Jackson Napier

## The Joker

**Jackson** "**Jack**" **Napier**, also known as the "**Joker**", is both a fictional character and antagonist of the *MDC's* *Captain Batman* series created by Joe Simon and Bob Kane. He was a dangerous madman, and Batman's archenemy.

The Clown Prince of Crime was a notoriously warped psychopath, mass murderer, terrorist, and anarchist who inspires chaos. He is unpredictable, manic, bloodthirsty, and capable of twisting even the sanest minds to his warped plans.

He was a dangerous madman who dresses like a clown with white skin, green hair, and red lips with a tendency to wear purple clothing, concealing the true force of chaos and violent crimes underneath his colorful appearance.

Appearing seemingly out of nowhere, his true origins were never discovered. With an aptitude to escape imprisonment and even cheat death on numerous occasions, Joker's battles with the Dark Knight waged on for over one decade.

In all his battles with Batman, Joker was a force of fear and chaos against Batman's fight for safety and order. His weapons include Joker toxin, pistols, nuclear warheads, various joke props and gags, and a sick enjoyment of pain and fear.

Despite multiple incarcerations in the infamous Arkham Asylum, he remained a gleefully insane serial killer and psychotic super-villain - and determined to torment Batman by any means possible. The

serial killer and psychotic super-villain.

Joker has belonged to many criminal organizations, but his fellow villains fear him almost as much as Gotham City does.

With no super-powers beyond his capacity for incredible violence and destruction, the Joker prided himself on being the one criminal in Batman's extensive Rogues' Gallery who shared a unique connection to the Dark Knight, often pushing the hero to his ultimate limits in physical and psychological battles.

As intelligent as he was violent, Joker formulated plans to destroy Gotham, which led to the brutal deaths of countless men, women, and children over the years, to simply feed his lust for anarchy and notoriety, torment Batman and his allies, and satisfy his sadistic sense of humor.

Defining his life through his battles with the Dark Knight, whose unbreakable moral code greatly fascinated him, Joker disturbingly viewed Batman as his greatest enemy and friend to engage in a game of cat and mouse with.

To this end, Joker embarked on an endless quest to corrupt Batman by attempting to entice the hero to take a life, even if it was the villain's own life, and create as much destruction and chaos as possible.

Emerging within the criminal underworld on Christmas Eve to begin his reign of terror by seizing control over Black Mask's operations and the criminal underworld, Joker was one of Batman's oldest enemies and often responsible for some of the most horrendous and tragic moments of his life, including the abduction, torture, and "murder" of Jason Todd, the paralysis of Barbara Gordon, and the death of Talia al Ghul.

Towards the final stages of his battles with Batman, one of Joker's later plans would forever change the course of Gotham and serve as the catalyst for events that would rock the foundations of the city with the rest of the world in the crossfires.

a former comedian now an insanely homicidal super-villain named, **Joker**. He is one of Batman's oldest enemies and arch-nemesis throughout his crime-fighting career and responsible for some of the most horrendous and tragic moments in Batman's life, cultivating in an extremely long and brutal battle where there seems to be no end in sight. An insanely homicidal super-villain with no powers beyond his capacity for incredible violence and creating deadly mayhem, Joker's white skin, green hair, and blood-red lips belie the chaotic nature underlying his cartoonish appearance.

Leaving a trail of death and destruction wherever he goes, Joker's only motive in life is to create as much mindless violence and chaos as possible and enjoy in a game of cat and mouse with his nemesis, Batman, whom he disturbingly views as both his greatest enemy and friend. He frequently concocts complex and elaborate plans to entrap Batman and destroy Gotham City, often resulting in the deaths of hundreds and thousands of innocent individuals.

Seeking nothing but pure destruction and anarchy, Joker also used Black Mask's likeness, gang, and resources to send out a massive crime wave throughout Gotham while hiring eight of the world's most deadly assassins to take out the Dark Knight himself, holding a particular vendetta against the hero. With connections all over Gotham's institutions and infrastructure, the Joker begins a deadly and sick game of cat and mouse with Batman as he begins to realize that the Dark Knight is similar to himself and might just be the perfect rival he needs to complement his sadistic appetites.

