Joker Finally Admits Batman’s Worldview Is Right

Batman and the Joker have been fighting for decades due to their differing beliefs about the nature of life. The Joker believes that the world is chaos and there’s no point in anything. Batman believes in hope and that things will get better — eventually. These opposing worldviews have led them to battle over the years, but recently, one version of the Joker fully admitted that Batman is right.

The Joker comes around to Batman’s way of thinking in Action Comics #1063 by Jason Aaron and John Timms. In this issue, the Joker teams up with Superman after becoming “the sanest man on Earth” from Bizarro’s magic. In this moment, the Joker begins talking about his new worldview, and those beliefs line up shockingly well with Batman’s.

The Joker talks to Bizarro and states that the world can’t be forced to work the way someone wants it. The Joker outright says that someone can’t expect the world to change to fix what’s broken inside them. This statement is a complete dismissal of what the Joker usually believes, and it instead falls in line with Batman’s thinking.

Bizarro Joker Finally Embraces Batman’s Methods

Compassion and a Willingness to Listen Are Essential Parts of Being a Hero

Batman’s worldview was shaped after the death of his parents. He suffered an unimaginable tragedy that rocked him to his core, and from that, Batman formed his no-kill rule that he still uses to this day. Batman fully believes that with enough work, the world can be saved and things will get better. Batman’s methods, while slow, are working. The number of homicide cases in Gotham City has steadily been decreasing since Batman showed up, and the quality of citizens’ lives has been increasing due to Batman’s charity.

The Joker came upon his twisted ideology after he fell into a vat of chemicals. Emerging from it, he found his skin dyed white and his hair green, and he is completely unable to stop smiling due to a forced rictus grin. The Joker believes that all life is meaningless, as it’s nothing but a sick joke. He has tried to force other people into seeing his point of view, such as when he attempted to drive James Gordon insane during the events of The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. But after the Joker is changed into the sanest man on Earth, he believes Batman is right.

The Joker Believes All Life Is Meaningless

Joker’s Nihilistic Philosophy, Explained

The Joker’s belief that the world is madness and pointless is what allows him to commit his cruel crimes. If life doesn’t matter, then the number of people he kills doesn’t matter, either. The Joker also firmly believes that if anyone went through enough trauma, they’d turn out like him. His strongest argument for this is Batman. Batman also experienced a bad day and decided to dress up like a bat and beat criminals in response. Despite the character’s popularity, becoming “the Batman” is an intense reaction, but Batman’s reasoning for his actions opposes the Joker’s.

Batman has become a vigilante to prevent anyone from experiencing the trauma he has. In Planetary / Batman: Night on Earth #1 by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday, Batman encounters a young man who gaines the power to shift reality after witnessing the murders of his parents. Batman talks him down by reminding him of his parents’ love and compassion — and how they made him feel safe. Batman caps this speech off by telling the man that this is the only way to make the world make sense. It’s not about lashing out with cruelty to prove that the world is broken, it’s about preventing anyone else from being broken by it in the same way.

Batman Knows the World Could Be a Better Place

Art from Planetary / Batman: Night on Earth #1 by Ellis, Cassaday, David Baron, and Wes Abbott

While under the effects of Bizarro’s magic in Action Comics, the Joker is rendered entirely sane and unbelievably compassionate. He uses his perfect sanity to speak with utter clarity about the world, and his ideas mimic Batman’s. While the Joker usually wants to spread death and chaos, Bizarro Joker fully admits that attacking the world because of the trauma inside won’t fix anything. While readers aren’t shown the Joker’s full speech, his compassion and kindness are stated to be unlike anything ever expressed in the DC Universe. The Joker’s speech succeeds in both talking down Bizarro and inspiring Superman.

It’s important to note that Bizarro Joker isn’t just the inverse of his personal beliefs, it’s simply the inverse of his insanity. The Joker has often been rendered sane, such as in JLA: Rock of Ages by Grant Morrison, Greg Land, Howard Porter, and Gary Frank, in which Martian Manhunter re-orders Joker’s mind to be sane, whereupon the Joker immediately expresses regret for what he’s done. This brief scene suggests that if his insanity were ever fixed, the Joker would fully believe in what Batman is doing. But due to his intense insanity, the Joker is trapped in his view of the world.

Batman’s Ideology Will Always Be Unknowable to the Joker

Art from Nightwing #112 by Tom Taylor, Sami Basri, Vicente Cifuentes, Adriano Lucas, and Wes Abbott

Such is the biggest tragedy of the Joker: it’s not necessarily that he’s evil, but rather that whatever good there may be in him is drowned by his incurable insanity. Even Martian Manhunter could only hold his mind together for a moment before the insanity took over again. Because of this insanity, it’s unlikely the Joker will ever fully understand Batman’s view of the world, which will only lead to their continued fighting over the decades. But for one moment at least, even if it was due to an evil spell, the Joker and Batman believed in the same thing and tried fighting for a better world because of that shared perspective.

Action Comics #1063 is available now from DC Comics!