Jack Napier

**Jack Naiper** (ジャック・ネイピアー, *Jakku Neipiā*), also known as **Joker** (ジョーカー, *Jōkā*), is a fictional character and one of the antagonists of the *DC* series. He is Batman's archenemy, a force of fear and chaos against Batman's fight for safety and order. His weapons include Joker toxin, pistols, nuclear warheads, various joke props and gags, and a sick enjoyment of pain and fear. The Clown Prince of Crime is a warped psychopath who inspires chaos.

Despite multiple incarcerations in the infamous Arkham Asylum, he remains gleefully insane - and determined to torment Batman by any means possible. The Joker has belonged to many criminal organizations, but his fellow villains fear him almost as much as Gotham City does. He is unpredictable, manic, bloodthirsty, and capable of twisting even the sanest minds to his warped plans.

"*Take a hint, old boy, we may have had our differences, but you and me, we're made for each other.*"

—Joker's views on his relationship with Batman.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Mark Hamill (English), Keiji Fujiwara (Japanese), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (German), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Poland), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin 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

Joker's appearance was that of a very tall and very thin man with bright green eyes, a long sharp chin, a pointy nose and an unusually wide smile. He was identified by his white skin, green hair and red lips, which made him look like a clown, though it seemed that he had painted his lips to give himself a clown smile in order to make his smile even wider than it already was.

Joker was dressed in his trademark purple tailcoat and white gloves, with a yellow buttoned shirt and a green bow tie, with a flower attached to his tailcoat jacket, the tailcoat itself had a few rips on the jacket's shoulders and didn't seem to have been fixed or washed for quite some time. Also, he had a wide widow's peak, which possibly showed a receding hairline. Joker also wore dress shoes and matching purple pants with a few stitched patches in a crude attempt to repair possible tears in the pants.

When Batman first started seeing visions of Joker shooting Barbara he was shown wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, a hat, shoes, and sunglasses. Years before the Arkham Riots, Joker was seen wearing a carnival master's suit, which closely resembled his purple tailcoat, with a top hat. He wore this when he kidnapped Commissioner Gordon in order to lure Batgirl to his new lair at the Seagate Amusement Park.

After overdosing himself on Titan, Joker's appearance drastically changed; like most of the thugs that he injected Titan into, he grew in size and muscle. However, the physical change seemed more grotesque for him, as his spine jutted out far more than the others, as well as his shoulder blades and ribs broke through his skin, which was covered in boils and veins, and his hair also changed into a mohawk while on Titan.

* Hair Color: Green
* Skin Color: White
* Eye Color: Green
* Age: Not Known
* Birthday: Not Known
* Height: 6 ft.
* Weight: 160 lb.

### 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.

## Personality

### As Joker

Where ever he went, Joker left a trail of madness, chaos and death in his wake. He had no interest in money or power, he was neither greedy nor did he have any concern over companionship or want of a friend, his goals were simple and downright evil, chaos for the sake of chaos. Joker's sense of humor was twisted and malevolent, uncountable deaths were just a distraction to sadistically feed his appetite.

Joker possessed countless mental illnesses however if traits of psychopaths prove correctly he did not realize his madness and even if he did he took no avail in trying to help himself, indicating that he was perfectly comfortable with the way he was and his egomania would certainly prevent him from making the even slightest change of his own personality. His illnesses ranged from multiple personality disorder to schizophrenia, hysteria, narcissism and borderline personality disorder and this was only the beginning. Eventually every person in Gotham, including Joker himself, gave up on trying to cure the madman except for one person, the vigilante known as Batman who despite all the evil and death he caused across Gotham, Batman refused to take his life which inadvertently began an infatuation toward the Bat.

