Joker in other media

Adaptations of the Joker in other media
Created by	Jerry Robinson (concept) Bill Finger Bob Kane
Original source	Comics published by DC Comics
First appearance	Batman #1 (Spring 1940)
Films and television
Film(s)	Batman (1966) Batman (1989) Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) The Dark Knight (2008)
Television show(s)	Batman (1966) Batman: The Animated Series (1992) The Batman (2004) Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008)

Although Batman's archenemy, the Joker, originated as a comic book character, he has appeared in several other media. The Joker has been portrayed by Cesar Romero in the Batman television series, Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton's Batman, and Heath Ledger in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, which posthumously earned Ledger the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Larry Storch, Frank Welker, Mark Hamill, Kevin Michael Richardson, Jeff Bennett, Steven Blum, Richard Epcar, John DiMaggio, Corey Burton and Brent Spiner have provided the voice for the character in animated form.

Live-action

Batman (TV series) and Batman (1966 film)

Cesar Romero portrays the character in 19 episodes of the 1960s Batman television series. The Joker of this series is characterized by a cackling laugh and comedy-themed crimes, such as turning the city's water supply into jelly and pulling off a stand-up comedy-themed bank heist. In one episode he competed with Batman in a surfing contest. Romero refused to shave his distinctive mustache for the role, and it was partially visible beneath his white face makeup. Romero reprises his role in the 1966 film Batman. A parody of Batman, Joker has his own "utility belt" and "Jokermobile". Stories sometimes saw Joker teamed up with the Penguin and Catwoman. In the movie, he is teamed up with both of them and the Riddler as well. The only information on his past life is a remark by Batman that the Joker had been a hypnotist in his youth.

Batman (1989 film)

A snapshot from Tim Burton's version of "Batman". Batman is fighting with The Joker, who is portrayed by Jack Nicholson

The Joker is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, serving as the main antagonist in the 1989 film Batman. In the film, the character is a gangster named Jack Napier, the right-hand man of crime boss Carl Grissom (Jack Palance). Napier is disfigured during a confrontation with Batman (Michael Keaton) in a chemical factory; he is shot in the face by a ricochet from his own pistol, which severs the nerves in his face muscles, before falling into a vat of chemicals. Although there are many versions of the Joker's origins, the filmmakers decided to use one loosely resembling the origin in the 1988 graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke, in which he is disfigured when he falls into a vat of chemicals at the Axis Chemical plant. The filmmakers thought this origin was the most familiar to their audiences and that it fit with the themes they wanted to elaborate on. The chemicals bleach his skin and turn his hair green and lips red, while his trademark grin is the result of botched plastic surgery in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

Driven insane by his reflection, he kills Grissom and takes over his gang, launching a crime wave designed to "outdo" Batman, who he feels is getting too much press. He describes himself as a "homicidal artist" who makes avant-garde "art" by killing people with Smilex gas, which leaves its victims with a grotesque grin. Bruce Wayne confronts the Joker, and later recognizes him as the mugger who murdered his parents. The Joker kidnaps reporter Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) and attempts to massacre Gotham City, but Batman foils his plan. During the ensuing battle, Batman and the Joker discover each other's identities and realize that they "made each other". As the Joker is about to escape in a helicopter, Batman ties a grappling hook onto the Joker's leg and attaches it to a stone gargoyle; the Joker falls to his death when the gargoyle breaks loose of its moorings.

There is a flashback scene showing Napier's murder of Bruce Wayne's parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, in an alley. The young Napier is played by Hugo E. Blick. The young Napier reappears in the 1995 film Batman Forever, played by David U. Hodges, in a flashback by Bruce Wayne (Val Kilmer) of the night his parents were killed.

Nicholson's performance was very well-received; Newsweek's review of the film stated that the best scenes in the movie are due to the surreal black comedy portrayed in this character. In 2003, American Film Institute named Nicholson's performance #45 out of 50 greatest film villains.

OnStar commercials and Birds of Prey

During the OnStar "Batman" ad campaign, the Joker appears in one commercial, played by Curtis Armstrong. Roger Stoneburner makes a cameo appearance as the character in an episode of Birds of Prey. Mark Hamill, who voiced the Joker in various animated shows throughout the 1990s, provides the Joker's voice in the scene, and he is the only one of the two actors to be credited.

The Dark Knight (2008)

The Joker in The Dark Knight is portrayed by Heath Ledger.

