Justice League #42: Does Batman now know "The Truth"?

[Thor-Ul]

The Joker real name is James Howlett.

[superduperman]

I think the shocking part could be the Joker is many different people. With the mulitverse, each Joker could have a different origin. And having the same character come about from mulitple different sources could be shocking as it would show some sort of plan in place.
Or just to be off the wall - Joker is Bruce's half brother. That would be shocking. Probably more than realizing Joker is just Superman dressing up to mess with him.

Making a villain Bruce's half brother? That's a stupid idea! Who would do something like that? Making Joker Superman on the other hand...

[Bookem Danno]

The Joker real name is James Howlett.

Ha! Well, he was shocked so thankfully that means Joker isn't that god of reincarnation or whatever from that recent detested storyline.

The book did not have enough JL content (AGAIN) but would have been better as an Event Mini or Graphic Novel because of it. I'm still deciding about the Myrina and Grail concepts. It was good to see Trevor is not in mothballs. The art was great.

Preview.
JUSTL-Cv42-ds-5dd72.jpg

[Forever Knight]

I'm pretty sure Hal made a reference to the Corps. dealings with the New Gods, and Metron's role in that, from Godhead .

I figured it was from Godhead. Just making sure. Still a continuity error with Oa being mentioned when Oa's been gone in GL for a long time now.

[The Odd Man]

The Joker's real name is Joe Kerr. Batman wasn't surprised, just terribly, terribly disappointed...

[Montressor]

In the old pre-Flashpoint DCU, the only character who consciously knew was the Martian Manhunter. As many will recall, Animal Man discovered the true nature of his reality during Grant Morrison's run, but appeared to forget it all as his reality was restored by his 'writer'. Some time later the Martian Manhunter read Animal Man's mind and was disturbed by the subconscious memories Buddy had of reality being a bunch of comic book stories (a fact well-established during DC's Silver Age, where it was revealed that writers on 'Earth-Prime' created and dictated the reality of the DC Universe). Disturbed by his discovery, Martian Manhunter decided to not share what he'd learned with the other heroes.

It sounds corny, but I truly love the concept of fictional realities being 'real'. Over in Planetary the Multiverse was described as a 'stack of books'. Great stuff, high concepts, when written with interest and broad concept.

[tabo61]

Joker is some long lost relative of the Wayne family

[Buried Alien]

The craziest thing I could imagine is that the Joker is a time-traveling Bruce Wayne from the far future, who has somehow lost all memory of his previous identity and gone insane.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[deadboy80]

The craziest thing I could imagine is that the Joker is a time-traveling Bruce Wayne from the far future, who has somehow lost all memory of his previous identity and gone insane.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

This, I was just thinking the same Damn thing!! Wow, must be true! LOL!!!

[Divine Spark]

The Joker real name is James Howlett.

[Burning Eyes]

I think it's just a red herring, nothing more.
Could be mistaken however. You never know.

if true, no wonder I never liked either of them . . .

[taylortexas]

Is there a solid answer on when this takes place in the continuity? It must be before Endgame, right? The only alternative would seem to be after Superheavy when Bruce inevitably gets back into the role of Batman, but it seems like a strange question for him to ask post-Endgame. I don't think it'd really be weighing on his conscious anymore.

The reason I ask is that if this is pre-Endgame, Bruce definitely didn't have any knowledge as to who the Joker really is/was. The fact that he didn't know was one of the primary things driving the plot forward. So like many have speculated, I think Bruce will unlearn everything when he leaves the chair.

Or continuity wasn't even in Johns' mind when he wrote this and just imagined what questions Bruce would immediately ask a source of infinite knowledge. Either way, I don't think this is leading to any sort of massive canon Joker origin reveal.

[krazijoe]

Jokers name is Mi Hallmark