One of the most terrifying things about theJokeris his belief that if anyone suffered a day that’s bad enough, they’d transform into a lunatic just like him. This philosophy seems best paralleled withBatmanand his trauma, but another comic might just prove the Joker completely correct about how madmen are made.
TheJokerhas tried to prove his ideology correct a few times over the decades. The biggest attempt was inThe Killing Jokeby Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, but despite his best attempts, he failed to drive Commissioner Gordon insane. It seemed like this proved the Joker incorrect, but things might not be so clear-cut.
After a massive earthquake hit Gotham City, plenty of people ended up having pretty bad days. While most of Gotham’s citizens were just struggling to survive,at least one of them was driven insane,as seen inBatman: Shadow of the Bat#77 by Alan Grant and Mark Buckingham.
Batman: Shadow of the Bat#77 by Alan Grant, Mark Buckingham, Wayne Faucher, Pam Rambo, and Bill Oakley.
When the earthquake hit, Arwin was teaching a class at college. He stepped out of the room for just one moment to grab supplies, and that was all that it took to save his life. Every single student in the room was killed by the earthquake andthe sight seemingly drove Arwin insane. He came up with a new theory: it’s not the strong who survive, but the luckiest. The fact that Arwin had arbitrarily decided to step out of the room at just the right time saved his life, but it unfortunately broke his sanity.
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In Arwin’s rambling, he ends up entirely agreeing with the Joker, even if he doesn’t know it. Arwin starts out stating that only the lucky survive, but he has a strange linewhere he claims that nothing in life matters, that all existence is just one big joke. The Joker often repeats this idea, andhe even harped on it quite a bit inThe Killing Joke. The Joker continually asked Batman why he couldn’t see what a joke life was. That Arwin was seemingly driven insane and began repeating a similar mantra can’t be a coincidence, especially givenThe Killing Joke’sinfluence on ’90s-era Batman comics.
Arwin went from a mild-mannered college professor to taking both Batman and a random thug hostage at gunpoint. Arwin tries to prove his hypothesis about the lucky surviving byforcing Batman to perform dangerous acrobatics while blindfolded. Arwin reasons that if Batman is simply lucky, he’ll survive without issue. It’s a ridiculous hypothesis, but it’sall one can expect from a madman. There’s no reason to assume that Arwin was anything except perfectly sane before the earthquake hit.
Even the average citizen of Gotham can be driven mad if they suffer enough tragedy.
James Gordon and Batman both thought that they proved theJoker wrong about how close everyone is to insanity, but denying the Joker’s theory is much harder when taking Arwin into consideration. Arwin perfectly shows that anyone, even the average citizen of Gotham, can be driven mad if they suffer enough tragedy. While Gordon tried to disprove the Joker’s theory, Gordon wasn’t exactly the best test subject, as he had already been through more tragedies than most. As much asBatmandenies it, theJokermight just have a point.
The Joker
The Joker is a psychopathic criminal mastermind with a warped sense of humor. Initially introduced as a remorseless serial killer, the character evolved over time, often oscillating between a prankster and a homicidal maniac. His relationship with Batman is one of the most complex in comic book history, defined by their mutual obsession. Over the decades, the Joker has become an enduring icon of chaos and madness, embodying the antithesis of Batman’s order and justice.