The Joker's existence is hinted at the end of the 2005 film Batman Begins, where Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) reveals the existence of an armed robber/killer who leaves Joker playing cards at scenes of his crimes. He later appears as the main antagonist of the 2008 sequel, The Dark Knight, portrayed by Heath Ledger, who told Sarah Lyall of The New York Times that he viewed that film's version of the character as a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy."

In this film, he is a bank robber targeting Mafia-owned banks, whom Gotham's crime families reluctantly hire to kill Batman (Christian Bale) after he offers them his services. It is gradually revealed that he desires to upset social order through crime, and that he defines himself by his battle with Batman.

Costume designer Lindy Hemming described the Joker's look as being based around his personality, in that "he doesn't care about himself at all." She avoided his design being vagrant, but nonetheless, it is "scruffier, grungier and therefore when you see him move, he's slightly twitchier or edgy." Unlike most incarnations, where his appearance is a result of chemical bleaching, this Joker sports a Glasgow smile, and accentuates it through unevenly applied make-up and dyed green hair. During the course of the film, he tells conflicting stories about how he acquired the scars, which involve child abuse and self-mutilation. He carves Glasgow smiles into his victims' faces as well, in lieu of the post-mortem smiles created by Joker venom.

Unlike the previous film and comic-book depictions of the Joker, this one eschews gag-based weapons common to the character, in favor of knives, firearms, and an array of explosive devices. In the film, the Joker is responsible for the death of Batman's childhood sweetheart Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and District Attorney Harvey Dent's transformation into Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart). During the film's climax, the Joker threatens to blow up the city to manipulate people into escaping on two boats that he has rigged to explode, one filled with civilians and the other with prisoners; he threatens to blow them both up at midnight unless one of them destroys the other first. When neither boat destroys the other, Batman tells him that his plan has failed, and throws him off the edge of a building. However, Batman saves his life by catching him with a grappling hook. As Batman leaves him for the authorities to arrest, the Joker says that he will win the "battle for Gotham's soul" once Gothamites learn of Dent's actions as Two-Face. Batman takes responsibility for Two-Face's crimes to keep Dent's work for Gotham from being undone.

Ledger's portrayal of the Joker was widely praised by critics. On February 22, 2009, Ledger posthumously won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. He was the fourth actor to be nominated for the portrayal of a comic strip/comic book/graphic novel character (the others being Al Pacino in Dick Tracy, Paul Newman in Road to Perdition, and William Hurt in A History of Violence), and the first to win.

Animation

Earlier appearances

• The Joker appeared as a recurring villain in the 1968-1969 Filmation series The Adventures of Batman voiced by Larry Storch.
• Storch reprises his role for two crossover episodes of the 1972 series The New Scooby-Doo Movies. In both episodes, he teams up with The Penguin and runs afoul of Batman, Robin, and the Mystery Inc. gang.
• He also appears in five episodes of Filmation's 1977 series The New Adventures of Batman voiced by Lennie Weinrib.
• The Joker makes an appearance in The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians episode "The Wild Cards" voiced by Frank Welker. This episode features a version of the Royal Flush Gang. The leader of the group Ace turns out to be a disguised Joker assisting in Darkseid's latest plot. Batman deduced the Joker's masquerade upon noticing that the Joker's house of cards fortress was short the Joker's namesake card.

DC animated universe

The Joker is voiced by Mark Hamill in several animated shows in the DC Animated Universe:

• In Batman: The Animated Series, the Joker is the series' most recurring villain. In the feature film spin-off Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, it is revealed that he was once a hitman for mobster Salvatore Valestra. A later episode reveals that he went on to start his own gang with the first target being the Ace chemical plant, where Batman foils the robbery and knocks him into a vat of acid. Several episodes mention that his real name is Jack Napier (a reference to Tim Burton's Batman film). It most notably appears on his police file in the episode "Joker's Wild". However, later episodes suggest that this may only be an alias. The series is notable for introducing Harley Quinn, the Joker's sidekick, who became one of the few original characters from the show to successfully cross over to the comics.

• The Joker also appears in the series' follow-up The New Batman Adventures and features prominently as the main villain in the one-hour crossover episode with Superman: The Animated Series ("World's Finest") when he travels to Metropolis and makes a deal with Lex Luthor to kill Superman in exchange for one billion dollars. With Superman no match for the Joker's cunning and Batman outclassed by Luthor's superior technology, Batman and Superman join forces to take the Joker and Luthor down.

