Joker

Jester of Genocide

Ace of Knaves

Harlequin of Hate

Mr. J

Puddin'

**The Joker**is the main antagonist of *Batman: Shadow War*and eventually *Batman: New War.*He was an insane, homicidal criminal mastermind whose clown-like appearance belied the chaotic nature that underlay his cartoonish looks. The extremely self-styled Clown Prince of Crime has a capacity for incredible violence and a skill at creating deadly mayhem, and frequently concoted elaborate schemes to entrap his arch-nemesis, Batman.

## Biography

### Possible Backgrounds

Though many have been related, a definitive history of the Joker nor his identity had been confirmed and nobody knows who the Joker truly is. His most believable and known backstory is that he was an engineer at the Ace Chemicals before he quit his job to pursue his dream of being a stand-up comedian, only to fail miserably. Desperate to support his wife, Jeannie, the man agrees to help two criminals break into the plant where he was formerly employed. The Red Hood persona is given to the inside man of every job; this makes the inside man appear to be the leader, allowing the two ring-leaders to escape. During the planning, police contact him and inform him that his wife and unborn child have died in a household accident.

Stricken with grief, he attempts to back out of the plan but the criminals strong-arm him into keeping his promise. As soon as they enter the plant, however, they are immediately caught by security and a fatal shootout ensues, in which the two criminals are killed. As he tries to escape, he is confronted by Batman, who is investigating the disturbance. Terrified, the engineer leaps over a rail and plummets into a vat of chemicals. When he surfaces in the nearby reservoir, he removes the hood and sees his reflection: bleached chalk-white skin, ruby-red lips and emerald green hair. These events, coupled with his other misfortunes that day, drive the engineer through the massive personality shift that results in the birth of the Joker.

Other origin stories involves the pre-Joker as a man who was nearly suicidal due to boredome of his "job" as a gifted criminal and tries to find something to live for, so he becomes obsessed with Batman after he breaks up one of his jobs, leading the criminal to attract Batman's attention at Carmine Falcone's ball. The criminal injures Lorna Shorne, the woman Mario Falcone was dating, leading Batman to brutally beat up the man. However, he escapes and Falcone, as revenge, sends his men to kidnap and torture the man in Ace Chemicals. The man kills several of his assailants after escaping, but falls into an empty vat as wild gunfire punctures the chemical tanks above him, and the resultant flood of antidepressant chemicals alters his appearance to that of a clown, completing his transformation into the Joker.

### Carving A Mark

Shortly after his transformation, the Joker began scheming and seeked to carve a name himself in the Gotham underworld he began targeting Roman Sionis, AKA Black Mask. The crime lord's trademark mask would make for the perfect disguise and his steel mill, a front to manufacture drugs, came with all the resources needed to cook up deadly toxins and explosives. He also chose Black Mask because of his reputation for shady theme park construction appealing to his twisted sense of humor.

Joker started his plans by stealing chemicals from Sionis' mill to manufacture explosives, attracting enough of the crime lord's attention to have him followed. Joker raised the stakes by stalking one of Sionis's girlfriends, Tiffany Ambrose. Roman placed a spooked Tiffany in his safehouse at Lacey Towers. Unfortunately for Black Mask and his lover the Joker was waiting when Tiffany returned from grocery shopping, and when Tiffany tried to get Roman to come over as she was increasingly scared, the Joker violently attacked Tiffany and even removed her teeth to form a smile on the table to provoke Black Mask, and then tied her to the chandelier dressed to look like an angel. Ever paranoid, Black Mask attempted to kill the Joker with the assistance of a body double however the Joker killed the double on sight and managed to overpower and restrain the real Black Mask. The Joker then used a molotov cocktail to eliminate evidence and tortured Black Mask by giving him a choice: watch Tiffany burn to death or shoot her to put her out of her misery. Black Mask chose the latter and the Joker dragged the struggling crime lord out with him.

The Joker kept Sionis alive to access the bio-metrics of the Gotham National Bank and take the fall, if Joker didn't feel like murdering him first. The next several days were spent holding the former Black Mask captive and torturing him to reveal every detail about himself. Using these details, Joker disguised himself as the crime lord and took complete control of his criminal empire, resources and power. Any slip-ups and out of character activity were put down to Black Mask sampling his own product. The Joker also abducted prostitutes and was experimenting with chemicals from the steel mill to create what would become his favorite murder weapon, Joker Venom, killing several of them with this lethal toxin.

Soon the Joker killed or turned gang members as he saw fit, ordering the survivors to rig explosives in the sewers directly beneath three significant skyscrapers. As Black Mask, the Joker busted into the bank with Sionis with a stolen school bus and made off with the loot as well as killed everyone inside the bank. Before escaping, the Joker shoots one of his men and kicks him out of the bus to bleed to death in the bank (being a former henchman of the Penguin and the Joker wanted to frame the Penguin for the robbery). The Joker concealed his identity by driving within a convoy of school buses. Shortly after the bank robbery, the Joker, still disguised as Black Mask, arrived at the meeting between several crime lords who was involved in Black Mask's money-laundering at the bank who were discussing the recent theft. The Joker managed to manipulate the mobsters by framing a crime lord named the Penguin for the bank robbery and stealing the mob's cash, leading to a gang war between Black Mask's allies and the Penguin in order to distract the Gotham vigilante Batman and the police.

Meanwhile, the Joker kidnapped SWAT Captain Howard Branden and forced him to announce that people will die unless Batman turns himself in, as the Ace of Knaves wants to eliminate Batman. The Joker then murders Branden and leaves his corpse hanging from the GCPD Station, with a smile carved into his face and left a Joker playing card on his body, which hinted at the Joker's next victims on the back of the card: Judge Janet Surillo and Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb. As a result of Batman not surrendering, the first major victims are Surillo and Loeb, the former via a car bomb and the latter via his Joker Venom into the commissioner's scotch, respectively.

The Joker then murders two victims which Gordon deduces that the next target is Roman Sionis due to the chosen victims' names, so "Black Mask" is given police protection and Batman keeps an eye over him as well. However, nothing appears to happen until "Black Mask" starts laughing suspiciously, which Detective Harvey Bullock, who is amongst the cops, asks him what's so funny. Suddenly "Black Mask" tells them a joke hinting the danger that Harvey Dent is in and is revealed to be one of the Joker's henchmen armed with a hidden gas canister which he suicide bombs himself with, releasing deadly laughing gas into the room and killing several cops but Bullock manages to survive. This revelation results in Batman heading to the fundraiser Dent is hosting. When a gang of armed criminals interrupt the fundraiser, the Joker publicly reveals himself and Batman figures out that he was impersonating Black Mask. The Joker demands to know where Dent is and uses a knife to threaten several guests but fails to get Dent to come out due to being locked in a room by Batman for his own safety. Joker then has one of his goons guard the exits and bring out a Jack N' the Box containing the Joker's lethal laughing gas. The Joker claims he will kill Dent one way or another, being aware that he is in the building somewhere, but it will be "his" choice if everyone has to die laughing alongside him. Joker attempts to force Dent's fiancee, Rachel Dawes, into activating the box however he is suddenly attacked by Batman. Batman confronts the Joker on impersonating Black Mask and questions his motives, to which Joker says that Batman will see and mockingly asks him to take off his mask. Batman fights the Joker and his henchmen as well as disarming the gas bomb by cutting the wire, much to the Joker's disappointment. The Joker then grabs Rachel and threatens to drop her out of the window while also continuing to fire gunshots at Batman and keeping him at bay with his hostage. Suddenly, armed cops bust into the penthouse and start dispatching Joker's thugs, triggering the Joker to try to push Rachel though Batman rescues her before she could fall however the Joker accidentally falls out of the window in her place, accepting his death and laughing as he plummets to his doom. Despite what the criminal has done so far, Batman jumps out of the penthouse window and rescues the Joker, catching the lunatic in mid-air and crashing through the hotel lobby's glass dome. Joker is incredibly confused as to why Batman saved him and when two of the Joker's men surround the Dark Knight, the Joker wants to show how just insane Batman is for rescuing him by shooting his own goons dead. The Joker cited they were horrible men who deserved death just like him before turning the gun on himself, but Batman disarms him and subdues the Joker before cuffing him just as police officers burst in. Batman uses his grapple gun to disappear while Bullock arrests the Joker and manhandles the maniac into the back of a police van, while Gordon orders the officers to take him to Arkham Asylum where he belongs.

On the way to Arkham handcuffed in the back of the police van, the Joker giggles to himself and starts thinking about Batman to which he develops a new obsession over Gotham's hero and finds his code as one big, awful joke. The Joker offers to tell an armed cop a joke, but the cop simply tells him to shut up much to the Joker's amusement. Suddenly the police van crashes and topples, as the cops are ambushed by the Joker's gang and the Joker is rescued by his henchmen to continue to the next phase of his plan as well as capturing the cops to use as hostages for his upcoming plans. The Joker sets up a base of operations in an abandoned construction site where he holds three large groups of people hostage in the three skyscrapers he's set up with explosives, wanting two of them to blow the other up in order to save themselves and thus prove the Joker's point that Gotham has no good people in it and that Batman's crusade is thus pointless and just a bad joke with no punchline. To demonstrate he's not bluffing, the Joker blows up the third skyscraper, much to everyone, including Batman's shock, enough for the Joker and his unforgivable antics to give Batman bad memories of the night his parents were murdered while on the way to the scene. In his construction site, the Joker has disguised some hostages as his own men by making them wear clown masks, gagging them and duct taping guns to their hands while the "hostages" are actually the Joker's goons.

The police led by Commissioner James Gordon arrives alongside the Caped Crusader, formulating a plan with Batman intending to go after the Joker and tells Gordon to disarm the bombs and informs them they're in the sewers after shortly investigating it with his Detective Mode vision in his cowl, but warns that they're being guarded by Joker's henchmen. Batman storms the construction site and deals with the Joker's men despite their initial surprise, rescuing the hostages as well. Batman confronts the Joker with two hyenas he named Bud and Lou, subduing the hyenas and managing to fight off the Joker armed with a hammer. The Joker though stops the fight by telling him they might miss the fireworks, referencing the skyscrapers about to explode. Much to his disappointment, the hostages refuse to play the Joker's game and so he brings out his own trigger to kill them, saying it doesn't matter. However, before the Joker can trigger the explosives, Batman throws the Joker off the construction site and he laughs maniacally as he plummets to his demise, believing he's managed to corrupt Batman and break his code.

However, Batman uses his Grapnel Gun to catch the falling Clown Prince of Crime before he could hit the ground fatally, further disappointing the psychopath as Batman refuses to kill him. Batman ties the Joker and leaves him hanging, but the two say some words to each other with the Joker predicting that they'll be "playing this game" forever as Batman won't kill the Joker as it is his rule while the Joker states that Batman is too much fun to be killed. Batman then leaves the Joker to be captured by Gordon and his officers, leaving him dangling and uncontrollably laughing.

### Archenemy of Batman

Despite the city's best efforts the Joker would continually escape from Arkham Asylum, committing crimes and causing chaos until Batman would stop him in what seemed to be a twisted running gag at Gotham's expense. He defied any kind of therapy or diagnosis, leaving doctors unable to decipher what kind of insanity he was even afflicted with. To add insult to injury, the Clown Prince of Crime came to view Arkham as a sort of home. He was also aware of being observed obsessively by one of the doctors while in his cell and put on a show whenever released, spontaneously brutalizing fellow inmates and asylum staff just to keep everyone on their toes.

At some point while incarcerated at the asylum, Joker was visited in his cell in the dead of night by Arkham Asylum Warden Jeremiah Arkham, carrying a knife. Before things could escalate any further Jeremiah froze up by sudden terror. Never one to miss an opportunity, Joker procured the warden's knife and had a little fun at Jeremiah's expense by slowly slicing his forehead. He left no visible scarring and never told anyone, because the joke of a lunatic running the madhouse was too rich to spoil.

### Making an Enemy out of the Penguin

At some point during his arrival in Gotham City, the Penguin decided to make an impression on the underworld elite with a gala opening in his new nightclub, the Iceburg Lounge. He included the notorious Joker, whose appearance would surely impress the crowd. When the Joker arrived, the Penguin was thrilled as he was hosting the sinister soiree of the century until a clumsy waitress spilled a drink on the Joker. The laughing Joker aimed his flower and an acid spray melted the girl's face. As alarmed patrons fled the scene, a cold, dark rage at the Joker curled inside the Penguin. The Joker eargerly returned to the Iceburg Lounge a few weeks later, but was insulted to find out that this name was not on the guest list. Willing to overlook this obvious mistake, Joker shot the doorman on the way in, kicked his feet up up at the table, and ordered a glass of warm milk. He was pleased when alongside the milk was a summons to the club's VIP section. Led to a back room, the Joker happily greeted the Penguin, who promptly pushed him out of the door onto the street. The Penguin squawked out of the club had a new "no clowns" policy before he slammed the door.

### Bud and Lou

The Joker heard of some white collar criminals who stolen two laughing hyenas and put them on the market as exotic animals. The Clown Prince of Crime was interested to purchase them and he met up with one of the criminals to buy them, paying the man a large amount of cash for the hyenas and was greatly amused by his new pets. However, the deal turned sour when the Joker wanted to know if his new hyenas knew "funny" before manipulating the salesman into a handshake and electrocuting him to death with his lethal joy buzzer. He then departed with the hyenas, whom he named "Bud and Lou".

### Five-Way Revenge

The Joker manages to escape Arkham Asylum and he is out for blood. Before he was sent away this time, knowing that one member of his gang had ratted him out to the police, he had vowed to murder all five of them. Despite Batman's best efforts to stop him, the Joker is able to finish off nearly all of his hit list. Batman is only alerted after the first murder, when a grinning corpse is found in the mud just outside of Gotham, and he goes to each of the former members of the Joker's gang individually to try to protect them.

The second member agrees to go into protective custody with Batman, but drinks from his water bottle right afterwards and is killed by the Joker Venom it is laced with. The third target is treated favorably by the Joker, and even believes the two of them to be on good terms when the Joker gives him a cigar before leaving his apartment. As the Joker walks out of the building, the cigar blows up the man's entire household. Most interestingly, the fourth target believes Batman is only trying to bring him in for a mugging he recently committed, even after Batman tells him the story. The fourth target uses a sap to knock out Batman in order to flee, and is later found murdered by the Joker at his hideout, strung by the neck, hanging in the rafters and the Joker is lying in ambush. Although the Joker is able to subdue the already disoriented Batman, he declines to kill him, because it was a mere chance that caused this attack on Batman to succeed, and he had always envisioned his victory as a result of cunning at the end of a bitter struggle.

When Batman regains consciousness, he is able to deduce the location of the Clown Prince of Crime at his hideout by the strange mixture of sand and oil in his face where the Joker had kicked him. The Joker is hiding out in the aquarium right next to the beach, where there was very recently an oil spill. Batman tracks the Joker down, hoping to save the last man, now a senior citizen confined to a wheelchair. Naturally, knowing Batman would find him, the Joker had the man poised over a giant tank of water with a shark inside, and agrees he will let him go if only Batman takes his place. Batman is forced to agree, and after he is handcuffed, the Joker pushes both of them in. Thinking fast, Batman is able to subdue the shark using only the handcuffs, and to break the glass of the tank by bashing it with a wheelchair, saving the man's life and escaping in barely enough time to pursue the Joker. Batman runs out into the early dawn, and chases the Joker in his getaway car, but worries that in his current condition; he won't be able to catch up to him in time. But the Joker slips on the oil slime of the beach right before reaching his escape, and Batman is able to catch up with him and cuff the clown. Batman then drags his most dangerous rival to Arkham, with the Joker in disbelief of his defeat.

### Great White Shark

While locked up in Arkham Asylum, the Joker is eager to greet the new inmate, Warren White, who was a crooked financier who embezzled millions of dollars from his clients and evaded prison by pleading insanity so he instead was instutionalized at Arkham. Joker greets White by tossing a Joker playing card at his table during lunch and is accompanied by Killer Croc, who is disgusted with White's crime, slicing a set of "gills" into White's neck with his claws much to the Joker's entertainment, claiming the "fish" needs a set. The Joker vows to drive White crazy as a consequence for willingly coming to Arkham despite not being insane. The Joker, who has most of the inmates and guards under his thumb, has White assaulted and locked into Mr. Freeze's subzero cell after several days of taunting him. His injuries, the result of horrific frostbite, leaving White deformed: his skin turns a pale white, and his nose, lips, ears and several of his fingers fall off. These deformities, along with his set of "gills", leaves him resembling a great white shark, an effect which he further enhances by filing his teeth to points after he is driven insane by his ordeals.

### The Laughing Fish

The Joker poisons the fish in Gotham, causing them to bear his signature smile and face. Batman investigates this and finds barrels the fishermen collected of the poisoned fish, saying the Joker's methods are similar to his own madness when the fisherman asks why would someone want to create fish with Joker faces. The Joker and his henchmen barge into the office of Copyright Commission and the Ace of Knaves introduces himself to the clerk Carl G. Francis, demanding that he wishes to trademark the fish he infected. Despite being terrified, the man claims that nobody can register a copyright on a natural resource which leaves the Joker to angrily threaten Carl before leaving. After leaving the building, the Joker takes his frustration out on one of his underlings by pushing him into an incoming truck.

As a result of the Joker's threat, Batman, Gordon and the police are summoned to Francis's home to protect him. Joker broadcasts a message across television waves, declaring that Francis will die at the stroke of midnight. At midnight, Francis suddenly maniacally laughs, and despite Batman's efforts, is killed with a grotesque smile on his face. Batman deduces that Francis had a time-released poison in his veins. The Joker then announces his next victim will be copyright bureucrat Thomas Jackson, unless his demands are met by 3 AM. Batman tells Gordon to run a blood test on Jackson and he does so, but finds nothing. Gordon is at Jackson's estate with other cops when a police helicopter crashes onto the estate. The Joker then appears and releases poison smoke bombs into the building however all of the officers and Batman have gas masks. Batman manages to subdue the Joker, but he escapes and shoots Jackson however he survives with medical care, though the Joker is unaware of his survival and believes he is dead as Gordon decides to keep his survival a secret until the Joker's capture.

The Joker makes another television appearance with a similar threat and he plans to kill Bruce Wayne and Thomas Lake. Cops are at both men's houses; however, Gordon is at Lake's. Bruce starts laughing and turns white, but his butler Alfred Pennyworth administers a shot to slow his heart rate to slow the spread of the poison. Meanwhile, Joker's henchmen drive onto Lake's property where a shootout takes place. Bruce, while under the poison's effects, hallucinates the night his parents were murdered. He awakens, fully recovered, in an ambulance. Another gang of Joker's men shoot up the ambulance but Bruce manages to change into his Batsuit, exits the ambulance unnoticed and defeats the thugs. Batman manages to contact Gordon and informs him that Bruce is alive and that he figured out the Joker's next move. He also tells Gordon to have the city water shut off.

Gordon contacts the reservoir, but receives no answer. Joker prepares to poison the water supply, this time it will infect humans and not the fish. Batman takes out the Joker's goons and confronts the twisted madman, who has successfully poisoned Gotham's water supply. However, Batman, having previously rigged the viaduct with explosives, detonates it and manages to defeat the Joker. However, the Joker nearly falls into the poisoned water, but Batman saves his life, much to the clown's amusement, apprehending him and sending him back to the asylum.

### Joker's Wild

While in the TV room in Arkham, the Joker fights with Poison Ivy over what they watch on the TV though the argument is resolved by security guard Aaron Cash, who breaks up the argument and changes the channel at random, hitting on a news report about the opening of the Penguin's latest casino outside of Gotham. Everyone is shocked that the new casino is dubbed "Joker's Wild", complete with the laughing effigy of Joker's head on top. The Penguin laughs off the idea that he is honoring Joker, instead saying he is paying tribute to the symbol's classic roots, insulting the Joker. An outraged Joker smashes the TV, raging about how someone would use his image for their own benefit, especially the Penguin of all people.

Joker fakes an illness to be taken into the infirmary but manages to give the guards the slip and uses chemicals found in the janitor's closet to create his signature toxin, killing the janitor and several guards who tried to apprehend him. Joker manages to escape Arkham in a guard's uniform and hijacks a passing truck, kicking the driver out and driving away from the asylum into Gotham, out for blood and revenge.

Bruce questions the Penguin's motives on why is he trying to provoke the crazed clown, and decides to investigate the casino. Joker enters the casino, and seeing all the clown-themed and suit of cards decor, gloats that he is in a place dedicated to him and feels almost sorry to destroy the casino and kill everyone inside, including Penguin. Joker is mistaken for a dealer since they are all dressed as him. On a whim, he decides to spend a little time dealing at the blackjack tables. After he wins several rounds in a row, the players leave in disgust. The security camera sees Joker cheating and a guard recommends action against him, but is veteod by the Penguin, who is pleased to see the suspicious dealer and claims it is time to greet him. Bruce is on the floor and happens to come across Joker's card table. To test whether it is the actual Joker, he drops some casual yet insulting comments about the decor, and to top things off, wins the round with a little sleight of hand much to the Joker's surprise. Joker can barely restrain his anger, giving himself away.

