Controversial Joker Opinions

[Rod G]

1) The best comic book Joker is the Silver Age one who’s merely a crook who commits comedy themed robberies.


2) The Joker truly does love Harley Quinn but has trouble expressing it.

[prepmaster]

1) The best comic book Joker is the Silver Age one who’s merely a crook who commits comedy themed robberies.


2) The Joker truly does love Harley Quinn but has trouble expressing it.

1) I'd definitely prefer that Joker to the modern Joker who is obsessed with Batman and kills people for a reason that is related to Batman or for no reason at all. But i wouldn't prefer Silver Age Joker to Joker of other eras.

2) Joker loves Harley in his twisted ways? Sure.

[ChaosIncarnate]

I hate the big chinned look, mainly from Tim Sale. Looks more goofy and dumb than scary to me, which is how I prefer Joker to look.

[SiegePerilous02]

The Joker definitely does love Harley. But it's also the Joker, so it's expressed in incredibly warped, abusive and possessive ways. It's not love as a normal/not evil person would view it. I think he views her as his favorite "toy" or "artistic achievement," he views that she belongs to him utterly; he can abuse her and still expect her to come back, but anyone else who does it earns his wrath. He also lets her get away with a surprising amount that he never lets anyone else get away with, including when she lashes back against him violently and he expresses genuine unease when her anger is targeted at him. Interestingly, in the DCAU he seemed to respect her competence more than Ivy did. He lets her carry out important components of his schemes and improvise to her hearts content (as long as she doesn't dare upstage him). It's more fascinating than the interpretation that he doesn't care about her period.

Anyway, the combo of TDKR, Death in the Family and the Killing Joke and the precedent they established of upping his violence and body counts have ruined the character. He was a much more interesting villain back when he didn't have a stupidly high death toll. He should always be a killer, but it's not as interesting or scary if he's so predictable that we know people are going to die when he turns up. He needs to be clever and disarming so that when he does kill, it is more rare but also more effective.

Also most modern Joker writers suck because they don't know how to write him as genuinely funny. I want to actually laugh at some of the Joker's dark gallows humor. Snyder, Tynion, Azzarello, etc. just write him as a brute and it's super dull.

[godisawesome]

Here’s my controversial opinions:

1. He should never, in any way shape or form, have a truly sympathetic background, and he really should be at most an extremely high functioning psychopath at worst in terms of his mental issues. He works better as some ambitious and vicious underworld enforcer in his past, like in Mask of the Phantasm, than he does as some sad comedian with a bad day or someone with genuinely delusional imbalance. His “crazy aspects work better more as a personal ethos he’s formed than as something stemming from a mental illness.

2. Any interaction with Harley should make it clear that he doesn’t love her, and both of their stories would benefit from marking a specific “before she released that” and “after she realized that” aspect.

3. Yeah, he really should have some more scaled back and more practical and less mass murder-y crime sprees - an ostentatious bank robbery or hostage situation for the purposes of giving him cash to spend at his whim should happen more than once, as should ostentatious pranks and wastes of money that still threaten peoples’ lives, but where he does it care if he gets stopped.

4. He should really very, *very* rarely go to Arkham - I like other inmates, he’s too high functioning to be given any kind of treatment or spared the gavel.

[batnbreakfast]

Post Suicide Squad (and 50 shades) Joker and Harley are ruined for me with BTAS being the only acceptable version of the couple.

It seems Matt Reeves will use the Red Hood gang in the Batman and I hope for a big Cesar Romero influence in its sequel(s) since Reeves likes Batman'66.

Yes to comics Joker becoming less serious and murderous again. Slasher flick/Carnage Joker has been around long enough.

[Agent Z]

More people should do to the Joker what Terry did to him in Return of the Joker. We also need more moments like when Charlie scared him with a fake bomb.

[Gaius]

Cesar Romero is the best Joker in either live-action or animation.

Modern day Joker has less of a personality than Doomsday.

[Alan2099]

Modern Day Joker isn't a character. He's shock value that somebody stuck in a suit.

Joker loves one person. It's not Harley and it DEFINITELY isn't Batman. It's Joker. The guy is in love with himself.

