BATMAN #1 - "The Joker"
The Joker got off to a strong start with not one but two stories in the very first issue of Batman. No clown, he, but a psychopathic thief and serial killer from the very beginning whose murders were nothing short of inventive. The "Joker" playing card is introduced as his symbol. I first read this in "treasury edition" format was I was ten years old.
1st murder: Henry Claridge for the Claridge diamond. The Joker announced on the radio that the murder would happen at midnight. Despite a cordon of police, Claridge dropped dead at the stroke of midnight, his face distorted into a ghastly grin. Actually, the diamond had been stolen the night before and Claridge injected with a dose of "Joker venom" which was timed to act in exactly 24 hours.
2nd murder: Jay Wilde for the Ronker's ruby. Also announced in advance over the radio, this time the Joker hid inside a suit of armor, knocked out the police guards with a non-lethal version of Joker venom in gas form, and killed Wilde with a blow dart.
3rd murder: Brute Nelson, a rival crime boss. Joker walked into an obvious trap and simply shot him, but Batman was stalking the place as well. The Joker defeats Batman in hand-to-hand combat and escapes.
4th murder: Judge Drake for revenge. This time the Joker disguises himself as the chief of police and kills the judge while playing cards. Batman and Robin have the judge's house staked out, Robin in front and Batman in back, but the Joker leaves from the front and Robin follows him to his hideout. Batman trails Robin, confronts the Joker and is again defeated.
5th murder (thwarted): Otto Drexel for the Cleopatra necklace. Batman is the to meet him when he attempts to break into Drexel's penthouse. Joker empties his gun into Batman's bullet-proof vest, then jumps to an adjoining construction site where Robin is waiting. Robin kicks Joker off the scaffolding, but Batman catches him, knocks him out and turns him over to the police. In his cell, the Joker already plots his escape.
Replies
Yes. I was assuming everyone here knew that. It's blatantly obvious is what I meant.
Everyone who regularly posts presumably knew that, but there are over 700 members of the Round Table.
Too bad more of 'em don't read my discussions.
BATMAN #20 - "The Centuries of Crime!"
Joker approaches fraudulent scientist Ecla Tate and "crooked crystal gazer" Swami Meera in charlston Charlie's Chowder House with a plan to defraud suckers. Tate's mark is greedy financier Percival Pruitt, and Meera's is bank robber Kid Glove Mixter. both are offered the chance to go 1000 years in the future, to the year 2043 (as calculated by Pruitt). Pruitt plans cash in on certain investments then to return to the present, Mixter just wants to escape Batman and the police. While Pruitt gets his dusck in a row, Mixter is sent first. He walks into the time machine, which shoots electric bolts and emits gas. He awakens in a futuristic city that looks more like 2943 than what I imagine what 2043 will look like in 18 years, so I guess Pruit is just bad at math.
Meanwhile, Percival Pruitt visits Bruce Wayne to ask him to look after Pruitt's interests at the meeting of the board of the State Bank tomorrow because he'll be "out of town" for a few days. "That's right," says Bruce. "I am a director of the bank! I'd forgotten!" (which is a totally normal thing to say).But Pruitt is busting to tell someone about his scheme, so he tells Bruce. Later, just as Joker and his cronies are about to send Pruitt into the "future," Batman and Robin arrive. But Joker gets the drop on them and kncoks them unconscious. When they awaken, they find themselves in a cell in a tower room of the futuristic city. Walking below, Mixter sees Batman & Robin through the bars. Elsewhere, Pruit learns that the ecomony has changed in 1000 years, and his investments are worthless.
Both return to the "modernistic office" where the "time chamber" is to renegotiate their respective deals. (Apparently Joker, Tate and Meera transported themselves to the future as well.) Joker agrees to return them to 1943, but only for a half million dollars apiece. They agree, but after they step into the time machine, Joker decides to "send them an extra thousand years back into time, and see how much they'll pay to get out of that!" Pruit and Mixter awaken and emerge from the machine in ancient Damascus, where they quickly run afould of the Emir. Just before they are to be tortured, Joker, Tate and Meera arrive in the dungeon. Joker explains that he has visited the past so many times that he is chummy with the Emir, and agrees to save them for another half million apiece.
Meanwhile back in "2943," Batman and robin escape the tower cell and discover they are on a movie set. Breaking through a paper mâché wall, they find themselves in "ancient Damascus," where they quickly capture all the crooks, including Mixter. Pruitt didn't commit a crime (as Robin puts it, "I don't know who to blame most -- swindlers or the people who are stupid enough to be swindled"), but he seems to have reformed his greedy ways and plans to donate half of what he would have lost to the Joker to allied war relief. Batman explains that, as Bruce Wayne, he once invested in a movie company that wanted to film a movie titled "Through the Ages," but after they built the sets, they went bankrupt.