The Penguin then meets with the Joker and offers a game of poker, to which the Clown Prince of Crime couldn't resist to play with him. The game of poker slowly becomes hostile as the Penguin passively mocks the Joker and constantly provokes the clown, but the Joker reveals the casino's basement was already rigged with explosives, much to the Penguin's shock due to watching him on the security camera during the time he spent in the casino. Joker reveals he didn't do it, he simply got one of the Penguin's henchmen to do it for him because his wife was taken hostage by the Joker's henchmen. Penguin signals the security to take Joker away and execute him, but Joker's goons, disguised as some of the casino staff as the Joker took advantage of that factor, ambush and kill the Penguin's men. Bruce returns as Batman and fights off both criminals' henchmen, while the Joker holds Penguin at gunpoint and takes him down to the explosive-set basement.

Joker straps the Penguin to a giant roulette wheel, which Joker has rigged to detonate the bombs. But Penguin tries to convince that the Joker is being played for a fool, lying that he is being manipulated to destroy the casino as part of a major scam. Joker though doesn't fall for it and he spins the wheel, but Batman enters the basement and uses his Batarang to stop the wheel, and rescues the Penguin. Joker is seen rushing to the helipad where he is waiting for his men to pick him up via helicopter. After disarming the bombs, the Dark Knight catches up to the Joker and uses a grapple gun to attach himself to the helicopter. Batman and Joker fight inside the helicopter while the henchman struggles to pilot, until the Penguin shows up on the helipad and bids goodbye to two of his most hated enemies before using a weaponized umbrella to fire an explosive at the helicopter, killing the pilot though Batman throws the Joker onto a nearby rooftop and he himself jumps out to use a more powerful grappling device to attach to the chopper and prevent it from crashing into a crowd of panicking citizens. Though the Joker sneaks up on Batman, stabbing him in the side with his knife and taunting him, trying to get him to drop the helicopter which will result in many deaths.

Batman headbutts the Joker, so then he pulls out an electric joy buzzer to use on the Dark Knight but Alfred saves Batman by using a drone to fire several shock projectiles at the Joker, incapacitating him. Batman then finally leaves the helicopter hanging and they are suddenly surrounded by the Penguin and his henchmen, who intend on killing both of them. Batman and the Joker fight off the goons together, but the Dark Knight prevents the clown from finishing off one with a knife. Batman then disarms the Penguin of his bladed umbrella and subdues him, however the Joker makes another attempt on the Penguin's life as well as claiming he'll run the casino only to be stopped by Batman, causing the Joker to call Batman a "party pooper". The Joker and Penguin are then arrested for their crimes. In Arkham, the Joker is seen watching on the news of his own arrest and disgustedly changes the channel, only to be scolded by Ivy, Scarecrow and Mad Hatter to change it back.

### Devil's Advocate

The Joker is angry because a set of commemorative stamps of comedians has been made, and he's not one of the subjects. He is not eligible, due to being alive, but even so, he wants revenge. After he is captured at the central sorting office, Joker finds he is receiving even more attention than normal, accused of a string of murders connected with the stamps, but he denies all knowledge. Across Gotham, people have died after licking poisoned stamps from the comedian collection. The media makes great play of the case, and the families of the victims become minor celebrities. Eventually, much to everyone's surprise, a guilty verdict is brought unanimously, and the Joker is sentenced to death as strings are pulled by Harvey Dent, believing that the Joker doesn't deserve to get away with an insanity plea.

However, it becomes clear to Batman that the Joker is really innocent and is not responsible for these crimes, realizing that someone else is framing the Joker and committing these murders. Batman investigates the case and it is revealed that the killer was the husband of one of the Joker's victims, who was driven by revenge to frame the Joker in hopes of getting him sentenced to death. As a result due to the Joker being found innocent, the government is forced to issue a pardon to the Joker. Later on, the Joker gloats to Batman that he still lives and mockingly claims that he owes him his life, left laughing maniacally in a straightjacket in his cell.

### War with the Riddler

After the Joker went on a killing spree targeting comedians using a high-powered sniper rifle, the Riddler tracked the Joker down at his hideout and he offered that the two work together to kill Batman. Joker was unconvinced and shot Riddler in the stomach, instigating what would become a war between the Joker and the Riddler.

The Joker and Riddler's war raged through Gotham for weeks, accumulating numerous civilian casualties. During the war, the Joker took over the Falcone crime family's home to use as his base of operations and wiped out the entire family when they displeased him. Before he killed the other members, the Joker sadistically revealed he removed their mother's, Louisa, teeth and formed it as a smile on a table. The only Falcones at the manor that survived the Joker's vicious attack were Alberto and Sofia.

Batman, unable to simultaneously stop both sides, was forced to focus on one and chose to defeat the Joker's side first. With Riddler and Batman's combined efforts, Joker's faction was picked off until only his lieutenant Mr. Hammer remained, who they knew they could to use to find the Joker and end the war. In the final confrontation, Batman is betrayed by the Riddler who revealed that this was an entire large-scale plan to outsmart and kill the Dark Knight. When the Riddler tried to stab Batman with a knife, the Joker stopped him and told him that nobody touches his "bat" before turning the knife on the Riddler and slitting his throat much to Batman's horror. However, it is revealed that the "Riddler" was Clayface and the Riddler reveals he knew the Joker would betray the Riddler, claiming he would never let anyone else have the honor of killing Batman and that even he was not crazy enough to trust the Joker. Joker and Batman work together to defeat Clayface and then Batman manages to apprehend both the Joker and Riddler, effectively putting an end to their bloody war.

### Mind of the Joker

At some point, the Joker abducts a little girl and holds her hostage in a large Jack N' the Box set to explode. The Joker then willingly self-surrenders to the GCPD Station and is sent to Arkham Asylum where he is requesting for Batman's presence. When Batman arrives to meet him, the Joker confesses to kidnapping the girl but refuses to tell him or anybody where he is holding her. However, Hugo Strange invents a device that allows the user to go into the victim's mind and he uses it on the Joker apparently to find the girl's location, but Batman does not trust Strange and he also goes into the Joker's mind to find the answers and locate his hostage.

Taking advantage that the Batman and Strange are inside his twisted mind, the Joker attempts to drive them crazy. Batman sees the Joker's mind as a twisted Gotham City, with everyone stuck in a loop. As Batman fights through the warped Gotham, he crashes through the ground into a hallway of distorting mirrors where Batman sees himself in different intepretations in the mirrors that the Joker has come up with in his mind including a campy, witty and colorful one in a blue-colored and brighter costume, a much more darker and lethal Batman who uses guns, a vampire Batman, a Batman/Joker hybrid, a pirate Batman, a British detective Batman similar to Sherlock Holmes, a Soviet Batman and a bigger and more darker Batman. Batman then encounters three Jokers who taunt and fight him in the hallway whom apparently links to the Joker's mysterious origin and personality. The first Joker is a bank robber and a serial killer, the second is a playful and colorful prankster and the third is a homicidal sociopath.

The Jokers then combine to become a powerful entity who eats the population of China and makes a Chinese joke to Strange. As Batman gets deeper and deeper into his adversary's mind, the closer he becomes to losing his sanity. The Joker tortures and forces Batman to endure "dying" over and over again however Batman managed to use his iron will to break through the Joker's grasp. However afterwards, the Joker then creates a burning and destroyed Gotham as Batman is chained to a large cross. The entirety of Batman's rogues gallery and allies are seen brutally killed in the streets and the Joker kills Gordon by dissolving him in acid, then he has families lined up so he could kill the parents and infect their children with Joker Toxin, all in front of a mentally scarred and horrified Batman. Afterwards, Batman breaks his chains and the bodies are then revived into an army of laughing and evil Jokers. Batman furiously fights through the killer clowns until he snaps one of their necks, before realizing it and looking in disgust at the Joker's grinning corpse. The Joker then comes back to life and laughs in Batman's face, claiming now he has got the mind of a killer and tonight will be the night the Joker will win and finally get the Caped Crusader to kill. Batman though refuses before realizing Strange's device is two-way, deciding to plunge the Joker into his mind instead. In Batman's mind, it is completely dark but the Joker is now in the world where he never existed and instead he was a normal man. The Joker is horrified at such a boring world as Batman did not exist either.

Batman manages to trick Batman into revealing the girl's location and then exits the device, relieved of escaping such an insane world. With the little girl rescued, the Joker is left greatly disappointed and humiliated in his cell as Batman comes to taunt him that he's lost once again.

### Alliance with Clayface

While in Arkham Asylum, the Joker forms a partnership with Clayface in order to give Gotham the "performance of a lifetime", with Clayface posing as the Joker and hijacking the airwaves of Gotham with an unlicensed TV channel, in order to broadcast crimes committed to the people of the city. However, the Joker patiently waits in his cell for the right moment to escape, with Batman being shockingly informed that the Joker is still in his cell as well as Clayface, the next criminal who Batman suspected. Clayface, while posing as the Clown Prince of Crime, abducts corrupt councilman Arthur Reeves at the Joker's behest on live television and ties him to a self-built bomb at an abandoned facility. Clayface then addresses the Joker's followers, telling them to do what they want and kill who they want. He then approaches Reeves and ignites the bomb, walking off while leaving the camera focused on Reeves. Batman realizes that "Joker" is at a power plant and tries to get there before the bomb goes off but is too late, Reeves is killed and the explosion causes a city-wide power outage.

With the whole city without power, Joker's followers wreak havoc in the streets of Gotham. Even ordinary citizens seem to have followed "Joker's" demand and unleash their inner psychopaths. The maniacs also take over buildings like a chapel. As a result of this, the Joker escapes his cell after murdering a guard and then uses his blood to create a red-stained smile on his mouth similar to his lipstick, and then Clayface escapes as well. Batman engages in a fight with the Clayface "Joker", it is revealed that he was a part of Clayface which he sent out and controlled as part of his and Joker's plan. The full Clayface absorbs the Joker part and battles the Dark Knight, but is ultimately defeated (with the Joker believing Batman had killed Clayface, but Batman actually saved Clayface) though this is revealed to be a huge distraction while the Joker enacts his real plan.

The Joker begins a "parade" in the central of Gotham, bringing very hefty sums of cash to entice Gotham's citizens and lure them into one massive, deadly calculated mass murder. Along with his parade were his precious and cartoonish balloons filled with his signature toxin. He notices Batman's Batwing up in the sky and proceeds to go as planned with his balloons. After throwing the money to everyone in the streets, the Joker wrapped up his speech saying everyone should go with a smile. The Joker's balloons release the gas and causes a panic, killing several citizens, however before the body count could go too far Batman stops his maniacal rampage and saves everyone by using the Batwing to pull away the balloons. Batman then flies back and uses the Batwing to target the Joker, considering breaking his rule and pulling the trigger to kill the Joker, with the Joker inviting Batman to do it by shouting at him. However, Batman refuses to kill his enemy and become like him, instead landing the Batwing in the money-littered, panic-stricken streets.

The Joker then flees into a chapel that was abandoned during the maniacs' attack, to which Batman follows him inside. Finding the entire night hiliarious, the Joker couldn't stop laughing while he took shelter in the chapel and Batman caught up to him with the ecstatic Joker ready to become Batman's next kill after believing Batman killed Clayface during their battle. Batman spoiled the joke by revealing that Clayface was still alive. Dismayed to learn the truth, the Joker punched Batman and held him at gunpoint. He rambled to Batman that they are not so different until Batman knocked the gun out of his hand and ruthlessly beats him up, with the Joker continuing goad Batman into killing him and grabs some shards from a broken stain glass window to stab his enemy with. Batman easily avoided the makeshift blades and continued to beat the Joker, even throttling him, before knocking him out cold as he gave his final laugh for the night. Gordon then comes into the chapel, cuffing the Joker, and the two rally the citizens of Gotham to restore order which ultimately brings an end to the Joker's chaos.

### The Batman Who Laughs

As a way to mock his arch-nemesis, the Joker designs his own Batsuit with the color blue instead of black and becomes a "crimefighter" of his own, calling himself "The Batman Who Laughs". The Joker also designed his own utility belt with custom weapons and gadgets to further mock Batman, including white and red color-schemed Batarangs resembling smiles, a grappling gun with a hook stylized like a laughing jaw, purple-colored smoke bombs and confetti snares. The mad clown targets he deems "criminals" for the most minute and unreasonable crimes, using his signature Joker Venom as a deadly, extreme punishment. For his first victims during his "vigilantism", the Joker calls a meeting with his gang and proceeds to attack and make them believe he is Batman. The Joker reveals himself to the last remaining goon, who is confused by his boss's antics, then the Joker accuses him of the crimes he committed and proceeds to kill him with a spraycan containing his lethal laughing gas. This mass-murder scene confuses Batman and the police on why the Joker would wipe out his entire gang.

The Joker then embarks on his killing spree by murdering cops breaking the speed limit in a police chase, a jaywalker, a litterer and an elderly woman for driving three blocks with a left-turn signal turned on. In addition to that, he confronted Mayor Marion Grange, demanding information regarding "Joker's" location which confused the mayor. Joker accused of Grange working with "Joker" and then reveals outside that he killed Grange's mother with Joker Venom and she is hanging outside of the mayor's window, then grabs Grange to stop her from running away and pulls out his spraycan to interrogate her or he will punish her for helping "Gotham's most wanted". Batman though intervenes and the Joker accuses Batman of being "Joker", confusing the Dark Knight and mimicks Batman before managing to defeat him by injecting venom into him. Joker reveals that he intends on creating a "Joker of his own" with the venom actually infecting Batman's nervous system and causes the body to increase in fits of laughter, which will eventually transform Batman into a Joker-like lunatic after a few hours. Batman devises a cure, but it requires a sample of Joker's venom as well. Due to the Joker's venom, this caused Batman to slowly descend into insanity and he started cracking jokes and uncontrollably laughed in public during a serious matter regarding the Joker's killing spree and he even nearly killed Robin in a fight.

During the Joker's reign as "Batman", he intervenes in a heist at Ace Chemicals by the Ventriloquist and his gang. While the Joker easily kills the Ventriloquist's henchmen, the Ventriloquist attempts to use a chainsaw to fight off the Joker. Batman and Robin though intervenes and the Joker is pleased that Batman is nearing his "evolution", and the scuffle ends up with the Ventriloquist being injected with the same venom as well by accident. Joker also tries to throw Robin into a vat of chemicals, whispering to the boy that he can be the "new Joker"'s sidekick still. Batman though saves Robin. Despite the Joker's near victory, Batman ultimately steals the venom and cures himself. With the Batman finally cured, he and Robin defeats the Joker. As Batman rips off the Joker's cowl, the giggling clown tells a joke and laughs maniacally while the infected Ventriloquist overhears and laughs alongside Joker. Both criminals are recaptured and sent back to Arkham Asylum, with the Ventriloquist being cured as well.

### Creating Harley Quinn

The Joker and his goons are seen at a wax museum at night where they vandalize it for fun with a radio playing music in the background, but are confronted by Batman, Robin and Batgirl who intend to capture the Arkham escapee. The Clown Prince of Crime tries to use a grenade to kill the Dark Knight and uses a switchblade to combat Batgirl, but she breaks his nose. When the Joker is seemingly defeated, he suddenly gets up and attacks Batgirl with a knife, but is quickly punched in the face and knocked out by Batman.

While imprisoned in Arkham Asylum, Joker would meet psychiatric intern Dr. Harleen Quinzel when he was assigned to her as her patient due to being interested in the Joker, whom he psychologically sabotaged and manipulated. She gradually fell in love with him, and the Joker got Harleen to do him favors, which was giving him first a stuffed kitten, and then a shotgun. Shortly thereafter, Joker's henchmen broke into Arkham and successfully aided their boss in escaping, tying Harleen down in the process. Before leaving however, Joker sadistically subjected Harleen to shock therapy, fracturing her psyche and causing her intense psychological trauma. Thus resulting in her severe mental instability.
Harleen later chased him down on a motorcycle, and managed to get the Joker to stop his car. She nearly killed him with a gun, even shooting a man who approached them. Joker took the gun and taunted her. Harleen claimed she loved him and that she wanted to come with him, though they are interrupted by Batman, Robin and Batgirl. They initially believe Harleen to be a would-be victim of the Joker so they attempt to get her to safety, though she assists Joker in the fight against the vigilantes and Quinzel uses bombs which allows the Joker to escape and he changes his mind as she proved herself to have some value and use to him, running away together.
Back at the Joker's hideout, Joker has Harleen don a Harlequin costume and the two psychopaths begin kissing and having sex before bursting into maniacal laughter. The Joker then agreed to take the new and improved "Harley Quinn" onto a "date". Their night generally revolved around creating chaos throughout the city, such as vandalizing and trashing an art musuem after poisoning everyone inside with Joker Venom, dumping one of the Penguin's cigarette trucks into the river, blowing up a billboard of Bruce Wayne, beating someone to death together with baseball bats and burning down a building while romantically dancing inside. The three vigilantes though ruin their date night, with the Caped Crusader attempting to persuade Harley that the Joker is just using her however she claims her name is now Harley Quinn and confirms her mad love for the Joker, to which the Joker apparently loves her back. The battle ends in Harley and Joker distracting them with a Jack N' the Box which they believe is a bomb, allowing the clown couple to flee. However, the Jack N' the Box turns out not to be an explosive and starts psychotically laughing at the vigilantes when triggered.
Returning to their base of operations, Harley is seen playing with Bud and Lou, while the Joker watches television and is thinking about what to do next. Harley makes an offhanded suggestion to the Joker about just shooting Batman, but this only enrages the Joker and he begins to aggressively choke her for failing to get the "ultimate joke" but suddenly thinks of a new plan which stops him short from doing it when the Joker focuses his rage on the TV when he hears Mayor Marion Grange comparing the Joker to Batman, which the Harlequin of Hate took as an insult due to his large ego and believing he is better than the Dark Knight, shooting the TV with his gun.
The Joker and Harley abduct and murder the party clown at Grange's son's birthday party, and the Joker disguises himself as the party clown calling himself "Jekko" while Harley disguises herself as a cop and plan on smuggling in a bomb hidden in the birthday cake. The Joker entertained the children with a crude puppet of himself and another of Batman, humorously "fighting" and mocks the Dark Knight. A security guard is instructed by Grange to remove the Joker from the building, believing his act is sick and twisted, but a gun is revealed to be hidden in the Batman puppet and he shoots the guard in the face much to everyone's horror.

Batman, however, following the trail on the two psychos, deduced their plan and arrived to stop them. While Batgirl and Robin fought with the Joker and Harley, Batman disarmed the bomb but the Joker had a backup firework-like rocket launcher hidden in his Joker puppet and triggers it to blow up the place, setting the house on fire and Harley is injured and knocked unconscious in the process. Joker hesitates to bring Harley back with him but decides to abandon her and shouts at her that it's been fun, and runs away however Harley is rescued by Batman before she is killed by falling rubble.

While the Joker managed to get away, his girlfriend is taken into custody by the police and she is now depressed because she apparently realized the Joker ruined her life and doesn't even care about her at all, having her license revoked and she is placed in her own cell in Arkham. However, Joker manages to get a vase with a single rose and a note wishing her well into her cell, causing Harley to return to her hapless devotion and she breaks down in maniacal laughter. Elsewhere while she is laughing, the Joker is doing the same into the night.

### Torture of Harvey Dent

The Joker and his goons go on a crime spree after recently breaking out of Arkham and both Batman and the police are hot on his tail, with the Clown Prince of Crime blowing up a comedy club and shooting several innocent bystanders. DA Harvey Dent gets involved in the case and the Joker, seeking revenge on Dent for attempting to get him executed, hijacks a truck with his henchmen and chases down Dent, using a rocket launcher to blow up several police cars escorting him. Batman though intervenes in the Batmobile, toppeling the truck with a grappling hook and an injured Joker exits the shattered truck window. Joker fires his machine gun at the Batmobile as Batman drives towards him, and sets off explosives rigged in the truck, causing Batman to crash the Batmobile and get incapacitated because of the Joker's trap. Joker gets out a spray can containing Joker Venom to use on the unconscious Batman, claiming such a beautiful moment can not be rushed, however Gordon stops the Joker and proceeds to subdue and arrest him while the Joker sarcastically asks him to give him a minute to kill Batman before arresting him. It was revealed that this was planned out by Batman, Gordon and Dent to lure the Joker into a trap so they can easily arrest him and bring him back to Arkham. Dent tells the Joker while he's being cuffed and read his rights by Gordon that he's going to make sure the Joker will go down by the book and that he will not escape justice again.

At the GCPD Station, the Joker is held in a cell and all of his weapons were confiscated from him. It is revealed that after the sting operation, Dent went missing and it is revealed the Joker arranged for Dent to be aducted by corrupt police officers he hired into kidnapping him, as well as Harley disguised as a cop. Batman interrogated the Joker, using brutality in an attempt to get him to talk however the Joker just taunts and laughs at him. After Batman leaves the station to search for Dent, Bullock comes into the interrogation room to assault the Joker as payback for killing his friends (police officers the Joker murdered). However, Joker takes advantage and uses a hidden knife to take Bullock hostage, allowing him to escape the station.

Joker later meets up with Harley and his goons who have tied Dent to a chair and put a sack over his head at an abandoned funhouse-themed building. The Joker orders everyone, obliviously except for Dent, out of the room however Harley questions Joker, causing Joker to slap her and tell her that nobody likes a third wheel before forcing her to leave. Joker determines Dent's fate by spinning a wheel, which lands on the choice of torture. The Joker then starts to psychologically torture Dent and even force-feeds him LSD as part of the torture, which brings out Dent's darker side that came from his childhood. Before the torture could make Dent reach his breaking point, Batman, having found the hideout, shows up and rescues Dent. With Dent's help, Batman defeats the Joker, Harley and the henchmen though Dent begins violently strangling Joker nearly to death, however Batman stops Dent from killing the evil maniac. Dent realizes what he is doing and stops, allowing the Joker to be arrested and taken back to Arkham. It is Joker's actions that night that slowly transforms Dent into Two-Face, marking the starting point of his transformation.