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

—Joker, to Batman.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Mark Hamill (English), Keiji Fujiwara (Japanese), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Croatian), Not Known (Danish), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Filipino), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Ukrainian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (Canadian French), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish), Not Known (Spain-Spanish)

### Appearance

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

#### As The Joker

* Hair Color: Green
* Skin Color: White
* Eye Color: Blue
* Age: Not Known
* Birthday: Not Known
* Height: 5'0
* Weight: 220lbs

### Attributes:

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

## Personality

Joker could best be described as the true source of pure and irredeemable evil within Gotham City, regarding mindless anarchism, unpredictable chaos, madness and uncountable deaths on a malevolent scale as amusing. He was highly amoral, even by other criminals' standards, and had no interest in either money or companionship; his primary motivation was to cause pure anarchy and chaos for the sake of it in order to satisfy his twisted sense of humor and carve a legacy for himself that he hoped would never be forgotten.

Despite his non-interest in money, the Joker still fully understood the political side of the criminal underworld and to amass the type of chaos he hoped to unleash within Gotham City and beyond, he would need wealth to build up a massive power-base and assemble an army of henchmen to aid in his plans. As such, the villain would often perform heists and exploits to increase his ill-gotten wealth and power, such as robbing the Merchant's Bank and taking over Black Mask's operations, to enlist others.

Despite Joker's tendency to murder his own henchmen on a whim, many were drawn to his empire due to the benefits they reaped, as Joker allowed his men to keep all the spoils from their crimes, not asking for a cut himself and simply asked that they created chaos, and paid them considerably more than the other crime bosses due to his non-interest in wealth, outside of what was necessary for his operations. Due to this, Joker always had an army of henchmen ready to take the risks of working for him for money or simply because they admired his deranged behavior.

More so than anything, Joker prided himself on having complete control and influence over all his surroundings and everyone he meets, including Gotham, its criminal underworld, Arkham Asylum and its staff and inmate population, his henchmen, Harley Quinn, and especially Batman and his game of cat and mouse with the hero, showing a great amount of ownership over all of them. Joker's plans were all aimed at the goal of increasing influence over all these aspects, with the ultimate goal of leaving a lasting legacy that would overtake the reputation of all other criminals and eventually infect the entire world, as he lives a life of violence and enjoyment with no regrets and spars with his greatest enemy and friend, Batman, while attempting to break the Dark Knight's moral code to further add to the chaos.

While the Clown Prince of Crime did seek to seize complete control of Gotham, his intention was to transform it into a city without rules and corrupt its populace, having no desire to control it politically like many of the fellow rouges, such as Black Mask and Penguin. This would not only further feed the villain's insatiable appetite for destruction and random violence, but would also prove his point of there being no true morality in life, especially to Batman, and ensure that his legacy is forever carved into the scars he leaves behind on the world.

While his motivations for this behavior were never made clear, he implied while fighting Batman at Blackgate that, similar to the Caped Crusader, Joker's actions and outlook ultimately stemmed from the extremely broken society and lawlessness that was Gotham City at that time. After encountering Batman, he became obsessed with defeating his archenemy, but simultaneously cherished their rivalry, as it made his agenda of chaos, and his life by extension, that much more interesting and eventful.

Some individuals, from psychiatrists to even Batman himself, questioned if the Joker was actually insane. While undoubtedly displaying psychopathic traits, he also possessed genius-level intellect and planning, implying that Joker was in full control of his actions. Though he could be delusional with his worldview at times, the Joker nonetheless had a grip on reality, if not a highly cynical one, as he himself even admitted to knowing what he was doing was legally and morally wrong. Regardless, Joker was often prone to vivid hallucinations such as when being beaten by Batman and saw a demonic bat creature similar to the monster he envisioned when describing his first encounter with the Dark Knight to Harleen.

