When was the Joker's first mass atrocity?

[Tzigone]

I was just thinking about this. I know he murdered multiple people in his very first appearance, so that's not what I'm talking about. I mean something big and public that harmed/threatened to harm at least dozens at one time. When he became widely known and feared by average people.

This came up because I was thinking whether or not a random person could be found not-guilty by means of self-defense for just killing the Joker on the street one day based on the defense (that I think reasonable, I admit) that at any moment he might just randomly start killing people. And I wondered when that defense would start holding water.

It's not secret that I'm not fan of how "big" the Joker's schemes gotten, but I'm just not sure when they got this way.

[Frontier]

I feel like he got close to something like that during an Englehart or Conway story, but I'm not 100% sure.

[bat39]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that during the Golden Age, he gassed a nursery! That would be a pretty brutal atrocity, even by modern standards.

Honestly, the fact that the Joker isn't dead is the most unrealistic aspect of the Batman mythos. Hell, I can buy the Joker dying and being resurrected by Dionysium or something a 100 times over. But I just find it hard to believe that NO ONE has made a serious attempt at killing him and succeeded! Not the hundreds of cops who've seen their colleagues and families massacred by him and would have had ample opportunities to fake a 'justified' shooting. Not the no doubt thousands of members of the public, many of whom may well be gun-owners, who don't just shoot the guy as soon as he shows up somewhere. Not a security guard at Arkham, who could either be bribed to do it, or just do it out of a sense of moral outrage or justice.

I mean, in real-life, rightly or wrongly, we have cases of murder or rape accussed being dispatched with vigilante justice or police brutality. Its hard to believe that this hasn't happened to the Joker a thousand times over!

[Alan2099]

Honestly, the fact that the Joker isn't dead is the most unrealistic aspect of the Batman mythos. Hell, I can buy the Joker dying and being resurrected by Dionysium or something a 100 times over. But I just find it hard to believe that NO ONE has made a serious attempt at killing him and succeeded! Not the hundreds of cops who've seen their colleagues and families massacred by him and would have had ample opportunities to fake a 'justified' shooting. Not the no doubt thousands of members of the public, many of whom may well be gun-owners, who don't just shoot the guy as soon as he shows up somewhere. Not a security guard at Arkham, who could either be bribed to do it, or just do it out of a sense of moral outrage or justice.

There was actually a scene in Hitman where Tommy was hired to kill Joker (and a few other people in Arkham and shoot mad Hatter in the knee caps.) Arkham basically let him walk through the backdoor with some minor bribery and just start shooting people. The only reason Joker didn't get killed was because some demon that was out to get Hitman had replaced him.

So, yeah, Arkham has no problem letting armed gunmen walk through the door as long as they have a nice bride.

On another occassion, the Gotham PD dropped Tommy off at the bar rather than bringing him in because they owned him some money from poker. This is AFTER Batman beat up Tommy and tied him up for the police to take away.