### Rivalry with Catwoman

The Joker arranges for a meeting with Alberto Falcone looking to purchase unlicensed hygiene products, planning to lace it with Joker Venom and then sell it throughout Gotham which will result in many customers' gruesome deaths. The Joker gives Alberto the cash, but the deal gets intense when the Joker decides to play a harmless prank on the mentally unstable gangster by squirting water in his face from his flower lapel. As the Joker bursts out laughter in Alberto's face, he feels humiliated and becomes angry when he attacks the Joker and has his bodyguards point their guns at the Joker and his thugs. The Joker gets up back on his feet and pulls out a bomb he threatens Alberto and his men with, causing the bodyguards to flee as he tosses the bomb at the nerve-wrecked Alberto. However, the bomb is revealed to be a fake, apparently another prank, then the Joker tells Alberto he should learn to laugh once in a while and stop taking things so seriously. Suddenly, a jester puppet resembling the Joker coming out of the bomb when it detonated sprays laughing gas which causes Alberto to literally die laughing. The Joker then kicks Alberto's body into the river and prepares to make his leave, but he suddenly spots Catwoman who had witnessed the entire ordeal. The Joker becomes excited and told his goons to go after her. The Joker and Harley manage to defeat Catwoman and knock her out.

Joker places Catwoman in a death trap designed to skin her alive and uses his flower to squirt the acid at the rope binding Catwoman which slowly starts tearing and Harley activates the trap, leaving Catwoman to die. Catwoman manages to save herself from the trap however and accidentally causes one of Joker's henchmen to fall into the trap and die in her place. Joker, Harley and Bud and Lou hunt down Catwoman upon learning her escape in the docks but is confronted by Batman. Leaving his gang in the hands of Batman and Batgirl, the Joker hijacks a ferry from a rich group of people by murdering the captain and threatening his hostages with an acid-filled water gun. Batman and Catwoman arrive to stop the Joker when he tries to squirt acid on a woman, with Catwoman nearly killing the Joker though Batman stops her and the Clown Prince of Crime is sent back to Arkham where he belongs.

### Arkham Asylum Incident

The Joker and his goons raided Gotham City Hall where he took Mayor Grange hostage, tied her up, and strapped a bomb to her chest, while having one of his men recording the crime live television to the people of Gotham and to grab Batman's attention. As the Joker taunted the Mayor, he expressed annoyance that Batman hadn't shown up who ironically attacked moments later. Joker attempted to escape via a large parachute, but was stopped by Batman, who proceeded to personally escort him back to Arkham in the Batmobile. In addition, as a direct result of Joker's assault, the Mayor declared that he was resigning from his position and that he had enough of the city. Batman, however, sensed that the Joker went down too easily.

Batman arrived at Arkham in the Batmobile, and took the Joker to the Intensive Treatment Center. The Joker remained in high spirits, and was pleased that he was back at Arkham. He was strapped to a prisoner movement gurney that wheeled through Intensive Treatment by a variety of guards, including Frank Boles, with Batman following close by as he sensed something was amiss as none of his countless battles with the Joker was ever this straight-forward. The Joker commented on all the brand new security at Arkham and Boles angrily told the Joker to keep quiet. During the escort, the Joker made shrewd remarks to many of the staff however, during the elevator journey, a blackout occurred, which caused the Joker to laugh hysterically before he had his neck clutched by Batman as the lights came back on. As the Joker was moved into the lobby area of the holding cells, he was unstrapped and escorted by a guard and a medical assistant while Batman and Gordon looked on. Unknown to all but Joker, Harley Quinn was already in the Security Control Room, waiting. Joker soon took the opportunity to break free at Harley's signal.

Pretending to stumble and trip, the Joker bashed his guard in the face with the back of his head as the guard demanded him to get up. He then used his handcuffs to strangle the guard, which forced the doctor to unhook the Joker in an attempt to save the guard. Joker though already murdered the guard and with the cuffs finally off, the Joker takes the guard's gun and shoots the doctor in the head. The Joker then coldly mocked the deceased guard and looked at the security camera, telling Harley that he is now home. As Batman smashed through the window in an attempt to get to the madman, the Joker had already locked himself behind a door and announces that he's in control of the asylum now.

The Joker threatens the outside the world to detonate bombs around Gotham if anyone attempts to enter Arkham, forcing Batman to work alone in stopping the Clown Prince of Crime. Joker has the inmates released and they attack Batman, so the Dark Knight is forced to fight through a crowd of lunatics including Firefly and Calendar Man. During Batman's pursuit of the Joker, it is revealed Boles is a corrupt guard and had subdued and kidnapped Gordon for him as well as the Joker having revealed he rounded up any surviving staff and is holding them hostage to force Batman to play a game of hide and seek, among the captives are Dr. Penelope Young, Aaron Cash, Dr. Sarah Cassidy, Dr. Stephen Kellerman, Zach Franklin, Maria Andrade and Warden Quincy Sharp. Joker gives Batman one hour to escape Arkham before he sends his adversaries to hunt him down. Although Batman initially refuses, he accepts after the Joker shoots Zach dead and threatens to blind Cassidy with acid. Unbeknownst to Batman, Joker has shortened the time from one hour to ten minutes after being pressured by the other inmates.

Batman encounters Clayface, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow and Maxie Zeus, among other inmates. During a struggle with Killer Croc, Batman is thrown out of a window, grabbing onto a gargoyle. Clutching the statue's bronze spear, Batman climbs back inside and stabs Croc in the leg before throwing him out of the window, sustaining a severe spear wound in the process. Batman finally reaches the high towers of Arkham where he discovers Zsasz holding a "hostage" with a sack over her head though the Dark Knight manages to save her and subdue Zsasz, however it is revealed that it is a trap and the hostage was Poison Ivy who manages to surprise attack Batman by shooting him with a tranquilizer arrow from her wrist crossbow, knocking out the hero.

Batman awakens in a straightjacket in a cell, where Young had also been taken. Young informs Batman that the inmates have told her that they're going to put Batman on "trial" and she has to be his "attorney". If she succeeds in defending him, they both apparently go free however failure will result in both of their deaths. An impromptu courtoom is set up in the operating theater: the accused is Batman, the bailiff is the Ventriloquist and Scarface, the prosecutor is Two-Face, the defense attorney is Young, the judge is the Joker and the jury consists of Harley Quinn, Riddler, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter, Calendar Man, Firefly, Killer Croc and Victor Zsasz. Batman stands before the court accused of "creating" each and every one of them: driving them to become criminals, freaks and monsters. But Young has studied the histories of the rogues thoroughly as well as psychologically evaluated each, and her defense is brilliant.

Batman urges Young to keep the farce going, while elsewhere the police finds the bombs the Joker used in the threat only for them to be fake and were filled with confetti and laugh boxes and so Detective Harvey Bullock and Sergeant Renee Montoya rounds up their officers to prepare to retake control of Arkham from the inmates. In the closing argument, Young realizes that she was wrong about Batman "creating" the criminals: even without him, the rogues would have most likely turned out the same way. While Batman may have inspired some of their costumes and dramatic poses, they made their own choice to become criminals. In reality, the criminals created Batman. To her astonishment, the jury finds Batman not guilty. The Joker congratulates Young on a job well done, but then merrily declares that they're going to execute them both anyway, which was planned from the beginning.

Joker and the other freaks drag Batman into one of the treatment rooms and strapped to the electroshock couch. Before the switch is thrown, Calendar Man attempts to unmask Batman however the Joker stops him by shooting him in the face for trying to spoil the fun and then scolds Harley when she questions the Joker. Just then, Young remembers a Batarang Batman left on an inmate hidden in her pocket, and throws it at the ceiling light, shattering it and plunging the room into darkness. The moment's confusion is all Batman needs to break them out, tying up Harley in the process. Batman then takes out Croc and the Joker fires an assault rifle, nearly hitting Harley and damaging a generator, which shocks Firefly. Batman and Young escape, but Scarecrow, Mad Hatter and the Ventriloquist attempt to stop them, though fail. Batman and Young are then confronted by Arkham inmates led by Two-Face, with more rogues coming up behind them. However, Montoya, Harvey Bullock and the police suddenly storm in and deal with the mob. Batman gets Young safely out of the situation, and grapples up to the rooftop to rescue the remaining hostages.

Batman finds and unties the captives, however the Joker ambushes Batman and begins firing at him with a machine gun in a rage-fueled rampage for spoiling his big night, hitting Maria in the process but Gordon manages to get her out relatively safely with the other hostages. Batman and the Joker briefly fight until the Dark Knight kicks Joker hard in the face, knocking him unconscious. Following the Joker and the inmates' defeats, the GCPD retook control of Arkham Asylum and recapturing the escapees. Joker was taken back to his cell by several police officers and surviving personnel, his plans ultimately failed. While locked up and recovering from his injuries, Joker was left humiliated, angry and thirsty for revenge.

### Dreadful Birthday

The Joker starts a new criminal plot and begins rounding up his enemies from all around town and strapping them to his special "Victim-Go-Round" in preparation for his "Birthday Party". He kidnaps Robin, James Gordon and Batgirl. The Gotham populance are all enticed to the newly built Gotham Colliseum by the promise of free samples from the "Harlequin Baking Company".

At the place, the Joker immobilizes the audience, and then takes center stage with his goons. Onstage is a gigantic cake, with the Joker's victims tied to giant candles on top rigged with explosives. Batman arrives, and is forced by the Joker to be tied with the biggest candle in exchange for the lives of his friends. Although the Joker plans on killing them all anyway, Batman reveals he had earlier through a simple operation converted the biggest candle into a makeshift rocket. He shoots into the air instead of blowing up, unties himself, and cuts both the fuses and Robin's bonds with Batarangs.

While Robin and Batgirl fight the thugs, Batman chases the Joker onto the docks. The Joker nearly escapes via motorboat, but Batman grabs a loose rope and waterskis behind him until he can climb onto the boat. They struggle and the Joker manages to push the Caped Crusader out, but fails to notice that the boat is heading straight for a shoal of rocks which it hits and explodes, apparently killing the lunatic. On shore, Batman and Gordon wonder if the Joker could've survived, with Batman having a feeling deep down the Joker will be back.

### Reclaiming his City from the Penguin

Joker is seen being picked up by a henchman named Johnny Frost after seemingly surviving his last antic, but Frost in actuality is secretly a trusted operative of the Penguin's organization part of a plan to finally kill the Joker and take control of his criminal enterprises. Joker apparently takes a liking to Frost immediately, using him as a chaffeur. Joker has Frost drive him to the "Grin and Bare It" strip bar, which was formerly owned by the Joker. With the help of Harley, who was temporarily working there as a stripper, the Joker kills the new owner Monty (an associate of the Penguin) by skinning him alive and asks the shocked audience if they are willing to help him to take his city back.

Next morning, the Joker robs a bank and coaxes crime boss Rupert Thorne to invest the stolen money. Joker then embarks on a killing spree, murdering many criminals who stole his money, turf, and bizarre sense of reputation. In one particular incident, Frost witnesses as the Joker captures one of the Penguin's lieutenants, Griggs, whom he interrogates and intimidates him into revealing information. When Griggs answers, the Joker tells a dark joke before promising to let him free but when Griggs does not laugh, the Joker changes his mind apparently and gases him with Joker Venom from a spraycan which horrifically kills him in front of a visibly disturbed Frost. Informed by a henchman named Bob of the Penguin's control over Gotham's underworld including several of Joker's territories and henchmen joining him since the clown's absence, an enraged Joker asks Bob for his gun to which he reluctantly complies and the Joker mercilessly shoots Bob, apparently believing he thought it would make him feel better, but tells a shocked Frost that he needs a moment alone as he considered Bob his "number one guy". Joker then promotes Frost as his new "number one guy" with apparent glee and the two burn down the Grin and Bare It bar as a way for Joker to unleash some pent up rage.

The next day, Frost meets with the Penguin for new instructions, hoping that his undercover operation is nearly over as he fears being killed by the Joker. Subsequently, Frost is late to the Joker's meeting with the Riddler. They exchange a briefcase, and the Joker leaves. Once on the road, the Joker's crew is shot at by off-duty cops hired by the Penguin, and Frost accidentally saves the Joker's life in the scuffle. Joker embarks on a turf war with the Penguin, prompting him to meet with the Joker. They meet at the abandoned zoo where Joker brings the briefcase he got from the Riddler. Joker tells Frost to guard the briefcase while he confronts the Penguin, whom he attacks with shards of broken glass glued to his fingertips. When Penguin's men raise their weapons, a disguised Harley expertly shoots them dead. Frost, out of curiosity, opens the briefcase which is full of details on Frost's life including information on his family, his employment in the Penguin's organization and their plan to eliminate the Joker, but their plan fails as the Joker already knows of it and has lured both Penguin and Frost into a trap.

After the fight with the Penguin, Joker reveals that he kidnapped Frost's wife Shelly and had her bound and gagged in the back of the car Frost was driving the Joker in throughout their time together. Joker has his henchmen restrain Frost while he forces him to watch him raping Shelly violently, saying it makes them even since Frost "cheated" on the Joker by actually working for the Penguin. Later, Penguin turns on the Bat-Signal himself out of desperation, and pleads with Batman to stop the Joker. When Joker and Frost return to their apartment, they find a window shattered and flee to Killer Croc's lair. However, Batman had already defeated Croc and his gang.

In a final attempt to escape, the Joker and Frost flee to a nearby bridge. While Joker is screaming through tears, Frost inexplicably finds himself laughing, unable to stop. They find Batman in wait, and Joker shoots Frost in the chin. As Batman and Joker fights, a dying Frost laments on how the Joker is a disease as old as mankind. The Joker is defeated by Batman and taken into custody for his actions, as well as revealing that Frost survived despite his extreme wounds. As a result of the Joker's twisted actions that night, Frost's mind snapped and he became one of the Joker's top lieutenants of his gang despite everything he'd done to him, claiming that the Joker is all he's got left in his life as the Penguin fires Frost as he blames him for botching the assassination attempt on the Clown Prince of Crime and Shelly blames Frost for the Joker sexually assaulting her so she left him.

### Matter of a Family

After a successful robbery, a fight between the Joker and Batman is witnessed by a fifteen-year old Jason Todd. Jason saves Batman's life by pushing him, unconscious, out of the way of the Joker's machine gun fire. Incredibly, Jason manages to bring the wounded and unconscious Dark Knight back with him to his home and escapes the Joker. The Joker though manages to track down Jason and Batman's location whilst Jason was helping recover Batman and laid traps before the Joker arrived, which the Joker found "cute" however his thugs were incapacitated by them. Joker eventually finds Jason and attempts to murder him with a knife as revenge for causing so much trouble, though Jason fights back and reveals he took Batman's Grapnel Gun, managing to use to it to fight off the clown. Jason then attempts to shoot Joker point-blank with a pistol though Batman wakes up just in time to stop him. The Joker warned Jason that he would never forget his face before Batman knocked him out and arrested him. It was Jason's actions that night that led him to becoming the second Robin.

### "Breakup" with Harley Quinn

In attempt to impress her Puddin' and kill Batman because in a crazed manner she realized that he was the cause of the Joker's obsession, Harley devised a plan to capture and finally end his life. Much to the surprise of Batman and the Joker, his plan not only worked, but according to Batman was more likely to kill him than anything the Joker had ever devised before. However, Batman managed to escape by convincing Harley to call the Joker for approval, knowing the Joker would be furious at the idea of anyone other than him killing the Dark Knight. As expected, the Joker was furious and threw Harley out of a window, nearly killing her and released Batman. Recovering in Arkham, Harley at last realized that the Joker never truly loved her and that the only individual he ever "loved" was Batman. Harley eventually befriended fellow inmate Poison Ivy and the two broke out of Arkham together and went on a crime spree.

Meanwhile, it is revealed that, unbeknownst to her, the Joker hid a dirty bomb in her mallet which Batman was also searching for throughout Gotham and believed Harley was aware of it. The Joker then confronted Harley and Ivy at their hideout with a large gang of his thugs, managing to sweet-talk her back to his side once again despite Ivy's protests, only for him to push her to the ground and steal her mallet containing the bomb he wanted to destroy Gotham with. The Joker then had his henchmen restrain Ivy while he attempted to kill her with a spray of Joker Venom from his flower lapel as a warning to Harley for "breaking up" with him and that nobody leaves him, however she survived due to being immune to poisons and laughed in the Joker's face. Ivy then proceeds to take out the Joker's thugs and Batman and Robin crashed into the hideout to apprehend the villains and stop the Joker's plans for Gotham's fate. A bloodthirsty Harley killed the Joker's men who attacked her and chased the Joker into another building.
Harley fought the Clown Prince of Crime and when the Joker initially got the upper hand, he offered Harley a chance to come back to him and she will spare her life, though he cannot forgive Ivy and states he will have to kill her for "touching his stuff". Harley refuses and fights through the pain Joker put her through, killing several more of Joker's henchmen and turned the tables on the Clown Prince of Crime. When Harley finally prepared to execute the Joker despite Batman coming on and shouting at her not to kill him, Joker asked her if she would feel better if he apologized. Harley admitted it would and the two embraced each other, rekindling their nonsensical romance.

### Christmas with the Joker

While Robin is in trouble fighting a gang of criminal thugs, the Joker pulls up next to the scene in a car and he shouts at Robin to jump in. Robin is forced to take refuge in the car because he is injured during the fight and would most likely die trying to continue to fight the thugs. However, Robin is shocked once he finds out the Joker is behind the wheel, who happily greets the Boy Wonder and proceeds to knock him out with a spring-loaded boxing glove. Joker binds and gags Robin in the car's passenger seat with the original owners of the car dead in the backseat. Joker then states that he's going to release Robin in honor of Christmas, however he suddenly "accidentally" runs an innocent bystander over. Robin is helpless as the Joker continues to sadistically run down innocent people, and he also left a toy car to give Robin false hope that he could use it to escape. The Joker then pulls into a drive thru to order a shake and kills the manager when he can't get the order right.

The Joker then prepares to kill a group of innocent people, but Robin manages to distract him long enough to stall and break free, punching the Joker in the face and knocking him out.

### Poker Game with Fellow Freaks

While hiding out from the police, four of Gotham's notorious criminals consisting of the Penguin, Two-Face, Poison Ivy and the Riddler gather at the Stacked Decked Club. The Joker soon barges in and forces his way into their poker game, much to their discomfort. While passing the time with a game of cards, their conversation focuses on their mutual foe, Batman. Eventually, the talk on the subject leads each to argue over who came closest to killing the Caped Crusader, in which each criminal details their own story.

With his cohorts having told their stories, Joker recalls how he had come close to killing Batman the night before. The Joker lured Batman into the Monarch Theater full of teenage hostages abducted from a high school however they were all wired with bombs and the Joker shows up, threatening to kill the hostages unless Batman does what he wishes. Batman observes the room to find a way to save the hostages, something which the Joker takes note of and mockingly tells him not to bother. The Joker demanded Batman to sit on an electric chair, which Batman is forced to comply with however the madman reveals an electric chair of his own which he happily sits on. The Joker also had the entire ordeal on a livestream and triggered the bombs which release laughing gas, revealing Batman's chair is set to be powered by laughter which will eventually, when the hostages laugh enough, electrocute Batman to death. However, the Joker gives Batman an alternative to death: if Batman laughs into a microphone, it will power the Joker's chair and kill him instead of Batman, freeing him and the hostages at the cost of breaking Batman's moral code. Despite the Joker coming close to killing Batman, Catwoman suddenly breaks into the theater and distracts Joker in the ensuing fight long enough for the Dark Knight to escape and save the hostages.

Catwoman attempts to prevent the Joker from fleeing the theater, though Harley ambushes and knocks her unconscious before the Joker instructs Harley to take her away while he lays low in the Stacked Deck. With his story over, the bartender, who was overhearing, asks what the Joker did to Catwoman, to which he answers that she was taken to a cat food factory to be finished off once he was done at the club. To Joker's surprise, the bartender attacks him, revealing himself to be Batman in disguise. As the other criminals prepare to eliminate Batman, it was revealed they were lured into a sting operation and Gordon and Bullock arrests the group. The Joker is incarcerated at Arkham Asylum, with his plan to execute Catwoman and delivering her remains to Batman in a can for cat food failing and Harley is apprehended as well.

### World of the Future Fair

The Joker was introduced by Harley to one of her old friends, Edward Burke, so he used an alias "Jack White" and disguised himself to look like an average man. After he influenced Burke to think about building an amusement park for his daughter, Katie, Joker also give him several ideas on how to build one. Eventually, Burke became the owner of the World of the Future Fair. However, Katie was diagnosed with an incurable cancer, which left Burke devastated. Joker managed to manipulate Katie's doctor into inadvertently worsening her condition and she suffered a painful death, causing Burke to feel distraught over his daughter's death. Burke decided to sign the amusement park over to the Joker, and committed suicide by using pills given to him by Joker, unaware they contained Joker Toxin.

