Bruce knows... (Justice League #42 SPOILER)

[JasonTodd428]

Plus, it may be a good long while before Batman has to confront the Joker again and the next writer who handles that confrontation may very well chose not to pick up this particular plot point anyway. I don't think we have to worry about whether or not Joker's ID will remain a mystery even if Bruce got an answer from the chair. This was just another tease or at least that's how I read it.

[AlexanderLuthor]

As I said in the JL thread, my guess is that the chair told him the Joker's real name is...the Joker. However, I don't think we will ever get any resolution on the point as Bruce will forget everything once he is de-powered

[AlexanderLuthor]

Also, I don't see Batman responding that way if the chair had said "The Joker." I don't think that answer evokes the kind of shock in his eyes or the words that he said. I don't claim that even Johns knows what the chair said. He might have just been writing a willfully ambiguous cool moment but Batman's response seems out of proportion to the chair saying "The Joker."

You know we are talking about Geoff Johns, right? LOL, that is far and away the most likely answer

[Nite-Wing]

Johns probably intended for it to be someone Bruce knew in the past but then the response wouldn't be so neutral "No not possible" can literally be a response to anything. Its not like Johns can retcon the history Snyder outlined with Joker as Red Hood One. Who that individual is will always be up in the air but the Joker is something more since his origins are just so shrouded in mystery and the Joker's own insanity.

I think the Moebius chair just gave Bruce what he didn't expect and that his name is just Joker. Affirmation that Joker is not just some guy is almost always something that would give Bruce a reaction.

[Maxpower00044]

As I said in the JL thread, my guess is that the chair told him the Joker's real name is...the Joker. However, I don't think we will ever get any resolution on the point as Bruce will forget everything once he is de-powered

This is my take on it also. Either that or the chair told him "I don't know" or something. Either way, he won't remember it once he's not Bat-God.

[JBatmanFan05]

Either way, he won't remember it once he's not Bat-God.

Yup, I'd bet so too.

[marvelprince]

I don't think the chair said The Joker. I don't think the chair is cheeky. This is a cosmic weapon of the gods.

More likely it told him a name that he wasn't expecting and/or recognized and he's surprised because he thought he had figured it out and was wrong.

[vaf2675]

So in the latest Justice League, Batman takes control of the Mobius Chair after Diana takes it away from Metron. He asks it who killed his parents to see if its all-knowledgable as its supposed to be. It gives the correct answer. Batman then asks his next question: What is the Joker's true name? The Chair tells him. And its something that shocks Batman as he answers "No, it can't be...". So yeah, I don't know if this will ever be utilized in his main books, but he knows who the Joker is now. And its clearly an identity that is familiar to Bruce Wayne on some level. Enough for him to be shocked at the answer.

Geoff Johns was a real ass here. Teasing us with an impossible tidbit of DC history that was never meant to be known. Besides good money says Bats forgets everything when he reverts back to human.

[SuperiorIronman]

If the chair told him the Joker... That's freaking stupid. Batman's real name is Bruce Wayne. He may identify as Batman but his legal, real identity is Bruce Wayne. If Bruce asked for the Joker's identity he didn't ask for the Joker or anything psychological, he asked for who he is beneath the Joker. That's like asking for Batman's identity and the chair gives Batman. It may be correct for the most part but that isn't what you asked. Doesn't matter if he is too far gone, there HAS to be something before the Joker happened. So as for Bruce freaking out, regardless of the response Bruce would be pretty stunned. Even if he asked who The Joker was and got The Joker he still has something to go off of if he ever felt the need to tie up loose ends. He is a freaking detective so finding someone as flamboyant and sadistic as Joker isn't hard when he has ties to the Red hood gang and someone has to know something.

[JBatmanFan05]

How stupid would Bruce be if he didn't log his findings in the Bat computer (and on every piece of paper he encounters including telling the Batfam to write it down everywhere)?

[LoneNecromancer]

How stupid would Bruce be if he didn't log his findings in the Bat computer (and on every piece of paper he encounters including telling the Batfam to write it down everywhere)?

Well, he's never been mind-wiped by the rest of the League before in this continuity.

[MajorHoy]

Maybe the chair told him the Joker is really Bruce Wayne?

[AlexanderLuthor]

Maybe the chair told him the Joker is really Bruce Wayne?

Or Martha Wayne. Really, I don't think there is an "answer". I think Johns threw that in there because that's what Johns does, but there will never be an answer revealed

[Sacred Knight]

I would agree, if not for knowing about the Batman one shot when Gods and Men start. The Joker thing could fit really nicely there into Batman's quest to cleanse Gotham. I'm not saying I'm convinced it'll be revealed the readers, but it might play a role there.

[BatmanJones]

Geoff Johns was a real ass here. Teasing us with an impossible tidbit of DC history that was never meant to be known. Besides good money says Bats forgets everything when he reverts back to human.

An ass? For giving us one of the most exciting comics moments in recent history? Who cares if it goes further than that? That one moment was a serious WTF fangasm moment, exquisitely rendered.

It's moments like this that make comics so special to me. Nothing else does but comics still have the ability, when done as well as Johns and Fabok are handling JL, to make me feel the absolute awe of childhood.

The playwright Eugene Ionesco writes beautifully about this idea when he says, “Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.” When I read that page of Justice League 42, I was astonished. And I was immediately reminded of this quote and the feeling behind it.