Crafting The Joker’s History
At the point in time of this film’s release, many of us still had Tim Burton’s depiction of the Joker as being the former mobster Jack Napier at the back of our minds. Truth be told, it’s actually my favorite “backstory” of the Clown Prince of Crime as it adds credibility to his lust for killing. I’m sorry, Alan Moore, but while The Killing Joke is a great book overall, the whole failed comedian shtick is blah.
In Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, the Joker was shown to be one of Salvatore Valestra’s thugs, implying he was responsible for the murder of Carl Beaumont. I don’t know about you but I geeked out seeing the Ace of Knaves without his trademark outfit and makeup in the flashback sequences. It added some, dare I say, humanity to him.
It might not be a huge origin story for him, but it’s still some history for a notoriously enigmatic character. What this movie showed us is that we don’t need a full from birth to clown rundown of his past; we just want to know a little bit more about him.