Sometime after, Joker and Harley hijacked a school bus full of cheerleaders, dousing them in gasoline and chaining them to each other. The GCPD intervened but could not shoot because of the gasoline and the Joker killed a henchman for interrupting his line, leading Batgirl and Robin having to intervene to rescue the hostages. During the distraction, the Joker and Harley managed to abduct Commissioner Gordon, Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya and bring the hostages to the abandoned amusement park, planting bombs around the site and threatened to blow up the park if Batman showed up. This forced the heroes of the day to be Robin and Batgirl. Eventually, Batgirl and Robin disarmed the bombs and rescued Bullock and Montoya respectively to help free Gordon. Batgirl and Robin confronted Joker and Harley with Montoya and Bullock sneaking up on the clowns to ambush them. Joker clearly underestimated Batgirl and threw a razor-tipped playing card to kill her, but she surprisingly caught it, shocking the Joker and Batgirl tells him he needs to clean up his act before furiously hitting him for hurting her father. After the battle, both were defeated, but Joker held his gun to Harley's head and threatened to kill her. He then jumped off the park and opened a parachute as he descended. Robin stated they would track him down as Harley was arrested by the GCPD.

### The Killing Joke

The police discovered some of the Joker's first victims in Gotham who were murdered when the clown was experimenting with his Joker Venom. Batman, who was planning on seeing the Joker anyways due to being troubled by their bleak future of ending their feud by killing one or the other and hoping to avert such a future, then proceeded to visit Arkham Asylum. Unfortunately, by the time he had arrived, Joker not only escaped Arkham, but even went as far to leave behind a body double in his cell, which Batman realized when talking with "him" due to his white "skin" coming off.

Joker went over to an abandoned amusement park, and after conning the carny into giving him control, poisoned him with Joker Venom. He then arrived at Gordon's home, proceeding to shoot Barbara Gordon in the lower abdomen in a way to ensure paralysis, and made sure to do it right in front of her father. Gordon attempts to angrily stab Joker with a pair of scissors in retaliation, but the Joker's thugs stop him and beat him up. Telling his goons to take Gordon away, Joker proceeded to take Barbara's clothes off and take photos of her in various states of undress, although assuring to her that he's only doing this specifically to prove a point to her father.

Afterwards, he then had his goons strip Gordon naked and, after giving a philosophical speech about how Gordon is to be an experiment in regards to how even the most common man can be driven insane, then proceeds to psychologically torture the Commissioner with a song about going insane and showing a sideshow of Barbara in various states of undress and pain. Afterwards, he then caged him up and showed him off as an exhibit just as Batman arrived.

Joker then briefly fought the Dark Knight before fleeing, dousing him with acid. Confident in his victory, Joker then proceeds to taunt Batman that even if he arrests him, he's already too late as he believes Gordon is now insane, and deduced that Batman had a bad day just like he did. Joker then ambushed Batman and gave him a beatdown in an upside down room of the funhouse, and proceeded to rant about how monstrous and pointless the world and morality is before demanding to know why Batman does not only see the funny side, but is not laughing.

Batman then turned the tables on his nemesis before telling him that it is because he heard the joke before and it wasn't funny the first time. Batman then told Joker that Gordon had told Batman to bring him in by the book, making it clear that despite Joker's actions, he actually failed to drive Gordon mad, with Batman then theorizing that maybe not everyone cracked and possibly Joker is alone in his madness. Joker widened his eyes briefly at this possibility, but then denied it before attempting to shoot Batman, who tackled him out of the funhouse.

Outside of the funhouse, Joker retrieved his gun, but it ended up being a flag gun. Frustrated by the failures, Joker concedes defeat and tells Batman to finish him off. However, Batman refused to do so, saying that if what Joker said about having a bad day is what drove him to insanity was indeed true, he can help him recover from his insanity. Batman offers to help Joker get rehabilitated, but although the Joker seriously considered the possibility for redemption, he sadly declined, saying that it is too far late for him because of his actions. Joker then chuckled due to their situation reminding him of a joke about inmates in an asylum, and explains the joke to Batman. The joke ended up being so funny that even Batman bursted into laughter with Joker, who is delighted that he actually made Batman laugh. Joker's laugh then suddenly stops as Batman continues to laugh, implying that he finally gave in and murdered the Joker by breaking his neck as the police arrived on the scene. However, it is later revealed that the Joker was arrested afterwards and was sent back to Arkham.

### Death in the Family

Joker believed himself to be the leading man in Batman's life, and was constantly always trying to outdo his previous atrocities. He came close to destroy Gotham several times, and was almost always outsmarted and certainly always outmuscled by the Dark Knight. While the Joker saw the importance of a good supporting cast, he never developed strong ties with the rest of Gotham's super-criminals, and preferred to keep the spotlight all to himself. He didn't like the idea of Batman sharing the stage either and would often target his allies, believing he was doing Batman a kind of twisted favor. He was also equally prepared to use their pain to emotionally wound Batman. The Joker became aware of the new Boy Wonder's, Jason Todd, more volatile temper than Dick Grayson's.

Joker decides to provoke Jason by committing a gruesome crime by hijacking a school bus full of children as well as Jason's real mother, Sheila Haywood, whom he blackmailed into returning to Gotham because she had previously performed illegal operations on teenagers in the city. The Joker also leaves behind booby-trapped dolls in locations the police are searching for the children in. Joker poisons Sheila and leaves her for Batman to find, to which he does and discover that Sheila is Jason's biological mother. Upon rescuing the hostages, Batman discovers that Sheila had been poisoned and has hours to live so he confronts the Joker in his cell. The Joker gives Batman the choice that he has to either murder him in cold-blood or allow Sheila to die. Unable to make the choice, Sheila is killed by the poison and the Dark Knight tries to comfort Robin however Robin becomes angered at Batman for choosing the Joker over his biological mother and punches him in the face.

Jason goes rogue, shutting off his comms and tracking systems to conduct his own investigation without Batman's interference or restraint. He was determined to finally hunt down and end the Clown Prince of Crime's life, while Batman also looked for Jason, realizing the Joker's plan and worrying that Jason may die if he gets to him first. Jason's search leads him to a section of Arkham Asylum, condemned after a fire, though is ambushed in a trap and knocked unconscious by Harley Quinn after being hit multiple times with a mallet. The Joker claps in amusement and smiles, having a far more crueler joke to play on Batman than just killing Jason.
For over a year, the Joker kept Jason hostage in the abandoned wing, abusing and torturing him almost non-stop as he frequently beat him with a crowbar and had him bound with barbed wire. Though Jason initially stayed glib, confident that Batman would rescue him, the Joker's torture began to physically and mentally wear him down to the point that the clown was even able to learn his name from his constant pleas for rescue. One of the greatest blows to his psyche was when the Joker used a hot branding iron to scar the boy forever with a "J" mark. Time passed and still Batman failed to come for him. In reality the Dark Knight frantically searched the city for his renegade partner each night, but the Joker began to take advantage of Jason's despair, constantly implying his mentor had simply abandoned him. He even showed Jason photos of Batman with a new Robin, Tim Drake. After this Joker switched tactics, suggesting that perhaps Jason should become his new sidekick. Despite his new fatherly persona, the torture never stopped.
The suggestions and the constant torture finally broke Jason, leaving him in a drone-like state where he believed he was loyal to Joker alone. Nearing the end of his routine, the Joker acquired a camera to show Batman his handiwork. Jason was so under Joker's control that he was fully prepared to give away Batman's secret identity at which point the Joker shot him, revealing the entire thing, capturing, torturing and remodeling the young Boy Wonder, had simply been one long cruel attack on Batman. The resultant tape would haunt Batman for years and intensifed the rivalry between he and the Joker. However, it is later revealed that Jason survived the gunshot and became the Red Hood.
Joker and Harley then lured Batman to an abadoned warehouse where he showed the Dark Knight a "document" of the torture in the building's operating theater as the "Our Family Memories" video. While succeeding in enraging Batman, Joker fought Batman with a knife, though the Dark Knight crippled his nemesis by turning the knife onto the Joker's knee. The building then collapsed in a fiery explosion which was inadvertently caused by the violent and bloody brawl, allowing the Joker and Harley to get away and disappear into the night.

### Hush

Joker was kidnapped by Hush as leverage forcing Harley to work for him. He was later freed and set up so that Batman would discover that apparently the Joker had murdered Dr. Thomas Elliot, standing over the body with a flag gun. An enraged Batman begins to brutally beat the Joker, knocking out Harley and even Catwoman in the process when they both attempted to intervene. Batman attempts to finally kill the Joker by choking him but is dissuaded by Gordon who intervened, superficially wounding Batman with a gunshot to desperately stop him from throwing his friend's life away. Batman leaves and the Joker makes a remark about Robin, causing Gordon to punch Joker in the face and tells him to shut up, then has his officers arrest him and take him back to Arkham.

### Two-Face's Trial of the Joker

The Joker engaged in a violent gang war with Two-Face however the Joker lost the gunfight by an unexpected turn of events, with Two-Face deciding the Joker's fate with his coin: it landed on the good side, meaning Two-Face gave the Joker a chance to stand "trial" for his crimes. Two-Face blamed the Joker for numerous tragedies, including partially being the reason why he is a "monster". Two-Face invited many of the Joker's enemies, including the Penguin, Riddler, Black Mask and the Ventriloquist, to the trial as the jury and Harley acted as Joker's lawyer. After Joker was proclaimed guilty and sentenced to death, Batman arrived and the entire court turned into chaos, which allowed Joker and Harley to escape, but Batman managed to apprehend Two-Face.

### Suicide Squad Incident

With Batman apparently being killed in a fight with Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad (he actually faked his death as part of his plan to shut down Waller's operation and locate the Joker's hidden nuclear explosive), the Joker becomes depressed and bored now that his "best enemy" is gone. The Clown Prince of Crime gives his followers new uniforms and he drastically changes his appearance to from his normally purple, colorful suit to a black version with a hat and sunglasses as well as apparently going to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head, but it is revealed to be a flag gun and he gives a short-lived laugh. The Joker then finally decides to destroy Gotham and kill himself in the process, claiming that without Batman, crime has no punchline sadly. The Joker throws Batman a funeral, where he sheds a single tear for his fallen adversary with his henchmen in attendance. The Joker then tries to make himself smile by leading the goons who attended the funeral into a room and proceeded to burn them all alive as it was revealed to be a boiler room, but fails to do so.

The Joker leads his gang to the GCPD, where he demands to see Gordon once greeted by Detective Harvey Bullock and a handful of armed cops. Once Gordon was outside, Joker announces that he has a powerful bomb hidden in Gotham powerful enough to destroy the entire city. When Gordon and the officers point their guns at him, he reveals a dead-man's switch and warns that if they kill him, the explosive will trigger. When Gordon asks what Joker wants, the Joker simply says he wants Batman back and that life just isn't the same without him, something which shocks Gordon and the police. Joker decides to play a game with Gordon, saying he has six hours to evacuate the city but secretly plans on detonating the explosives earlier.

At his hideout, the Joker is confronted by the Penguin, Two-Face, Riddler and Killer Croc who try to stop the Joker, but the Ace of Knaves claims he's always hated their guts before trying to kill them with a rocket launcher. A shootout ensues between the Joker's gang and the villains, but the Joker escaped during it and decides to head to Arkham Asylum for one last time and then trigger the bomb, believing it will top anything he's done before. At Arkham though, the Joker is confronted by the Suicide Squad with Harley begging her "Puddin" to not destroy the city. Joker though violently punches Harley in the face and tells her to shut up, accusing her of betrayal and that he intends on killing her friends, shouting at them that the only person who got to kill Batman was him. The Joker attempts to detonate the trigger, but is shot in the hand by Deadshot and both men engage in a one-on-one fight while Harley recovers the trigger. After fighting a bunch, Joker demands Harley to give him the trigger and not Deadshot. Harley is confused and unstabally screams that she doesn't know what to do, so the Joker tries to charm and convince Harley to hand over the trigger while Deadshot and the others attempt to convince her otherwise, pointing out the Joker's true nature and what will happen if the trigger is in his hands.

Out of options, the Joker attacks Deadshot, despite Deadshot initially overpowering the madman, the Joker uses his electric joy buzzer to electrocute and subdue Deadshot. The Joker, still electrocuting Deadshot, threatens Harley that he will finish off Deadshot if she doesn't give him the trigger. Harley complies and gives Joker the trigger, with the Joker apparently being grateful and holds her hand, but then pushes her away and accuses her that she will never be forgiven for betraying him and "killing" Batman. The Joker then triggers the bomb, but, much to his confusion and disappointment, nothing happens. Batman, much to the Joker's surprise, reveals himself that he was disguised as Black Spider (having defeated and captured him in secret after faking his demise) and reveals he deactivated the bomb the Joker planted in Gotham. Batman says he needed to fake his death in order to find and deactivate the bomb, as it was revealed the Joker planted it a long time ago in case he ever wished to destroy Gotham. The Joker bursts out in maniacal laughter as Batman defeats the Suicide Squad, as if what Batman did was a very funny joke as he tells Batman "good one". After the Dark Knight manages to take down each member of the Suicide Squad, Joker is already subdued by his own laughter as he struggles to hold a weapon and is taken to his cell where he is seen continuing laugh at night.

### Apparent Death

The Joker collaborated with Scarecrow and Mad Hatter where they escaped from Arkham Asylum and released the other inmates as a diversion, with the Joker being motivated to hunt down Jack Ryder in retaliation for attempting to uncover his past and discover who the Joker really is and reveal it to the public. While Mad Hatter kept Batman busy and Scarecrow prepared the airship that the villains planned on using in the later stages of their plan, the Joker confronts Ryder's brother, Randolph, at his cafe though it is revealed that Randolph anticipated the Joker's arrival and hired the clown's former henchman, Mr. Hammer, to protect him. Mr. Hammer easily overpowers the Joker and Randolph proceeds to try to use bleach to torture the Joker to death however Batman intervenes and saves Joker's life. While Batman fights Mr. Hammer, the Joker tortures Randolph by force-feeding him the bleach and murders him after discovering Ryder's location. Catwoman intervenes and saves Batman from Mr. Hammer however she tries to kill the Joker, though Batman stops her and allows the Joker to get away as he drops explosive marbles into the cafe and blows it up but Batman and Catwoman manage to escape.

The Joker then frees an arrested Hatter from an GCPD prison van with Scarecrow. Afterwards, the Joker heads to Ryder's hidden safehouse which is built like a complicated maze, with his reasoning being that he knew trying to uncover the Joker's identity and past would make him a target and prepared for it. Batman and Robin get to Ryder's place, but the Joker alongside Harley, Scarecrow and Mad Hatter invade it with the intention to get to Ryder. Ryder's best friend and colleague, Lilith, who was assisting him during the investigation, was hypnotized by Hatter into capturing Ryder and bringing him to the Joker while she uses the security system to prevent Batman and Robin from stopping her. With Ryder finally in the Joker's grasp, the Joker toys with Ryder with his gun and accuses him of trying to spoil his fun but Ryder lets slip his obsession with the Joker and that unwrapping his identity and background would not only drastically boost his wealth and fame, but will give him a great feeling of personal success. Batman and Robin chase off Hatter and Scarecrow, then confronts the Joker and the madman proceeds to take Ryder hostage and shoots at the Dynamic Duo while laughing maniacally. Batman deduces that the Joker is not planning to kill Ryder just yet, to which the Joker admits he is correct and throws Ryder to the ground before escaping by leaving behind a giant Jack N' the Box outside which Batman manages to disarm, though it is revealed that it is not an explosive device and instead launches out confetti alongside the Joker's laugh.

Joker's next plan was to abduct Interim Mayor Holden Pritchard, Archbishop McGregor, Gertrude Haverstock and Gloria Bainbridge. At night, Harley went to Gotham City Hall where they captured the mayor and the other members of Gotham's high society present. They took them to a van outside on the street, in which the the other villains were waiting. Pritchard was trying to convince Scarecrow and Mad Hatter to let them go, promising they will double whatever they expect as ransom. Right then, the mayor saw the Joker standing in the van, who was unimpressed by these events and then smiled at the horrified mayor while Hatter handcuffed Pritchard to a metal rod. Joker rejects the money the mayor offers him before having Scarecrow spray Gloria with a special gas he was developing: revealing it was a chemical mixed with Scarecrow's Fear Toxin, Hatter's hypnotic chemicals and the Joker's laughing toxin. This results in Gloria becoming a complete laughing and screaming lunatic who Scarecrow can give orders to, releasing her from her bonds and then the feral woman attacks Pritchard but before she could kill the mayor, the Joker stops her, saying that killing the mayor will come later, before kicking her out of the van and letting her loose into the streets.
Having Scarecrow and Mad Hatter prepare the airship and making his intentions clear to turn Gotham into a town full of feral, homicidal maniacs and lunatics, with Scarecrow and Hatter agreeing to the plan because they were promised they can do whatever they want in Gotham afterwards and tear it apart. Joker and his henchmen then take over a concert and bring out the hostages. Batman, Robin, Gordon, Lucius Fox and Ryder arrive, having been tipped off by Catwoman and Batman and Ryder are forced to go towards the stage. GCPD snipers attempt to take out Joker however Joker's henchmen take them out. Tying up Batman and Ryder, Joker speaks to Ryder about how to create a monster like him. With Fox's device managing to disarm the explosive collars around the hostages' necks, Gordon has the area evacuated and Gordon shoots the Joker in the leg.
Batman frees himself and he and Robin fight off the Joker's thugs while Ryder hesitantly chases after the Joker, arming himself with a knife. While running away, the Joker tells the hypnotized pilot of the airship he's in position and gives him the orders; the airship explodes and shards of glass from the sky onto Gotham laced with the toxin Scarecrow created, resulting in many victims becoming insane and killing each other.

The Joker's chase then leads to Ace Chemicals where Ryder is still desperate to find out who the Joker really is and reveals that he is so close, so the Joker beats him down and takes his knife from him. Police officers come into the factory with Batman and Robin close behind, however the Joker takes out two rubber chickens and throws one of them at the officers, dousing them with Joker Venom and killing them. As Joker prepares to throw the second at Ryder, Batman intervenes and aggressively throws three Batarangs at the Joker, even hitting one of his eyes and blinding him. As Batman beats the Joker up, Robin stops Batman from crossing the line however the fight results in Ace Chemicals going into meltdown and being set to explode. Joker manages to grab the rubber chicken and throws it at Ryder, affecting him. Batman tries to administer an antidote to save Ryder but an explosion erupts and Ryder is sent down a vat of chemicals much to the Joker's delight, who proceeds to run away and Ryder goes down the drain.
While Robin and Gordon are busy evacuating the area, Batman begins only seeing red and rage at what the Joker had recently done as well as all the heinous crimes he's committed. Joker makes a hasty retreat and Batman dashes after him, confronting him on a moving train. This leads into Batman and Joker getting into a brutal fistfight. As the Joker pulls out a knife, Batman delivers such a fierce uppercut it sends Joker flying off the train but he manages to latch onto the train and struggles to get back up. Batman comes back to his senses and reaches out his hand to save the Joker after hesitating, but the Joker reveals an electric joy buzzer in his palm he intends to kill Batman with, causing the Dark Knight to quickly pull away and the Joker laughs in amusement. The Joker's hands however slips and he falls into a smokestack much to Batman's shock, presuming his arch-rival to be finally dead. However, in reality, Jason Todd (using his new identity Red Hood) saves the Joker's life and kidnaps him as part of his revenge on both Batman and the Joker. The Joker's actions that night transformed Jack Ryder into the Creeper.

### No Man's Land

After Joker had been kidnapped by Jason, he was held captive in a dilapidated building during the events of No Man's Land and was frequently visited and savagely beaten by Jason with a crowbar in revenge for the year's torture Joker had Jason endure in Arkham. After it is finally revealed to Batman that the Red Hood is Jason, the two have an emotional and brutal battle which leads into the building Joker was held in, as planned by Jason. Jason tosses a gun to Batman and takes one for himself. Using the Joker as a human shield, Jason points his gun at the Joker's head and tells Batman he must either kill Jason or let Jason kill the Joker on a count of three. At the last half-second, Batman drops the gun and throws a Batarang at Jason's shoulder. The Joker then triggers the explosives wired throughout the building, pinning down Batman when he tries to disarm the bomb and intends for all three of them to die in the explosion. However, Batman subdues the Joker before attempting to save Jason. The bomb explodes; Batman and the Joker survive but Jason is gone.

A depressed Batman arrests the Joker and takes him down to the GCPD Station as a prisoner while the Clown Prince of Crime mocks everyone he encounters, including Batman. After the events of No Man's Land, the Joker is returned to Arkham. After Deathstroke's attack on the GCPD Station due to the Red Hood disappearing and wanting to finally settle his score with Batman, the Joker escapes and was hunted by Batman and the police. In response to the Knightfall Protocol and Batman's secret identity being publicly exposed to the world, the Joker's insanity greatly worsens and he pays a visit to a criminal called the Dollmaker, having him cut off his face at his request and pin it to the wall of his cell in Arkham Asylum. Afterward, the Joker is assumed dead by virtually everyone except for Batman, and hundreds of mourners surrounded the GCPD Building in a mock vigil, calling for the Joker's face to be returned to them, and Batman's head too.

