This article contains spoilers for Batman: Three Jokers #2.
The Joker was running Gotham City back before Batman ever came on the scene. Back in 2016, DC Comics teased there was more to the Joker than anyone had ever realized. Batman briefly became the God of Knowledge, sitting on the chair of the New God called Metron. He asked the chair a simple question; what is the Joker’s real name? To his surprise, the chair responded by revealing there isn’t one Joker – rather, there are three.
The story has gone untold for four years, largely because writer Geoff Johns was otherwise engaged. Now, in the Batman: Three Jokers miniseries, Johns has teamed up with artist Jason Fabok to finally reveal the truth. There are indeed three Jokers, working together, orchestrating a grand trick upon Batman and the rest of the Bat-Family. It’s a smart idea, because it neatly explains all the inconsistencies in character-work over the decades. One of the Jokers is now dead, killed by Jason Todd in an act of revenge, but can Batman possibly beat the two surviving Jokers?
The mystery of the three Jokers deepens in this week’s Batman: Three Jokers #2, with one – the oldest, referred to throughout as “The Criminal” – revealing he is older than anyone ever suspected. “I was the first,” he tells a captive Jason Todd. “Before Batman… I ran Gotham.” It’s an important quote, because it ties the story of the three Jokers to the history of Gotham City. It reveals the rampant crime and all-pervasive corruption in Gotham was not random at all, but rather was orchestrated by the first Joker.
It may only be a throwaway comment, but it’s a vitally important clue, because it allows readers to begin to put the pieces together. It’s reasonable to assume the first Joker ran Gotham under the alias of the Red Hood, because throughout the issue the Jokers insist the Red Hood identity should come first. He must have been one of Gotham’s first crime lords, operating from the shadows, reveling in the chaos he created.
But here’s the interesting question; is it possible this oldest Joker predates Batman in every way, and in fact is tied to Batman’s very origin story? The issue sees the Joker kidnap Joe Chill, the man who murdered Thomas and Martha Wayne, and he intends to record a video confession in which Chill explains the real reason he targeted the Waynes. It could well be that Joe Chill was working for the Red Hood at the time, and that he was tasked to kill the Waynes – fitting with recent hints there was a greater conspiracy behind the Wayne murders. Presumably Thomas Wayne’s attempts to clean up Gotham were a threat to the Red Hood’s criminal empire, and he wanted the Waynes taken out. He had no idea that order would ultimately lead to the creation of Batman, forcing him further into the shadows than ever before, and prompting his transformation into the Joker.
Batman: Three Jokers #2 by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok is out now.
