Jared Leto’s new Joker look has been revealed, free from blurriness, but the full Justice League design is still obscured from view. The Oscar-winning Leto was first cast as the DCEU’s resident Joker for Suicide Squad in 2016, but faced an uphill battle from the start. Initial reaction to his radical design was polarizing, and Suicide Squad itself fared poorly with fans and critics, with Joker’s presence in the film coming under particular scrutiny. After Warner Bros. changed their overall approach to the DCEU and James Gunn took the Suicide Squad in a fresh direction, Leto’s time as Joker looked to be over – especially after Joaquin Phoenix was cast for the character’s solo effort.
In an unexpected 2020 surprise, Jared Leto’s Joker was announced for a glorious return in the Justice League Snyder cut, apparently as part of the film’s dystopian Knightmare timeline. Snyder recently gave DC fans an early glimpse of the revamped Joker, but some well-placed blur masked the major details. Through Vanity Fair, new images of Leto in action have now been unveiled, and these shots (taken by Snyder himself) offer a perfect, close-up look at Joker’s new face. Stronger white makeup covers the gaudy facial tattoos, while the slapped-on lipstick and eye paint is more reminiscent of The Dark Knight‘s Heath Ledger.
Justice League‘s darker Joker design is receiving a far more positive reaction than Suicide Squad‘s, but it’s interesting that the full force of the makeover is yet to be revealed. The latest images depict Leto’s Joker in a plain-walled facility of some description, and the villain is wearing what appears to be a hospital gown with surgical gloves. The bleak cloak covers the majority of Joker’s body, creating a sense of anonymity that contrasts with his outlandish hair and face paint. According to Snyder, the costume is a remnant of whatever institution Joker escaped from when the Knightmare began, but the gown covers up a vital component of any Joker design – the costume.
Snyder confirms Joker won’t be wearing the hospital gown during most of his Justice League misadventure. Instead, Leto will be sporting a bulletproof vest. Moreover, his body armor will be covered in a smattering of police badges that Joker has swiped from his victims as trophies. Based on this description, Joker’s new outfit will make for a bold, striking visual, and represent a marked departure from anything the character has donned before on the big screen. Justice League replaces the controversial facial design of Suicide Squad with something DC fans will be far more familiar with, but the bulletproof vest costume introduces another significant DCEU deviation from the comics. Even as Joker’s new makeup receives near-universal acclaim online, the success or failure of his costume could still play a role in determining how far Justice League‘s Joker is an improvement upon Suicide Squad.
Seeing Joker in a hospital gown is familiar territory for the character. Various incarnations of the Batman villain have been spotted wearing straitjackets, gowns, and even nurses’ uniforms. A bulletproof vest covered in police badges takes Leto in a unique direction, but should the costume really be a surprise? If Joker features as part of Justice League‘s Knightmare sequence, the post-apocalyptic landscape created by Darkseid will inevitably change Joker’s persona from his usual Gotham City getup, just as Batman took to wearing a trench coat and packing a firearm. There’s also a fascinating twist on the pair’s usual dynamic – where usually it’s Batman covered in armor and Joker firing bullets, those roles are reversed in the Justice League Knightmare.
