I'm curious to see what everyone else's personal rankings are. I couldn't decide on who should be at the bottom because despite Joaquin Phoenix being a phenomenal actor I couldn't stand to finish watching The Joker his performance just felt forced and cringe. Jared Leto's Joker is an abomination imo no explanation needed. I know I'm gonna get some hate for Cameron Monaghan as my 3rd but tbh I liked his portrayal of the Joker in Gotham.

Mine are as follows:

1. Heath Ledger

2. Jack Nicholson

3. Cameron Monaghan

4. Caesar Romero

5. Joaquin Phoenix

6. Jared Leto

I'll go first. The Joker is LAYERED, like a cake full of other cakes layered. The cartoons made him seem like a silly clown villain with occasionally good schemes, but no, Joker's a serious Batman villain who can become almost a nightmare incarnate when he wants to.

Do y’all see the vision? He can go from “regular dude” to “motherly schoolteacher” to “axe murderer” in seconds and is also a great physical comedian, and it helps that he’s genuinely tall and gangly.

So I know the consensus is the movie sucked. It was definitely a bit dry, but it felt like an incredibly important story told through the lense of the camp of Joker to juxtapose the reality that this is a criminal who feels like hes living like a clown the way hes treated like a joke. It was understandable rage that someone would fight back a society constantly humiliating this man. The music numbers added very well to the dreams this man has that normalizes him. Makes him like everyone else when he has love. But love is only in the cards if he is the Joker, a clown, someone to laugh at or celebrate. I think this seemed odd for a story for the joker, it didn't have the hallmark fun or dark comedy of the joker, or the intersting plot for such a serious movie. But it had emotional depth that really peered into the mind of a man who has to lie and say hes crazy because no one honors the individual concern of wanting a good life. Especially after his trauma of constantly withstanding abuse as a child. His worldview is warped. No one can really love him, he feels like hes nothing and made others feel that way when he was provoked. The main witness defended who he was before the murders, a ray of sunshine despite his setbacks. But just like the sun sets that light from the sun fades and we reach judgement day. TO a lot of people jdugement day reawakens them, gives them a new philosophy to reenergize them to a new beginning, while for others its being stabbed and called a sick psychopath because you became traumatized with so many psychopaths in your life you constantly standing guard, got provoked, and attacked people. Arthur doesn't even know he's sick, but he functions enough most would call hihim evil instead of what he is. Defending himself from evil within others. Arthur was provoked. He deserved better, but sadly his story is the reality of what traumatized individuals go through. Every one is an opportunity to everyone and there's really nothing you can do to stop people from viewing others this way. Despite oppurtunists are the unthoughful actors we say are ruining this earth. But even critics don't beat the actors so they join the crowd instead of fighting. So everyone in turn is an oppurtunist, critical, and willing to do either or drop either without recognizing they are hypocritically embracing the things they hate just so they can have a will to live, an ego thats stroked enough to catapulate them through life. Arthur is some kind of a hero, but to some breaking rules means you cannot be a hero. I thought him and harly Quintel would like somehow be more heroic at the end with some grand gesture. But it stayed true to reality. Arthur is a clown to society. He can only be loved when he makes people laugh, and no matter if he makes people happy or sad they treat him like a big cosmic joke. His defenses came up from his life experience and he did what he had to do, not being an oppurtunist but defending himself from oppurtunists who did the reverse and pose and critics who are better than Arthur. Something all to common with every single human. Fight. Fight. Fight. It extinguishes goodness, but people swear its all that matters.

El tema es el Joker. Mientras más historias leo, más siento que DC ha ido cambiando la naturaleza del personaje dependiendo del escritor, y llega un punto donde ya no sé qué es realmente el Joker dentro del canon.

Siempre se nos ha presentado el origen más conocido: un criminal que, siendo Red Hood, cae en un tanque de químicos. A partir de ese momento adquiere su apariencia característica (piel blanca, cabello verde y labios rojos) y, junto con el trauma psicológico, nace el Joker que todos conocemos. Hasta ahí parecería que simplemente estamos hablando de un ser humano que sufrió un accidente físico y un colapso mental.