"Days later," the headline in the Gotham Gazette reads: "JOKER GETS LIFE SENTENCE -- Swears He Won't Serve It." Alfred [Beagle] gets the final quip: "Might I make so bold as to suggest, sir, that his past seems at present to be determining his future?"
Alliterative descriptors: Mirthful Mountebank, Crime's Clown Charleton, Wiley Crime Clown
76 years before Geoff Johns' Three Jokers, Bill Finger gave us...
DETECTIVE COMICS #85 - "The Joker's Double"
Gimmick: Crimes based on game of bridge positions (north, south, east west) and suits (spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds).
The four wealthy men get together to play bridge once a month in an exclusive club in Gotham City. It is revealed right off that these crimes are not being committed by the Joker, but by an imposter. After the second murder/robbery, the real Joker hears of the crimes being committed in his name and decides to put a stop to them, even if it does put him "on the side of law and order." After consulting his extensive crime files (actual file cabinets with drawers labeled "Theft," "Murder," "Arson," etc), he doesn't have a lead so decides to follow Batman, who already suspects the crimes are being committed by an imposter because they don't adhere to "his own peculiar code of honor."
Batman learns that Mr. Hart owns a factory in West Virginia and decides to stake it out. Sure enough, they arrive in the Batplane to find Hart's factory on fire. While Batman "takes care of the plane," Robin chases the Joker into the Burning Heart Press printing press. When Batman finally shows, the ersatz "Joker" hits him over the head with a fire extinguisher to put out his "famous fighting spirit" (the third "heart"). At this time, the real Joker arrives and begins attacking his doppelgänger. In the confusion, the fake Joker gets away and Batman ends up fighting the real one, who protests his innocence (of these latest crimes, anyway). Back in the burning factory, Mr. Hart himself appears at a window, trapped on an upper floor.
In order to "prove his innocence," Joker rescues Hart. The Batman doesn't believe him, so the Joker leaps onto a nearby firetruck. Batman and Robin follow, but quickly succumb to the Joker's gas (just the knockout gas, not the lethal Joker venom). When they awaken, they at least believe they are now dealing with the real Joker. To further prove his sincerity, while Batman and Robin are still in a daze, Joker gives them a tour of his no-longer-secret hideout, including his "magic ear" and his "television-telescope," with which he can "see anything in any direction... through night, smoke, fog or rain... I have watched you for many hours through that instrument, Batman... hours when you thought you were alone!"
He then proceeds to show them "trophies" from actual former stories. It is Robin who recovers from the gas first, but Joker ends up dropping them 50 feet through a trapdoor into the "vast labyrinth" beneath. While they effect their escape, both Batman and the Joker deduce that "East" must mean the state of Virginia by default. when they verify that Mr. Harris owns a curio shop which houses a famous set of four diamonds, their deduction is confirmed. Joker arrives just as his duplicate has broken into the safe. They begin to fight. Then Batman and Robin show up and polish off both Jokers. The real Joker spills some grease on the floor, causing Batman and Robin to slip. Then he tackles his couterpart, knocks him out and lifts the four diamonds from his pocket. The fake Joker is revealed to be Mr. Hart... who knew "when and where to murder and rob [his bridge partners]... he set fire to his own plant as a cover-up!"
In order to "prove" that all he wanted was to "vindicate" his name, the Joker tosses the diamonds to Batman, but they fall short, into the pool of grease, and begin to slide. Batman immediately knows that the "diamonds" are actually worthless glass fakes, "because they slid on the grease! Diamond is the only substance known that will not slip on grease! The joker must have switched the stones when he took them from Hart's pocket." Okay, I've heard the bit about pearls becoming more lusterous in contact with human skin, but diamonds don't slide in grease!? Is that true? Did someone once conduct a study of which substances do or do not slide in grease? And if so, why?
But the stoy's not over yet! The Joker makes his escape by running across a drawbridge just before it opens. (Get it? The "bridge murders" end on a bridge.) So the Joker gets away, but Robin reveals that he picked Joker's pocket and retrieved the jewels. Robin quips, "All the Joker's got for his trophy room is a hole in his pocket! And you know what a hole is... nothing!" (Is that a bridge term?)
Alliterative descriptor: Master of Mockery
BATMAN #23 - "¡sǝɯᴉɹϽ uʍoᗡ ǝpᴉsdՈ ǝɥꓕ"
Gimmick: After a trip through a carnival funhouse, Joker is inspired to commit a series of "upside-down" pranks and crimes. Even the clues are flip-flopped ("morning" means "night," "basement" means "penthouse," etc.).
The chase: Joker steals the Batplane.
Hi-light: Wearing metal boots, Joker and Batman fight upside-down on a magnitized ceiling (recalling Groucho Marx's upside-down dance with Eve Arden from At the Circus).