• In Batman Beyond, a mugshot of the Joker was seen in an abandoned GCPD station.

• The Joker also appeared in Static Shock in the episode "The Big Leagues". He comes to Dakota and recruits Hot-Streak, Kangor, Shiv, and Talon into starting a crime spree but are foiled by Static, Batman and Robin.

• He appears in Justice League in the episodes "Injustice for All" and "A Better World" (the latter of which features an alternate world in which the Joker has been lobotomized by Superman and is now the superintendent of Arkham Asylum). His most prominent episode is "Wild Cards", where he plants a multitude of bombs across Las Vegas and televises the Justice League's attempts to find and disarm them in a mockery of reality television. To add drama to the broadcast, he pits the League against the Royal Flush Gang, which in this version consists of five superpowered teens. The bombs turn out to be a ruse to attract viewership so Ace, a psychic, can render everyone watching the broadcast insane. The plan backfires when, during a fight with Batman, Ace turns her powers on the Joker, rendering him temporarily catatonic.

• The Joker is featured as the main villain in the DCAU film Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, where he mysteriously returns to Gotham after having been presumed dead for decades. It is revealed in a flashback that the Joker and Harley Quinn kidnapped Robin (Tim Drake) and tortured him, turning him into "Joker Junior" (an insane, miniature version of the Joker) and ordering him to kill Batman. Drake ultimately kills the Joker himself by shooting him with the deadly "Bang" flag gun (this is original version while Drake accidentally electrocutes him offscreen by pushing him into a puddle near an electric cable in the edited version). In a twist, the future Joker is actually Drake, the Joker having implanted a microchip in Drake which contained his DNA, memories, and personality, transforms the former Boy Wonder into a genetic duplicate of himself with his own mind in control. The new Batman ultimately destroys the chip, saving Drake and (in the DCAU continuity) destroying the Joker once and for all. In Justice League Unlimited, it is revealed in the second season finale "Epilogue" that the Joker used Cadmus's genetic tech to rewrite his DNA over Drake's DNA.

The Batman

A different interpretation of the Joker appears in the animated series The Batman, voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson in English and Naoki Tatsuta in Japanese. This incarnation sports a purple and yellow straitjacket, fingerless gloves, bare feet, wild green hair, and red eyes. The Joker also moves and fights with a Monkey Kung Fu-like style using his feet as dexterously as his hands, and often hangs from the walls and ceilings (as the series progresses, these abilities do not appear as much). His appearance becomes somewhat refined later in the series, where he adopts the more traditional garb of a purple suit and spats, but he still has wild hair and wears no shoes, save one episode. In "Strange Mind", Dr. Strange and Batman travel into the mind of the Joker to find the Joker before his accident as a low-level office worker who once dreamed of "making people laugh". His lip color also changed with his outfit, from a bright red to a dark, almost blackish, red.

In the animated feature The Batman vs. Dracula, he is temporarily transformed into a vampire with paler clothes, claws, fangs and supernatural powers.

Krypto the Superdog

In the TV show Krypto the Superdog, the Joker's trained pet hyenas, Bud and Lou, are villains and enemies of Ace the Bat-Hound and Krypto the Superdog. The Joker himself does not appear in the show, but is mentioned on various occasions.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

In Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Deep Cover for Batman!" a heroic alternative reality version of the Joker called Red Hood appears and is voiced by Jeff Bennett. He is shown to be an extremely capable fighter, able to hold his own against multiple members of the Injustice Syndicate. In addition, he wields projectile weapons shaped like spades (a reference to his alternate universe counterpart's playing card motif). Like the Joker, this Red Hood was disfigured after falling into a chemical vat at the Ace Chemical Plant. In his case, he was already a superhero and was actively dropped in by Owlman. His sanity is said to have been "Bent, but not broken." Red Hood then tries to rally his world's heroes (alternate versions of the villains from the "normal" universe) against the Injustice Syndicate, but they are defeated. Red Hood escapes and tries to use a device to recruit help from an alternate Earth (Batman's universe), but he is captured by the Syndicate. After Batman is attacked by his alternate-reality doppelganger, Owlman (sent to Batman's universe on a reconnaissance mission), he journeys to Red Hood's dimension. During scenes in this episode, the Red Hood's face is shown, but in shadow, showing a bit of green hair and a wide grin that clearly resembles the Joker. After the heroes are freed and the villains defeated, Red Hood thanks Batman and hopes his counterpart can return the favor. Sure enough, in the next episode "Game Over for Owlman!", Batman is forced to team-up with the Joker in order to defeat Owlman, who has impersonated Batman and ruined his reputation in his absence. When the Joker asks Batman what made him takes his chances working with him, Batman briefly has a flashback of his last moment with Red Hood and replies "Something a friend said".