Sin embargo, conforme pasan los años, DC comienza a introducir elementos que hacen pensar que el Joker es mucho más que eso.

Por ejemplo, en Flashpoint, Martha Wayne termina convirtiéndose en el Joker después de perder a Bruce. Ahí el accidente químico nunca ocurre, lo que hace pensar que el Joker no depende realmente de los químicos, sino que determinadas circunstancias pueden llevar a una persona a convertirse en "el Joker".

Después aparecen historias donde existen varias personas que adoptan la identidad del Joker o donde se insinúa que podrían existir múltiples Jokers al mismo tiempo, como ocurrió con Batman: Three Jokers. Aunque sé que esa historia tiene una posición discutida respecto al canon, vuelve a plantear la duda de si el Joker es una sola persona o un concepto que puede repetirse.

Luego está Dark Nights: Metal, donde aparece The Batman Who Laughs, un Batman infectado con una toxina derivada del Joker que termina adquiriendo su personalidad. Ahí ya no parece únicamente un trastorno psicológico, sino algo capaz de alterar la mente de otra persona.

En Batman: Endgame también vemos que la toxina del Joker convierte a muchas personas en versiones de él, con la misma sonrisa, la misma agresividad y un comportamiento muy parecido. Eso nuevamente hace pensar que existe algún tipo de agente biológico o químico que transmite la "locura" del Joker.

Incluso en historias como The Joker: Year One o en distintos relatos modernos, algunos escritores dejan entrever que el Joker parece sobrevivir a situaciones imposibles, como si tuviera una resistencia fuera de lo normal o una capacidad casi sobrenatural para regresar una y otra vez.

Y luego está Batman: White Knight, donde un medicamento logra revertir la personalidad del Joker y devuelve a Jack Napier. Eso parecería indicar que todo es consecuencia de una enfermedad mental tratable y no de una entidad.

Por otro lado, también existe la teoría del "super-sanity" propuesta por Grant Morrison. Según esa interpretación, el Joker no estaría loco en el sentido tradicional, sino que su mente cambia constantemente para adaptarse al mundo que percibe, como si cada día fuera una persona distinta. No es una explicación médica ni un poder oficial, pero sí una forma muy interesante de entender por qué nunca actúa exactamente igual entre una historia y otra.

Y para complicarlo aún más, está la revelación de Darkseid War, donde Batman utiliza la Silla de Mobius y descubre que existen "tres Jokers", algo que posteriormente dio pie a la historia del mismo nombre. Aunque después la continuidad ha sido confusa respecto a esa revelación, dejó abierta otra enorme interrogante.

Al final, la duda principal es esta:

¿El Joker es únicamente un hombre que sufrió un accidente y desarrolló una mente criminal extraordinaria, o con el paso de los años DC lo ha convertido en algo más, casi como un símbolo, una idea que puede manifestarse en distintas personas, o incluso una especie de "infección" psicológica que trasciende al individuo?

Siento que esa es una de las mayores confusiones que existen alrededor del personaje, porque dependiendo del escritor parece ser un simple criminal, un genio del caos, un enfermo mental, un mutante producto de químicos o casi una fuerza de la naturaleza.

The joker is meant to be Batman’s fiercest nemesis. Incredibly intelligent and evil and sinister. JP joker movies fucking suck and are not true at all to the joker. Jokers history should be menacing, terrifying, and mysterious. Not some baby singing and dancing on stairs that has a low IQ.

The Joker is on the beach, I think he's doing an advertisement.✨💜

Just a fun li'l thing I did with a chance encounter between Mistah J and Bats. 😂

Music is from Loony Tunes "Plumber's Crack" - season 1 of the original show.

Joker - agentsofkhaos

Batman - azdarkknight

I made this in Tomodachi Life Living the Dream and it took forever.

- Dark Joker

Golden Age Joker was such a serious character, right?

Pencils and inks attributed to George Roussos.

Joker painted ( airbrush )
Tell me what do you think