The story of the terroristic madman known as the Joker from The Dark Knight.
Origin and Early Life[]
No one knows who the Joker really was, and little could ever be confirmed about his early life before he turned to a life of crime. Despite his capture, no traces could be found on his fingerprints, dental records, or DNA matches in the Gotham City Police Department's databases. The Joker's testimony, while normally quite true when it came to carrying out threats, seemed at times contradictory, and he was known to give conflicting accounts at times when describing his past, more specifically how he got the scars of his characteristic Glasgow smile. Therefore, there is nothing indicating that anything from his past is true.
One account has Joker tell of having an extremely abusive and intoxicated father, claiming that after he had attacked his mother with a knife, he used the blade on the young man who would become the Joker, creating his signature, mutilated smile. The fact that the Joker later referenced his father and his hatred of him to a party guest while crashing Harvey Dent's party implies that at the very least, there is an element of truth on this account and that they did have an extremely poor relationship. Joker later told another story, where his gambling wife told him not to worry so much and that he should smile more. This advice went overhead when she had her face carved up by enforcers of loan sharks, whom the couple are in debt. The two discovered that they didn't have enough money to pay for her surgery. In a desperate effort to assure his wife that he did not care about the damage to her appearance, he used a razor to carve his Glasgow smile into the sides of his own face to match hers, but this act horrifies his wife, who immediately left him, consequently damaging his fragile psyche.
It is not revealed to what degree these stories hold truth if any. The Joker himself may be unaware of his true origins, with some psychological profiles of the Joker indicate that he is insane to such an extent that he reinvents both his psyche and history daily. It is therefore possible that, if neither story is true, he genuinely believed both as he told them. However, as these files are unconfirmed, they therefore can define the social enigma the Joker truly is.
In a report filed by the GCPD, there were three theories presented for Joker's identity and origin. The first was that Joker was institutionalized at Arkham Asylum as a patient but was either released or had escaped from the facility during Ra's Al Ghul and Scarecrow's reign of terror, in an even worse condition at that time (perhaps due to Scarecrow's terrible methods). That theory might explain why some of the Joker's henchmen are Arkham escapees. However, this was debunked on the basis that his identity had no place within any records. The second theory was that Joker was a former employee of the Harley Brothers Circus, which was documented to have connections with the mob. It was reasonable to theorize that Joker was a disgruntled former employee that had bad business with the mob, which lend credence to his clown-related themes and paraphernalia. The third theory presented was that Joker served in some form of military operative as a soldier who was discharged from the army due to suffering from acute PTSD, which might also explain his unusually cool demeanor and familiarity with weapons, most notably a bazooka, as well as his devastating effectiveness in various forms of combat. It also explains why his cunningness rivals and possibly surpasses that of even Batman. The third theory also might be the reason why he has developed a disdain for society and order itself, which drove him to spread chaos to spite the system over using him and abandoning him. In addition, this theory
Batman Begins[]
The Joker's "calling card".
Shortly after the death of Ra's al Ghul, Batman discusses with Lt. Jim Gordon the effect that he has made on Gotham City since his appearance. The Joker was then mentioned when Gordon reveals that a criminal with a "taste for the theatrical" has recently committed a double homicide and an armed robbery, and leaves behind a Joker playing card as a "calling card". Gordon also warns that, just as escalation occurs in terms of a Police Force against crime, so might the scale and style of criminality change in reaction to Batman's appearance.
Sometime later, Joker orchestrates the theft of a large shipment of ammonium nitrate from the Gotham Docks. The explosive chemical is saved for storage in the Gotham General Hospital and on two passenger ferries sometime later. In addition, he also frequently attends the various heists and crimes that his gang commits while disguised as one of them, which is believed to be at least partially where he got his name from.
Gotham National Bank Robbery[]
Joker as Bozo.
Several months later, under the Joker's direction, a group of bank robbers (consisting of Grumpy, Happy, Dopey, Chuckles, Bozo, and a bus driver) rob the Gotham National Bank which criminal gangs in Gotham used as a front to launder money. The clown-mask wearing robbers whittle down their own numbers within minutes in a series of calculated betrayals until only "Bozo" remained. He reveals himself as the Joker to the Gotham Bank Manager, who had earlier confronted the robbers with a shotgun. In addition, largely because he can't resist appearing on-camera, Joker deliberately unmasks himself in front of a surveillance camera and posed before escaping with the bank's cash in a yellow school bus and concealing his identity by driving within a convoy of other school buses. He also left the bank manager at the mercy of a gas grenade he stuck in his mouth.