He was a monomaniac as well, Joker underwent deranged fixations upon different obsessions. The most obvious one was clowns which actually became the motif of his crime empire, this also carried out in his appearance and manner of killing his victims (making them laugh to death after revealing them to his Joker Toxin). Joker was completely fixated upon Batman, the first vigilante ever to set foot in Gotham. His obsessions was so bad he focused most of his energy into killing the Bat. Should Batman interfere in his plans, he instantly became the top priority. Despite being archenemies Joker actually considered himself and Batman best friends, he would not kill him even if it was beneficial to his plans but would if he was bored with him. He also had no care about the man underneath the cowl as he knew the second his identity would be revealed it would mean the end of their little game and even stopped Harley Quinn from unmasking him by saying "no-one's who you think they are, my dear, why spoil the fun?" Joker once insinuated their relationship to be a romantic one. This was either a joke or that he has become so obsessed that he actually may have developed a genuine attraction to Batman although Joker has no concern over intimacy or companionship so it's most likely a joke.

Joker hated Batman's sidekicks, he believed that they held the vigilante back and only prevented him "playing" with Bruce. It was this that prompted him to kidnap and torture Jason Todd (the second Robin) then mail him the video of Jason's brutal death which only hung over Batman's guilty conscience.

He had no concern over anyone's life accept his own. If one of his own men were left behind or died, it was a mild inconvenience in Joker's eyes. He would even kill them himself, including the most loyalist thugs if he was disappointed by them, even for the sadistic entertainment in simply killing them. Even Harley Quinn, his most loyal minion and girlfriend who utterly idolized the maniac was left totally oblivious to his cruel treatment and utter abuse towards her however Harley is still useful to Joker's cause and as long as she kept this way he would keep her by side.

Despite his obvious untrustworthy appearance, Joker is charming and even in come cases seductive. He was a pathological liar and a sadomasochist. Given his incarceration in Arkham City, he had concocted twelve unique identities with one defining detail, Batman. He was completely unafriad of any physical Batman would do to him, not only taking twisted delight in being beaten half to death by an enraged Batman but actually persuading him to kill him. Joker's very presence was corruptive, he brought out the worst in people, turning good men into killers (excluding The Bat of course). He was a cynical, manipulative Machiavelli during his therapy sessions not only was he able to get Doctor Young into thinking that he was completely sane but actually tricking Doctor Harleen Quinzel into thinking herself in love with Joker. He openly did not think much of humanity, believing every man, woman and child were as equally insane and sadistic as he was in the inside and that to deny this was purely madness, in this case he resented Batman for his ideas that people were basically good.

Joker was not totally deluded however, he was aware that he was a bad person who deserved death and was completely dumbfounded when another person risked their own life to save his as he was aware that he wasn't worth saving. He was a nihilist and a suicidal individual, just after Bane rocketed an RPG toward the Gotham Royal Hotel, instead of panicking he casually accepted his fate without a hesitation. On more than one occasion he presented numerous opportunities for Batman to take his life, if only to prove that deep down everybody was like him.

Despite his nihilism, Joker completely overvalued his life above anything else. After feeling the affects of the TITAN poisoning from Arkham Asylum, he frantically searched for a cure so he would not die, he even had his girlfriend kidnap all doctors across Gotham then brutally tortured and killed anyone who could not cure his disease.

He became increasingly obsessed with Batman. Though originally viewing him as a "tiny little distraction" he slowly becomes more focused on the vigilante especially after he saved him from his death on top of Gotham Royal Hotel until he admitted to his psychiatrist that it was destiny that he and Batman met the day. After being defeated during the Blackgate Riots, he was seen laughing insanely all the while saying "this is going to be fun" indicating their lifelong battle has finally begun and would not end until one of them died

Joker's emotions were impossible to read, one of his own henchman even commented on how Joker's mindset could change so easily from being maniacal and humorous to being a serious, calculated mastermind. He was capable of being calm and rational yet this broke in an instant and he reverted to his hysteric state, literally laughing until he was near the brink of tears. Joker rarely got angry and whenever he did it was almost impossible to realize however he did come close to having a breakdown when Batman had set his plans in array during the siege of Arkham.