### The Final Joke and Disappearance

The Joker returns to Gotham a year later and he infiltrates the GCPD Headquarters to retrieve his cut-off face, killing the lights in the station and the cheerfully grim voice of the Joker moves unpredictably around the room, as he tries to tell a joke. Each time he starts the opening line of a joke, one of the police officers to whom he tells it to begins crying out in horror, prompting him to kill him and start over. Filled with outrage, Gordon demands that the Joker turn his attention to him alone. The Joker remarks that he missed Gordon, and Batman, and Barbara too. He is disappointed, though, in Gordon's tendency to hide things - particularly his cigarettes - like the cigarettes he's been hiding under his bed, where the Joker admits to having spent many a night lying underneath it, listening to Gordon breathe. As the Joker's voice seems to get closer, Gordon can not stand it anymore, and he discharges his weapon. Suddenly, though, the lights turn on, and the Joker is nowhere to be found. The Joker had killed all nineteen police officers that had been in the room except for Gordon, and stole back his detached face from the evidence room that had been put on ice for a year before making his escape just as Batman arrived.
The Joker then hires Catwoman to steal a large chess piece from a citywide game of chess. After stealing the piece it is revealed to contain a living person, before it explodes. Catwoman saves a young orphan trapped in a pawn piece, and is confronted by the Joker, who is revealed to be the individual who hired her. Joker convinces her to allow herself to be captured to save the orphan's life. Joker repeatedly attacks Catwoman, accusing her of needing Batman to save her and trying to convince her to break Batman's heart and turn him into a more focused hero. Catwoman denies loving Batman and accuses the Joker of in fact being in love with him. Joker admits that he is, before they part ways.
At Deadshot's funeral, the Joker unleashes a gas attack which knocks out everyone in attendance - except for Harley, making her realize that the Joker is back. Happily, she welcomes him back only to get in a fist in the face, as punishment for her hubris. Despite this, he claims to have missed her and he shoves a straight razor in her mouth and demands to know if she prayed for him nightly; held vigils in his name. Naturally, she can't answer without cutting herself, and stays quiet - so the Joker talks for her. He explains that he missed her so much, that he kept tabs on her and followed her progression with the Suicide Squad - up to the point that she had sex with Deadshot. Angrily, he swipes the razor out of her mouth, cutting her lip. He decides that somebody has to pay for that indiscretion. He bypasses both Captain Boomerang and Amanda Waller, knowing that they mean nothing to Harley. So, that leaves only Deadshot himself. Tossing aside the American flag over Deadshot's coffin, he announces that he will gladly disfigure the body. Harley grabs Waller's gun and aims it at the Joker, warning him not to do anything to Deadshot, though he knows she won't be able to pull the trigger. However, he will offer a deal. If she does something for him, he will leave both her and Deadshot's body alone.

The Joker then abducts Howard Branden's son, John, and had the man made to look like the Joker and speak for him on live television, while the Joker's own arms perform grandiose gestures in accordance. Struggling to follow the script without cracking, the victim warns that people will die for no particular reason, referencing the Joker's earliest crimes. With the message delivered, the Joker kills the victim with a screwdriver brutally and has his corpse thrown off a roof with a Joker playing card stuffed in his breastpocket, revealing the Joker's next victim to be Mayor Hady. Expecting Hady to be the victim, Batman found no traces of Joker Venom on or in the mayor, nor in the water supply or vents. However, instead of Hady, it was the police officers assigned to protect the mayor that were killed instead and had been poisoned. Analysis of the toxin indicate that it was a two-part compound: the first component was infused with the officers' clothes, while the second - the activator - was on the mayor's floor-cleaner. The Joker Venom was also altered to instead produce a disturbing rictal frown, as opposed to the usual death smile. The chemicals also had three non-active chemicals; Aspirin, Chlorine and Ethane which spells out A.C.E., leading Batman to Ace Chemicals.

There, Batman encounters a person dressed as the original Red Hood and had a voice-recorded message of the Joker, explaining that he left Gotham because they're "game" was compromised because Batman's secret identity was publicly exposed though the Joker tries to reassure Batman that he is now back to set things right. Batman knew that this was not the Joker and he is knocked aside by a massive wooden mallet, sending him tumbling into an empty vat of chemicals, which closes on him before he can escape. The Joker's voice continues that Batman has become lazy and puts his blame on his family of allies, claiming that he will strip him of what makes him weak. The person is revealed to be Harley, who calls out to Batman tearily that the Joker is not the same as he used to be. A chemical bath is then poured into the vat, rising to his knees, but he manages to escape.

Meanwhile, Harley then calls out to Joker that their deal is complete. Joker wonders, though, is she still Harley Quinn or Harleen Quinzel. She assures him that she is still good old Harley, but he doesn't believe her. Nervously, she responds that a girl always has secrets. Wrapping a chain noose around her neck, the Joker hangs Harley by the neck, and demands she tell him a few. The Joker chokes Harley into unconsciousness when she refuses to let him cut off her face. She wakes up, thinking that his monstrous return might have been a dream, but he assures her it is real, and that she needs to have memory refreshed about what it means to be with him - by being dunked into the vat of chemicals that created the Joker. Harley though manages to wrap her ankles around her neck, rips free of the straightjacket and leaps to safety, leaving him dangling precariously over the edge of the chemical vat. He has her covered, though, as he sets their pet hyenas, Bud and Lou, on her. She is outraged that he intentionally infected them with rabies in order to make them turn on her. He responds that he did it to make them act out of pure instinct, unfettered by emotional attachments. This is what he needs her to do too. Like he stripped himself of his last vestiges of humanity when he had his face removed, she must go through the same to become something more than what she is. With no other options, Harley sadly kills her babies, snapping Lou's jaws apart and sending Bud hurtling into the chemical bath. Angrily, she threatens that she will kill the Joker too for what he's done. He doesn't believe he has it in her, though, and is surprised when she lands a punch on his jaw.

Disappointed, Joker realizes that Harley's transformation was all an act. Somewhere deep inside her, she was always Harleen Quinzel, and never completely like him. As he tells her this, he bites a chunk out of her ear. When she buckles from the pain, he resumes his plan to cut off her face, but she fights back, hammering his head against a wall. Disgustingly, his face remains stuck to it, and he must peel it off and re-attach it. Harley feels that the Joker is just trying to confuse her, and realizes that his bite on her ear was poisoned. Changing her tone, she admits that she never felt right doing what they did together - but she did love him. She kisses him, but bites the tip of his tongue, spitting it out and adding that merely loving him does not mean that she belongs to him. Angrily, the Joker kicks Harley in the gut and drags her into a darkened room, chaining her to the wall. Rather than give her the satisfaction of dying or prison, he will lock her away with the "others". He reveals the skeletons surrounding them, and claims that they were all previous Harleys - failures like her. She will stay there and die, and no one will ever know what happened to her. Locking the door behind him, he announces that he has business to attend to, and leaves her there to die. In order to escape, Harley bites open her own wrists and uses the blood as lubricant to remove her chains and escape back to the Suicide Squad. When the Joker learns of her escape, he states that she might yet become his Harley.

The Joker pays a visit to Wayne Manor where he greets Bruce's butler, Alfred Pennyworth, with a deformed lion cub born with two heads. Suddenly, the Joker steps out behind him, attacking him with a hammer. After abducting Alfred, Joker leaves behind a casstte tape wrapped in a present for Batman which addresses Bruce by name, explaing that he has borrowed Alfred as he's planning something special that requires a servant. The Joker also sadistically reveals that he had burned Alfred's eyes with ammonia, angering and sickening Batman.

Batman is then led to believe that Gordon is the Joker's next target, saving his life after the Joker had poisoned him with a powerful blood thinner. Batman then goes to the first place he faced off against the Joker after a clue was left behind by the Joker. In the abandoned construction site, Batman confronts the Joker and notes the remote detonator in his adversary's hand, and is reminded of their first encounter, the Joker had planned to re-enact his early crimes and blow up the two skyscrapers he failed to destroy before. Disinterested with Batman's attempts to get to the point, the Joker explained that he is tired of being all business, and would prefer to take some time to chat. Batman already instructed Nightwing to disable the bombs while Batman had used a device to disable the Joker's detonator, however the Joker had a trick up his sleeve: he had someone else detonate the bombs instead with another detonator, blowing up the skyscrapers and injuring Nightwing in the process as he barely escaped alive. The Joker then casually says now that he had already destroyed the skyscrapers and killed many people in doing so, now they can talk. Joker traps Batman with numerous cables, immobilizing him, and then begins his speech. He sees himself as Batman's court jester; the deliverer of bad news. This is what the Joker had always tried to do, and tonight he has something more for him - and he intends to say it loud enough for the other Bats to hear.

The Joker now knows who they are and the identities they hide beneath their masks. He even jokes that he knows the soaps they use and calls them they're fakers. Joker accuses Batman that he is weakened by his care for his allies - and weakened by the way he has come to rely on them. So, Joker intends to get rid of them. Joker claims that he knows what his allies have done to him, which is why he has kept a secret from them for a long time. It is the secret that Batman had helped Joker learn about all of them, and write it down in a book made from the skin of a bat in the Batcave. Batman claims that it is a lie, but Joker insists that whatever the case, all of them are dead within 72 hours, and the punchline is that it is Batman who kills them.

Joker's attention is later caught by Bullock's voice on the radio, who has brought the GCPD to bring the maniac in. But the Joker calls back to Bullock, wondering where the lieutenant was when he made his initial attack on the station. Knowing the Joker's interest is dangerous, Batman urges him to leave the police alone, at which point the Joker calls his men on his cellphone and has them fire rockets at the assembled police cars. Angrily, Batman breaks free of his restraints and attacks, demanding to know where Alfred is. His face is need of realignment due to Batman's punch, Joker claims that Alfred is busy preparing a special dinner for he and the Bat-Family, before realizing that the punch Batman landed on him with his bare fist also infected him with Joker Venom. The realization stops Batman in his tracks, and the Joker takes this opportunity to kick his opponent off the building and into the river. The Joker then targeted the Bat-Family members.

The Joker first set his sights on Nightwing due to already being wounded and he attacks Jimmy the Clown, the star clown of Haly's Circus, in an alleyway and murders him with a knife. He then breaks Nightwing's lover, Raya Vestri, out of Blackgate Penitentiary. Joker carves a disfigured smile into Jimmy's face with his knife and leaves his corpse in the open for Nightwing, attaching a note to the body reading "Nobody likes a knockoff". It is revealed that the Joker killed Jimmy becaue he looked like him. The Joker leads Nightwing to the Kline industries building, where the Joker uses the intercoms to taunt Nightwing and welcomes him. The Joker mocks Nightwing's attempts to live up to Batman's name and Nightwing is suddenly attacked by someone who appears to be the Joker, but soon turns out to be Raya, infected with Joker Toxin. The Joker is bored by Nightwing's attempts to be like Batman, and tonight he announces that he will wake up. Joker points that Raya is dressed in an imitation - a knockoff - of Nightwing's uniform, and then leaves them alone to fight it out. The toxin eventually kills Raya painfully despite Nightwing trying to use an antidote on her, then after several minutes mourning Raya he notices something on the skin peeking through a tear in her uniform. The message written across her chest suggests the Joker is about to attack Haly's Circus.

Arriving at Haly's Circus, Nightwing is taunted by the Joker over the PA system and he is disturbed to see numerous corpses - all former members of the circus - propped up in the grass. The Joker laughs that it was a bit theatrical, even for him. Joker is spotted by Nightwing leaning against one of the corpses and angrily throws his Wing-Dings at him, worrying that no matter how hard he tries, the Joker will find those he loves and torture them. In response, Joker detonates a bomb that fills the stadium with Joker Gas. Though Nightwing manages to attach his rebreather, he is soon sent hurling out of the doors by another explosive blast, followed by yet another. Soon, it is revealed that the Joker is trying to destroy Amusement Mile, not kill him.

Battered and affected by toxin, Nightwing is plagued by both hallucinations of Raya and Jimmy, who mock him for failing to save their lives. Unwilling to hear any more of their jibes, he leaps and throttles the Joker, knocking him to the ground and landing several heavy punches into the madman's grinning face. Through his bloody teeth, the Joker laughs that he hasn't finished his joke, yet. After all, it is a surprise party. Grabbing a screwdriver from his tool belt, he thrusts the metal point into Nightwing's thigh, and kicks him away, arguing that Nightwing is a fake that makes Batman the weakest. Having put all of his faith in his relationships with people, he has set himself up to for a let down. For example, the entire population of Haly's Cirus, who are now affected by Joker Toxin - even little Christina Sorrano. Under the Joker's control, the circus folk attack Nightwing, and he is rendered unconscious. He wakes up eventually, being dragged by the ankles by the Joker. He loses consciousness again, and wakes up some time later to see the Joker bearing a blood-stained dinner plate.

The Joker then targeted Oracle, having three henchmen wearing clown masks and dressed in holiday clothes kidnap Barbara's mother, Sarah, while the two were on the phone. After the kidnapping, the Joker forces Barbara's brother, Emil, to call Barbara at gunpoint in a distorted voice. Emil explains that the three men who attacked her mother were very bad, and reminds Barbara of when she opened the door and was shot by the Joker years ago. Barbara believes that Emil is the Joker and Emil instructs Barbara to alert nobody, and then, to make a sandwich for herself - or Sarah will die immediately. Barbara remains obedient and he then warns her that the same men are coming for her too. She barely has time to register the fact that the Joker knows her identity, before the men break down her door. Oracle manages to use her environment and security measures to take out the thugs, before taking one of their guns and threatens a conscious one at gunpoint where her mother is but he does not know and is left cowering in the corner, before passing out from fear. The voice on the phone then congratulates her, and welcomes any attempt to come and find him, calling her Batgirl outright, and confirming what she had worried before. Barbara is surprised by the second voice in her home, and turns with her gun raised, only to find her roommate Alysia horrified by the gun and the three thugs who are lying unconscious on the floor. Sadly, Barbara hugs her friend, and apologizes for keeping secrets, warning Alysia to go to the police precinct, and to take nothing but the cat.

Unable to contact Oracle, she instead manages to contact Robin for help after discovering her mother's location at the Cherry Hill Skate Rink. Inside, the Joker taunts Robin regarding Oracle. Then the Joker himself appears in Oracle's apartment, shutting off her communications with Robin to prevent her from warning him and revealing that he was not the voice on the phone but her brother, much to her shock and horror. Joker greets Oracle happily, presenting her with her mother's severed finger bearing her wedding ring and asking Oracle to marry him. Listening to the voice in the ice rink, Emil told Robin that he could not allow any harm come to his mother and Robin realizes he fell for a trap set up by a remorseful Emil to allow the Joker to abduct Barbara without any interference. Grinning, Joker reveals to a horrified Oracle that there is a five-pound nail bomb under the chair she is tied to. Joker forces Oracle to watch as Robin tries to figure out a way to rescue her mother, and Barbara coldly asks the Joker to what he wants. He responds that people like her weigh the Batman down by drowning him with empathy and compassion, he fails to be the best he can.

Grinning, the Joker passes Oracle a list of things required for their wedding and suggests he follows his instructions before dragging her to the church while Robin manages to rescue Sarah. The Joker has the priest's congregation held hostage and is forcing the priest to officiate the wedding. In the church, surrounded by armed criminals, Joker explains that she and the other bat-children are a drag on Batman that he intends to free him of. Oracle will be used as leverage to free him of the spin-offs, but in order to make sure she doesn't try to leave him, he intends to cut off all her limbs with a chainsaw. Robin suddenly crashes the wedding to rescue Oracle. He launches himself at the Joker, prepared to ruthlessly attack him. Facing his thugs, he breaks arms and noses, beating each into submission to the point even the priest seems more terrified of him than the Joker. Robin nearly kills the Joker with his own chainsaw, but is stopped from crossing the line by Oracle hesitantly and allows the Joker to use the opportunity to injure Robin before having a henchman shoot Robin, injuring him. During the distraction, the Joker abducts Oracle and runs away with her. Oracle wakes up to see the Joker dressed in a fine suit, and he regretfully announces that he will have to call an end to their engagement. In his hands he holds an entree platter and grinning, he teases that she will never guess what hides under the lid.

The Joker manages to lead a rage-induced Robin to Gotham Zoo, with the first thing he sees is ravenous hyenas tearing what appears to be a human body that he hopes is not Oracle's. Fortunately, his light shows that it is merely a guard. When he opens the cage, the animals attack him violently, one of them biting his hand. After getting to safety, he realizes too late that the animals somehow dosed him with something, and he falls through a skylight, and into the darkened bird sanctuary. Robin realizes that he had fallen into the side of a massive egg, in a nest made of human bones. The Joker stands over him, gleefully mocking him with his face upside-down. Grunting, Robin asks where Oracle is. Rather than answer, Joker hints that he had already bested Nightwing, and is eager to do the same to Robin. Robin realized that he was dosed with Joker Venom by the hyenas, and the madman admits that it is a milder version, so they could talk - if the young Robin is open to learning a few things about Batman. Before that, however, he intends to make the Boy Wonder scream. Robin warns that if isn't told where Oracle is, he will make Joker scream. This piques Joker's interest, as he begins to suspect that Robin and Oracle are in love. After the Joker taunts Robin about Oracle and implies the horrible things he had done to her, Robin responds that he will break his solemn vow for that - he will kill him.

Joker though says killing is not on the agenda just yet and that he still needs some things to talk about, claiming that Robin and the other bat-children are like the moon that blocks out Batman's sun during an eclipse, preventing him from shining on his Joker. He is sure that Robin knows this already, that he thinks all of the others are leeches while he is the only one Batman needs. Joker decides he is finished talking, and then buries Robin under a torrent of insects and worms - a robin's favorite meals. Returning, Joker continues to mock Robin and claims he only has one thing to truly fear - he will be responsible for Batman's death. To wit, Joker places Robin in a battle to the death against a Joker Venom-induced "Batman". Robin refuses to fight, sure that he can break through the Joker's power of suggestion. The Joker warns, however, that the only way to escape is to kill Batman. Using a shuriken, Robin activates a switch, opening a hole in the floor, and allowing himself an escape route. Joker and "Batman" follow, as Robin makes his way toward the polar bear moat. He is knocked into the icy water by "Batman", while the Joker watches through the viewing glass below. They fight their way out of the water, and back onto the shore, where Robin decides if he cannot talk sense into his mentor, he will beat it into him. With the Joker's toxin affecting him as well, Robin weakens and when "Batman" rises, raising a massive icicle over his head to crush him, Robin decides to simply give up and he would rather be killed by "Batman" than kill him himself. Hearing this, the Joker activates a failsafe that kills "Batman". In tears, Robin falls to his knees. Grumpily, the Joker explains that Robin was supposed to kill the "Batman", not the other way around. Angrily, Robin grabs one of the screwdrivers from Joker's tool belt and stabs it into the lunatic's foot. This has no apparent effect, and laughing, the Joker draws a mustache on Robin's face using the bloodstains on the screwdriver. He unmasks the "Batman", revealing it was an imposter all along: Toshiro Matsu, a dojo master who owed him too many favors. Affected strongly by the toxin, Robin allows himself to be guided as the Joker explains that the time is coming soon for things to return the way they should be, that Batman should rule his kingdom without any princes or princesses. There will come a clearing way of the skeletons in Batman-family's closets, and to start, he has a surprise for them all hiding under the lid of a dinner platter.

Joker then finally targets Red Hood, ambushing him and gases him into unconsciousness. Jason wakes, unable to move, next to one of his helmets, which has been pinned next to him with a crowbar. Joker explains to him that he has paralyzed him for the next hour or so. Joker suggests that it is his role to make Batman better by pointing out that he wastes his time with his Bat-Family. Feigning annoyance at Jason's failure to respond, he remarks how strange it is, given that he is the one who wrote the material that comprised Jason's life - Jason had to merely read the lines. That said, Joker prepares to beat Jason with the crowbar. Rather than allow that, Jason kicks out with his feet. Getting the upper hand, Jason prepares to kill Joker with the crowbar, but he is suddenly electrocuted by a charge in the metal weapon. Impressed, the Joker offers Jason a slow clap. The Joker shows Jason a bullet that was removed from his father on the day he was shot to further taunt him and he recreated the scene of Jason's discovering of his mother's body at her overdose. Angrily, Jason refuses to accept that the Joker was somehow behind the scenes throughout his entire life. The Joker responds that he certainly was - that they're practically family. Hearing this, Jason collapses next to the unconscious Robin.

Annoyed that his captives haven't gained consciousness yet, Joker dumps a vat of water on them. Waking grumpily, Jason expresses regret that Robin had to be involved, thinking that the Joker's plan is a personal attack on him. Robin warns, though, that the attack is part of something much bigger, and that they need to keep track of the big picture. With his victims awake, Joker urges the boys to turn around, where they see two men bound to a pipe with bags on their heads. Following the Joker's hints, they worry that these two men might actually be their fathers who are somehow alive. Joker claims he has captured their parents, and that one of them will die, depending on which of the two captives die first. Robin and Jason must fight to the death. To Robin's surprise, Jason takes the plot seriously and attempts to kill him in earnest. Thinking on the dilemma, Robin recalls that the only way to beat the Joker's game is to refuse to play by his rules. Quickly, he smashes through the control room window with his wings and Jason, following his lead, fills the Joker with bullets. It is revealed that the hostages weren't actually their fathers. Unfortunately, the Joker's body is not his as he anticipated that Jason would take the shot, and the dummy body explodes with Joker Gas, and neither of them have any means to protect themselves from it. Both collapse on the floor in the Joker's shadow, who is once again victorious. As the two regain consciouss, they see the Joker dressed in his formal wear, holding two bloodstained dinner plates, and warning that the main course of their coming dinner party is going to be quite a piquant dish.

Joker uses a cellular signal to contact his henchmen at the construction site. Naturally, the phone it was attached to was untraceable, but the camera across the street from the store it was bought at identifies a man named Dylan McDyre. It is revealed from McDyre that the Joker is holding the families of the entire Arkham guard staff hostage in order to maintain the appearance of normalcy at the asylum while he made changes. Batman discovers that the Joker had been operating from within Arkham for weeks, renovating.