The Joker states that he won't kill Batman because he is simply too much “fun” and Batman won't kill him because of his “moral obligation.” In the film, instead of trying to kill Batman, the Joker attempts to show Gotham and subsequently Batman that anyone can be as bad as him under the right circumstances.
"Kill the Batman"[]
Dealing with the Mob[]
Joker presenting his "calling card" to the mob.
Shortly following the bank robbery, Salvatore Maroni mentions the Joker's recent theft of mob-owned cash to his fellow crime leaders at a business meeting, dismissing him as a threat and that he is a "nobody" who wears "a cheap purple suit and make-up," despite the amount of money stolen. Overhearing that comment and the plan presents to the Mob by corrupt Chinese accountant Lau, the Joker arrives unannounced at their business meeting while faking a laugh, as he sees their "so-called plan" as a bad joke. The mobsters are at first unwilling to hear him out, and Gambol, one of the crime lords who seems to take the most dislike for the Joker, sends one of his men to take him out by force.
The Joker unexpectedly performs a magic trick by making a pencil "disappear;" embedding the pencil in the table, he then smashes Gambol's henchman head-first into the pencil where it indeed disappears inside the man's head, instantly killing him. The Joker mentions that his suit isn't cheap and that they ought to know that since they bought it, meaning that he had used the money that he stole at the start of the film to buy it. Joker proposes that it is Batman's interference that resulted in idealistic leaders like Harvey Dent rising in popularity, and offers his services to kill him for half of all the money that Lau, an illegitimate Chinese accountant, took away from Gotham City for safekeeping, which earned him the interest of Bratva mobster, the Chechen and Maroni. Joker also warns the Mob that Lau will betray them if he is arrested, and claims to know a squealer when he sees one. The Joker then decides to make fun of Gambol by warning the mob that if they don't go on with his plan, then the latter won't be able to get a nickel for his "grandma". Angered by the Joker's lack of respect, Gambol attempts to attack him, which forces the Joker to reveal his insurance policy: several grenades hidden under his coat rigged to blow, which allows him to make a quick escape. Frustrated, Gambol proceeds to place a bounty on the Joker: $500,000 dead or $1 million alive so he can "teach him some manners first." In response, Joker advises the other crime leaders to hire him if they want to do things "a little more seriously", before leaving his calling card.
Assassination of Gambol[]
The Joker later takes revenge on Gambol that night by having his men tricked him into believing that they killed the Joker, whose "dead body" they drag inside in a body bag. However, the Joker is actually alive and attacks Gambol who he holds at knifepoint and proceeds to tell him the origin of his mouth scars as a way of psychological torture and intimidation. Then, when Gambol is so terrified and shaken, the Joker proceeds to kill him. With Gambol's men overpowered and at his mercy, Joker takes a pool cue, breaks it in half to make it spear-like, saying that there is only one spot open at the moment to join his "team", throws the piece of a sharp stick in the middle of Gambol's scared men, and has his gang, made up mostly of mentally ill and unstable vicious crooks that escaped from Arkham Asylum who seem to have taken the Joker as their leader, make Gambol's men fight to the death with the stick until only one is left, and advises them to "make it fast."
Assault on Gotham[]
Proposing an Ultimatum[]
Joker in the video featured on GCN when he killed a man who was costumed as Batman.
Joker eventually realizes that Batman had captured Lau from Hong Kong and that the police had struck a deal with him to testify against them. This caused Sal Maroni and the Chechen to relent on the Joker's offer and finally hire him to kill Batman in return for half of the mob's money. The Joker first kidnaps a Batman impersonator, films his murder, and hangs his body, complete with white make-up and Joker scars, outside the Mayor's Office. In the murder tape that he sent to the media, the Joker viciously mocks Brian Douglas (a Batman impersonator who was arrested along with Scarecrow by the real Batman at the beginning of the film), as well as terrorizing him to the point of leaving him absolutely frozen and weeping and taunting his beliefs and his actions.
After he finished humiliating and terrifying him, Joker proceeds to give Gotham an ultimatum: Batman must take off his mask and turn himself over to the authorities and every day that Batman refuses to do so, he will murder innocent people day after day.
The Joker's Game[]
Joker getting kneed in the groin by Rachel Dawes during Harvey Dent's fundraiser at Bruce Wayne's penthouse in Gotham City.
As Batman didn't turn himself in, the Joker's first major victims are Janet Surrillo, the judge that presided over Harvey Dent's indictments, and then former Commissioner Loeb, the former via a car-bomb and the latter by inserting acid into the Commissioner's scotch, respectively.
