The Evolution of The Joker

oh I you got me going to the movies to see an adaptation of a fantastic comic book Downton Abbey comics but you don't care about that so let's talk about the Joker hello welcome to comic tropes I'm your host Chris today I want to talk about the Joker he's one of the most iconic villains in all of comics and on top of that he really is one of if not the best opposites of the title protagonists in this case Batman but Joker doesn't have any powers to speak of any superpowers and on top of that his ambitions are far from epic he does not want to take over the world instead you know he's a guy that just wants to sow chaos and discord he wants to point out hypocrisy in the world but the Joker has evolved over the decades and perhaps that's part of his staying power he's represented the fears that we have as a society at any given time so he's been everything from a serial killer to a prankster to a gangster he's also been written and drawn by a lot of different creators so today let's talk about the history of the Joker and how some of those creators have evolved that character to fit the needs of its time let's get into it so who actually created the Joker originally there's no doubt that three men had a hand in his initial appearance Bob Kane Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson Bob Kane ran a studio where writer bill finger and artist Jerry Robinson worked only Bob Kane signed a contract with DC and negotiated for his sole creator credit on Batman but historians widely believed Bill Finger to be a co-creator of equal importance that in and of itself is a topic that is of its own episode Bill Finger did not get the credit in his time that he probably deserved he created a lot of the important elements that became part of the Batman mythos more recently a lot of that has come to light but as I say that's its own episode we're just going to move forward today talking about the Joker what is acknowledged in the creation of the Joker is that Bill Finger shared an image of actor Conrad vite in character as Gwyn plane from the movie the man who laughs and Jerry Robinson created an image based on a Joker playing card each person claims to be involved but came refuted Robinson's claim and how much finger helped with all three past the exact amount of contribution from each will remain a mystery Joker first appeared in Batman number one from 1941 year after Batman debuted in Detective Comics number 27 he ended up being the first recurring villain appearing in nine of the first twelve issues of Batman author Bill Finger intended him to die in one of the stories in Batman number one because he felt Batman would look incompetent if a villain returned but editor Whitney Ellsworth saw something and he overruled the script and there was a last-minute panel added keeping Joker alive Joker's look was locked in from the beginning with his bleached white skin rictus grin green hair and green and purple suit he was a serial killer with no compunctions about his actions he also had access to one of his signature weapons from day one his Joker venom which killed people and left them with a permanently frozen smile as to why the Joker became so popular well at least some of that credit should be attributed to editor Whitney Ellsworth he saw something special in the Joker and pushed for more appearances by him but another factor could be that the Joker had a bit of a flamboyant look he stood out a little bit from the other mad scientists and gangsters and rogue spies that we were seeing as criminals in the comic books at the time just his colors alone stood out another thing was that he represented a common fear at the time and that was the idea of a serial killer blending into society somehow other popular fears at the time were things like foreigners there was a second world war going on and gangsters that were corrupting society those were some other common fears but the Joker represented something that was touched on a lot less on top of that you know there was something anarchic about Joker he really represented the complete opposite of Batman's rigid moral code however by 1951 about a decade later interests had changed post-war adults were more interested in romance Western and crime fiction superheroes began to skew campy to appeal to younger readers issue 66 of Batman is an early example of this trend by this time Bob Kane was spending more time working on the lucrative newspaper strip and most stories in the comics were written by Bill Finger with Kane doing some of the art work along with his assistants in the Joker's comedy of errors Joker is more interested in stealing money with his gang instead of killing people when he makes an error he calls it a boner and he becomes obsessed with recreating infamous boners as well as forcing Batman to pull a boner all I wanted to do here was just show page after page and panel after panel of Joker and Batman talking about pulling boners but they meant mistakes back then so I'm doing everything I can to exercise a little bit of self control for you dear reader let's continue another big step forward for the Joker came in issue 168 of Detective Comics from that same year 1951 Batman and Robin teach a university class on crime and Batman discusses the one mystery he hasn't solved ten years ago he says he was chasing a criminal known as the Red Hood who was robbing the ACE chemical plant in order to escape the Red Hood Gove into the chemicals and Batman never recovered a body or learned who it was ultimately a local farmhand wearing the costume is apprehended by Batman in the modern day but he admits he stole it and has the original owner of the suit tied up in a shack it turns out that the original Red Hood was the Joker the comic written by Bill Finger definitively states that the Joker was originally a criminal posing as an employee to case the plant then invented the Red Hood identity as a disguise the chemicals changed his skin and hair color so he changed his identity to that of the Joker the Joker's origin would mostly be ignored after this until about 1988 where it was brought back in a big way but we'll get there soon moving forward the Joker became a total prankster just out to rob banks and steal jewels dick sprang became the primary artist and he was known for giving Batman a bold barrel-chested appearance and his Joker was similarly wide and expressive but with a narrower chin than before and a big nose that future artists would continue to