Upon arriving at Arkham, Batman finds a strange display set up for him: in a number of cells, the Joker has dressed guards in the garbs of the Batman and the Joker, forcing each of them to dance for days in a pool of water. Guessing that the Joker intends to shock the guards using the water as a conductor, Batman activates an electromagnetic pulse, which deactivates the asylum's electrical systems. Unfortunately, Joker anticipated this, and there is an emergency power system available to him. As he prepares to permanently retire his dancers, Batman tosses devices into each cell to absorb all of the water, making it impossible to shock the guards remotely.

While Batman makes his way to the Joker, the Joker already anticipated his moves and turns on the lights to reveal an armed and armored retinue of soldiers - once the inmates of Arkham. A better fighter than any of his opponents, Batman beats them. Batman hears his enemy's voice encouraging him to look up and behind him, revealing sewn together from living bodies a tapestry illustrating past memories of his relationship with the Joker. As the living tapestry, assembled with Dollmaker's help, begins chanting "Hail to the Bat King" over and over.

On the stairs of Arkham's quarters, Batman encounters Killer Croc, whom Joker introduces as the "Bat King"'s groundskeeper. Batman then encounters Clayface who was mimicking Gordon, revealing to be his prayer. Batman freezes Clayface on the spot and then he encounters Scarecrow - the court physician - who doses him with fear toxin. With a rebreather over his nose and mouth, Batman knocks Scarecrow unconscious, surprising Joker at his effectiveness. Hearing the Joker hasn't got quite ready for him, Batman intends to make the best of his advantage, and tries to blow the door to Arkham's quarters. However, he realizes the Joker had piled all the room's furniture in front of the door. He does, however, manage to open the door wide enough to see a strange tableau arranged just for him.

In the middle of the room sits a stone, with a chainsaw's blade embedded in it. The chainsaw is attached to jumper cables and on one side of the room is the Penguin, the Riddler and Two-Face. On the other side stands the Joker, backed with a quartet of innocents dressed in costumes to mirror Batman's allies. Joker introduces his cohorts, with Penguin representing the bishop, cutilvating a voice of religion, Riddler is the strategist, who keeps Batman's mind sharp and Two-Face is the judge, who shapes the laws of chaos that govern Gotham. The Joker himself is the court jester and he explains that Batman's allies are not worthy. To demonstrate this, he urges the man dressed as Robin to approach the chainsaw, and attempt to pull it from the stone, promising that the current courses through it randomly, offering a chance of survival. When the man places his hand on the handle, he is filled with so much electricity that his remains are charred beyond recognition. Joker prepares to send the woman dressed as Batgirl to the same fate, so Batman decides to use his remaining strength to break through the door. Once caught, he cuts the jumper cables with a Batarang, rendering the instrument of death useless. Even so, the Joker has more tricks up his sleeve, bringing steel bars down from the ceiling to separate them from Batman. Further, he directs Batman's attention to a set of screens on the wall, showing that each of Batman's allies had been defeated. He explains that while Batman may be as fast and smart as he likes, but as long as his family survives, he will always lose. All that remains to do is for Batman to accept his true role, and takes his rightful place in the throne he has provided - an electric chair. He warns that if Batman does not play along, he will never find out what exactly what the Joker did to the young family. Defeated, Batman walks up the steps on his seat, places the electrifying crown on his head, and takes a violent electric current straight to his brain, knocking him unconscious.

When Batman wakes up in the caverns leading to the Batcave, the Joker speaks to him of something coming. He explains how both of them had, at one time, been faced with this image. Eventually, Batman's vision clears to see the approaching is the skeleton of a bat - and that face of bone and tooth - it is his real face, the Joker says, the one under the mask. Just as the bat nearly hits Batman in the face, Joker turns on the lights. Batman is disturbed by the scene the Joker had laid out for him: while he is still strapped to his makeshift throne, his allies and adoptive children have been bound, gagged and a bag over their heads. In front of each is a covered dinner plate. Accompanying them at the table is the two-headed lion born, whose birth portended the Joker's return. Joker, dressed in his finest suit, promises that they will all be fine, though he has spent the last several hours telling them what their father figure really thinks of them. Angrily, Batman struggles against his bonds, but the Joker warns him not to and reveals that escaping will risk agitating the flint in the cave and that Batman and his allies had been doused with gasoline. The Joker though encourages Batman to escape and he should let them burn for weakening him.

Before that, though, the Joker claims it is time to eat. Teasingly, Joker traces his finger over the little handles on the dinner platters' lids, reminding Batman of the missing Alfred. Worried, Batman demands to know where his old friend is. The Joker laughs, promising that Alfred is around and ready for service. Instead of lifting the lid, Joker gestures to an opening in the wall, from which Alfred - alive, but affected with Joker Venom, emerges. Joker has him remove the bags from each of the sidekicks' heads, revealing that each one's face has been covered with bloody bandages. Grinning, Joker explains that he has dressed them for the party by undressing them of the faces that only Batman ever sees - their identities. Cuddling with the cub to his breast affectionately, Joker lifts the lids from the platters, revealing the bloody faces that he cut from them all, resting in beds of ice. Each of them looks down at their own faces with horror as Joker explains that it was a labor of love - the shortwork of a half hour, to cut, preserve and pull each one. All of this - even the removal of his own face - has been meant to show that beneath their surface, each of these children is nothing but softness and tenderness. Under his skin, though, there was just more grinning. And, under Batman's face is only bat.

Through gritted teeth, Batman growls that he hates nothing more on the earth than the Joker - but his host begs to differ. For example, he asks, why has Batman never tried to discover who he was and why has he never tried to kill him. Uncomfortably, Batman claims that there has never been any DNA to link the Joker to anyone, and further, to kill him would mean that the Joker wins. The Joker disagrees, however, suggesting that the excuse is merely what Batman tells himself. Joker believes that Batman doesn't just kill him because the two of them have an understanding. Joker also believes that Batman secretly wanted him to kill his family, leaving the doors unlocked and hoping he will take them away. Now, that is what he plans to do, all to fulfill Batman's secret desire; to be alone with the Joker. Lighting a match, Joker warns that it is time for Batman to admit the truth. He can either remain in denial and let the Joker kill them or admit the truth, and kill them himself by trying to stand up and igniting the gasoline.

With little choice, Batman kicks backwards in his chair, shooting sparks that set the table and its guests ablaze. Quickly untangling himself from his bonds, Batman explains that the Joker should have known that he would know his own caves better than anyone. Firing a propulsion blast upward, the impact breaks through the cave's ceiling and the cold waters of the Gotham River spill into the cavern, dousing the flames. Angrily, the Joker makes a run for it, while Batman sees to Robin. As Batman peels the bloody bandages on his face, Robin asks how badly the Joker damaged him, but with the bandages gone, it turns out his face is still intact. It has all been part of a sick joke. After Batman releases the others, Nightwing urges him to pursue the Joker and let them take care of themselves. After Batman left, the mutated cub reveals a bomb implanted under the animal's skin, exploding with Joker Gas and affecting them all.

Chasing his foe, Batman is ambushed in the caves by the Joker, wielding an axe and complained about how his joke was ruined. Angrily, Batman yanks the weapon away from him, and shoves him to the ground, warning that there will be no more of this. Unpertrubed, Joker slips a crowbar from his sleeve and tries again, only to be beaten down again. Once again, Batman warns that there will be no more anything between them. However, the Joker makes another play, explaining that his family have been affected by a particularly strong strand of his Joker Toxin, and they are all tearing each other apart. Taking the crowbar up his own hand, Batman clubs Joker in the head. Confused, Joker refuses to accept that Batman would simply let his family die. Batman responds that he has faith in them; that they make him stronger. Joker reacts with disbelief, and in his frustration, he resorts to simply spraying Batman's face with acid, and making a run for it.

Joker doesn't get far though as he nearly falls to his death from an unexpected chasm. He is saved by Batman, who warns that he will not die by accident tonight. Everything that happens between them from this point will be of Batman's deciding. Batman suggests that tonight, he will finally do what he never could - kill the Joker. He can do it now, because he has shattered the illusion between them. Batman tells the Joker that during his year-long absence, he finally decided to look into who he really was before the accident. Joker believes that he is lying, but Batman leans in and promises to whisper the Joker's real name right into his ear. Joker refuses to hear what he has to say, sending a shock into his captor's mouth, and falling backward into the chasm apparently to his death. It is revealed that Batman never actually knew the Joker's identity and later he discovers the chemical makeup of the gas Joker used on the Bat-Family, and finds an inert isotope; the chemical compound "Ha".

The Joker managed to somehow survive the fall, causing Batman to presume that he was dead as he never returned after this incident. Joker did not return though because he saw no reason in taking any actions when Bruce gave up being Batman and the whole world knows who he really is. Instead, the Joker went into hiding and faked being dead.

### Return of the Joker

After his supposed death off the cliff, the Joker was actually disguised as a new orderly at Arkham Asylum. Using skin pigmentation to conceal the pale skin on his new face and muscle relaxant pills to suppress his constant smile, the Joker adopted the name "Eric Border". Befriending Dr. Mahreen Zaheer, Joker worked in Arkham, formulating his plan for grand-finale return. In his new identity, the Joker kept to his roots by playing a dark prank on Zaheer by encouraging her to write a book about the "true" origin of the Joker. The clown falsified documents and paid people off in order to construct another origin story. As part of his dark park, the Joker gave each of four inmates a different origin for himself (a demon, a robot, a man from another time and a soldier who was the first in an army of Batmen created by the government) with a path through Gotham that eventually leads to the publisher of Zaheer's book where a fifth inmate has Zaheer tell them their story.

The Joker also secretly recruited one of the Maniax street gangs to assist in his plans for Gotham, murdering its leader Bonk because he didn't believe he was the real deal. The Joker easily intimidated the teenage gang into following his orders without hesitation and helped him steal technology and chemicals that allowed him to create his masterpiece: a powerful and incurable variant of his Joker Venom that will "Jokerize" its victims, transforming them into laughing, murderous and violent lunatics that resemble the Joker's appearance. The Joker also met with Paul Dekker in his Border identity, a crazed genius in regenerative technologies, after he was released into his custody at Arkham Asylum and he was able to perfect both the Joker Virus and develop the indestructible serum with a natural component found in the Joker's spine which the chemicals from Ace Chemicals had slowly developed as he got older. The Joker manipulated Dekker into believing that he was an immortal god to help him develop both the virus and the serum, which Dekker complied.

Shredding his Eric Border identity after decades of adopting it, Joker came back with an endgame in mind for Batman. Unlike his last dastardly plot, the Joker made it clear that was no longer "playing", he intended to make this his final dance with the Bat. Drugging four individuals with the new and extremely potent Joker Venom to make his return clear, Bruce and the new Batman, Terry McGinnis, attempted to cure them but they all killed each other. Terry is led to Arkham Asylum to search for clues and deduced the Joker was planning something big for the city. Reaching the Joker's old cell, Terry was locked in it by the Joker (still disguised as Eric Border) who explained that he wanted to help Batman - but there was nothing he could do for him. Joker introduces himself to Terry happily and reveals his new face, then makes comments on the new Batman and even admits that he is not too shabby. The Joker then releases a paralytic gas, and taunts Terry, explaining that he and the old Batman were meant to have a happy ending - but it was ruined, so now the Joker will do something different. The Joker reveals his plans to poison Gotham City with the same virus he used on the four victims and taunts Terry that nothing can prevent it, then he calls it ironic that he knows so much about Terry but Terry knows so little about him. The Joker then pulls out a gun and blasts it at Terry, injuring him and leaving him in his paralyzed state madly laughing.

Terry was then  forced to rescue his family from one of the Joker's gang members, Chucko, in Crime Alley (representing how Batman's parents died and revealing to Terry that the Joker knows who he is) however it is revealed they were infected with the Joker Virus, emotionally damaging Terry but he is determined to save them. The Joker attacks Commissioner Barbara Gordon in her home while Tim was not at home. The Joker lures Barbara to her closet and a spring-loaded boxing glove launches out, knocking her out and Joker sinisterely offers a "knock knock". The Joker then snaps his fingers, instantly igniting the curtains of Barbara's bedroom with flames and Barbara quickly points her gun at the Joker and warning him to drop the jokes and gags, and to stay put or she will shoot. The Joker grabs an axe and offers that he will drop the act today, claiming that this time he is not joking at all. Barbara fires her weapon and hits the Joker square in the chest, dropping him to the floor. Barbara makes a call to Bruce, tearfully expressing her relief at having actually killed the Joker however she is unfounded when the Joker rises to his feet behind her. Bruce hears her scream and calls out, but it is not Barbara who answers. The Joker greets Bruce by directly addressing him and revealing that he knows Terry is the new Batman.

The Joker lodges the axe in Barbara's chest but leaves her alive for Terry to find and it is revealed the Joker is using a serum capable of healing him from fatal damage, and the virus contains the serum's complete inverse. Afterwards, Barbara is infected and attacks Terry but he manages to subdue her with Stephanie Brown's aid. Using his Border disguise for one final time, the Joker manages to get invited onto a talk show with an Arkham inmate, J-Man, where he puts blames on the man's poor mental health on Batman. He manages to get the audience to laugh a few times before revealing his true identity to the audience, publicly that he is the Joker and that he has come to return to Gotham. The Joker reveals that he intends to make Gotham literally die laughing at his grand-finale joke, telling everyone on live television that he had infected Gotham with his new virus in the form of an airborne pathogen, transmitted via laughter, which infects the citizens of Gotham and sends the audience and the entire town into a panic. The Joker laughs maniacally in the terror and murders the host by slitting his throat with a broken mug piece, then activates a bomb he had surgically implanted in J-Man which releases Joker Gas into the room to infect the trapped audience.

During the chaos, the Joker is confronted by Terry, Stephanie and Damian Wayne though the Joker reveals that he hijacked a satellite laser set to destroy Gotham and sends Terry and his allies to stop it and gave them a chance to save the city of madness. Meanwhile, the Joker headed to the Batcave to settle his score with Bruce. In the cave, Bruce and the Joker fight, though due to the Joker's regenerative abilities, he manages to defeat Bruce and chops off his hand with a meat cleaver as well as bites a chunk out of his ear, resembling that of a bat's. The Joker then tortures the wounded Bruce before stealing his crime-fighting trophies throughout the Batcave and leaves but not before infecting Bruce with the Joker Virus and leaving him to such a grim fate.

Suddenly, the Joker plays a recorded video broadcast in the Batcave for Terry and his allies to find, announcing a parade in the center of Gotham. The Joker also dares Terry, daring him to come and take his spine if he wants to save the city. At the parade, Terry and his allies confront the Joker who dances with the remains of Martha Wayne atop the T-Rex stolen from the Batcave. The Joker tries to kill Terry with a chainsaw, but Terry gets the Joker into a headlock and attempts to extract a sample of fluid from his spine with a syringe. Unwilling to let him simply have it, the Joker activates a device that plays ear-piercing laughter at 140db, sending everyone writhing onto the ground. He then releases his lethal gas, affecting those who are already infected with the virus. Terry is forced to breathe it in and struggles to maintain consciousness, the Joker grins and reveals that he had tainted the fluid anyway, and it wouldn't have been any use to them anyway. The Joker mocks Terry and tore off his mask, revealing that it is Damian Wayne and not Terry - and his detonator that would destroy the last of the Lazarus Pit (he used it as a compound for his indestructible serum and could be used to develop an antidote) chemicals is not working. Terry found the cache already.

The Joker confronts Terry in the caverns beneath Gotham to find the Lazarus chemicals the Joker had hidden and thrusts a knife into his shoulder and manages to detonate another explosive in the cave. Frustrated, Terry sends the mapping device up to an elderly Selina Kyle (who had been secretly assisting) while he remains to face the Joker. With his other knife, the Joker slashes a curved grin onto Terry's back, then thrusting the other knife right into his shoulder, creating a grotesque smiley-face on him. Enraged, Terry tackles him, and they tumble over the edge of the cliff.

### Death

The Joker slams a piece of debris into Terry's face, and in response Terry throws a Batarang into his neck, explaining that it was laced with an immune-response blocker that will prevent the serum from letting him heal and even taunts the Joker. The Joker angrily lunges at Terry, and they fight brutally, eventually collapsing exhausted into pools of their own blood. Unwilling to let Terry die without hearing him out, Joker turns him onto his back and demands he to look into his eyes. The Joker points out the meaningless in everything by laughing at it, but when Batman appeared, he had lost the battle by making meaning of their fight. The Joker taunts that Bruce had never had it in him to put a real end to their fight, and it was like a knife to their heart. The Joker then tells Terry the chance that they could have a happy ending, the one that Bruce could not give him - but instead Terry is going to die. Looking past the Joker over his shoulder, Terry comments that it is not over yet, as a stalacite suddenly falls from the roof of the cave and lands right on the Joker's back, and breaking his leg. Desperate to survive, the Joker begins dragging himself toward the chemicals, but Terry jumps onto his back and refuses to let go. A boulder then crashes down, destroying the chemicals, and any hope that either of them would survive. Terry admits that his allies, at least, will survive. They were given tinctures to protect them from the virus, and they will survive and then use the developed antidote from the chemicals to save the plagued city.

Terry tells the Joker that had lost and the two lie on the floor as the cave collapses on them. The Joker succumbs to his injuries and gives out his final laugh, dying with an evil grin on his face. Terry though manages to survive the collapsing with a small amount of Lazarus chemicals. Terry also brings the Joker's corpse to the Batcave where he, Bruce and the other allies burn the body and sit in silence while doing so.

## Personality

The Joker possessed a malevolent and twisted sense of humor and by Gotham City's standards of criminals the Joker far exceeded this, exposing the world to a more amoral and diabolical class of anarchist and psychopath. He declared no interest in money, greed or human companionship and believed that cruelty and immorality was the true inner core of humanity and that extreme acts of inhumane violence unveiled the truth of the world which was the biggest and most meaningless joke of all. Remarkably, Joker has displayed an understanding of morals but simply found them as restrictions to his own fun and his only desire being to corrupt others down to his own level of evil to prove this belief and create a legacy for himself that would never be forgotten. In the mind of the Joker, mindlessly anarchy, city-wide destruction, panic and uncountable deaths on a malevolent scale was comedic, with him laughing excessively enough at the carnage that it was a trademark of his. In large part because of his disfigured, clown-like appearance and his obvious insanity, he generally spoke with a high-pitched, flamboyant and silly tone that sometimes stooped down to a menacing growl.

It's unknown what specific mental illness he suffers from but he has that in abudance, ranging from borderline personality, hysteria, narcissism and schizophrenia and while listing his psychosis, the psychiatrist states it was endless. However, he does not seem fettered by his psychopathic qualities or simply unaware of them but took no attempt to better himself. Some even question if the Joker is truly insane as he is extremely intelligent, cunning and appears to have a full grip on reality, if not a cynical one. The Joker in his early activities was also shown to be significantly emotionally unstable, often times changing from goofy to serious at the drop of a hat and at random times, as well as frequently shouting at both his goons and enemies in a sudden manner. His true actions and inner motives are highly complex due to his own mysterious past and scattered background, adopting numerous backstories that were all different and intricate, which allowed him to operate as an enigma within the present without a discernible cause or reason for many of his violent actions or possibility to be negotiated or bargained with.
He often underwent monomaniacal fixations upon different obsessions to a deranged degree and the most obvious one being clowns which became the motif of his criminal empire and carried out in his manner of killing. Due to his negative and nihilistic beliefs of human morality and nature, there were very few crimes the Joker did not commit, reserving no mercy to his own men who he would kill often randomly and violently with no apparent reason, simply because he found it entertaining, even murdering innocent civilians, bystanders and infants, viewing their deaths as a contributing factor to an already sick and sadistic world.

Despite his untrustworthy appearance and numerous crimes, he was charming and seductive enough to fool others into feeling sympathy and even affection for him. He was a psychological liar and a sadomasochist, being completely unfraid of physical pain, intimidation or imprisonment. Joker's very presence was corruptive, he brought out the worst in people, turning good men into killers. 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. The Joker's egocentrism in this regard was absolute as he viewed everyone who did not agree or attempted to deny his beliefs as irrational or crazy.

The 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 intensely suicidal and nihilistic but had self-preservation. Joker also did not feel death in itself and his emotions were impossible to read as his mindset can change so easily from being maniacal and humorous to being a serious, calculative 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 also had a volatile temper and whenever it arose it was almost impossible to realize. Joker's sense of humor, whilst chaotic and sadistic, was also prone to bouts of dry cynicism, deadpan and sarcasm and can also rather be a macabre, as he found others peoples' deaths, the threat of death and his own quite amusing.