Later, the Joker and his gang storm Bruce Wayne's Penthouse, where a fundraiser is being held, to kill Harvey Dent but, with Joker using police officer Michael Wuertz as his bargaining chip. When the guests were unwilling to inform him of Dent's location, he decides to settle for killing off the guests. Joker then attempts to threaten an unintimidated guest (whom he noted bears a resemblance to his own hated father), before he eventually attempts to kill Dent's wife, Rachel Dawes.
Dawes attempts to drive Joker away, with a knee to the crotch, but he unfazedly laughs it off and becomes more interested in killing her for her having "some fight in her." Joker is then confronted by Batman, but Joker threw Rachel out a window, forcing Batman to save her, allowing the Joker to escape. That encounter also leads him to initially suspect that Batman's true identity was Harvey Dent.
Attack on Mayor Anthony Garcia[]
Joker attempts to kill Mayor Anthony Garcia.
As he continued his killing spree continue, with him murdering two innocents and then making an attempt on the Mayor's life at a memorial for the murdered Loeb. The Joker appears in public without his clown makeup, impersonates one of the honor guards, and has most of his gang impersonate the rest of the Honor Guards. In order to further ensure that the GCPD is kept on its toes, Joker also places a sniper rifle on the window sill of the apartment room, as well as a timer to release the blinds for the GCPD sharpshooters to shoot at anyone hapless enough to be caught in the trap.
Afterwards, Joker, still disguised as an Honor Guard, shoots his rifle at the Mayor, and Gordon is struck in the back after he willfully leaps in front of Garcia, in order to fake his death to avoid any future attempt by the Joker of attacking him with his family at home. As a result of that, Batman tells Dent to call a press conference so he can reveal his identity and stop the killings. However, in a surprising move, Dent instead claims to be the Batman himself and is subsequently arrested.
First Standoff with Batman[]
While Dent was being transported to the GCPD, the Joker and his gang hijacked an 18-wheeler and chased after the convoy of police vehicles and used a machine gun, a shotgun, and even an RPG in attempt to kill Dent. They managed to destroy nearly all of the police vehicles, but when they attempted to destroy the armored car carrying Dent, but Batman arrives and sacrifices his Batmobile to intercept the RPG attack while detaching a part of it in the form of his motorcycle-like Batpod. Realizing that Harvey Dent is not Batman, the Joker abandons his pursuit of him and rams the Batpod but Batman dodged the attack and turns over his 18-wheeler. Though Batman bores down on the Joker, who goads him to kill him by screaming "HIT ME!"), the Dark Knight couldn't bring himself to kill him and stops short at the last second, causing him to crash, which knocked him unconscious. The Joker prepares to unmask Batman, but Lt. Gordon, who had faked his death, stops him, declaring: "We got you, you son of a bitch." The Joker is successfully jailed at MCU, and as a direct result, Jim Gordon is promoted to Commissioner by the Mayor Garcia with Joker even doing a sarcastic clap for the newly-promoted Commissioner.
Interrogation and Gotham Bombings[]
Joker being interrogated by Batman about his captive's whereabouts. This scene is known as "The Bat and The Freak".
With the Joker in custody, Gordon and Batman believe his madness is over but become alarmed when informed that Harvey Dent has gone missing. Desperate, Gordon lets Batman interrogate the Joker for information, but the Joker instead, he gleefully tells Batman his view of people as selfish and violent, only needing a little pressure before descending into madness and murdering everyone around them. He also admits he can never kill him, considering him his only equal. Dent's kidnapping is part of a test, to see if Batman will save him or Rachel, whom the Joker can tell Batman cares for. As he toyed with the Dark Knight, this made Batman more angrier leading him to resort to extreme physical violence, on the exact verge of crossing the line, though Joker seems unshaken by the pain.
The Joker stops when Batman intimidates him and is forced to tell him where both are located, and Batman heads over to Rachel's while Gordon and his men head over to Dent's, unaware that they are heading over to save the opposite person, as the Joker' had switched their positions as part of his plan to orchestrate Dent's downfall. In addition, his henchmen had wired the two separate buildings with explosives. After most of the police are gone, the Joker takes his guard hostage and escapes from the GCPD's headquarters by detonating a phone-activated bomb he surgically planted in the stomach of one of his men who was arrested with him, but not before freeing Lau. As Joker escaped, both of the separate buildings were blown up by the wired explosives, which resulted in Rachel's death while Harvey Dent survived with Batman's help, though the left side of his face was horrifically burned. After failing to save Rachel and learning about the Joker and Lau's escape and Dent's near survival, Commissioner Gordon realized that he and Batman had been set up and that the Joker plans to be caught to obtain Lau and kill him. This was proven true when shortly after escaping, Joker forced Lau to reveal the location of the Mob's money.
