The Clown Prince of Crime has been around for almost eight decades.
And anyone who's been around that long is bound to do something right.
It might be by accident, for purely selfish reasons, or utter insanity, but while it's
hard to imagine, here are some times that the Joker was actually right.
In the DC Comics line-wide event Dark Nights: Metal, DC's heroes face antagonists from the
Dark Multiverse.
In particular, they're assaulted by evil, alternate versions of Batman, and perhaps
the most vicious of them all is the Batman Who Laughs a black leather-clad, bone white-skinned
Bruce Wayne with a spiked metal headband covering his eyes.
The Batman Who Laughs is a version of Bruce Wayne driven mad by neurotoxin after killing
the Joker, falling victim to one last Joker trap.
When Batman confronts his dark echo in Dark Nights: Metal #6, he has help.
The villain overpowers him, but the Joker appears and shoots Batman Who Laughs from
behind.
Together, Batman and Joker are able to defeat the darker Bruce Wayne, and Joker doesn't
hold back.
Though his full reasoning is never totally explained, the Joker has a vested interest
in stopping the Dark Multiverse Batman from the start of Dark Nights, in the prologue
issue The Casting.
Maybe he just didn't want the competition.
After the defeat of the Batman who Laughs, the character returned in a few issues of
Justice League before getting his own mini-series alongside another alternate-reality Bruce
Wayne, the gun-toting Grim Knight.
At the end of Batman Who Laughs #1, the Joker fools Batman into thinking he's looking for
protection.
Instead, the Joker enters the Batcave and shoots himself, infecting Batman with his
Joker toxin.
As he passes out, the Joker warns, "The only way you'll beat him… is to become him."
By the end of the third issue, Batman decides the Joker's right.
In spite of Alfred's passionate objections, Batman stops fighting the Joker toxin and
allows it to run its course.
Batman does defeat the Batman Who Laughs in the final issue, but loses his battle with
the toxin.
He attempts to beat the now-helpless Batman Who Laughs to death.
That's when the Joker appears, pointing a gun at his old nemesis.
He tells him "You're welcome," and fires.
Joker's shot stops Batman without killing him, giving Alfred the chance to clear Bruce's
system of the toxin.
Writer and artist Sean Murphy showed a different take on the Batman mythos in the mini-series
Batman: White Knight, turning the Batman/Joker conflict on its head.
Like in the 1989 Batman film, this alternate-reality Joker was originally Jack Napier, though this
one's white skin is the result of make-up rather than a fall into a chemical vat.
White Knight opens with Batman capturing Joker yet again after an attempted robbery.
Batman forces an entire bottle of pills down the Joker's throat, temporarily curing Jack
Napier of his psychosis.
A sane Jack Napier is freed Arkham Asylum after he successfully argues that Batman Gotham's
legal system never tried to handle his mental illness with treatment, opting for violence.
He becomes one of Gotham's most popular citizens, and eventually helps to save Gotham from a
super-weapon.
The Joker of White Knight isn't above dark means to justify his ends, though.
Using the Mad Hatter's technology and Clayface's unique physiology, Napier secretly takes mental
control of almost all of Gotham's villains for what he sees as noble goals.
And ultimately, he transforms back into the Joker at the end of the series, but not without
saving Gotham first.
One of the most well-remembered Batman stories of the 21st century is "Hush" by Jeph Loeb
and Jim Lee.
Most of Dark Knight's rogues gallery shows up in the story: Riddler, Poison Ivy, Killer
Croc, Ra's al Ghul, Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, and Clayface.
Batman even has a throw-down with a mind-controlled Superman.
And, of course, the Joker's there.
But his role isn't what it seems.
Batman #613 ends with a gun-toting Joker crouching over what appears to be the body of Bruce
Wayne's childhood friend, Tommy Elliot.
We eventually learn that Joker didn't shoot Elliot, and he isn't dead.
In fact, Elliot is Hush, the villain of the whole story.
But seeing Joker over an apparently lifeless Tommy Elliot is too much for Batman; he beats
Joker bloody and nearly kills him.