Clue: "Fate lurks where the stars are false and the sands of time run upside-down!" (Don't bother trying to figure it out.)It leads to the Hour Glass Nite Club's annual "Movie Star Ball," in which the rich and famous come dressed as their favorite celebrities, such as: Charlie chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Gretta Garbo, Milton Berle, Katharine Hepburn, Fred Asaire & Ginger Rogers, Shirley Temple, Gropucho & Horpo Marx, and Edward G. Robinson among others.
Robin saves the day twice in this story (whereas Batman knocks himself out by stepping on Joker's gas gun). I wish I had been keeping track of puns; I think Batman and Robin are about even at this point. Batman & Robin protect themselves from Joker's gas by putting "medicated cotton" in their nostrils. A waitress gets the final zinger as she offers Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson upside-down cake for desert.
Alliterative descriptors: Devilish Dealer in Deadly Jests, Fearsome Fakir, Mad Master of Mirth, Fabulous Funster, Laughing Lawbreaker, Crime Clown (and non-alliterative: Harlequin of Crime, Ace of Knaves)
DETECTIVE COMICS #85 - "The Joker's Double"
“I have watched you for many hours through that instrument, Batman... hours when you thought you were alone!"
Did they explain how Joker watched Batman but didn’t discover his secret identity?
Nope, that's all it says.
DETECTIVE COMICS #91 - "The Case of the Practical Joker"
The story begins with the Joker in prison serving a life sentence (which is in itself odd because he was not captured in Batman #23). Someone is playing practical jokes on the Joker. For some reason, this story makes front page news in the Gotham Daily. When Bruce Wayne reads the headline, for some reason he decides the situation bears investigation by the Batman, so he assaults a prison guard and takes his place. He soon discovers that the Joker has been playing these practical jokes on himself, to "set the stage" for his real escape, which involved duming a bucket filled with "a chemical that neutralizes tear-gas" over his head, but all it really did was to draw the Batman's attention.
So the Joker escapes and Batman gets shot in the leg. ("Just a flesh wound, Robin! I'll be all right!") A few days later, the following ad appears in the paper: "DON'T MISS The funniest stunt of all time! At 8 P.M. Tuesday, the Joker will slip on a banana peel in Gotham Square! See the Master Mummer victimized as he has victimized others!" I don't know if I'd classify that as "the funniest stunt of all time," but the Joker does indeed show up and slip on a banana peel. Then the Joker's men throw doezens of banana peels from the windows of nearby buildings, conpletely incapacitating the police. While in prison, the Joker bragged that his next crime would be "the theft of an entire city," and Batman deduced that he meant a jewel-encrusted model of Gotham City. Batman thwarts the robbery, but ends up falling victim to Joker's house of mirrors.
Death-trap (such as it is): Joker fires peas at the bound Batman, but mixed in among the peas is a poisoned dart... a sort of kid's version of Russion roulette. In another discussion recently, Cap and Richard Willis were discussing Robin's use of a sligshot; Robin uses a slingshot in this scene to save the Batman, quipping, "This proves that the slingshot is mightier than the peashooter!"
A few days later, the Joker sends a note to Commissioner Gordon promising that the Joker will become the victim of his own practical jokes tonight in Gotham Square. Gordon deploys the police force, but the note was in reference to a film of the Joker projected on the side of a building. Batman, however, deduced the Joker's real crime (the theft of a Stradivarius) due to another remark he made in prison. Joker falls into Batman's trap, is captured and returned to his cell. We'll have to see if he's still in prison next time or is inexplicably on the loose again.
Alliterative descriptors: Conniving Comedian, Bandit Buffoon, Menacing Master of Mockery, Malevolent Mime, Mirthful Menace, Jeering Jester, Master Mummer, and the often-used Harlquin of Hate. (Some of these, such as "Malevolent Mime" and "Master Mummer" are really stretching a point.)
BATMAN #25 - "Knights of Knavery"
As the story opens, surprisingly, the Joker is in jail, but not because he was caught in Detective Comics #91. This time he was caught, apparently between issues, while trying to steal the Van Landorpf emerald. He soon gets a cellmate: the Penguin! On the symbolic splash page, Joker and Penguin are signing a contract to the effect that they will join forces "until such time as the Batman and Robin be laid by the heels," (which is an obsolete term for placing one's feet in shackles), which is pretty much what happens.
Alliterative descriptors: Leering Monster of Menace, Jocular Genius; terms for the Penguin include Grotesque Bird of Ill-Omen; both of them together are referred to as the Twins of Transgression, Boasting Bandits, and a Combination of Craft and Cunnning (plus the title) ; things they call each other include Giggling Ghoul, Umbrella-Toting Underworld Upstart, Babbling Buffoon, Waddling Wind-Bag, Chortling Chump andFoul-Feathered Fowl (among other things).
Apart from the novelty of seeing Batman's two greatest foes together, there's not a lot of meat to this story. I think National missed a sure bet by not featuring this story on the cover.
-
6
-
7
-
8
-
9
-
10
of 26 Next