman allowing Joker to beat him senselessly. By the time of his death, Joker had left his mark on the world, varying from Gotham, to Metropolis, and even Las Vegas.

Joker also seemed strangely resistant to death, constantly surviving situations - including long falls, explosions and even being psychically mind-wiped, to name a few (the last one being possibly explainable by the complexity of his own mind) - that should by all rights have ended his career, until he finally died in Terry McGinnis' era.

Originally, Joker possessed little more than average physical strength, albeit enough to regularly hold his own against Batman. However, upon inhabiting the mind of Tim Drake, he acquired the training, conditioning, and knowledge of Batman and Robin.

Joker owns two pet laughing hyenas, named Bud and Lou, after Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

## History

### Past

Jack Napier started out as a young enforcer working for the mob triad of Sal Valestra, Buzz Bronski, and Chuckie Sol. At one point early on, before his future accident, he and Bruce Wayne caught a glimpse of each other. One of his last jobs took place in Europe on the Mediterranean Coast. His target was Carl Beaumont, a businessman who had fled the states after the mob bosses discovered he'd embezzled a fortune.

Many years later on, Jack formed his own gang and staged their first robbery at the Ace Chemical Plant. It was during this heist that he first encountered Batman. It's unknown whether Jack was pushed or simply fell, but he did fall off a catwalk and into a drainage vat of chemical waste that washed him out into the river. The chemicals had an adverse effect on him: they dyed his hair green, his skin was bleached white, and his lips were stretched into a permanently stained red grin, giving him the appearance of a clown. All this snapped the crook's already twisted mind and sadistic nature, giving birth to "Joker". Vowing to show the world the triumph of his comic genius, the career of one of history's most dangerous psychopaths began.

## External links

* Joker *Wikipedia*
* Joker *DC Database*
* Joker *Batman Wikia*