## Abilities

* **Peak Human Condition:**Joker, as a highly skilled and experienced criminal, is in top physical condition.
* **Genius-Level Intellect:**Joker is extremely intelligent and formidable genius, able to go toe-to-toe with Batman for years. His intellect extends itself to his tactical, strategic, deceptive, manipulative, leadership, escapology and intimidation skills.
	+ **​Master Tactician:**Joker is an immensely formidable genius at planning and improvising criminal activities. While scheming, the Joker usually manages to stay one step ahead of the police, and sometimes even Batman himself, due to him being completely unpredictable. Hence, Joker was able to go toe-to-toe and torment Batman for years. He is also very skilled at coming up with effective contigency plans.
	+ **Master Deceiver:**Joker is a genius in the art of deception.
	+ **Master Manipulator:**Joker is an expert at superbly getting into people's heads and manipulating them. This is one of the Joker's most effective weapons, as it especially aides him in gaining followers in his many loyal goons, but is also useful for carrying out mental torture.
	+ **Expert Leader:**Joker, as a crime boss at the very top of Gotham City's criminal underworld, is a highly skilled and charismatic leader, inspiring fierce loyalty from all of his numerous goons, since even after he is is imprisoned in Arkham Asylum.
	+ **Master Escapologist:**Joker is a genius at escaping unscathed in lethal situations, despite staggering odds, including explosions, falling, etc.
	+ **Expert Networker:**Joker, as an exceptionally powerful and influential crime lord, superbly uses a dense network of professional and social contacts to further his criminal ambitions.
	+ **Expert Chemist:**Joker is immensely skilled in the field of chemistry, being able to create various poisons and chemical weapons such as Joker Venom.
* **Expert Marksman:**Joker is a highly skilled marksman.
* **Advanced Combatant:**Joker is a strong hand-to-hand combatant and is a completely unpredictable fighter, relying on his insanity fueled instinct to defeat even well trained combatants.
* **Intimidation:**Joker, due to his exceptional capacity for heinous torture and murder, commands a very intimidating presence, enough to frighten many individuals and make them work for him out of the sheer fear of what he would do to them if they refused.
* **Indomitable Will:**Joker possesses an obliviousness to danger that makes him invulnerable to fear and intimidation. However, Joker does not fear death and will even threaten his own life to achieve his goal or make a point.

### Equipment

* **Joker Venom:**The Joker's signature weapon and it is a deadly toxin that can painfully kill it's victims by causing them to uncontrollably laugh before dying with a large grin on their dead faces.
* **Acid Flower:**A flower on the Joker's lapel which can spray acid, poison gas, Joker Venom, knockout gas, water or nothing at all depending on his mood.
* **Joy Buzzer:**A high-voltage joy buzzer that was worn on his hand as a ring and discharges a lethal electric current into anything that comes into contact. Whilst it has been used for assassinations by tricking the victim into shaking hands, it can also be used in hand-to-hand combat and can even be used as a battery to power machinery.
* **Razor-Sharp Playing Card:**Playing cards with razor-sharp edges that can be used as deadly shurikens or even knives.
* **Bang Flag Pistol:**A gun that takes the initial appearance of a harmless toy gun that shoots a small flag reading "BANG!" however after a second pull on the trigger, the flag blasts out of the barrel and impales the target.
* **Jester Sword Cane:**Although it looks like an ordinary cane, the jester cane contains a thin-razor sharp sword.
* **Various Knives:**The Joker is well known for using a variety of knives, even a patato peeler.
* **Various Explosives:**The Joker often utilizes explosives and rocket launchers, and sometimes they are disguised in pies and harmless toys.
* **Spring Boxing Glove:**A spring-loaded mechanical arm with a boxing glove on the end which is powerful enough to knock people out.
* **Exploding Cigar:**Cigars rigged to explode when lit.
* **Joker Teeth:**Chattering teeth that can explode.
* **Flamethrower Lighter:**A lighter which can shoot out a line of fire like a blowtorch.
* **Crowbar:**A crowbar which Joker occasionally uses to beat his victims, often to death.
* **Long-Barreled Gun:**A powerful gun with a long barrel.
* **Custom Colt Gold Cup Trophy:**The Joker's signature, heavily customized magnum with a purple finished slide and frame with gold inlaid engravings and Joker symbols.
* **Norinco Type 56-1:**Joker occasionally arms himself with an gold-plated Norinco Type 56-1 assault rifle.
* **Short Barreled Remington 870:**Joker occasionally utilizes a short-barreled Remington 870 shotgun after stealing it.
* **Norinco Type 69 RPG:**Joker utilizes this RPG for chaotic purposes.
* **M1 Garand:**Joker has used this rifle.
* **S&W M76:**Joker uses this with a suppressor.
* **2 Pencil:**A simple pencil in a weapon that is sharp enough to pierce a victim's brain.
* **Jokermobile:**Joker's personal automative vehicle and primary mode of transportation, being a stolen car redecorated to have a purple color scheme.
* **Purple Phone:**An untraceable phone that he can use to make calls.

### Weaknesses

* **Mental Illness:**Joker's great weakness is that his insanity occasionally impairs his higher thinking, though Joker almost always make up for this with his tactical, strategic, and escapology skills.

## Killed Victims

* Countless victims

1. **Giovanni Luchese:**Shot in the heart.
2. **Tiffany Ambrose:**Forced Black Mask to shoot her in the heart.
3. **Five Unnamed Prostitutes:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via gas.
4. **Unnamed Bank Manager:**Shot repeatedly.
5. **Ian Chase:**Shot in the gut and kicked repeatedly.
6. **Howard Branden:**Smile carved into face and hanged.
7. **Janet Surillo:**Blown up with Jack N' the Box.
8. **Gillian B. Loeb:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via poisoned scotch.
9. **Richard Sionis:**Throat slashed.
10. **Roman Patrick:**Stabbed in the back.
11. **Unnamed Corrupt Police Officer:**Manipulated into suicide-bombing with Joker Venom.
12. **Multiple Police Officers:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via gas released from a bomb.
13. **Unnamed Joker Henchman:**Shot.
14. **Unnamed Joker Henchman:**Shot.
15. **Unnamed Police Guard:**Shot in the head.
16. **Unnamed Doorman:**Shot.
17. **Unnamed White-Collar Criminal:**Electrocuted with joy buzzer.
18. **Unnamed Joker Former Henchman:**Poisoned with Joker Venom.
19. **Unnamed Joker Former Henchman:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via poisoned water.
20. **Unnamed Joker Former Henchman:**Blown up with exploding cigar.
21. **Unnamed Joker Former Henchman:**Hanged.
22. **Numerous Fish:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via infected river.
23. **Carl G. Francis:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via poisoning his bloodstream.
24. **Unnamed Janitor:**Neck snapped.
25. **Three Unnamed Arkham Guards:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via gas.
26. **Multiple Penguin Henchmen:**Shot by the Joker's henchmen on his orders.
27. **Thirteen Unnamed Comedians:**Shot with a sniper rifle.
28. **Christopher Castillo:**Electrocuted with joy buzzer.
29. **Louisa Falcone:**Teeth removed and murdered.
30. **Mario Falcone:**Throat slit with broken glass.
31. **Five Mario Falcone's Unnamed Henchmen:**Shot.
32. **Unnamed Arkham Guard:**Stabbed in the throat with knife.
33. **Multiple Citizens:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via balloon gas.
34. **Multiple Joker Henchmen:**Murdered in various ways.
35. **Unnamed Joker Henchman:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via spraycan gas.
36. **Unnamed Jaywalker:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via spraycan gas.
37. **Three Unnamed Police Officers:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via spraycan gas.
38. **Unnamed Litterer:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via spraycan gas.
39. **Unnamed Woman:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via spraycan gas.
40. **Sharon Grange:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via spraycan gas.
41. **Multiple Ventriloquist's Henchmen:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via gas bomb.
42. **Multiple Arkham Staff:**Eviscerated with a shotgun.
43. **Multiple Citizens:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via gas.
44. **Two Unnamed Penguin's Henchmen:**Shot in the head.
45. **Unnamed Man:**Beaten to death with a baseball bat.
46. **Jekko:**Disemboweled.
47. **Unnamed Security Guard:**Shot in the face with hidden gun from Batman puppet.
48. **Unnamed Standup Comedian:**Hand burned with acid flower, then poisoned with Joker Venom via gas from another flower.
49. **Multiple Citizens:**Shot with a machine gun.
50. **Multiple Police Officers:**Blown up up with a rocket launcher.
51. **Alberto Falcone:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via gas emitted from a Jack N' the Box.
52. **Unnamed Yacht Captain:**Eyes burned with acid gun and stabbed with knife.
53. **Unnamed Arkham Guard:**Strangled with handcuffs.
54. **Unnamed Arkham Doctor:**Shot in the head.
55. **Zach Franklin:**Shot in the head.
56. **Calendar Man:**Shot in the head.
57. **Monty:**Skinned alive.
58. **Multiple Criminals:**Murdered in various ways.
59. **Griggs:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via spraycan gas.
60. **Bob:**Shot.
61. **Unnamed Couple:**Murdered.
62. **Unnamed Man:**Run over.
63. **Multiple Citizens:**Run over.
64. **Unnamed Thug:**Stabbed in the neck with a pool cue.
65. **Katie Burke:**Pills manipulated and worsened her condition.
66. **Edward Burke:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via laced pills.
67. **Paulie B:**Shot.
68. **Unnamed Corny:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via poisoned handpin.
69. **Multiple Children:**Blown up.
70. **Sheila Haywood:**Poisoned.
71. **Nine Joker Henchmen:**Burned alive in boiler.
72. **Randolph Ryder:**Shot in the mouth.
73. **Unnamed Singer:**Bludgeoned with microphone stand.
74. **Four GCPD Snipers:**Shot by the Joker's henchmen on his orders.
75. **Multiple Citizens:**Infected with specialized Joker Toxin from tainted broken glass and killed each other in various ways.
76. **Three Unnamed Police Officers:**Poisoned with Joker Venom via rubber-chicken gas bomb.
77. **Nineteen Unnamed Police Officers:**Neck snapped.
78. **John Branden:**Stabbed in the eye with screwdriver.
79. **Five Unnamed Police Officers:**Poisoned with Joker Venom.
80. **Multiple Citizens:**Blown up.
81. **Multiple Police Officers:**Blown up with rockets by Joker's henchmen on his orders.
82. **Jimmy the Clown:**Smile carved into face.
83. **Raya Vestri:**Poisoned with Joker Venom.
84. **Multiple Haly's Circus Members:**Poisoned with Joker Venom.
85. **Unnamed Zoo Guard:**Murdered and fed to hyenas.
86. **Toshiro Matsu:**Blown up with acid bomb inside of him.
87. **Unnamed Arkham Doctor:**Electrocuted with jumper cables.
88. **Bonk:**Impaled in the heart with harpoon gun.
89. **Jeremy Romero:**Throat slit with shattered mug piece.
90. **J-Man:**Stomach blown up with surgically implanted Joker Venom explosive and head decapitated and ascended with the head of the Jack N' the Box bomb.
91. **Hundreds of Citizens:**Infected with Joker Virus and killed each other or themselves in various ways.

## Appearance

The Joker is very tall and thin 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 he painted his lips to give himself a clown smile in order to make his smile even wider. He is often dressed in his trademark purple tailcoat and white gloves, with a yellow buttoned shirt and a green bow tie, with a flower attached to the tailcoat jacket, the tailcoat itself had a few rips on the shoulders. Also, the Joker had a wide widow's peak and also wore dress shoes and matching purple pants with a few stitched patches in a crude attempt to repair possible tears in the pants.

## Relationships

### Batman

Perhaps the most defining and deranged of Joker's obsession was the relationship with his archnemesis, Batman. His obsessions was so bad that he focused most of his energy into killing Batman and should he interfere with his plans, he instantly became his top priority. Despite being his archnemesis, Joker mockingly considered himself and Batman "best friends", as he would not immediately kill him even if it was beneficial to his plans because he would be bored without his rival to challenge him. This was because he would not simply be satisfied with Batman's death, but to destroy the foundations of everything he cherishes and values, and psychologically break Batman by making him compromise his morals to prove that he is no better than the Joker himself. He has stated, however, that he constantly relishes the idea of Batman's death and has attempted to kill the Dark Knight whenever the opportunity presents itself. He also did not care about the man underneath the cowl as he knew the second his identity would be revealed it would end their game, believing it would reveal to be anti-climatic.

The relationship between the Joker and Batman has changed his personality and views drastically, originally viewing the Caped Crusader as a mere distraction compared to his grand plans but slowly became more focused on the vigilante, relating to him on a personal level as he establishes himself to Batman due to their mysterious backgrounds, goals and juxtaposing desires and characteristics. Joker also perplexed the idea that someone would risk their life to save the likes of him and ignoring the crimes he had committed and in fact had devoted a great deal of resources to kill him, he admits that it was his destiny to meet Batman. Joker's personal feelings and attitude towards Batman are love/hate and rivalry/respect.

### Harley Quinn

The Joker's lack of interest in companionship or friendship results in him constantly abusing Harley Quinn, his loyal henchwoman and girlfriend, attacking her out of irritation or simply for a hobby. Aside from abandoning her occasionally or even leaving her on the verge of death, he keeps her by his side of her usefulness and being mildly entertaining.

### James Gordon

The Joker thinks of Commissioner Gordon but as another victim that he can exploit to hit Batman hard. Just to prove a point that even the most pure-hearted and good of people can be driven insane, the Joker crippled his daughter, Barbara, and Gordon nearly killed him as a result however this didn't break Gordon as he was only further driven to bring the Joker to justice by the book.

### The Penguin

The Penguin is the Joker's biggest rival out of Gotham City's super-criminals, often having violent gang wars and the Joker had made several attempts to kill the Penguin, desiring to win their war. The Joker used the Maniax to make several attempts to destroy the Penguin's empire by disrupting their operations and killing their members.

### Two-Face

The Joker saw Harvey Dent as one of his victims, but also made attempts to drive him into a monster like him to prove Gotham City that the "good guys" can meet their falls into monsters and psychopaths too. After transforming into Two-Face, he became one of the Joker's rivals in gang warfare so the Joker made several attempts to outright kill Two-Face in order to win.