The Joker himself made his debut on the show in the episode "Game Over for Owlman!" (a continuation of "Deep Cover for Batman!") also voiced by Jeff Bennett. His appearance and personality is very similar to the Silver Age version, as drawn by Dick Sprang. With the police and some of his superhero friends after him, Batman has no option but to team up with Joker to stop Owlman's crime spree especially when Owlman was upstaging Joker. During that time, the Joker briefly becomes a hero, but ultimately goes back to his evil roots because being a good guy was "just not him". Joker makes an appearance in "Legends of the Dark Mite!" along with the Penguin and other Batman villains. Joker appears in the teaser to "Hail the Tornado Tyrant!" when he is being tailed by Batman and Green Arrow during a series of robberies. He is captured after his car's many means of propulsion are destroyed by the combined efforts of the heroes. Joker also appears in the episode "Death Race to Oblivion!" as one of Mongul's racers. He creates tough obstacles for Batman and the others until after he is out of the race. He occasionally provides a play-by-play of the race while doing so. He is transported to a cell with the other losing villains and later put in a green cell created by Guy Gardner's power ring. Joker appears again among other villains in a bidding for a supersonic weapon held by arms dealer Joe Chill in the episode "Chill of the Night!" He later appears in "Emperor Joker!" as the primary antagonist along with his love, Harley Quinn and again in the episode "The Knights of Tomorrow!". In the Scooby-Doo crossover created by Bat-Mite, Joker was voiced by Corey Burton. In typical Joker style, he takes over an episode, which is called "Joker: The Vile and the Villainous!" where the roles of protagonist and antagonist are reversed. Even the theme song is a "Jokerized" version, with several of his fellow criminals shown. He reappears in "Night of the Batmen!", where he plans to make everyone on Earth insane just like him. He also captures Green Arrow, Plastic Man, Aquaman, and Captain Marvel: all were substituting for Batman, who was critically injured while fighting Kanjar Ro. Fortunately, Batman makes a special exosuit to free his partners and foil Joker. In one last attempt to kill the Dark Knight, Joker tries to electrocute him with his Joy-Buzzer, but Batman anticipated this and counterattacks by shocking Joker himself. He also appears in both the opening and the main plot of "Triumvirate of Terror". In the opening, he was seen playing baseball with the Legion of Doom against the Justice League International. In the main plot, Joker tries to kill Batman and Vicki Vale by launching a giant exploding pie onto them. But, as a predictable result, Batman escaped, freed Vicki, and dodged the pie before it hit. However, the Joker managed to make his escape. He later met up with Lex Luthor and the Cheetah, both who were having trouble dealing with their enemies Superman and Wonder Woman, respectively. They agree to switch enemies to destroy them. As such, Joker went after Wonder Woman. However, before he could kill her with a giant hammer, Luthor teleported the heroes and villains to their hideout, where they were going to kill them all on a worldwide broadcast. Fortunately, just as the villains switched heroes to fight, the heroes did the same, triple-teaming on them to defeat them. He also appears in the opening for "Powerless", where he has assembled a group called the Jokers of All Nations to fight the Batmen of All Nations. This team is made up of an Inuit, a hockey player, a Scotsman, a Cossak, and a sumo wrestler. Joker also appears in the opening for "Crisis: 22,300 Miles Above Earth" where he was hosting a celebrity roast to literally roast Batman. He has also invited Clock King, Gorilla Grodd, Penguin, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Kite Man, Gentleman Ghost, Black Manta, Riddler, and Solomon Grundy to the roast. The Joker has even forced Jeff Ross to roast Batman, but it turns out that Ross was a distraction for Batman to escape the roasting stick. When Joker tried to escape, Jeff got in his way and knocked him out. His final appearance was in "Mitefall" as one of the guests at the series cancellation party set up by Ambush Bug. He was mainly seen alongside Harley Quinn.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

A parallel earth, heroic version of the Joker called "the Jester" appears in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths voiced by James Patrick Stuart. He is a longtime ally of that Earth's Lex Luthor and a former member of their world's Justice League. He sacrifices his life taking out two supervillains in the process at the beginning of the film so that Luthor can escape and get help for their Earth which has been besieged by the villainous Crime Syndicate of America. Back at his lair, he is shown to have a monkey called Harley, whom Lex sadly informs that "the Jester is never coming back".