He seems to have developed a symbolic connection towards Arkham Asylum. Despite it being the place of his incarceration Joker considers it a "home away from home" which he used as a way to add insult to injury to the politicians who locked him away there. It was also the same place he chose to put Jason Todd under brutal torture however this was most likely to emotionally attack Batman as he was the man who incarcerated him in said asylum.

After indirectly destroying his own cure, Joker gloated over Batman, showing arrogance and overconfidence in his final moments as he knew he was going to save him despite the terrible things he's done. Though his slow death had finally caught up with he was able to find humor and ultimately got the last laugh on his archenemy.

Despite his death, nine months later Joker returned. He was able to send his contaminated blood to numerous hospitals which was overlooked and infected five people (Henry Adams, Christina Bell, Albert King, Johnny Charisma and Batman) over time his personality manifested in these five people, and they began to resemble him in appearance and personality. As the manifestation worsened over the brutal night, Joker began to realize though the two were opposites in life, in death he came to the conclusion that the two were "made for each other" and with his possessed body he would become the "full package". Simultaneously Batman become affected by this Joker-virus, which is shown in how he become more ruthless in pursuit of his goals such as threatening to crush a man's head with the Batmobile if he didn't tell her what he wanted and lying to Robin about Barbara being safe when she was actually 'killed' by Scarecrow then locking him in a cell so Tim doesn't end up like Jason. Though it appeared he achieved the ultimate success over Batman, when he was revealed to Scarecrow's toxin for the first time in his life Joker shows genuine fear; him dead and forgotten by all of Gotham which caused him to he overpowered and ultimately defeated by his enemy.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* Joker/Harley Quinn's Thugs
	+ Harley Quinn
	+ Bud and Lou
	+ Mo
	+ Lar
	+ Cur
	+ Chuckles
	+ Dopey
	+ Grumpy
	+ Abramovici Twins
		- Mr. Hammer
* Victor Zsasz
* Clayface
* Scarecrow

### Family

* Jeannie Napier (wife, deceased)
* unborn son (deceased)

### Neutral

* Frank Boles
* Penelope Young
* Killer Croc
* Bane
* Deathstroke
* Deadshot
* League of Assassins
	+ Ra's al Ghul
	+ Dusan al Ghul
	+ Barsad
	+ Sandra Wu-San/Lady Shiva
* Electrocutioner
* Firefly
* Copperhead
* Poison Ivy
* TYGER
	+ Hugo Strange

### Rivals

* Penguin
* Two-Face
* Black Mask

### Enemies

* Batman
* Catwoman
* Robin
* Nightwing
* Martin Joseph
* Gotham City Police
	+ Peter Grogan
	+ James Gordon
	+ Harvey Bullock
	+ Renee Montoya
	+ Peter Foley
	+ Captain Jones
	+ Tom Miller
	+ Elvis Jones
	+ Jon Forrester
	+ Michaels
* Major Crimes Unit
	+ John Blake
	+ Gerard Stephens

## Abilities and Traits

During combat, Joker employs his lethal laughing gas, a revolver handgun, and his joy buzzer as special attacks. He uses his impressive hand-to-hand abilities to punch, slap, kick, and poke out eyes. During stealth missions where Joker must dispose of his enemies, he can use a pair of glasses with swirly circles in the lenses to see through walls and identify others behind. Another weapon he has is remote-controlled chattering teeth that carry explosives.

### Powers

* **Telepathic Immunity**: He is immune to telepathy, as seen when Martian Manhunter tried to enter his mind, but doubled over in pain with Joker replying "Scary in there, isn't it?".
* **Joker Venom Immunity**:
* **Cheating Death**: Joker proved himself capable of escaping alive and healthy from more than one potentially fatal situation; He appeared after being see in a burning helicopter after it was shot down and crashed into a building with no visible injury.
* **Vampirism** {Formerly}:
* **Superhuman Strength** (formerly):