Audio tapes of the villain's various therapy sessions while he was incarcerated within Arkham Asylum revealed him to be Machiavellian as, despite his untrustworthy appearance, he was charming and seductive enough to make others feel sympathy for him. Prime examples of such characteristics could be glimpsed when he fooled Doctor Young into believing he truly longed to be rehabilitated and Doctor Harleen Quinzel into believing that he loved her. He was a pathological liar, exemplified when Hugo Strange revealed during their therapy sessions within Arkham City that Joker concocted at least twelve unique backgrounds over the years to explain his origins, with the one finite detail being Batman. This not only left the Joker's true background a complete mystery but also enabled the villain to solely live his life as a mass murdering criminal, with no bounds to his previous life or memories holding to reason.

Noticeably, while being evaluated by Harleen at Blackgate, he was able to lie and tell the truth at the same time to garner sympathy and express his inner emotions by relating his new-founded feelings for Batman and use of the situation to make it appear as if he was talking about her. The events of *Arkham Origins* and *Arkham Asylum* have showcased him as being extremely emotionally unpredictable and unstable as he could quickly go from being a calculated mastermind with a serious tone to a hysteric state, laughing maniacally until he was at the brink of tears. The Joker had a volatile temper but rarely stayed angry for long, as he often expressed his frustrations through violently and randomly killing anyone around him, including unexpected henchmen.

Joker relished in being seen as a force of nature; a chaotic disruption of social order not worthy of any sympathy. Due to this, the villain was extremely protective of his past, demonstrated in his anger towards Hugo Strange when the professor attempted to uncover his true origins, as he did not want anyone to understand him nor attempt to humanize him, unless it was part of a larger plan or manipulation, as with the case of Harley Quinn. It was implied that the villain himself might not even know his true origins, deciding instead to know only that he suffered a bad day, not wanting to remember his past. Unlike most of his fellow rogues, Joker did not hide behind any distorted justifications or pleas for sympathy, but proudly proclaimed himself as a villain, who fully understood the magnitude of his horrific actions and simply laughed in the faces of his victims and those that attempted to reach out to him, with the sole exception being, ironically enough, Batman himself.

Joker did not long to become assimilated back into society, because his views dictated that society was just as sick as he was, as he made it his goal to show the world that, even if he was a self-proclaimed abominable individual, human nature, in general, was no better. The villain's ideology led him to feel absolutely no remorse for even the most barbaric of crimes, including the mutilation and murder of children and infants; to the Joker, he was showing the world that there was no such concept of innocence if innocents can be slaughtered. Even with society's laws, norms, and moral grounds, Joker believed life was nothing more than a sick joke to be toyed with and laughed at.

Joker's unique behavior enabled him to cover his true nature, whether it was a state of insanity or not, with a firm layer of unpredictability, as each doctor who examined him concluded a different condition that the villain may have had. This led to a competition of sorts between the Arkham Asylum's professors over the years, including Dr. Young, Hugo Strange, and Harleen Quinzel, who all lusted to discover what truly made up the Joker's motives and origins to become famous, something the villain greatly took advantage of for his own plans and amusement. Even Joker's henchmen noticed the villain's inconsistent behavior, stating that their employer acted unstable and insane one moment and then formulated complex and ingenious plans the next.

He had little concern for his imprisonment, as he had multiple guards on his payroll and orderlies under his manipulation, and escaped multiple times. He developed a unique connection to Arkham Asylum, despite it being the place of his imprisonment, due to its violent background and environment and often used it as a staging ground for many of his plans and designs. Being a fortress filled with some of the most violent and deranged criminals Gotham has ever seen, Arkham was the perfect ground to compliment Joker's nature and formulate and stage many of his plans, form connections with other rouges, and shield himself from the death penalty, a legal form of execution that would not prove Joker's point of even the most benevolent becoming corrupted, which he primarily hoped to convey through breaking Batman's noble nature.