Joker burning Lau and his received share of the Chechen's money.
Meanwhile, in Gotham General hospital, a recovering Harvey Dent is driven mad with grief upon learning of Rachel's death. Now disillusioned, he blames not only the Joker but also Batman and Gordon, feeling that Gordon's trust in the cops is part of the reason she died. That act causes Sal Maroni to relay to Gordon the Joker's location, now finding him and his craziness "too much" for business. The Joker later meets the Chechen in a container ship with Lau and is given his reward: half of the Mob's smuggled money. When curiously asked on what will he spend the money on, Joker answers that he is a person of simple taste and who enjoys dynamite, gunpowder, and gasoline before literally dousing the money pile with petrol, stating that the greed of Gotham's people is the only thing they have in common. When the Chechen tries to protest to the Joker that he is supposed to stay true to his word, Joker agrees but then states that he is burning his half and sets the money and Lau on fire with the Chechen's own cigarette, leaving him in shock. He then tells him that money is all he cares about and declares that Gotham deserved a new breed/class of criminal and that he plans on giving it to them.
The Joker then tries to claim the Chechen's own men and Gotham for his own but the Chechen defiantly lets him know that his men won't be working for him and calls him a 'Freak'. This made the Joker snap in anger, and now having full control over the Chechen's men, he has them take their former boss away to be dismembered and have his remains fed to his own Rottweilers, nihilistically declaring that Gotham's new criminal class are ones that aren't motivated by money but who commit crime simply out of pure fun, in which "everything burns". He then makes a call to a news program where Wayne Enterprises employee Coleman Reese is threatening to go public on the news with information about Batman's identity. He is interrupted by the Joker who states that he changed his mind about it, as he believes that Gotham will be too boring without Batman. To "give others the fun", he threatens that, if someone doesn't kill Reese in sixty minutes, he will blow up a hospital. This caused total widespread chaos and panic all over Gotham as Commissioner Gordon was forced to abandons his ambush on the Joker and instead focus on evacuating all of Gotham's hospitals as soon as possible while also protecting Reese.
Enter Two-Face[]
| “ | Introduce a little anarchy-upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, it's "fair". | „ |
| ~ Joker persuading the disfigured Harvey Dent. |
Two-Face deciding to kill or spare Joker.
During the mass evacuation, the Joker disguises himself as a nurse (still wearing his trademark face paint) and enters the hospital room of an enraged Harvey Dent, who, while restrained to his bed, attempts to reach out to the Joker to kill him but in vain. He first apologizes to Dent and cunningly shifts the blame for Rachel's death from himself, maintaining that he isn't responsible for the incident as he lacks any idea for the repercussions of his actions. The Joker then introduces to Dent his hypocritical view of the world that his time in Gotham has introduced him to, that people, or the "schemers" as he called them, are the truest form of evil in the world, as it is them who laid out the plans of society, including when human lives are expendable.
Joker blows up Gotham General Hospital.
Joker being left confused by the leftover explosives failing detonate before managing to get them to blow up.
To prove his argument, Joker points out that. if his threats were aimed at 'gangbangers' or "soldiers", then people wouldn't really care as society trained them to see the death of such people as acceptable. Thus, Joker turns the embittered Dent against society and against the "schemers" who put his and Rachel’s lives in jeopardy, namely the corrupt cops who kidnapped them, as well as the "schemers" who viewed Rachel's life to be expendable, namely Batman and Gordon. After he gives Dent a gun, the Joker goads the latter into killing him out of revenge, advising him to break away from the law that failed him and turn to chaos, which he describes as the only truly fair system, as the fate of everyone would be only decided by chance, without the interference of the flawed laws of Man. Dent responds by flipping a coin to decide the Joker's fate, which gave him the same chance that Rachel had, but lost. Soon after freeing Dent, who then left the hospital, Joker uses his detonator to demolish the building and skips merrily away but stopped when most of the bombs failed to detonate. Confused, he hits his detonator a few times which finally made the explosives go off. As the hospital was destroyed, he and his men steal one of the nearby evacuation buses and kidnap the TV reporter and his crew inside.