### Abilities

* **Driving**: Joker can drive his tank backwards through the streets of Gotham, all while constantly shooting rockets and explosive presents.
* **Charisma**: Joker was able to inspire senseless violence and death, he was able to take control of the cult that worshiped him and take over an amusement park.
	+ **Leadership**: Joker leads an army of escaped convicts.
* **Gadgetry**: Joker commits crimes with countless "comedic" weapons (such as razor-sharp playing cards, acid-spewing flowers, cyanide pies, and lethally electric joy buzzers) and Joker venom.
* **Genius Level Intellect**: Joker is also 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.
	+ **Chemistry**: Able to make a wide variety of laughing gases and his Joker Venom.
* **Investigation**: Jker was able to deduce the Bruce and Batman were the same person from his interactions with both.
* **Criminal Mastermind**:
* **Firearms**: Joker was an excellent marksman with various firearms.
* **Hand-to-Hand Combat** (Basic): Joker has shown the ability to take on a large number of guards by himself using a unique form of fighting.
	+ **Martial Arts**: Joker also moves and fights with a Monkey Kung Fu-like style using his feet as dexterously as his hands, and often hangs from the walls and ceilings.
* **Mechanical Engineering**:
* **Throwing**: Joker is a master at throwing playing cards. He can easily hit a target from far away.
* **Psychology**: Joker understands human psychology very well. He predicts his enemies' next move and uses it against them.
* **Intimidation**: Because of his constant smiles and disregard for life itself, many are scared to just even be in the same room with Jerome. He is able to stab someone without so much as batting an eye, even using the victim's blood to paint a smile on Bruce's face.
* **Escapology**: he was shown to have easily escaped from a car he speedily drove into a river.
* **Acting**: Joker was able to impersonate Black Mask and take over his gang of mobsters for approximately three and not Batman or even Sionis' subordinates knew until he revealed himself.
	+ **Deception**: The Joker can trick others into believing what he wishes by choosing key words and situations to mold a victim's perspective of what he wants them to see. Joker is able to use his strange and socially awkward but friendly personality to his advantage and manipulate people into getting what he wants or to get them to underestimate him.
* **Political Science**: Joker once ran for President.
* **Singing**: Joker has the adept repertoire skills of singing songs he knows the whole way through, and can perform them word-perfect with no rehearsal, supporting the idea he was once an entertainer of some stripe. He seems to prefer songs he can croon to when he once sang Harley Quinn a love song.

### Weaknesses

* **Mental Illness**: Joker escapes classification of a single diagnosis. He's been thought to have bipolar disorder, multiple personalities, etc. However, the truth may be simpler, such as Joker being nothing more than pure evil. One of the things Joker is known for is having no concern whether he lives or dies, albeit only if Batman goes with him. Besides his complete and utter disregard for human life, the Joker implies that he possesses more than one personality, which he juggles.

### Equipment

* **Joker Teeth**: The madman keeps a collection of annoying gag teeth at his disposal that he throws at his opponent's' feet that rattle an laugh. When Joker is injected with TITAN, the Joker Teeth become strapped with dynamite and explode when near Batman.
* **X-Ray Specs**: These specs allow Joker to see his enemies the same way that Batman does when he goes into Detective Mode.

### Weapons

* **Joker Gas**: a chemical which, when inhaled, causes its victims to laugh uncontrollably until they die with a wide grin on their faces.
* **Razor Sharp Cards**
* **Extending Boxing Glove**
* **Smiley Face Bombs**
* **Joker's Joy Buzzer**: A joy buzzer with a fatal zap.
* **Knife**:
* **Rocket launcher**:

## History

### Past

#### Forgotten Past

The story of his origins are relatively unknown. One of the more reliable origins describe that Jack was a lab assistant for Ace Chemicals who had a dream of working as a stand-up comedian, however, after quitting his job and taking a shot at his dream, he wasn't very successful and suffered low self-esteem and self-worth issues because of this.

Married to a loving wife named Jeannie, the pair were expecting their first child. To get money for his family, he becomes involved with the criminal gang of thieves from The Falcone Crime Family: the "Red Hoods", and agrees to help them into the Ace Chemical plant to rob them.