## Quotes

* "If the police expect to play against the Joker, they'd better be prepared to be dealt from the bottom of the deck!"
* "You can't win anyway...you see, I hold the winning card!"
* "I'm not mad at all! I'm just differently sane!"
* "Very neat! That ugly head of yours does have a brain!"
* "I won't even waste the usual Joker Venom on you but I'll give you something you can understand...lead!"
* "More powerful than a locomotive, and just as subtle."
* "If I weren't crazy, I'd be insane!"
* "Quick question: when the clock strikes twelve, do I get a little kiss?"
* "In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out."
* "They could put me in a helicopter and fly me up into the air and line up the bodies head to toe on the ground in delightful geometric patterns like an endless June Taylor dance routine and it would never be enough. No, I don't keep count. But you do. And I love you for it."
* "I really wanted those shakes."
* "Every clown loves kids."
* "Aw, jeez...I hit Jason a lot harder than that. His name was Jason, right?"
* "If I weren't insane: I couldn't be so brilliant!"
* "You can't kill me without becoming like me! I can't kill you without losing the only human being who can keep up with me! Isn't it ironic?"
* "Both of us trying to find meaning in a meaningless world! Why be a disfigured outcast when I can be the notorious Clown Prince of Crime? Why be an orphaned boy when you can be a superhero?"
* "The real joke is your stubborn, bone deep conviction that somehow, somewhere, all of this makes sense! That's what cracks me up each time!"
* "A bit of advice...don't ever apologize for the way you look."
* "You think it all breaks down into symbolism and structures and hints and clues. No, Batman, that's just Wikipedia."
* "You really want to know what it feels like to be the clown at midnight? Where there's only ever one joke and it's always on you? Well, here you are. Now do you get it?"
* "Here's the cold, hard truth Bats...I don't hate you 'cause I'm crazy...I'm crazy 'cause I hate you."
* "Ladies and Gentlemen! You've read about it in the papers! Now witness, before your very eyes, that most rare and tragic of nature's mistakes! I give you: the average man. Physically unremarkable, it instead possesses a deformed sense of values. Notice the hideously bloated sense of humanity's importance. Also note the club-footed social conscience and the withered optimism. It's certainly not for the squeamish, is it? Most repulsive of all, are its frail and useless notions of order and sanity. If too much weight is placed upon them...they snap. How does it live, I hear you ask? How does this poor pathetic specimen survive in today's harsh and irrational environment? I'm afraid the sad answer is not very well. Faced with the inescapable fact that human existence is mad, random and pointless, one in eight of them crack up and go stark slavering buggo! Who can blame them? In a world as psychotic as this...any other response would be crazy!"
* "Remembering's dangerous. I find the past such a worrying, anxious place. The Past Tense, I suppose you'd call it. Memory's so treacherous. One moment you're lost in a carnival of delights, with poignant childhood aromas, the flashing neon of puberty, all that sentimental candy-floss...the next, it leads you somewhere you don't want to go. Somewhere dark and cold, filled with the damp ambigious shapes of things you'd hope for were forgotten. Memories can be vile, repulsive little brutes. Like children I suppose. But can we live without them? Memories are what our reason is based upon. If we can't face them, we deny reason itself! Although, why not? We aren't contractually tied down to rationality! There is no sanity clause! So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit...you can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away...forever."
* "Life's a bowl of cherries and this is the pits."
* "When the world is full of care and every headline screams despair, when the news are rape, starvation, war and life is vile...then there's a certain thing I do which I shall pass along to you that's always guaranteed to make me smile. I go Loo-oo-oony, as a lightbulb battered bug, simply Loo-oo-onny, sometimes foam and chew the rug...mister life is swell in a padded cell, it'll chase those blues away! You can trade your gloom for a rubber room and injections twice a day!"
* "Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away...forever."
* "So, I see you received the free ticket I sent you. I'm glad. I did so want you to be here. You see it doesn't matter if you catch me and send me back to the asylum...Gordon's been driven mad. I've proved my point. I've demonstrated there's no difference between me and everyone else! All it takes one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am. I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you end up dressing like a flying rat? You had a bad day, and it drove you crazy as everybody else...only you won't admit it! You have to keep pretending that life makes sense, that there's some point to all this struggling! God you make me want to puke. I mean, what is it with you? What made you what you are? Girlfriend killed by the mob, maybe? Brother carved up by some mugger? Something like that, I bet. Something like that...something like that happened to me, you know...I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes, I remember it one way, sometimes another...If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! But my point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was I went as crazy as a coot! I admit it! Why can't you?! I mean, you're not unintelligent. You must see the reality of the situation. Do you know how many times we've come close to World War Three over a flock of geese on a computer screen? Do you know what triggered the last world war? An argument over how many telegraph poles Germany owed its war debt creditors! Telegraph poles! It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for...it's all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing!?"
* "See, there's these two guys in a lunatic asylum...and one night, one night they decide they don't like living in an asylum anymore. They decide they're going to escape! So, like, they get up onto the roof and there, just across the narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in the moonlight...stretching away to freedom. Now, the first guy, he jumps right across with no problem. But his friend, his friend daren't make the leap. Y'see...y'see, he's afraid of falling. So then, the first guy has an idea...he says Hey! I have a flashlight with me! I'll shine it across the gap between the buildings. You can walk along the beam and join me! B-but the second guy just shakes his head. He suh-says...he says What do you think I am? Crazy? You'd turn it off when I was half way across!"
* "Aren't I just good enough to eat?"
* "April sweet is coming in, let the feast of fools begin!"
* "Loosen up, tight ass!"
* "The guy goes into the hospital, okay? His wife's just had a baby and he can't wait to see them both. So he meets the doctor and he says Oh Doc, I've been so worried. How are they? And the doctor smiles and says, They're fine...just fine. Your wife's delivered a healthy baby boy and they're both in tip-top form. You're one lucky guy. So the guy rushes into the maternity ward with his flowers. But it's empty. His wife's bed is empty. Doc? He says and turns around and the doctor and all the nurses wave their arms and scream in his face. April Fools! Your wife's dead and the baby's a spastic! Get it? Oh what a senseless waste of human life!"
* "Parting is such a sweet sorrow, dearest. Still, you can't say we didn't show you a good time. Enjoy yourself out there...in the asylum. Just don't forget, if it gets too tough, there's always a place for you in here."
* "Laugh and the world laughs with you!"
* "And he didn't die all at once. It was hours before the screaming stopped. I almost didn't get to sleep that night. That was the last time I'd used crushed glass."
* "Really? Well, what if I was really sorry? Would that make a difference? Would that satisfy you? If I was really...really...really...really...sorry? Well, I'm not!"
* "I'm an artist. I just wanna paint the town crazy."
* "It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic...oh, what the hell, I'll laugh anyway!"
* "But the fish share my unique face! If Colonel What's-His-Face can have chickens, when they don't even have moustaches...and you deny this to me!"
* "I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger."
* "Don't talk like one of them! You're not! Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak, like me."
* "I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve."
* "Their morals, their code...it's a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble."
* "And I thought my jokes were bad!"
* "I know the squealers when I see them."
* "It's simple. We, ugh, kill the Batman."
* "If you're good at something, never do it for free."
* "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are tonight's entertainment!"
* "A little fight in you. I like that."
* "You have all these rules, and you think they'll save you!"
* "I told you, I'm a man of my word."
* "All you care about is money. This town deserves a better class of criminal, and I'm gonna give it to 'em."
* "This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object."
* "Aren't you a nasty tattle-tale! Ratting me out before I can have my fun! Papa spank!"
* "Hello, Gotham. Joker's back in town!"
* "Ah, brave new world, that has such putzes in it."
* "It's not much? It's nothing! Losers, all of you. A disgrace to the name Joker."
* "So was I! Oops, no I wasn't."
* "Oh, yes. But think of the fun!"
* "Laugh! I can't hear you!"
* "You know, Bats, we've been doing this little runaround of ours for years. It's been loads of laughs, but sad fact is, none of us are getting any younger."
* "Oh, Batman, if you had the guts for that kind of fun, you'd have done it years ago. I on the other end..."
* "That's not funny...that's not..."
* "Wait 'til they get a load of me."
* "The pen is truly mightier than the sword!"
* "So remember, put on a happy face!"
* "Sometimes, I just kill myself!"
* "Where is Batman!? He's at home washin' his tights!"
* "If you gotta go, go with a smile!"
* "You ever dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight?"
* "I'm only laughing on the outside. My smile is just skin-deep. If you could inside I'm really crying, you might just join me for a weep."
* "Never rub another man's rhubarb!"
* "Ah, Beauty and the Beast. Course if anyone calls you Beast, I'll rip their lungs out."
* "Have you not heard of the healing power of laughter?"
* "I have got a name for my pain and it is Batman."
* "Do I look like the kind of clown with a plan?"
* "I had a bad day."
* "Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?"
* "There is nothing more contagious than laughter!"
* "Just remember, smile."
* "Now that's a headline!"
* "These people don't want a plan. They want an excuse. A mother who dreams of strangling her child. A husband who wants to stab his wife. All they want is someone to tell them: do it. kill them. It doesn't matter. It doesn't."
* "Like who? The sheep who lock their doors and crawl under their beds?"
* "I'm more than just a man. I'm an idea, a philosophy."
* "Long live me."
* "Are you gonna listen, or are you gonna behave like children?"
* "Would you believe it, they put me on hold."
* "What's insane about having a backup plan."
* "To be fair...the day's not over yet."
* "If I can't have you as a brother bonded by love, then we'll just have to be bonded by hatred."
* "You need me! I'm the villain of your dreams!"
* "I'm the answer to your life's question! Without me, you're just a joke...without a punchline!"
* "You think so? Personally, I'd say things are about as far away from fine as they could possibly be."
* "Now look, my rude friend! We can't just have people cursing at each other on the freeway. It's simply not polite! I'm gonna have to teach you some manners."
* "I don't know! I haven't thought of it yet!"
* "You've become my hobby!"
* "That's why they call it a finale!"
* "Service with a smile?"
* "The only things gaining now is the laughing stocks!"
* "And people say I'm crazy!"
* "Jingle bells! Batman smells! Robin laid an egg! The Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker got away!"
* "Rumor has it, Christmas is a time to share with family."
* "That's right, you're always blaming me. And the children always wonder why we fight!"
* "Funny? You presume to tell me what should I think is funny?!"
* "Without Batman, crime has no punchline."
* "Dear friends, today is the day the clown cried."
* "Well, that was fun! Who's for Chinese?"
* "You wouldn't dare. You don't have the guts. Not in a million years, would you?"
* "Well, maybe I'm a little off."
* "Yet we're linked, you and I. Like comedy and tragedy. Two sides, same coin."
* "Human compassion at it's finest!"
* "No, not singing."
* "Wow. That looked like it really hurt. Whoah, now, hang on. That looked like it hurt a lot more. So, let's try and clear this up, okay, pumpkin? What hurts more? A? Or B? Forehand or backhand? A little louder, lamb chop. I think you may have a collapsed lung. That always impedes the oratory. Now, that was rude! The first Boy Blunder had some manners. I suppose I'm going to have to teach you a lesson so you can better follow in his footsteps...nah, I'm just gonna keep beating you with this crowbar."
* "Okay kiddo, I gotta go. It's been fun, though, right? Well, maybe a smidge more fun for me than you. I'm just guessing since you're being awful quiet. Anyway, be a good boy, finish your homework and be in bed by nine. And hey, please tell the big man I said...hello."
* "So, what's the plan? Slumber party? Charades? A little Truth or Dare? Yes! I'll start with dare! Or maybe I'll just go with truth..."
* "You managed to find a way to win, and everybody still loses!"
* "Yes! Big bang boom! We all go out together! Don't you just love a happy ending?!"
* "You look good. Been working out? You could probably use a little sun...then again, who am I to talk?"
* "Oh, Bird Boy, you're so much less fun now! All grown up and in your big-boy pants. Still, better off than his replacement, right? Even tougher with making the yuks when you're worm food."
* "You gonna do it this time, or are you just gonna put me in another body cast for six months?"
* "I'm a little teapot, short and stout...here is my handle, here is my spout."
* "So, I've been bamboozled. Oh my."
* "Well, here's to warm memories!"
* "You know, it only hurts when I laugh."
* "That's pretty cryptic...but interesting."
* "Party pooper. No cake for you!"
* "Awww. So you do think about me."
* "That is so sweet!"
* "This is turning out even better than I'd hoped."
* "Batman. Darling."
* "Should sleep. Should be fresh tomorrow. Because tomorrow I go free, and then it's time for my final show."
* "So many faces...so few smiles."
* "Sue me."
* "Let the good times roll!"
* "Anyway, it'll be nice to see the old gang."
* "Houston, we have a problem."
* "May the floss be with you!"
* "Except you had to explain it to me! If you have to explain a joke, there is no joke!"
* "Can't you just play along!?"
* "Oh life would be so simple if you were all I wanted. No, you're just a teeny little distraction compared to what I've got up my sleeve."
* "At least he went out with a bang!"
* "Here! Have a laugh on me."
* "Kill the Bat or I'll kill you!"
* "Alright, my living room needs a new rug...so bring the body of the Bat!"
* "I'm going to kill everyone in this room."
* "Batman! So glad to know you're still moving."
* "Hark now I hear, the Batman sings! It's a song of broken bones, shattered limbs, and arms in a sling!"
* "I guess I wasn't clear when I said I wanted the Bat dead!"
* "For a bunch of tough-as-nails street thugs you sure go down easy."
* "Eh. So much for my crack team of vicious gangsters. The only things I hear cracking are tibias and fibulas."
* "Now that's a spicy meat-o-ball!"
* "It's mano-mano time! Or perhaps more like mano-a-bato."
* "Must I do everything myself!?"
* "I'm the guy with the money...and the gun!"
* "This fruitcake is fantastic! Anyone want a piece?"
* "Well, this should be interesting. Wee!"
* "Well this is unfortunate. For you. For me, it's all entertainment."
* "I know. I know, it's a bit much. What can I say? I can be a tad...compulsive from time to time."
* "I got a soft spot for cheaters!"
* "Aren't you resourceful? Now play fair. Don't make me take your little belt away."
* "When you were a kid ever try burping the national anthem? I was never any good at it."
* "I think the one little thing you need to work on is that sense of humor. You haven't smiled once tonight. And you know what they say: a smile a day keeps the reaper away."
* "You know it's amazing what you can get done when you don't concern yourself with right and wrong. When you just...do things for a laugh. That's your problem, Batman and it's hurting your efficacy: you're far too serious."
* "You want to know the awful truth? I've only been in Gotham for a few days and I've already accomplished so much more than you in the what has it been two years that you've been doing the whole costume thing."
* "You are such a confident bunch. But we'll see have to check your underpants when this is all over."
* "Gotta say, I am real impressed with you fellas. I mean, you all scream like real men."
* "Remember, you gave your word."
* "Nice of you to drop in and just in time."
* "And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...the death of the Batman!"
* "He hit you so hard it hurt me!"
* "Now this is what I call a party!"
* "Looks like this is it. It was nice knowin' ya. Actually, no it wasn't."
* "Oh! Back for me, eh?"
* "Newsflash: I'm the one trying to kill you!"
* "I think he's talking to you."
* "I was wondering the same thing myself."
* "You of all people should know there's nothing so cruel as memory. The pointy, bitey little thunderbolts. Unwanted party crashers, screamers through your synapses. Inescapable, unrelenting...not at all friendly. You can't even escape into madness!"
* "A very thin line separates normality from insanity...life brings thousands of tiny torments in all shapes, sizes and flavors."
* "Batsy, you complete me."
* "That sounds...delightful."
* "My favorite stage."
* "Bathroom stalls by the seaside that smell vaguely of sea salt and artificial lemon scent of cleaning products."
* "You want to know something funny? I used to think of fate as evil, predetermined by not some higher power but by the rules of human nature. But tonight, that's all changed."
* "Have you ever had the feeling that your entire life has been building towards this one moment?"
* "Well now, yes. Now I realize that all the battles, the bad days, the brutalities - it was all the hand of fate at work."
* "Yes. And you might say it's changed everything."
* "Absolutely. Now I understand. There are no chance encounters. It was all meant to be. Everything leading up to who I've met tonight!"
* "Absolutely. I mean, do you realize what a vile world we live in? How lonely is it to wade through all the wretch and filth on your own?"
* "Free falling. And I didn't pack a chute."
* "Of course. Of course! You understand! Even in a crowd full of other screwballs, you're so alone that you can kick, claw, yell, scream at the top of your lungs and no one cares. It's like you don't even exist. Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped on a path leading nowhere..into just emptiness."
* "This person has shown me an exit ramp on this road to madness. A way to a far more interesting place."
* "Someone very, very special, whose real name I don't even know yet!"
* "What a pretty name. Do your friends call you Harley?"
* "This is a little game I like to call kill or be killed. Here's how it works: kill Batman or I kill you! Got it?"
* "Where, oh where, has my little Bat gone? Where, or where, can he be? His cowl, his scowl, his temper so foul, I hope that he's coming for me!"
* "You had a chance to let me die and you didn't take it...I bet right now you're wishing you had. I've killed a lot of people, brought this city to it's knees, crippled the police force and it's not even time to unwrap our presents!"
* "Zip it!"
* "More minced meat on the walls than a house made of hamburger!"
* "How 'bout I put you down?"
* "Well that's the Christmas Spirit!"
* "Oh Bats, what a night!"
* "Now that's not funny."
* "All this...all this rage. All directed at me, and for what? You know if you'd actually let me finish a sentence, you might learn something. You might learn that we're not so different. You might even learn something about yourself."
* "You know it's sad, really...makes me feel like you don't care to see the good side of me."
* "Well, I guess learning is a lot to ask from you, meat-for-brains."
* "Is all this for you or for me? You must know that I'm a lost cause. But there's still hope for you. Yes. I've got great hopes for you. So c'mon. Don't stop now! What are you waiting for?"
* "You know you want it. You know I want it. So just do it already!"
* "It's better than any therapy session, Bats. So go on, do it!"
* "You're not playing along, Batman!"
* "You just can't get it through that thick skull! We both exist because of them!"
* "That's why you do it, isn't it? You like the way it feels. It's what you need."
* "Come on baby! Beat me 'til your knuckles bleed...and why quit there? You know there's only one way to stop me!"
* "Hello, valued guest!"
* "Ooh, epic fail!"
* "Aren't you even going to say hello?"
* "Is that room service? Tell them I never got my calzone."
* "Oh that darling girl! She might even deserve me."
* "Winner, winner! Chicken dinner!"
* "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. So no peeking!"
* "Best gun ever."
* "Oh, Harley! I take back half of the horrible things I've done to you."
* "Boo!"
* "Denzel! What have they done to you?"
* "I know that sound. Someone's flossing their brain!"
* "I'm here, bitches! And I've brought favors for everybody!"
* "I don't like people touching my stuff!"
* "Hold on! Stop counting for a second! I know there are bullets. See?"
* "It's time for a very big bang!"
* "For someone who's not Batman, you've been a real pain in my ass!"
* "Stop me if you heard this one."
* "Going my way, handsome?"
* "Cute kid. Hope she doesn't take being an orphan too hard."
* "Hope you brought protection, cuz I'm about to give Gotham a terminal case of tainted love that's really gonna blow."
* "Not so tight, boys. You'll crease the suit."
* "Y'know what? I preferred the good 'ol cavity search. Much more personal."
* "Need to take my temperature? I'd be happy to drop my pants."
* "Whee! Great night for a party!"
* "That reminds me. I really to get me some new shoes."
* "I think he's talking about you, Bats."
* "Don't be a stranger. You're always welcome here."
* "The choke's on you."
* "Now let's get this party started!"
* "Hurry, we're losing him, Doc!"
* "Only three? I'll be sure to try harder next time. What say we aim for a hundred?"
* "What? Don't you trust me?"
* "Welcome to the madhouse, Batman! I set a trap and you sprang it gloriously!"
* "Honey, I'm home."
* "Don't make promises you can't keep, Bats."
* "Blah, blah, blah. Always with the hero speak. Ooh, I'm getting bored of watching you. Why don't you come find me?"
* "Sorry, Bats, gotta run. I've got places to go, people to slay."
* "What took you so long?"
* "I'm counting on it. Just not yet!"
* "What are you waiting for? I'm so close you can almost taste me."
* "Seeing as how I'm feeling generous, I'll give you this one for free."
* "Knock me off, I dare you! End this, pull the plug, stop me once and for all!"
* "You were expecting maybe Two-Face?"
* "Good. Our friendly neighborhood rodent is on his way."
* "Just do it! And have fun, I know I will."
* "I hope you keep your promises, boy. I'd hate to go and punish your family just to teach you a lesson. I can promise you they won't be laughing."
* "Oh, look who it is! Are your pointy ears burning?"
* "Oh, boo! You win again, Bats. Well, savor it. I'll get you next time."
* "Some idiot is running around the asylum dressed like a bat. I know. Crazy! Stop him before he gets someone hurt. Really. It's for his own good."
* "Greetings, Gotham. This is the voice of your new master. Oh hang on, I've skipped a bit!"
* "I like you boys. What you lack in brains, you make up in heart. Oh and speaking of heart, bring me Batman's."
* "Anyone seen the big bad Bat? I warn you. He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot, but don't let fool you. He really is an idiot."
* "Oh, you little minx, I could never stay mad at you."
* "Say good night, Bats. Boom! Only kidding."
* "Tell me, Bats. What are you really scared of? Failing to save this cesspool of a city? Not finding the Commissioner in time? Me, in a thong?"
* "Yeah, stay back, Batman! You don't want any more blood on your hands, do you?"
* "I've waited a long time for this, Bats. Let's start the party. With a bang!"
* "Don't tell me you've not been looking forward to it. I know I have."
* "Nicely done, Bats! You deserve a prize!"
* "Ow! You're ruining my big night! All those months of planning down the crapper! I just wanted to bring down your grim facade, and for once let you see the world as I see it, giggling in a corner and bleeding! But you've denied me even that! I have nothing left to live for."
* "Show time, Batman!"
* "Let's give the rubes something to talk about!"
* "Hysterical! But you still spoiled my fun! And for that, I'll paint Gotham with your blood!"
* "Let's get ready to tango!"
* "I can take it. I can take anything you throw at me, Bats. You can't beat me. I'm actually going to win. Ready for the next round?"
* "So, you win again. It's a shame that while you've been fighting, I've had everyone you ever loved brutally murdered! Only joking!"
* "Twinkle twinkle, little bat. Watch me kill your favorite cat."
* "Be quiet, Harley!"
* "Surprise! You fell for the ol' fake Joker gag, Batman."
* "No one's who think they are my dear. Why spoil the fun?"
* "Nice of you to say, but you of all people should know there's plenty wrong with me."
* "Is someone feeling a little down? Oh Bats, cheer up; it won't kill ya...oops!"
* "You guys are like family to me. And you know how much pain I went through killing my family."
* "Oh, come on. There's always something to learn. Let's start with getting your ass kicked 101."
* "Give me your best shot!"
* "Just you and me, Batman!"
* "Any last requests? How about a joke?"
* "Well, bully for you!"
* "Hurry up and take your seat, Batman. The show's about to begin."
* "Encore! More! Bravo!"
* "You're making me late for my spa treatment."
* "Think of it as a running gag."
* "Are you happy now?"
* "That actually is...pretty funny."
* "We all know you'll save me."
* "Miss me?"
* "What a wanker. Let's put 'em out of business. Seriously? Do you believe in that accent? Bet he only puts it on to sound scary."
* "Bad luck, Bats!"
* "It's been six months now Jason, I think it's time to face facts."
* "That's the spirit, you're a chip off the ol' bat block. Not that it'll do you any good."
* "Heres to crime."
* "What? No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to kill you. Not yet anyway. You're my sidekick now. You and me in the streets, starting fights, picking on the weak, a regular dymanic duo, just like Bats and that new kid of his."
* "You think? So this isn't Batman then? The pointy ears are a dead giveaway."
* "I didn't want to show you that photo, really I didn't. But well, it was the only way for you to get closure. Now I know it hurts, but sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind."
* "Aww, bless his little heart. He actually thinks he's going to survive this."
* "Awww. Too bad. So sad."
* "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I kill your friend? Oops! My bad!"
* "Looks like I'm gonna have to find a new playmate. Oh and we we're having so much fun too!"
* "Aw, I gotta say. I thought you'd have more fight in you. A lot more!"
* "Ding dong! The bat is dead! Which old bat? The dumb old bat! Ding dong! The dumb old bat is dead!"
* "It's a little known fact there's a bit of Joker inside us. Come on, kiddo! Let your Joker out!"
* "Hey sad clown, turn that frown upside down."
* "Everything is in a smile."
* "Who else wants to get crazy?"
* "Hey! Someone help Bat-baby up off the floor!"
* "Oh, I'd like to thank my fans for their undying support, and the people of Gotham, who I will be seeing very, very soon."
* "Gotta say, I thought you'd last longer."
* "Too easy! Played you like a violin, then cut off your strings. Nighty night, Bats."
* "I salute my fallen enemy!"
* "That loser didn't stand a chance! I mean look at me!"
* "Oh, isn't that cute? Little bats-a-sleepin. Someone finish him off."
* "Tonight, Gotham, I have defeated your dear Dark Knight. Don't be sad, you're next!"
* "One down. Who's next to party with me?"
* "I figured you'd have a little more fight in you. Guess I figured wrong!"
* "It's okay to die, Bats. I'll be here to protect Gotham. I'll do a real good job!"
* "Bats? Bats?! BAAATS!?"
* "Who's going to fight crime now? Robin?"
* "Come on, Bats! You can't die! I didn't kill you!"
* "Take a hint o'boy. We may have had our differences, but you and me, we're made for each other!"
* "What, you want one? Copybat."
* "Batman! My couer des couer! My pomme de frites!"
* "No one likes a third wheel."
* "You think that you can have a family. That locking me up will magically reform me. And they'll be safe. So big, so dumb."
* "What say we have one last dance?"
* "This is somehow your fault!"
* "Maybe I was sentimental before."
* "Right in the belfry!"
* "Law-abiding!? Bite your tongue!"
* "Such a beautiful moment can't be rushed."
* "Awww, did I hurt your leg? How 'bout a broken neck to go with it?"
* "And me without my camera. I coulda gotten ten million hits!"
* "Slapstick at its finest!"
* "Tell me: who's boots are tastier to lick?"
* "Pick a card!"
* "Watch out Joker, this one looks kinda tough! Really? I think you underestimate me."
* "You're fired!"
* "Wakey-wakey!"
* "Open wide!"
* "Did I tug on your cape?"
* "I hit 'cause I care!"
* "Til' death do us part."
* "Not a chance, underpants!"
* "A little culture wouldn't kill you."
* "A spot to stab you in, genius."
* "Bane, give us a hug."
* "Wrestling's fake."
* "Comedy's just a tragedy left to rot."
* "Don't cry over spilled gasoline."
* "Don't go breaking my heart, Ivy."
* "Everything burns."
* "Guns, guns, guns. Where's the art?"
* "I made you lose control."
* "What is death, but the ultimate punchline?"
* "We've got more in common then you care to admit."
* "You let me live and look what happened."
* "An artist doesn't steal, he homages."
* "And miss all the fun?"
* "You can't spell slaughter without laughter."
* "Deep down you know this is funny."
* "This next part is so funny."
* "I hurt because I love."
* "That piehole should be sewn shut."
* "Hit me like you mean it, hero!"
* "Here's your chance. Kill me!"
* "You're fun when you're angry."
* "Language, Mr. Lawton."
* "I can't wait to show you my toys!"
* "Are you sweet talking me?"
* "Oh, I'm not gonna kill you. I'm just gonna hurt ya...really, really bad."
* "I wouldn't want you to break those perfect, porclain cap teeth when the juice hits your brain."
* "You, you little pain in the ass."
* "Don't hurt me. I'll be your friend. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it."
* "It doesn't have to be good to be a classic."
* "Goddamnit. Well, what are you waiting for? Kick the hell out of me, and get your standing ovation. Come on!"
* "What can I say? I'm a charismatic guy."
* "Knock knock! You're suppose to say whos there!"
* "What do you say pal, I'll be your best friend!"
* "Tell you what my little conquistador. You want to be a hero? Let's settle this mano-a-mano."
* "You're all prisoners. What you call sanity, is just a prison inside your minds that stops you from seeing that you're just tiny little cogs in a giant absurd machine. Wake up! Why be a cog? Be free like us. Just remember, smile!"
* "Oh...time to go. But don't worry, I'll be be back very soon."
* "Hang on to your hats folks, cause you ain't seen nothing yet!"
* "What's the secret of good comedy? Timing. And what's courage? Grace under pressure. And...who's the boss? I'm the boss."
* "I'm going to create a new Gotham in my image, but every artist needs a black canvas so all this has to go!"
* "Yes, memory is so treacherous. One moment you're lost in a carnival of delight, childhood aromas, the flashing neon of puberty, all that sentimental candyfloss. The next, it takes you somewhere you don't want to be. Somewhere dark and cold, filled with the damp, ambigious shapes things of you'd rather forget. Memories can be vile, repulsive little brutes. Like children, no?"
* "That makes us even, no?"
* "Bang! Bang!"
* "A lion doesn't pass judge on a gazelle. Cancer doesn't pass judgement on a brain. I've been saying this all along. Evil doesn't exist. There are only actions. We got to the same place...the top of the food chain...just on different paths. Mine was more fun."
* "You got to be more careful, fish...some of these guys bite."
* "I'm afraid Captain Dale had to bail! I'm your new co-pilot and I always come to work...with a smile!"