Lunchtime Sketch: The Joker

I grew up with the 1970s Joker, a dandy in a long overcoat and gigantic pimp hat. He looked like Madame, the celebrity dummy act from the '70s.

I mean the one on the right.

This Joker was violent and mercurial with a definite code of conduct. There was method in his madness, and that predictability allowed his relationship with Batman to be the standard hero-villain dynamic. It was only when Joker was made so very dark and insane (crippling Batgirl in an effort to drive Commissioner Gordon mad, for instance) that Batman likewise had to become dark and angry to balance the binary pair.

I've no problem with, say, the Heath Ledger Joker. For every distinct Batman iteration, we'll have as many Jokers. There's room for that in the Bat mythology; you can pick and choose from the spectrum. I like what Grant Morrison did with the two in Arkham Asylum, for instance. There, Joker was practically a drag queen. Morrison also introduced the idea that Joker had a super-power, an elevated degree of insanity that helped explain why there are so many Joker styles: He invents himself anew. He's a quantum crazy brain. I can dig that.