Donning a black tuxedo and red helmet and disguised as the infamous Red Hood, the same as the other gang members, he finds out that his wife had died as she was testing a baby-bottle heater on the eve of the robbery. However, he was forced to continue the robbery.

As the gang encounters the Batman, who has come to thwart the robbery, he becomes terrified of the Batman's appearance and jumps/falls into a vat of chemicals while escaping.

While surviving the plunge and chemical exposure, he goes mad seeing his disfigured face on top of losing his wife and family, and starts to perceive life as one black, awful joke with plans of destruction and chaos for the city simply for the sake of it.

Taking the name "Joker", the man lost all sense of remorse or perceived sanity, instead only acting upon his own whims and driven by a lust to create in a world of social disorder and desired where nothing but anarchy is to feed more of his sadistic appetites and morbid, dark sense of humor than a cruel joke. With a particular hatred for the Dark Knight himself, having blamed the hero for making him who he was, and a hunger for revenge against him, Joker began to make his schemes to destroy Gotham and make Batman suffer in the process.

#### Setting Plans in Motion

During a particularly snowy winter, near Christmas, Joker began scheming shortly after his transformation. Seeking to establish himself as one of Gotham's most iconic figures and carve a name for himself in the Gotham criminal underworld, the Joker began to target Roman Sionis, also known as Black Mask, the city's most powerful and sadistic crime lord.

With Black Mask having unlimited wealth, resources, men, power, and complete control over the criminal underworld as he consolidated his power and eliminated his opposition, Joker saw Black Mask's criminal empire as the perfect means to gain control of the city and form his own gang for his agenda of chaos. Initially performing small time, but extremely violent crimes, heists, and spree murders in order to introduce his image into the criminal underworld, including blowing up a senior health care residence, the Joker eventually gathered and consolidated a small gang of his own.

With some loyal followers under his control, Joker began his grander plans and stole chemicals from Roman's Steel Mill, a front that was used to create chemicals and drugs, to manufacture explosives, which enticed Black Mask to have Joker followed and monitored in order to learn more on what he was planning. The Joker was already one step ahead, however, and began to stalk Roman's girlfriend, Tiffany Ambrose, as he kept tabs over her boyfriend's criminal activities. This understandably spooked Tiffany, who was placed within a safe house at Lacey Towers by Roman, until he could track Joker down and neutralize him. Unfortunately for Black Mask and Tiffany, Joker used his own connections in the underworld to learn of Tiffany's whereabouts, broke into the safe house, and waited for her to come home.

When Tiffany did so after holiday shopping, Joker violently smashed her head into the counter, which knocked her out, and tied the defenseless woman up to the chandelier in the living room. Black Mask soon began to suspect that something was wrong and had Giovanni Luchese, disguised as himself, enter the safe house as a diversion while he sneaked in the back to gain the upper hand on the Joker. When Luchese arrived through the front door, Joker gleefully waited in a chair and immediately shot the man through the chest, which instantly killed him, knowing that he was not his true target. The real Black Mask then sneaked up behind Joker and attacked him, but Joker proved to be an exceptionally competent fighter and overpowered and beat Black Mask, tying up his hands in the process.

To eliminate any evidence of him being at the safe house, Joker used a cocktail incendiary device to set the room ablaze. As Tiffany struggled from the heat of the fire below her, Joker then cruelly and sadistically made Roman hold his gun and shoot Tiffany through the heart in a game of Russian Roulette, which immediately killed her, as Joker dragged the struggling Roman out with him. Joker held Black Mask captive at a hidden location and tortured him over the course of several days, forcing him to reveal every detail about himself and his operations. Using those details to his advantage, Joker took Roman's mask and white suit, disguised himself as the crime lord, and took complete control of his gang, resources, and power. Joker then plotted to first destroy all of Black Mask's power and standing in the city, take his place, and institute his own brand of anarchy and social disorder.