It's only the intervention of Jim Gordon that saves the Joker's life.
At least this one time when he tells Batman, "I'm innocent," he's right.
In 1996's Catwoman Annual #3, we visit yet another alternate reality where Officer Jock
Bozer a police officer going after the criminal duo of Batman and Catwoman gets kicked in
the face by Catwoman and falls into a vat of chemicals, transforming him into the Joker.
This world's Joker is Gotham's best cop, and he's eventually promoted to police commissioner.
Joker finds an ally in his pursuit of Batman and Catwoman in reporter Edward Nigma, who
Batman and Catwoman try and fail to kill.
The issue ends with the deaths of both Batman and Catwoman, as their son Dick Grayson betrays
them to Commissioner Joker.
2019's Batman #75 includes a nod to that alternate-reality tale.
Batman's back-breaking villain Bane has taken control of Gotham and made the rest of the
Dark Knight's rogues gallery his lieutenants, so the comic opens with Detectives Joker and
Riddler investigating crimes and reporting to the new Gotham police commissioner, Hugo
Strange.
In 2017's LEGO Batman Movie, the Joker has a personal reason to be at odds with the Dark
Knight.
Early in the film, Batman assures Joker that he is not, in fact, his archenemy.
It's a harsh breakup.
"There is no 'us.'
Batman and Joker are not a thing.
I don't need you."
The Joker, enraged at this rejection, assembles all of Batman's rogues gallery in one massive
Lego villain army, even bothering with D-listers like Kite Man, the Polka-Dot Man, and Condiment
King.
But by the end of the film, as the city is literally cracking in half, Batman enlists
the aid of Joker and his villainous army to help hold the city together.
He's only able to convince Joker to help by admitting to him that yes, he is Batman's
one and only.
"If you help me save Gotham, you'll help me save 'us'."
The animated movie Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths depicts a version of the DC
Universe where the moral paradigm is backwards.
The movie opens in an alternate reality where instead of the Justice League protecting the
Earth, the Crime Syndicate rules over the world with an iron fist.
Instead of Superman, there's the unforgiving Ultraman.
Instead of Batman, there's the scheming and nihilistic Owlman.
This Earth's chief freedom fighter is Lex Luthor, and Crisis on Two Earths opens with
this more heroic Lex and his old friend the Jester this upside-down world's Joker racing
to escape the Crime Syndicate to make their way to the world of the Justice League to
recruit them for help.
Lex escapes and succeeds in finding and recruiting the Justice League, but the Jester doesn't
survive the opening scene.
Pursued by evil, alternate-universe versions of Hawkgirl and Martian Manhunter, Jester
knows that neither he nor Lex will succeed unless someone stops their pursuit.
So Jester makes the ultimate sacrifice, killing himself and the two Syndicate members in the
process, allowing Lex to escape.
If you've seen The Dark Knight, it's likely you remember the interrogation scene where
Heath Ledger's Joker laughs when Batman suggests that the Joker wants to see him dead.
"I don't want to kill you!
What would I do without you?"
Some 14 years before that movie came out, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #65 would
begin a story called "Going Sane," which would show that The Dark Knight was nowhere close
to being the first time the Clown Prince of Crime would feel that way.
At the end of the issue, Joker is at a loss when he believes he's finally succeeded in
killing Batman.
With all of Gotham's media reporting Batman is missing, Joker's belief seems all but confirmed.
In the following issue, he's renamed himself "Joseph Kerr."
He falls in love with a woman named Rebecca and is close to tying the knot, but eventually
the Joker persona re-emerges.
In Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #68, a flashback scene shows us what triggered
his regression.
As the reformed Joker and his fiancee take a romantic stroll in the woods, Joseph takes
out what he believes is a map, but is actually a newspaper revealing the missing Batman is
alive and has reappeared.
The promise of a new life apparently can't compete with the endless struggle between
the Clown and the Bat.
Joe tells Rebecca he'll be right back, but instead he retreats into his old persona.