DC Super Friends

"The Joker's Playhouse" (2010) was an original video animation produced for Fisher-Price Imaginext's DC Super Friends and included as a DVD insert for the toyline. The episode features Joker taking over the Hall of Justice and the Super Friends running the gamut to reclaim it. The Joker is voiced by John Kassir.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

The Joker appears in the animated original movie which is based on the same book, Batman: Under the Red Hood, voiced by John DiMaggio. As Red Hood, he appears in one of the flashback scenes showing some material from Batman: The Killing Joke, where it is implied that several people have used the Red Hood persona (another nod to The Killing Joke), besides Jason and the Joker. The Joker is hired by Ra's al Ghul to distract Batman and Jason Todd, the second Robin, from the terrorist's plan to destroy the world economy. The Joker lures the Dynamic Duo to Sarajevo, Bosnia, where he beats Jason with a crowbar and leaves him to be killed by a bomb. Feeling guilty for his death, Ra's al Ghul revives Jason with the Lazarus Pit. Years later, Jason returns to Gotham as a crime lord calling himself the Red Hood, purposely taking his murderer's former criminal identity to attract his attention. After his first encounter with the Red Hood, Batman goes to Joker for information in Arkham Asylum. He claims that there is no connection. When Red Hood tries to kill him, Black Mask hires the Joker as a hitman to take down the Red Hood. The Joker kidnaps Jason's eight under-bosses, including the Black Mask, and holds them hostage inside an oil tanker. Jason arrives and reveals that his previous actions were designed to lure the Joker away from the safety of Arkham so that he could kill him. Jason beats and kidnaps the Joker and brings him to Crime Alley. He forces Batman to either kill him or the Joker, or Jason will detonate a bomb killing all three of them. Refusing either offer, Batman allows Jason to detonate the bomb but saves himself, Jason and the Joker. While Jason escapes, Batman takes the Joker back to Arkham.

Young Justice

The Joker appears in the Young Justice episode "Revelations", voiced by Brent Spiner. He was part of the Injustice League, and seen controlling Poison Ivy's plants all over the world. As in the comics, it was him who discovered the Justice League's mountain hideout. He is apparently to be immune to telepathy, as shown in issue #2 of the tie-in comic series when Martian Manhunter tried to enter his mind, but doubled over in pain with Joker replying "Scary in there, isn't it?". He uses switchblades as weapons, similar to Heath Ledger's portrayal. He also has a fourth-wall awareness, shown when he looks into the camera and says "Admit it: you can't turn away".

Video games

The Joker appears in numerous Batman-related video games, often being the main antagonist:

• In Batman Vengeance (based on The New Batman Adventures) and starring its voice cast, including Hamill as the Joker, he and Harley Quinn mastermind a plan to destroy Gotham City once and for all using an explosive, flammable compound consisting of Joker Toxin and a new substance called Promethium.

• The Joker is a playable character in Lego Batman: The Videogame with his vocal effects provided by Steven Blum. where he leads a group of villains in a mission to spread Joker toxin to all of Gotham City. He has dual Uzis, and can kill enemies using a lethal joybuzzer, which can also be used to power generators. He has a helicopter with a grappling hook. He leads a group of villains consisting of himself, Harley Quinn, the Mad Hatter, the Scarecrow and Killer Moth. His plan is to fill Gotham cathedral with his laughing gas and then blow the cathedral up to spread the gas all over Gotham. An unlockable alternate version of the character has the tropical costume worn by the Joker in Batman: The Killing Joke.

• He is also a playable character in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe voiced by Richard Epcar. Joker sports an array of magically endowed trick (but often lethal) weapons and fatalities and (storywise) he is also reasonably stronger due to the rage caused by the merging universes. Once he realizes that, he breaks from the mission Lex Luthor gave him and goes after Batman. He also easily defeats Sonya Blade and interrupts a fight between Deathstroke and Kano so he can finish Kano himself. Later in the story, the Joker turns on Deathstroke just for the fun of it and defeats him as well. In Joker's ending as the worlds separated, Joker discovered that he had retained his new powers and managed to take over Gotham, crowning himself "Mayor Joker", under his rule the city quickly fell into chaos. Joker now holds tournaments where contests fight to the death for his amusement with the winner fighting Joker.

