Hey everyone!
Welcome to top 10 nerd, the channel featuring all things geektastic.
Yup, that’s a word now.
I’m your host Kelly Paoli, and today, we’re spending some quality time with one of our
favourite DC super villains – the Joker.
In the past, we’ve covered multiple lists featuring alternate versions of the Joker.
But now, we’re specifically taking a look at those Jokers of a nicer nature, or times
where the Joker switched sides and helped the good guys out.
The ones who still may be misunderstood, but aren’t all that homicidal like the true
version of the clown prince of crime.
So lets jump in to our list of the top 10 good versions of Joker.
10 Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth In this cross over between Planetary and Batman,
the Planetary team travels to Gotham in a one shot that takes place outside of both
of their continuities, and the team ends up meeting different Batmen from different universes
in the process.
During the story we meet an Agent for Planetary named Jasper who works under Richard Grayson.
He’s not exactly evil, just weird, and gets giggly and hugs himself when he sees pictures
of homicides.
So technically good yet strange?
9 Martha Wayne Joker From the Flashpoint universe, we have Martha
Wayne, Bruce’s mother, as the Joker.
Initially evil after witnessing her son being shot down instead of her and her husband Thomas,
Martha goes insane.
Thomas, on the flip side, becomes Batman.
Eventually, the two end up working together and Martha turns a more positive cheek, but
once they realize that the results of their actions will result in timelines changing
and their son becoming Batman instead, she kills herself.
8 The Brave and the Bold #191 In an instance in which Batman and the Joker
work together, this version of Joker from the 1982 Brave and the Bold run features the
Joker we all know and love working with his nemesis to clear his name of murder.
Sounds a little silly, but hey, when has the Joker ever not denied one of his crimes?
In the story, the Penguin is killed on live tv by the Joker, who later summons Batman
to tell him he’s not responsible, and it was actually a phoney Joker.
They then work together to solve the mystery, and Batman learns that the Joker actually
cared for the Penguin.
Turns out the Penguin framed him and is still alive, so the two trick him and capture him.
And the Joker is super jazzed about it, which is kind of adorable.
7 Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon Speaking of the Brave and the Bold, let’s
take a look at the cartoon, and when Joker has been on the side of good in it.
In the episode Game Over for Owlman!, the Joker teams up with Batman when Owlman has
taken over his identity.
The Owlman who appears in the show is also from an alternate earth in which he’s a
villain.
6 Oberon Sexton Oberon Sexton was once a British novelist
who wrote books on true crime, who had gotten a little twisted himself.
He killed his wife, made the crime scene look like a gang did it, and then was murdered
himself.
By the Joker.
Who then took his identity and started helping Dick Grayson, aka the Batman in Batman and
Robin vol 1 back in 2010.
As Sexton, he aided Grayson in hunting down the Domino Killer, and reveals himself in
Batman and Robin #13, claiming the death of Bruce Wayne, his batman as he states, he can
no longer be the clown prince he once was.
But psyche!
He’s also the Domino Killer.
So, he was sort of good but then not really good, and still kind of evil but was nice
for a bit and it may have been a multiple personality disorder by product?
Ah.
Moving on.
5 Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Vol 1 #145
In part four of a story arc called The Demon Laughs, Joker, who is dying, is submerged
in a Lazarus pit by Batman; he’s gotta stop Ra’s Al Ghul’s latest scheme, and the
only way to do so is by saving the Joker.
Typically when someone emerges from the Lazarus Pit, they go through a brief stage of insanity,
but the reverse happens to Joker, with him emerging sane.
He then helps Batman by informing him of where he planted a transmitter in Ra’s submarine,
then helps Bats destroy it, along with a dangerous biological agent.
Joker reverts back to his normal insane state by the end of the story.
4 Batman: Europa Batman Europa was a long time coming – it
was announced in 2004, and was eventually released in 2014.
Both Batman and the Joker are infected with a deadly virus called The Colossus Virus,
and have a week to live.
Bruce goes to Berlin, and turns out the Joker is there too.
The two start working together to figure out whose trying to kill them, working together
on a continent wide road trip.
And the first page definitely fuels the fire for shippers of Batman and Joker.
3 Batman: White Knight After the Joker pushes Batman too far, Bruce
goes a little insane himself, and force feeds a bottle of pills to the Joker.
This ends up instilling an unexpected reaction from the Joker – as a result of an overdose
of course – the Joker gets his sanity back, and begins a crusade to get the GCPD to charge
Batman for assault or he’ll sue them for the complicity in Batman’s abuse of prisoners.
He even reforms Harley Quinn in the process.
2 Joker of Earth 9 In this story that appears under the Tangent
Comics imprint, the Joker is a female superhero who is actually an alias used by three separate
women; Mary Marvel, a student, Christie Xanadu, an entrepreneur, and Lori Lemaris, a reporter.
Unfortunately they don’t have too great of a fate – the Superman of that earth,
known as Harvey Dent, was a tyrant and ruled the planet, and tortured Mary into revealing
the identities of the other two women before murdering her.
Lori went to prison, and Christie’s fate is unknown.
Lori eventually takes up the mantle of one of her fallen comrades, Manhunter.
1 Jokester of Earth 3 In probably the most noble of the Joker’s
appearances as a good guy, Jokester of Earth 3 is a man named Jackie, who was a struggling
comedian at the Last Laugh comedy club.
He witnessed the club’s owner being murdered by Owlman, the evil alternate of Batman, and
this inspired him to redesign his act, making Owlman the butt of all his jokes.
Which made him a bit of a hero amongst citizens of Gotham, while also putting a target on
his back.
Owlman murdered his friends and cut Jackie’s mouth open into a smile.
Jackie went insane, became the Jokester and dedicated his life to ruining Owlman.
There we have it friends!
Which of these Jokers had you not heard of?
Let us know in those comments below.
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If you’d like more Joker lists, why not check out our top 10 super villains playlist
on our channel?
In the meantime, thanks for watching!
I’ve been Kelly Paoli and this has been top 10 nerd.
I’ll catch you all in the next one.