exaggerate this era was campy and it remained so for the next two decades to a large extent this humorous approach is what informed the live-action Batman TV show in the 60s that show is notable for having the first live-action Joker played by Cesar Romero Romero came up with an iconic cackle for the Joker that has informed every other film and cartoon appearance ever since [Laughter] I'm a man of my word in the early 70's the batman editors decided to give batman a more serious tone writer denny o'neil and artist Neal Adams were young and had lots of big ideas one thing they did was to give Joker an edge Batman number 251 from September 1973 featured the story Joker's five-way revenge in this story Joker makes his way through Gotham City murdering five of his henchmen who he feels failed him the story brings back the idea of Joker's venom which causes his victims faces to tighten into rigid smiles as they die he's a killer again and he's redesigned by Neal Adams with a tall lanky frame and tailored suits on top of that he has an opportunity to kill Batman but he feels it wouldn't be fun to end him so easily and instead puts him in a deathtrap with a shark this is probably my personal favorite Joker's story it's not exactly epic but it's tightly paced it's efficient it features a joker with a really unknowable motive that only makes sense to him and he's got an edge and he's scary again he's a little bit funny which helps and of course it features Batman fighting a shark you can't beat that folks The Joker's popularity had grown thanks to the Batman TV show cartoon appearances and his use in the recent comics so in May of 1975 DC launched a Joker comic book it's notable as the first superhero comic to star a villain it only lasted nine issues though because of the comics code the title character wasn't allowed to kill anyone and because he was a villain he had to be arrested by the end of each issue featured some clever stories and some great artwork by creators like Jose Louie Garcia Lopez but it wasn't what fans wanted out of the character by 1978 writers were again working to make Joker a threat and an unpredictable one at that Steve Englehart wrote The Laughing fish story for Detective Comics number 475 in which fish are turning up with the Joker's face it's all part of the Joker's plan to use his Joker venom on fish then attempt to secure a copyright on his likeness so that he can collect money on all fish sales when the Copyright Office won't grant his insane request he begins a vendetta to hunt down anyone who has blocked his idea ten years later the graphic novel The Killing Joke was released which many consider the definitive Joker's story written by Alan Moore and featuring beautiful artwork by Brian Bolland it recounts a story primarily from the Joker's point of view we see him with a sick wife as a struggling comedian who was strong-armed into a robbery attempt by the Red Hood gang forced to wear the costume the appearance of Batman makes him jump into the ACE chemical plant run off and he's turned into the Joker if retells Joker's Red Hood origin this time for the first time since DC had rebooted their continuity following crisis on Infinite Earths but there were two key differences one is that Joker's says about his origin that sometimes he remembers it one way and other times another his actual origin is now contextualized as being told by Joker himself and he proves to be an unreliable narrator the second new addition is that the Joker has a motivation to prove that anyone can be like him with one bad day he cripples Commissioner Gordon's daughter unknown to either of them as actually being Batgirl and he tortures the Commissioner to try to break him Batman stops everything and Joker's hypothesis is proven false this uncertain origin and motivation to prove everyone can be like him was later used in the Dark Knight film another thing Killing Joke did was give Joker a decisive victory over Batman by crippling Batgirl other stories following this attempted to similarly boost his profile like when he killed the second Robin Jason Todd in the death in the family storyline featuring some great artwork by Jim Aparo where he probably gave Joker his biggest nose and chin ever another act like this was when the Joker killed Commissioner Gordon's fiance Sara during the no man's land storyline another graphic novel featuring The Joker heavily came out the following year I'm talking about Arkham Asylum by writer Grant Morrison and artist Dave McKean it featured a rioting inmate population in Arkham Asylum Joker was leading that he's a big part of that storyline in fact Morrison contextualizes him differently he says that Joker is actually hyper sane and that he actually reinvents himself with a slightly new personality every single day in order to cope with the world and no other writers really touched on that idea except for Morrison himself when he became a monthly writer for Batman a couple decades later that said we are looking at the idea of analyzing exactly how Joker's psyche works because he definitely does not fit the pattern of any clinical definition of insanity he he breaks every boundary every time you try to box it in so that idea of analyzing the Joker's sanity has been played with by other writers sometimes going so far as to propose what would Joker be like if he was sane in November of 1994 writer J M DeMatteis told any ambitious four-part story in legends of the Dark Knight from issue 65 through 68 the Ark was called going sane and Joker catches Batman in an exploding Shack he believes he's finally killed baman without his adversary Joker recreates himself as Joseph ker and finds love but when Batman reimburses having survived he returns to his life as the Joker this explicit need to exist only in opposition to Batman is rendered its most explicit in going sane but reappears in other stories like the recent white knight books by Shawn Gordon Murphy more recently Joker has been presented as more extreme than ever DC once again rebooted its continuity following their new 52 storyline in 2011 in Detective Comics written by Tony Daniel Joker has villain dollmaker surgically remove his face bowing that it represents his rebirth about two years later in October 2012 writer Scott Snyder kicked off a two-year long story arc in the Batman titles called death of the family Joker emerges with a plan to systematically eliminate everyone Batman relies on from his sidekicks to the police the Joker now wears