DC’s Batman and Joker are seemingly locked in a neverending loop of fights, arrests, and prison escapes, but the Clown Prince of Crime revealed that he’s already killed his nemesis…perhaps even multiple times. The Joker is mentally insane, and one would hardly believe such an assertion, especially considering that both characters have survived “death” countless times. But in Robin #85, the Joker outlines his completely flawless (at least to him) logic.
The Joker is an enigma in terms of his past as well as his mental state; thus, he’s constantly undergoing psychiatric evaluation as soon as he’s behind bars in Arkham Asylum or Blackgate Prison. In this instance, the Joker sits in a solitary cell, reminiscing about his childhood; his cruel father had shot his prized horse, a truly traumatizing moment. Of course the story is hardly believable, because according to the interviewer, this is “…the twentieth motivating childhood trauma you’ve described to us.” The Joker decides to tell another story about childhood trauma – about Robin, and the day he died.
To hurt Batman in the most devastating fashion, Joker kidnapped Robin, beat him half to death with a crowbar, and then used explosives to finally kill him (this event is chronicled in Batman: Death in the Family, in which Jason Todd’s fate was infamously decided by a narrow fan vote). Much to Joker’s surprise, he saw Robin soon after, seemingly no worse for wear. “There’s more than one Robin,” the Joker finally realizes. “I either killed the others or they retired. And if that was true…maybe there was more than one Batman, maybe I did succeed in killing him all those times.”
Aside from a fascinating look into the Joker’s flawed logic (and perhaps the inability to recognize faces and voices), the issue also gives one insight into the reason behind Joker’s murder of Robin. Joker sees all Robins as victims of Batman; he believes Batman sending in children to fight hardened criminals – without any guns – is traumatizing, and Joker thus wants to hurt Batman for these actions…by killing Robin. If the end goal was to hurt Batman, the Joker has certainly succeeded, but it’s apparent he sees nothing wrong with killing Robin at all.
The Joker has famously never discovered Batman’s true identity (and whenever he has, his memory is quickly wiped). This could be an answer to the mystery: it’s not that Joker doesn’t care, but perhaps Joker has already resigned himself to the fact that there’s more than one Caped Crusader. Considering there’s more than one Joker, his logic that there are additional Batmen is sound.