With Black Mask's connections his own, Joker had access to nearly every level of Gotham's infrastructure through his inside agents, as well the entire Gotham City Police Department under his complete control to do his bidding as a secondary gang. Joker's ultimate desire was to make Gotham his own by sunrise and leave the city in a state of ruin for his own personal amusement. Knowing that Batman was the only one who could stop his plans, as well as having hunger for revenge against Batman, Joker placed a $50 million bounty on the Dark Knight's head and hired eight of the world's most deadliest assassins: the beastly Killer Croc, master sniper Deadshot, swordsman Deathstroke of MECH, ninja master Lady Shiva, explosive expert Firefly, Electrocutioner, poison expert Copperhead, and a masked terrorist known as Bane, to take him down.

Joker also managed to take over an old amusement park on the outskirts of the city, murdering the owner in the process, stole a massive amount of carnival equipment, and began to manufacture excessive amounts of a poisonous gas that was known as Joker Toxin, which left victims violently laughing themselves to death, in preparation for his schemes that took further root later that night. Joker would proceed to horrifically test out this toxin on numerous abducted victims with the Sionis Steel Mill, until he obtained the desired effect, and disposed of the bodies within barrels of chemicals.

## Victims

* Giovanni Luchese: Shot in the heart while sitting in a chair.
* Tiffany Ambrose: Forced Black Mask to shoot and kill her.
* Peter Grogan: Placed him into an Gas Chamber in Blackgate to gas him to death.
* Unnamed Bank Manager: Used laughing gas on her to kill her.
* Multiple Employees at Gotham Merchant's Bank: Killed in various ways.
* Electrocutioner: Kicked him out of the Royal Hotel penthouse's windows 30 floors down.
* Multiple Black Mask goons: Killed in various ways.
* Multiple Blackgate staff on March riot: Killed in various ways.
* Two unnamed Joker thugs: Shot them.
* Two Arkham Asylum guards: Killed via snapping his neck, and then shooting the other before changing into his regular outfit.
* Katie Burke: Manipulated Dr. Penelope Young into overdosing her anti-cancer pills and making her cancer even worse.
* Edward Burke: Manipulated him into taking "suicide pills" laced with Joker venom.
* Hundreds of Gotham Citizens: Killed when Joker blew up firecrakers laced with Joker toxin in celebration of the 4th of July, possibly to provoke Jason Todd.
* Paulie: Various conflicting accounts of the motive or how exactly he was killed, though it was generally agreed upon that he was shot and then cast down to the Gotham Bay.
* Various Arkham Asylum's staff: In various ways such as laughing gas.
* Frank Boles' wife: Killed with mysterious poison.
* Frank Boles: Killed him in an unknown way.
* Dr. Penelope Young: Sneaked bombs into the Warden's Office which she opened and exploded.
* Rhaz: While he was working on one of the gargoyles, Joker blew it up to kill him for absolutely no reason.
* Arkham City doctors: Killed for failing to cure him.
* Talia al Ghul: Shot her in the back with a firearm.
* Joker also killed countless people off screen.

## External links

* Joker *Wikipedia*
* Joker *DC Database*
* Joker *Batman Wiki*

## Notes & Trivia

* Joker first appeared in Batman #1 (Spring 1940)
* Joker is immune to his own Joker toxin and many other side effects of harmful chemical exposure.
* Despite having a comical personality, Joker has the stance of a flirty female character.
* Joker is notorious in the hero community for his unpredictability and is largely left to the Batman to deal with.
* Jason Todd, whose death is ironically considered to be Batman's greatest failure and one of the Joker's most noted crimes, considers the creation of the Joker as his mentor's first and greatest failure.
* Joker's inmate number of Arkham Asylum is 0801.
* Perhaps unintentionally, but three events end with a situation in which Batman's acts of self-preservation doom Joker.
	+ Batman chooses to use the Titan antidote on himself instead of Joker, as he was unwilling to transform into a monster.
	+ Batman cures himself of the Titan sickness and expresses reluctance in curing Joker. This reluctance indirectly causes the vial to smash and Joker to die.
	+ Batman preys on Joker's fears to force him out of his mind, preventing him from wreaking havoc on Gotham once more, and ending him forever.