his own face as a mask he's back to his roots as a serial killer but more gruesome and terrifying than ever before by the end of the story he's had a dose of chemicals that allowed his face to heal and he currently exists as whatever can count as this status quo for the Joker what a journey for the Harlequin of hate the Clown Prince of Crime Joker he has gone from being a serial killer to a prankster and back to being a scarier serial killer along the way a lot of writers and artists have found a way to position Joker as a thematic device to heighten Batman's heroism and his moral code as to who the Joker was before he was the Joker well ultimately that's unimportant he kind of emerges into the world fully formed and what is important is his effect on society and his effect on the protagonist Batman that said there are some other Joker's stories that I would recommend Emperor Joker where he becomes nearly omnipotent features him going up against Superman there is the and who laughs bye Edie Brubaker and artist Doug Mahnke which tells a summary of who the Joker is and features a title that alludes to his origins any stories by Paul Dini one of the co-creators of Batman the Animated Series definitely stand out two of his best comic book stories featuring the Joker are Mad Love which is a look at his relationship with Harley Quinn his relatively new sidekick and sleigh ride currently Shawn Gordon Murphy is using the Joker in a new series of stories in Batman white knight volumes 1 and 2 the first volume features Joker being cured in becoming a Gotham City Councilman Joker at his best is unpredictable and enigmatic he's best when his villainous ideas and motivations aren't necessarily understandable except to him alone but the threats that he posed are very real it's tricky but not impossible to peel back the layers on who the Joker is some artists and writers have attempted to do that with some good success he's unquestionably a fantastic antagonist that brings out the best of what makes Batman work all right that's what I have to say about the history of the Joker I'd be curious to hear if there are any great Joker stories out there that you would recommend that I didn't really touch on what I was trying to touch on were the ones where something new was at it or something changed maybe it was because of what's going on in society maybe it was just a completely new idea of how to use the character etc so I'd be curious to hear what you have to say about the Joker what stories using him stand out the most anyway that was what I had to say let's take a quick look at what kind of fan art came into the channel this week Rockman sent an artwork inspired by greg land's techniques of tracing existing images artist grant Lantern created this flattering piece where I have the power of Wonder Woman you can see more of Grant's work on his website two pieces of artwork sent in by is the media the first is me as all might and the second features me as a bone Fernando quest Asst is an artist in Peru who put me in a Batman story in the style of artist Neal Adams you can see Fernando draw every day of October on his Instagram page John quiet Illustrated me as a very animated bone cousin very cool Tim from Perth Australia sent in artwork where I have the powers of dream from the endless Tim has more of his art on his Instagram page and he wants to give a shout out to his local comic store chaos pop cartoonist Nader's sent in another take of me as a bone and each one has been utterly unique and charming you can see more of Nader's work on Instagram James Sutton is an artist and an animator with a lot of love for Mike Minneola so he sent in this piece James has more art on Instagram though he cautions it is not all kid-friendly finally Paul Drummond crew imagines me being taken away by she-hulk you're right Paul my eyes would turn into hearts thank you very much for sending in that fan art it's always fun to look at if you would like to submit some fan art to this channel as long as it has something to do directly with comic tropes I'm happy to feature it just send it into this email address comic tropes at gmail.com I will show it and then I will draw a winner from the entrance that week to win a gotcha pond prize that comes out of the gotcha pond machine that was donated by lunar shine store so I've got nine balls in the hopper let's take a look at who wins this week spin it up and let's see this week the winner is gonna be number five number five was John quia John I will get your contact information I'm happy to send you a prize let's take a quick look at what you got these are all for now Hellboy got your prize but I'll be going to Japan by the end of the year to get more guys on unique ones say I'm gonna pull it out here it is can I see what it is it's hard to make out oh I think that this is Liz Liz Sherman with the fire powers from the Bureau of paranormal research and defense so I'll send that your way John as soon as I get your information folks thank you so much for watching I have some really exciting stuff coming up thank you to my patrons if you would like to support this show I have a patreon I also have a coffee account if you would like to do a one time tip so those links are there on the screen you can also read them in the description below keep in mind I also have some comic troupes t-shirts that you can see below if you're watching this on YouTube what else I don't know I'll put some links down below for some really good Joker stories that I think you might enjoy so feel free to look into those Joker's a really cool character you know I mean he's not likable most of the time but every once in a while you have to admit he's funny I like the Joker best when he's scary but I do have an appreciation for some of the campy stories in that era when dick sprang was illustrating his work if you ever want to look up a really funny weird story look up I don't know the exact name off the top of my head but it has to do with the Joker inventing his own utility belts it might even be called Joker's utility belt funny funny story so I hope you enjoyed this week and until I see you next time keep reading comics

Channel: ComicTropes

Views: 210,705

Keywords: comic tropes, comic books, the joker, dc comics, detective comics, batman, clown prince of crime, history, bob kane, bill finger, jerry robinson, the killing joke, arkham asylum

Id: rTGBB0c99hA

Length: 23min 10sec (1390 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 15 2019