• Mark Hamill reprises his role of the Joker for the 2009 video game Batman: Arkham Asylum, in which Joker is the main antagonist. This version wears bandages wrapped around his shoes in place of his usual spats. In the game, he takes over Arkham in an elaborate trap set for Batman and spends most of the game watching Batman with the use of the Asylum security cameras, taunting him as he makes his way through the island. His ultimate goal, however, is to combine a more potent plant-venom hybrid called Titan with his army of thugs, which he manipulated the higher-ups into transferring to Arkham in order to create "an army of a thousand Banes". He then sends the recently released Bane, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Killer Croc, Zsasz, and Harley to run interference alongside his thugs against Batman to slow him down. After foiling the other villains' agendas, Batman confronts the Titan-enhanced Joker atop Arkham which is televised across Arkham by Jack Ryder. The Joker also appears in Scarecrow's final hallucination, bringing Batman into Arkham Asylum and later shooting him point blank in the face. In the PlayStation 3 version of the game, players are able to actually play the Challenge Maps as the Joker, with thugs replaced by Arkham guards.

• Mark Hamill once again reprises his role for DC Universe Online. In the game's trailer, he is shown as one of the last surviving villains of the battle, and the only combatant besides Lex Luthor to survive the battle. In Gotham City, he takes over a decrepit amusement park with Harley Quinn. In the hero campaign, the players help Batman in fighting Joker who attacks the Special Crimes Unit’s inaugural ball in the Regal hotel. The player defeat Joker who manages to escape. Joker later collaborates with T.O. Morrow in order to develop a new type of Joker Venom and pays Deathstroke to dispose of Riddler. Besides Harley Quinn, Joker is served by Joker Anarchists, Joker Hiding Schizos, Jokandroids, Joker Dawgs, Joker Derangers, Joker Lunatics, Joker Madcaps, Joker Stooges, Joker Wags, Joker Wisecrackers, J1N1 Robots, Lefty, Righty, and Fullhouse.

• Hamill once again plays The Joker in Batman: Arkham City, the sequel to Arkham Asylum. This would also be his final role as The Clown Prince of Crime. In the teaser trailer he appears to be ill, suffering from both the side effects of the Titan powered Venom (used to power up Bane to give him his size and strength) and his defeat at the hands of Batman, with Harley Quinn taking care of him while watching the riot of the carnage in Arkham City, laughing and coughing. However, in a second trailer he is seen standing in view of Batman who proclaims it was all a lie and there was nothing wrong with him, hinting that Joker was merely faking his illness. Joker responds that it was nice of Batman to say but he of all people knows there is plenty wrong with him. Mark Hamill announced this would be his last vocal role for the Joker, and 'bid farewell' to the character on Twitter the day after release: "I'm going to miss him more than I can say!!" In the Arkham City demo, it is stated by Catwoman that Joker may be working with Hugo Strange on a project meant to end Batman's life and the rumor of his impending death is still circulating among the other crime lords in Arkham City. Joker's men have also taken control of the medical facility, set up in the Gotham City Cathedral, and are holding all medical staff hostage in order to claim all the chemicals and drugs for themselves. Joker attempts to murder Catwoman using a remote controlled sniper rifle from the bell tower of the Cathedral in order to lure Batman there. When Batman rescues the nurses and doctors, he climbs the tower to find out that Joker is not even there, but explosive devices rigged to blow. Batman escapes in time as the tower is engulfed and destroyed in the explosions. Although Joker appears to be recovering in the latter half of the game- although still dying due to the damage caused by the Titan formula-, his health is revealed to be nothing but Clayface posing as him. Although Batman finds a cure for the disease after Joker infects him with a tainted blood sample, Joker accidentally destroys the last of the cure after Batman cures himself when he stabs Batman in the shoulder with a knife and the Joker crawls on the floor, desperately trying to suck up the cure. Shortly afterward, Joker gives in to his disease and dies, his last words being to laugh at the irony that Batman was actually still willing to save him in the end despite all the pain and suffering he has caused. Batman carries the Clown Prince of Crime from the city, with Catwoman looking on, his thugs broken and Harley Quinn crying out in anguish and lays him on the hood of a police car, with Gordon wondering what the hell happened in there. The Joker still has a smile on his face as Batman leaves silently. During the credits, he can be heard singing Only You (And You Alone). The Joker also appears in Batman: Arkham City Lockdown, the mobile version of the game.

Batman: Arkham City's Joker was awarded the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards "Character of the Year" award.