The Joker

JOKER

Real Name: "Batman! Nnhehehehe!"

Alias: Joker

Title: The Clown Prince of Crime

Identity: Secret

Age: "A girl never tells. Hehe!"

Species: "My mother was a porcupine and my father was a truck!"


Physical Appearance: Even out of costume, the Joker is very distinguished. A tall, thin man, he stands nearly six and a half feet tall and weighs about one hundred sixty pounds. His origin story had him falling into a vat of chemicals which permanently died his hair green, his lips bright red, and his skin chalk white. His eyes occasionally appear jaundiced. His face is long and as angular as his body. He is usually seen with a broad, toothy smile.

His iconic outfit is a purple suit, sometimes paired with a purple trench coat. Under this is a vest and undershirt. Which is green and which is orange varies. He usually wears either a bolo or bow tie.


Personality: The Joker is a madman. He delights in violence, murder, in mayhem. He claims to not be wanton in his destruction. He does what he does only when it is funny. Unfortunately for those around him, his is a very dark sense of humor. He spends most of his time making jokes at the expense of his victims, adversaries, and allies. He considers most of society and its trappings to be illusory. In his mind, he is confronting its absurdity with Molotov cocktails, shotguns, and piercing barbs.

In particular, he considers himself to be the perfect foil to Batman. Part of this is due to his own origin being intertwined with him, and part of this is because of the juxtaposition of the madcap mayhem of the Clown Prince of Crime and the grim determination of the Dark Knight. He has attacked the Batman directly and through his loved ones (including Gotham City itself). This is the way that he often does his greatest harm.

The Joker has a malevolent charisma. He is unapologetic in his manipulation of others. He finds weakness and he exploits it. The Joker presses buttons, finds boundaries and hang-ups and invites his victim to push right against those qualms before eliminating them completely, piece by piece and step by step. He is, as is any classic manipulator, one who uses violence as a form of control. He keeps his victims on edge by alternating between being the best friend you could ever have to the man gleefully pushing you down the stairs at a moment's notice.


Powers: "I can cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate on alternate Tuesdays. Read your Constitution! Hahaha!"


Abilities: Expert chemist and engineer. Good at hand-to-hand combat. High pain tolerance. "Snappy dresser!"


Weapons/Equipment: In addition to conventional weapons, such as guns, knives, and brass knuckles, the Joker employs numerous specialized weapons of his own invention. Some of the more famous ones include razor-sharp playing cards, a lapel flower that shoots acid, and a joy buzzer that dispenses a lethal dose of electricity. All of these pale (pun intended) to his magnum opus, Joker gas. It is a hideous concoction that leaves its victims dying with a deathly grin.


History: The Joker's early history is largely a mystery. The Clown Prince of Crime seems to find it funny to give different responses depending on his own personal mood and the person asking where he came from. One such story is this:

The Joker was an engineer working for the Ace Chemicals company. He had a good job, a loving wife, and a child on the way. He then took a gamble that would haunt him and hundreds more for years to come. He quit his job and tried his hand as a stand up comedian. He was laughed off stage and was deep in debt. Desperate, he turned to common criminals to try and provide for his family.

The put an all-encompassing red mask and cape over him and dubbed him the Red Hood. He would be the nominal mastermind. In the middle of the crime's planning stage, he learned that his wife and child had suddenly and tragically died. He tried to quit but was in too deep.

The actual robbery went from bad to worse. The other two criminals were shot dead and he panicked upon seeing the Batman and jumped ship, into a swirling vortex of chemicals. He was flushed out through the pipes and emerged the giggling maniac known as the Joker.

Other accounts have differed from this mold. In one version, a young pre-Riddler Edward Nygma was present at the scene. In another, he had no wife and was just a common criminal who lacked his current winning personality until he fell into that vat. In another, he was not coerced into robbing Ace Chemicals at all, but was specifically trying to grab Batman's attention even before he became the Joker. The Joker has at one point claimed by an immortal jester going back to the days of the Pyramids. That one is probably a lie. Probably.

Bane may have the distinction of breaking the Bat's back, but it is the Joker who has the most thoroughly broken his toys. His greatest hits list reads like a coin flip of the Bat Family's worst tragedies.

He is responsible for Batgirl becoming Oracle. He dropped by the Gordon residence and shot Barbara Gordon in the spine when she answered the door as part of an effort to drive her father insane. He beat the second Robin, Jason Todd half to death with a crowbar before finishing him off in an explosion. He turned out to be not quite dead, but that only worked in the Joker's favor as Todd constantly opposes Batman's line-toeing in the face of criminals. He took out Jim Gordon's second wife Sarah as the city of Gotham fell to pieces. After this, he nearly goaded Jim into taking the madman's life. He ended up just getting shot in the leg.

As the Batman was on the trail of Hush, the Joker conspired with the villain to appear to kill Thomas Elliot, Batman's childhood friend (and Hush's alter ego, although Batman did not know this at the time). Batman became so enraged that he nearly killed the Joker, breaking his rule against killing. Ironically, Batman was stopped by Jim Gordon, who had stopped him from killing the Clown Prince once before.

In one recent caper, Joker tried to replicate those successes with Tim Drake. He almost had him too, tying Robin up in Joker's car. The Boy Wonder distracted the Joker with an argument over where a Marx Brothers reference ("You can't fool me, there ain't such thing as sanity clause") came from (Robin insisted that it was from "The Big Store", when it was actually from "A Night at the Opera", knowing that it would goad Joker into correcting him). This allowed Robin an opening to break free, which resulted in Joker losing control of the car and eventually led to him getting knocked off the bridge they were driving on. The Joker (of course) survived, and was taken in by the magician Ivar Loxias, who he killed when he had recovered and took his place for good measure, before being stopped by Batman and Zatanna.

The Joker has found himself in a new world. He had managed to call Space Cabby who was on a sojourn from the 22nd century. After the Joker threatened to feed him to "Reverend Jim", Space Cabby kicked him out of his taxi and he found himself with many more sour pusses to play with.

Weaknesses: In spite of his death-defying nature, in a straight up fight, the Joker is not a heavy hitter. He will hold his own for a little while before fleeing or getting his beat down. He is certainly no match for most powered heroes in a physical battle.

The Joker is a remorseless, amoral, sociopath with no real allies. Even his closest associates like Harley Quinn are expendable to him, even if she's in too deep to realize it.


Other Information: No soup radio

OOC Information

OOC Name: Martyr
Character color: b363fd
Group title: Batman's BFF
Face Claim: Mostly likely Heath Ledger.