In the 1998's Superman: Distant Fires, it isn't clear if the story's nuclear holocaust
is caused by human error, computer error, or the world's major powers getting tired
of having a weapon without using it.
Whatever the case, most of humanity gets wiped out, and in the immediate aftermath, one of
Earth's only survivors Superman loses his godlike powers.
Fighting his way through tribes of cavemen-like mutants and giant, radioactive animals, Kal-El
eventually stumbles upon a community of survivors, including some old allies like the Wally West
Flash, Wonder Woman, and J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter.
More surprising is that the Joker is living among the post-apocalyptic survivors.
We don't see a lot of Batman's former nemesis, but what we do see of him is surprisingly
tame.
Nuclear annihilation apparently forced sanity upon the Joker.
When we do see him, he's working hard to support the community he's joined, like building a
power generator to bring electricity back to the survivors' lives.
In the video game LEGO DC Super-Villains, the Joker is one of many DC bad guys who temporarily
works on the side of the angels.
When the Justice League disappears and is replaced with versions from an alternate reality,
Lex Luthor and his Legion of Doom soon figure out that the likes of Ultraman, Power Ring,
and Johnny Quick aren't the noble heroes they pretend to be.
"You!
You and your team are no-good impostor copycats!"
These new replacement heroes are, once again, the Crime Syndicate.
But with the Justice League missing in action, only classic Legion of Doom members like Luthor,
Grodd, Black Manta, and of course, Joker can stop them.
We eventually learn the Crime Syndicate is in cahoots with the interstellar warlord Darkseid,
who's keeping the Justice League captive on Apokolips.
Eventually the Justice League and Legion of Doom unite to get Darkseid, his elite soldiers
and the Crime Syndicate away from their world, presumably so they can get back to beating
each other up again.
As he does from time to time, the Joker helps Batman and his allies in the 2008 story "Batman
R.I.P.," which focuses on a plot by a group called the Black Glove, which is intent on
destroying the Caped Crusader and company.
Assuming that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, the Black Glove recruits Joker to
help out.
Unfortunately for the Black Glove, relying on the Joker's loyalty is a dumb move.
Joker begins betraying the Black Glove almost as soon as their "alliance" forms, killing
several members of the group and ultimately coaxing the Black Glove to activate the transmitter
that allows Batman's allies to track them down.
Why does Joker do it?
A lot of it is pure disdain.
The Black Glove prides itself on being inspired the Joker, while the clown sees them all as
being completely amateurish.
He views them as being unworthy of his time, and he probably sees them as unworthy foes
for Batman.
Remember in The Dark Knight when one of Joker's henchmen tries to unmask Batman?
The crook gets shocked by something hidden in Batman's cowl.
Joker mocks him.
The lackey is unworthy to even touch the Batman in the eyes of The Dark Knight's Joker, and
it isn't a stretch to assume the Joker of "Batman R.I.P." feels similarly about the
Black Glove.
There was a brief attempt at an ongoing Joker solo comic series in 1975.
It lasted only nine issues, but the series offers some interesting reading.
Joker's most ridiculous story comes with its sixth issue, when Joker duels the pipe-chomping
Sherlock Holmes himself, and the following issue sees an interesting conflict between
Joker and Lex Luthor.
In Joker #7, Lex invents a device meant to steal personality traits from others.
He means to use it to steal the willpower from the hero Green Lantern, but the Joker
eavesdrops on his fellow supervillain.
He ruins Lex's plans when he crashes into Luthor's lab and grabs the device himself.
The result is that Lex's genius is transferred to the Joker, while Joker's insanity forces
itself upon Lex.
Joker is initially fine with the switch.
He fakes his usual insanity around his henchmen so they don't suspect anything.
He monitors Luthor's actions, and Superman's least favorite citizen seems to have given
up trying to take over the world in favor of committing random crimes without caring
whether or not they succeed.
But Joker's newfound genius warns him that both he and Luthor will die from the switch
if it isn't reversed soon.
Joker designs a device to reverse the personality switch, thus saving the world from an even
less stable Lex Luthor.
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