Whilst he found the pain of others hilarious, he took an equal amount of pleasure in his own. His lack of fear towards intimidation, imprisonment and physical pain has been contributed as masochism. His lack of self-preservation was reinforced further by how he not only took twisted pleasure in being beaten by an enraged Batman but attempting to provoke him into killing him and even shooting himself with a dangerously high dose of Titan formula to simply prove a point. He had very little fear of death itself, as evidenced by his frequent and deliberately letting himself get caught in the crossfire that would have all but ensured his death, and many times even laughing when about to face the inevitability of his death.

Despite this, Joker was shown to be desperate to develop a cure to his Titan poisoning, perhaps indicating just how much he truly enjoyed his life, and was immensely fearful of being forgotten, as he built his entire life and criminal career around accumulating notoriety, and was afraid that his death would indeed cement that fear. Scarecrow's fear toxin proved that Joker was indeed deathly afraid of the world not remembering him and Batman being able to exist without his nemesis. Additionally, even Joker was not above being mesmerized by the amazing properties of immortality and the absolute power it would grant him to commit one atrocity after another for all eternity, shown by his persistence to locate and use the incredible chemicals of the Lazarus Pit underneath Arkham City and his gleeful state of mind when he cheated death by partially taking control of Batman's mind via his contaminated blood and began to exert full dominance.

He was a monomaniac, who underwent extremely deranged fixations upon different obsessions. The most obvious being clowns, which became the motif of his criminal empire, due to the disfigurements that caused him to appear to look like one. One of his most deranged and defining obsessions would be his relationship with Batman, whom he had declared to be his archenemy, but has referred to him as his best friend on many occasions as well. To Joker, Batman was his straight-man to feel the brunt of his sadistic jokes and knew he could always rely on the hero to play his games of cat and mouse, sometimes not even caring about the success of his plans as long as Batman was hurt in some way and he could start the game all over.

The Joker was also highly egocentric and vain enough to commit crimes and not even attempt to hide his involvement. His ego was centralized in his one and only fear of being forgotten and leaving nothing behind in the form of a legacy. This trait dictated the villain's belief that he was above all the other villains within Gotham City and beyond, believing that they were not of his stature or even worthy of facing Batman, often putting him into conflict with them and their own criminal empires, something that he enjoyed immensely. Despite this, Joker still saw the value of working with certain rouges, often those of whom at least partially embodied his ideals of random violence, such as Scarecrow and Victor Zsasz, in order to further his own goals.

Despite his considerable amount of followers, the Joker had no care for them in the slightest, beholding to an amoral attitude for life in general, viewing the nature of morality as ridiculous and has claimed that life itself is the biggest joke of all, wanting nothing more than to corrupt others and reduce them to his own level of evil. Due to this, there were few crimes that Joker did not resort to at least once in his life and murdered men, women, children, his own henchmen, and even infants, seeing their deaths as only contributing factors to an already sick and depraved world. He openly did not think much of humanity, believing everyone was as equally insane and sadistic as he was and that to deny this was madness. Despite this, Joker has never been known to commit, or even show any interest in, any sexual crimes; perhaps serving as the only criminal act he did not partake in. Nonetheless, he had no issues if any of his men committed such crimes, as many members of his gang were known offenders, often spoke of planning such acts, and even attempted to assault Nora Fries.

While having a very low view of humanity in general, the sole exception to the Clown Prince's in-affection may have lied with Harley Quinn, who proved on multiple occasions to be the only individual Joker ever showed any normal affection towards. While Joker did not love Harley, especially to any remote degree that the unfortunate woman believed in, the villain did have a soft spot for her, admiring her beauty and loyalty towards him, forming an often purely physical relationship. This, however, did not prevent him from abusing her on multiple occasions, sometimes beating her within an inch of her life, to keep her in line or simply to enjoy her abuse as his "hobby," even begrudging Batman for hurting Harley during the asylum riots simply because he viewed it as encroaching on his territory. While seeing her pain as amusing as anyone else's, Joker never went as far as attempting to kill her, though the villain's plans and actions often endangered her life. Even when under the effects of Scarecrow's fear toxin, Harley was the one individual that Joker refused to hurt, showing that he did indeed have some affection for her, however fleeting and self-serving.