Gotham Under His Rule[]
The Social Experiment[]
| “ | Tonight you are all going to be part of a social experiment. For the magic of diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate, I am ready right now to blow you all sky high. Each of you has a remote to blow off the other boat. At midnight I blow you all up. If however one of you presses the button, I'll let that boat live. So whose it going to be? Harvey Dent's most wanted scumbag collection? Or the sweet and innocent civilians? Oh, and you might wanna decide quickly because the people on the other boat may not be quite so noble. | „ |
| ~ The Joker |
As widespread panic continued to arise, Joker declares that he will rule the streets and that anyone left in Gotham will be subjected to his rule. He then tells the people that they can leave, but there will be a "surprise" for them in the tunnel and on the bridge. Knowing that they have been rigged with explosives, people avoid them and instead evacuate through the river using two ferries instead: one ship is full of ordinary civilians and others is filled with criminals, as Gordon fears the Joker would want to recruit them. However, the Joker has loaded each of the ferries with explosives, in the hopes of showing everyone how evil and corrupt they could be. Joker gives the passengers of each ship the detonator to the bombs to the other and offers both a chance at survival if they detonate the other ferry but warns that if they don't choose by midnight, the Joker would then blow up both ships due to thinking that one of the groups will go through with it.
However, Batman discovers not only the Joker's location at an unfinished skyscraper but that the majority of his "gang" are actually hostages wearing clown-masks with unloaded guns that are taped to their hands and that the people dressed as the hostages are the actual criminals. This forced the Dark Knight to fight not only the Joker's men, but the SWAT teams (who try to stop him from interfering) as well in order to save the hostages.
Final Standoff and Arrest[]
Batman finally confronts the Joker, which leads to an intense fight between the two (with the Joker using a metal bar and a knife). Despite Batman's advanced technology and actual martial arts skill, Joker manages to get the upper-hand with his sheer unpredictability and his own smarts, and pins Batman under a piece of scaffolding. He gleefully waits as the ferry's deadline neared, and is visibly disappointed when both groups of passengers refuse to kill the other to save themselves. The civilians vote to blow up the other ferry but cannot bring themselves to actually do so, while one of the convicts on the other ferry steps forward, takes the detonator, throws it out a window, stating that the cops should have done that from the start. As the deadline passes, Batman asks the Joker if he is trying to prove that everyone is as ugly as him deep down, and bluntly informs him that he is alone in both his corruption and insanity. Before Joker can detonate both ferries, Batman hits him with his shooting wrist-blades and throws him over the edge. Joker starts laughing as he falls, no longer caring that his theory has been proven false but Batman refuses to let him die and catches him with his Grapple Gun, before leaving him for the police to find, much to the Joker's rage.
Joker meets his defeat but is ultimately successful in corrupting Harvey Dent.
With that act, the Joker acknowledges that Batman really is incorruptible, but that Dent is no longer the "White Knight", as he had unleashed the scarred man onto the city. Joker states that Dent is his "ace in the hole" in his plan to show the people of Gotham that everyone is corruptible, thus undoing Dent's efforts that he had worked so hard on prior to his corruption. Outraged by what Joker had done, Batman angrily leaves him dangling upside down to pursue Harvey (now ‘Two Face’). Shortly after he left, a SWAT team arrives and holds a laughing Joker at gunpoint and promptly arrested him.
Legacy and fate[]
Though he was defeated, the Joker nevertheless left behind a haunting and destructive legacy; Gotham City was nearly torn apart during his reign of terror and was on the verge of being brought to ruin by Harvey's downfall and murderous rampage. However, Batman prevented this when he killed Harvey and took the blame for his crimes, allowing the former D.A's image to be preserved and his legacy was honored with the establishing of the Dent Act, which caused insanity pleas to hardly come by in court while the worst and most dangerous criminals were transferred to Blackgate Prison, leading to eight years of peace and prosperity. Thus, in his desperate attempt to break Gotham's soul, the Joker inadvertently made it stronger than ever, not even being able to claim Harvey's downfall as a victory.
Despite the Joker's failure, however, Bane took the opportunity to finish the former's work by exposing Dent's crimes to the public, tarnishing his reputation for good while the Dent Act was eliminated. Gotham City once again fell into chaos in the wake of Bane's 'liberation', thus fulfilling the Joker's prediction about civilized people's code being a 'bad joke', and just as he had predicted, the citizens 'eat each other' by way of homes being looted and Scarecrow's kangaroo court.
Though the Joker was never seen again and his fate was left ambiguous, however, Greg Cox's novelization of The Dark Knight Rises referenced him during a description of Blackgate Prison;
| “ | Now that the Dent Act had made it all but impossible to cop an insanity plea, it had replaced Arkham Asylum as the preferred location for imprisoning both convicted and suspected felons. The worst of the worst were sent here, except for the Joker, who, rumor had it, was locked away as Arkham's sole remaining inmate. Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure. Not even Selina. | „ |
| ~ The novel adaption of The Dark Knight Rises referencing the Joker. |