THE HISTORY OF THE JOKER!

Quick everybody! Take your seats and enjoy the ride! We are going to dive into the world of the craziest yet, most loved and famous villain of all, the Joker.

Now a lot of you already know this character, I mean who doesn't at this point?

He is one of the most famous pop culture character ever created, with many fans even outside of the comic books field.

But now let's see how he came to be.

The Joker was created by Jerry Robinson, Bill Finger and Bill Kane and he first appeared in Batman issue 1 in spring of 1940.

Joker was influenced by the actor Conrad Venditti in the film "The man who laughs" which is extremely evident as you all can see in these pictures

The idea was also reused on the Joker's calling card,  which is an important aspect of this character and it has been always represented in every version of the character.

Now, as for the Joker's comic origin,  it's one of the biggest mysteries in all of comic books and to be honest most of his diehard fans prefer it that way,  because we have these two constant in the Batman comic books: Batman could never kill and Joker's full origin story must stay a mystery.

Though we had a couple of stories involving the origins of the Joker, like one of the most loved Batman stories, "The Killing Joke"

In this story Joker says that sometimes he remembers one,  sometimes he remembers another and if he is going to have a past he prefers it to be multiple choice, but aside from that quote we still have one of the most accepted backstories according to most Batman fans.

In the flashbacks of The Killing Joke we can see a possible origin for the Joker portraying him as a failed comedian who remained nameless in the book pressured to commit a crime as the red hood to support his pregnant wife, Batman's interference causes him to leap into a chemical VAT that disfigures his skin and combined with the trauma of his pregnant wife’s accidental death, the man goes insane becoming The Joker.

Current writer of Batman, Scott Snyder, decided to keep the iconic origin for his version of The Joker in Batman issue 24,  for the storyline "Batman Year 0" by maintaining the scene where the red hood falls into chemicals, transforming himself into Batman's greatest treat.

The name of the person Joker was,  however, is still a mystery that will be revealed in the Batman animated series, where in one scene it's showed that his real name is Jack Napier (uh...did you know that Jack is usually used to name bad people? It's actually very common in English culture where the name Jack has an association with the devil. I mean,  never wondered why Jack the Ripper was named this way?)

Even though we are talking about the animated series, we may still consider this as canon as comic books do to all fans approval.

And here you go! I hope you liked my post and fell free to let me know what you think about the infamous clown prince of chaos.

Side note: yeah this post is a bit shorter than the others, I just wanted to hold myself a little and so I decided to make two other posts regarding other aspects of this amazing character.

See you next time!

SIMONE