Regardless of Joker's on and off relationship with Harley, the one individual that the villain openly admitted to being lost without was Batman himself. Despite his affection towards the hero being conveyed in pure violence and torture, the Joker realized how much more enjoyable his life became when he met the hero and challenged his world views. Because of the villain's beliefs that people are only as good as the world allows them to be, he resented Batman for his ideas that people are essentially good and is more than willing to die at the hands of Batman if only to prove his beliefs and that the Dark Knight is no better than the villain himself.

While he retained his nihilistic nature through his adverbial relationship with Batman, he had admitted that his purpose in life was for him and the Dark Knight to meet and be each other's enemies. Whilst he originally viewed him as a "tiny little distraction", all that changed when he saved him from falling to his death from atop the Gotham Royal Hotel, perplexed at the idea that someone else would risk their lives to save his own (and even admits later that he deserved to die), believing that it was fate that he and Batman met that day. Joker then saw a new-found purpose in his life and greatly began not only to value his battles with Batman but become defined by them, seeing the Dark Knight as an old friend that he could always partake in a game of cat and mouse with, as scores of innocent victims were in the cross-hairs.

Joker saw a little bit of himself in Batman: someone who was born of a very bad day and, despite having a polar opposite view of the world, became a symbol for his beliefs and was extremely keen on protecting his ideology, demonstrated when he saved even the worst type of criminal, Joker himself, from death. He gained a deep respect for Batman due to his persistence in upholding his values, seeing him as the ultimate opponent to challenge and ultimately prove that his world views were nothing more than a joke. He saw Batman as a damaged man, refusing to indulge in his inner madness, while Joker embraced his. Despite his respect for the hero, Joker relished in tormenting Batman during his every waking and, in the case of *Arkham VR*, sleeping moment, and reveled in his despair, especially when murdering a close ally. Consequently, while Batman despised the villain, he was also defined by the Joker, whose presence was the primary motive for the hero to force himself into constantly improving himself and his equipment, becoming the hero Gotham truly needed, in order to protect its populace from the likes of such criminals.

Additionally, though he wouldn’t admit it, the Dark Knight held some degree of respect for Joker as well, though his unwillingness to kill him was more to constantly foil the clown’s belief and end his plans to demoralize Batman himself into the monster he was rather than actual concern for his life, when Joker died Batman somberly carried his corpse outside of Arkham City and respectfully placed his body onto the hood of a police car, showing he did share the Joker’s love/hate relationship between the two of them on some level. Joker’s death would proceed to haunt Batman for years, to the point where Oracle claims he wouldn’t even talk about him.

Due to his determination to prove Batman's views as a laughing matter, Joker's plans often branched into an extremely psychological battle, being one of the few villains to get inside the Dark Knight's head and challenge his morals. From that moment on, Joker gave up countless opportunities to unmask and kill Batman, as he would become bored without his enemy to challenge him or learning his secret identity, believing the reveal would be anticlimactic and reduce the hero to being just another man and not a force of nature, similar to the world's perception of the villain. Joker never wanted to see Batman as a man, but rather an icon and a symbol that he would slowly unravel for the world to see, destroying everything Batman valued and reducing him to a monster like himself, and proving that morality was the greatest joke of all.

## Abilities and Powers

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

### Powers

* **Titan Enhancements** (formerly):
	+ **Superhuman Strength**:
	+ **Superhuman Durability**:
	+ **Claws**:
* **Cheating Death**:

### Other

* Mental Disorder: The Joker escapes classification of a single diagnosis. He's been thought to have bipolar disorder, multiple personalities, etc. However, the truth may be simplier, such as the Joker being nothing more than pure evil. One of the things the Joker is known for is having no concern whether he lives or dies, albeit only if Batman goes with him.
* Illness

## External links

* Joker *Wikipedia*
* Joker *Batman Wiki*
* Joker *DC Database*
* Joker *DC Universe Online Wiki*