The Jokers 5 Most Tragic Origin Stories (& 5 Most Hilarious Ones)

The Joker’s 5 Most Tragic Origin Stories (& 5 Most Hilarious Ones)

The Joker has had numerous origin stories attributed to him over the years, but they all come with an asterisk– some tragic, others hilarious.

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The Joker is chaos. That’s why he works so well as a villain, and as the eternal nemesis of Batman. Few characters in comic books are as wholly defined by their origin stories as the Dark Knight. It makes sense his number one villain would be a character absolutely unencumbered by one.

The Joker has had numerous origin stories attributed to him over the years in comics, film, and TV, but they all come with an asterisk. Are any of them real? Some of them seem real, or at least tragic. Some are kind of funny. Here are the five most tragic and five most hilarious Joker origin stories.

10 Tragic: Red Hood

The various Joker origin stories all tend to be variations on a theme, which suggests there might be some truth underlying the various different versions out there. The first arrived in 1951, in Batman #168, over ten years after the character first appeared (that says something about how non-essential his origin was). In the first go-around, the Joker was a lab worker at Ace Chemicals who decided to rob a million dollars and retire. He became the Red Hood but accidentally fell into a vat of chemicals that disfigured him.

9 Hilarious: Batman (1989)

This is funny mostly because of how much it doesn’t work. The core elements of the Joker origin are here– he’s a criminal who falls into a vat of chemicals at Ace Chemicals. Here the chemicals are paralytic, which leads to his frozen smile. What’s silly is how the otherwise classic 1989 film starring Michael Keaton (who is possibly returning as Batman to the big screen) is the criminal who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents. The conflation between the two characters shrinks the universe a bit too much.

8 Tragic: The Killing Joke

The Killing Joke is a seminal point in the long-running narrative of Batman and Joker for a lot of reasons. There’s the terrible outcome for Batgirl. And there’s a new take on Joker’s origin by Alan Moore that provides much of the architecture for what comes after. Joker leaves his job at Ace Chemical to be a stand-up comedian, but he’s terrible at it, and that precipitates a terrible series of events that lead to the death of his wife, the end of Joker’s sanity, and his transformation into the Clown Prince of Crime.

7 Hilarious: Batman: Legends Of The Dark Knight #50

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight provided slightly disconnected stories from rotating creative teams back in the 90s. In the 5oth issue, the story seemingly confirms the basic story set down in The Killing Joke, but with a darkly comedic wrinkle: the man responsible for the Joker’s deadly nerve toxin is his cousin.

Melvin Reipan comes as close as maybe anyone ever does to isolating just who the Joker is. In the process, he makes the Joker’s tragic story a bit of a joke by making it real. Toward the end of The Killing Joke, the Joker himself had cast doubt on his account, but this story makes it concrete.

6 Tragic: “House Of Hush”

“House of Hush” is a strange, unique story that appears in Batman: Streets of Gotham from in 2010. In it, a young Martha Kane works at a clinic in Gotham. There she looks after a young boy named Sonny who is the subject of a lot of abuse from some of the other foster kids there. Sonny is ultimately infected by a gang that wants to gentrify the neighborhood by pushing everyone out and becomes very sick. Though it’s never made clear, the implication at the end of the story is that Sonny is the Joker.

5 Hilarious: “Make ‘Em Laugh”

Another variation on the stand-up comedian backstory occurs in the “Make ‘Em Laugh” episode of the legendary Batman: The Animated Series. The episode is notable– and hysterical– because it is the first appearance of the now mythic Condiment King. The Condiment King is revealed to be a stand-up comedian under the mind control of the Joker, and as the story progresses, it suggests as The Killing Joke did that the Joker had once been a stand-up comedian himself.

4 Tragic: Joker (2019)

The 2019 Joker film starring Joaquin Phoenix (in an Academy Award-winning performance) sought to give the character his most detailed backstory yet. While the result was divisive among critics and fans, the story itself was certainly tragic. Arthur Fleck is a mentally ill man who wants to be a standup comedian, but maybe isn’t really any good at it. Through a series of personal and societal failures, Arthur becomes a cold-blooded murderer and figurehead of a popular uprising all at the same time.

3 Hilarious: “Lovers And Madmen”

Batman Confidential was an ongoing series with an Elseworlds vibe. None of the stories took place in continuity, providing creators plenty of opportunities to tell stories about the Joker’s past without it meaning anything. But maybe they shouldn’t have.

In the “Lovers and Madmen” story from 2007, the Joker is Jack, a criminal and thief who wants to impress Batman. He impresses him so much Batman beats the snot (and other stuff) out of him, and then leaves him to be beaten up more by other criminals. Um, ok.

2 Tragic: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight, of all the Joker stories, is the one that indulges in the elasticity of his origin the most. The incendiary and manic Joker that Heath Ledger portrays gives a few different backstories in the movie, both designed to elicit sympathy or fear, and each of them suspect. They are tragic though. In one version, his drunken father scars him. In another, he does it to himself in a fit of despair after his wife is similarly disfigured. The stand-up comedian angle is nowhere to be found here.

1 Hilarious: Gotham

It’s so funny because it’s sad. And confusing. The Joker origin story on the Gotham television series started off interesting enough, but in an effort to draw it out and get as many eyeballs on the show as possible, the story became needlessly convoluted and complicated. Jerome Valeska murders his way into Arkham, dies, gets resurrected by a cult, and then tosses his twin brother in a vat of chemicals. Both of them are the Joker. Neither of them are. Or something.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/jokers-most-tragic-hilarious-origin-stories/

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