Joker

## Biography

### Possible Early Life

Joker's true identity is unknown, and his origin constantly changed during psychological sessions. Batman has pieced together three possible origins and true identities of the Joker due to elements that remain most consistent throughout his case files:

1. He may have been Jack Napier, a struggling stand-up comedian who turned to heists with the Red Hood Gang to make ends meet - where he unfortunately ran afoul of Batman during an Ace Chemicals heist and fell into a vat of acidic chemicals and was believed dead.
2. He may have been Jeremiah Valeska, a Haly's Circus performer that suffered from long-running mental health issues and lived with his abusive aunt Eunice, who regularly burned his skin with bleach. One day, Jeremiah got fed up and cut up some of the traveling troupe before skipping town.
3. He may have been William Distal, runaway foster kid who faked his death and doused himself in chemicals to wash away his identity and start anew.

Whatever the case for his origin, he first popped on Gotham's crime scene in 1998.

### The Joker

His first criminal act as the Joker was his public declaration that he was going to poison Mayor Henry Claridge at midnight, prompting Batman and the GCPD to provide 24/7 protection of the mayor, only for him to die anyway in the late hours of the day thanks to a slow-acting toxin that horrifically stretched his face into a smile as his body went cold.

Joker evaded capture and became a menace to Gotham, going on numerous escapades without a care of who he injured along the way. Slowly, his uncaring, violent lifestyle began to accumulate followers, inspired by him to don their own clown makeup and claim laughable vengeance on those that wronged him, and thus was born the Laugh Pack. The Laugh Pack took up residence in an labyrinth beneath Amusement Mile, where they would break Joker out of Arkham whenever the GCPD or Batman actually managed to haul him away. Joker, who has proven himself to be an impressive chemist, shared the recipe for his "Joker Toxin", later given the street name Smilex and it became the Laugh Pack's biggest enterprise.

Afte the Joker successfully infiltrated the Justice League's base in Happy Harbor, the GCPD, Justice League, and Titans led a full force invasion on Amusement Mile and landed most of the gang in Arkham. During this particularly long stint in the asylum, he became a favorite of new psychiatrist Harleen Quinzell. Joker successfully manipulated her into a sexual relationship and eventually convinced her to communicate with his right-hand man on the outside and bust him out.

Following the successful bust, Joker kidnapped Harleen and took her to Amusement Mile - where he psychologically tortured her with a very liberal use of electroshock therapy, before completing her transformation into the Clown Queen of Crime by dunking her in a vat of chemicals, signaling her rebirth as Harley Quinn.

From here on out, Joker's escapades grew more violent and personal. He tracked down JJ Gordon and sent him after the Gordon Family. On another occasion, Batman and Robin were having a disagreement while pursuing the clown, allowing Joker to get a nasty shot into Dick's shoulder, which later led to the Boy Wonder resigning.

### The Death in the Family

However, Joker's most famous and brutal crime came in 2014. In an attempt to drive Commissioner Gordon over the edge, he showed up at Barbara Gordon's door and shot her, crippling her. The Laugh Pack was then dispatched all over Gotham to send the GCPD and Bat-Family on a wild goose chase, while Harley was tasked with luring the second Robin to Amusement Mile, where he was trapped and knocked unconscious.

They transported his body to a bunker in Gotham's industrial district, where Riddler helped them set up a livestream to broadcast Joker's torture of the boy and attempted to get him to give up Batman's true identity. When Joker grew bored of this endeavor, he leaked their location and took off, but not before rigging the warehouse to explode. Batman got to the warehouse just in time to watch it be blown to smithereens and pull Jason's body from the wreckage.

While Batman was left in mourning, Joker skipped town. Nobody knows where he was planning to go, as his path was erratic at best. He managed to get to Opal City, where Task Force X almost caught up to him, so he threw Harley out of a helicopter in order to make his escape. However, he didn't make it far, crashing it on Castle Island, where Nightwing's Outsiders team apprehended him (and Katana very nearly killed him) and quietly returned him to Arkham Asylum.