Joker shouldn't care whether or not you see things from his point of view or realize that society is some form of madness and wants to lecture people on it. He's just a guy that thinks it'd be really funny to blow up a clown convention or hit some body with acid pies. If you don't get it, that's your problem.

Stories about Joker being the scariest, bloodiest, of most violent thing out there really need to be given to the Scarecrow instead.

Joker shouldn't hesitate for a minute to kill Batman. Batman is the guy that keeps stealing Joker's spotlight. He's Joker's personal heckler. There's no love there.

Joker was a bad guy even before he became Joker.

Having Joker NOT remember who he was adds nothing to the character.

[Gaius]

Modern Day Joker isn't a character. He's shock value that somebody stuck in a suit.

Joker loves one person. It's not Harley and it DEFINITELY isn't Batman. It's Joker. The guy is in love with himself.

Joker shouldn't care whether or not you see things from his point of view or realize that society is some form of madness and wants to lecture people on it. He's just a guy that thinks it'd be really funny to blow up a clown convention or hit some body with acid pies. If you don't get it, that's your problem.

Stories about Joker being the scariest, bloodiest, of most violent thing out there really need to be given to the Scarecrow instead.

Joker shouldn't hesitate for a minute to kill Batman. Batman is the guy that keeps stealing Joker's spotlight. He's Joker's personal heckler. There's no love there.

Joker was a bad guy even before he became Joker.

Having Joker NOT remember who he was adds nothing to the character.

Related to this but one thing that makes me role my eyes when it comes up is the whole idea the Joker is a villain who other (usually non-Batman) villains are terrified of.

[SiegePerilous02]

Related to this but one thing that makes me role my eyes when it comes up is the whole idea the Joker is a villain who other (usually non-Batman) are terrified of.

Yeah this one drives me nuts too.

Especially the arch villains of the other big name heroes. Lex, Cheetah, Sinestro, etc. should know not to underestimate him, but should also not be remotely fearful of him

[Alan2099]

Yeah this one drives me nuts too.

Especially the arch villains of the other big name heroes. Lex, Cheetah, Sinestro, etc. should know not to underestimate him, but should also not be remotely fearful of him

It's even worse when the villain that's supposedly terrified of him could kill him from 60 feet away with a glance.

[Shockdingo]

Modern Day Joker isn't a character. He's shock value that somebody stuck in a suit.

That's my big problem. When I was a kid, he was one of my fav Batman villains and the BTAS of the 90s only solidified that. At first, when I heard the "villains gather 'round campfires to tell Joker stories", I thought that was creepy and kind of cool, but now that's his only setting. It's less about the horrifying unpredictability and tension. I still think about how creeped out I was in the Joker Fish episode when the guy dressed as Batman went absolutely nuts during the lightning storm. He's always coming back bigger than ever and it's about how far the envelope can be pushed with talk of babies being boiled in front of their parents in one issue or more things to add to his body count.

It's bored me and as a result, whenever a Joker centric story, or even him constantly appearing in Arkham games, movie or animated adaptations, I get a real sense of fatigue. What doesn't help is that whenever there's movie talk, there's always gotta be Joker in a new trilogy, never getting to experience too many of Batman's amazing rogues, it's just Joker's coming to town, again.

All of this is to say that I wouldn't mind a new comic run or animated series that has a Brave and the Bold feel where there's some Joker of yersteryear elements and not how oppressively gruesome and disturbing we can make him. I miss eccentric, well dressed, "wait, did he copyright fish?!" Joker.

I'm rambling, sorry hah. Anyways, I want him to go away for a while and get a break, but it's not realistic. We'll get Joker War II: War's a Gas! in 2 years or something.

[Gaius]

Yeah this one drives me nuts too.

Especially the arch villains of the other big name heroes. Lex, Cheetah, Sinestro, etc. should know not to underestimate him, but should also not be remotely fearful of him

Yeah, keep that nonsense to the Batman rogues gallery.

[SiegePerilous02]

Yeah, keep that nonsense to the Batman rogues gallery.

I don't even think that should exist in Batman's rogues gallery. Not among the top tier villains anyway.

No way are Two-Face, Penguin, Catwoman, Ivy, Freeze and Hugo fearfully intimidated by the Joker. They have common sense and know not to cross him if they don't have to, but him going after them would illicit wrath more than fear.