Sometimes We Laugh With Him

I was watching my roommate play Batman: Arkham Asylum recently when he reached a cut scene where Batman enters an elevator to go to the next area. The Joker (voiced by Mark Hamil) immediately starts mocking this obviously terrible choice as Batman is now confined to a metal box over which the Joker has control, causing him to declare, "What say I just blow the brakes and drop you like a sack of puppies!" Laughing out loud at this I commented on how horrible this analogy is, to which my roommate responded "Yeah... but you laughed." He has a point.

Mark Hamil in Batman:The Animated Series has always been my favorite version of the Joker. The gleeful laughter, tempered by the wild swings to vicious anger, makes the character all the more terrifying. In The Dark Night, Alfred remarks to Bruce "Some men just want to see the world burn." But Mark Hamil's Joker goes a level above this- his madcap humor pulls you in, so that when his mood turns you realize you wanted to see the world burn with him. Perhaps the best illustration of this comes from the DC Comics event "A Death in the Family" when the Joker had viciously beaten the current Robin, Jason Todd, and left him at a cliffhanger where the fans got to choose whether Robin lived or died by calling in to a toll free number to vote- the fans voted that Jason Todd not walk away from that fateful encounter. Although I was too young to have taken part in that comic book event, none of us are completely guilt free. While playing as the Joker in Injustice: Gods Among Us, another DC game, I performed a special move where I pummeled my opponent with a crowbar while they were down. Gleefully getting into the moment, I exclaimed to my friends "I call that one 'The Jason Todd'!" They were horified, but we all agreed that it was still pretty funny. Dark, and terrible, but pretty funny.
Batman's rogues gallery covers so many archetypes that there's something for everyone: the conflicted Two-Face. Mr Freeze, who is willing to do anything for the sick wife that he loves. The egotistical Riddler, desperate to prove his superiority. But the Joker is the exception that makes his popularity so strange- there is nothing good about this character. No redeemable qualities that we can really defend. The Joker is the "dead baby jokes" of supervillians, and he reveals something dark that is inside of us. Because the Joker laughs at these terrible things... but sometimes we laugh with him.

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