### The New Clown Queen of Crime

In Arkham, senior psychiatrist Marian Drews was assigned to his case. Secretly, she had been assigned by ARGUS to obtain the locations of his safehouses, weapons caches, and the recipe for Smilex in hopes of concocting a cure. However, Joker's ever-manipulative self stroked her ego and got her to open up more to him, revealing her past of substance abuse and suicidal ideation. Unaware or possibly uncaring of his manipulation, Marian began walking a dangerous path. After nearly a year, she was puddy in his hands, and was planning to spring him and the whole Laugh Pack from the joint, when the side of the asylum was blown wide open by the League of Assassins. She was taken hostage by a foot soldier, who Joker stabbed. Then, the two raided the security armory and ran off into the sunset together.

They went to Gotham, where the Laugh Pack reunited and made the best of the ensuing chaos as the League of Assassins invaded Gotham City. When the initial invasion died down, they focused on gaining territory, where they gained a number of new members by offering food, shelter, and protection. Marian debuted as Punchline, the new underboss to the Laugh Pack. She and Joker ruled the gang with delight, becoming one of the most powerful gangs in Gotham - which put them in direct conflict with several other mobsters.

While most were smart to not make enemies with the crazy clowns, Black Mask was not one of those, as he locked his False Face Society in direct conflict with them. A number of small operations escalated tensions between the two, and the addition of the Anarchists didn't help matters, brewing to a boiling point after Gotham was liberated by the Justice League in 2017. Everything fell into an all-out brawl in Gotham Square. During the firefight, Joker turned around and was surprised to find the recently resurrected Jason Todd holding a gun to his head. Before he could make a joke, Jason fired, spilling Joker's brains all over the sidewalk, killing him.

### Emperor Joker

Joker remained dead for about three years and was pulled from the Arkham morgue to find an impish man in a bowler hat calling himself Mxyzptlk floating over him. With a snap of the imp's fingers, Joker's decaying body was brought back together, rejuvenated and stronger than ever before. Joker discovered the imp had shared a portion of his reality warping powers with the super-criminal, intending for him to finally kill Batman and prove to his rival that Batman was a weakling. Joker instead decided to execute his own reign of terror on Gotham, Bludhaven, and Metropolis.

The next few weeks were a bizarre time for the three cities, as Joker's schemes included giving Jimmy Olsen superpowers and nearly making him kill Superman, doing battle with the Spectre, enhancing the superpowers of several villains, bringing cartoon characters Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew to life, creating a dragon with his own face on it, and conjuring the Dark Knights, twisted versions of Batman that mimicked the Justice League's powers to ward off any intervening superheroes.

Thanks to the efforts of Bat-Mite and several sorcerers, they were able to contain Joker, removing Mxy's powers. But, bizarrely, Joker did not die, but fell into a coma. While ARGUS wanted to contain him at the recently constructed Supermax, the Justice League felt it was a better idea to put him in the Phantom Zone, where he was locked in cryogenic stasis, where he remains to this day. However, if rumors on Gotham's street are to be believed, Punchline is trying to get a gang together to head to the Arctic Circle and break him (and possibly the other prisoners) out and continue his reign of terror.

## Notes

* Gaining Mxyzptlk's powers is from the *Emperor Joker* storyline, where he did fight Spectre and had Jimmy Olsen kidnap Superman.
* In the comics, Marian Drews became Neo-Joker in the *White Knight* universe. Here, she has been composited with Punchline from the recent comics (coming soon to Earth 76).
* The twisted versions of Batman are Earth 76's versions of Barbatos' Dark Knights from *Dark Nights: Metal*. Due to the Multiverse not existing in Earth 76, they have been incorporated here.
* Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew are characters from Earth-26 in the comics, but have been adapted here as a cartoon brought to life by the Joker.
* Jeremiah Valeska was the Joker in the *Gotham* TV Series.
* Lucy Quinzell was his daughter in the *Injustice* universe.