The Joker is possibly the most popular villain in pop culture. He is a character that has been able to change and evolve with the times, which has kept him vital for the last 85 years. He’s one of those characters that everyone knows, regardless of whether they read comics, and I feel like nearly everyone over a certain age in the United States has experienced some kind of Joker story. The changes to the character are the most interesting facets of the villain; you never know what version is going to show up. Some of these changes have stuck and others haven’t. Today, we’re going to talk about one that didn’t.
The New 52 completely rebooted the DC Universe, giving readers new takes on multiple characters. Detective Comics (Vol. 2) #1 saw a drastic change made to the Joker. As Batman was pursuing the Clown Prince of Crime, the villain was attacked by the Dollmaker and had the skin cut off his face. It was a huge change to the status quo of the character, and it remains one of the most mystifying things that DC Comics ever wrought on Batman’s greatest villain.
Let’s start with the pros, because there are actually some to this situation. The Joker’s face is a huge part of who the character is. The white skin and ruby red lips, those green eyebrows, just pop out at the readers. That massive smile can run the gamut of unnerving to completely terrifying. However, change can be good at times. When this first happened, the idea of the Joker without his face was kind of tantalizing, because it had such horrific connotations.
The Joker has always been extremely disturbing, and this could have been a new way of showing that. We never got to see the villain without his face, but what we got was honestly kind of perfect. “Death of the Family” saw him return and steal the rotting skin back, stapling it to his face. This was the perfect, most Joker thing to do with the idea, and it made him even scarier in the story. This was the the kind of change that made the Joker more unhinged looking than ever, something that can be difficult. Then, “Endgame” happened, and his face was back to normal.
So, one of the things you realize when you’ve read superhero comics for so long is that very few changes of this manner are going to last. It doesn’t really matter how cool they are, or how much they fit the character, things are always going to go back to the status quo. This change had a lot of potential — there was something about the rotten skin stretched over his face and the ways it made the insanity in his eyes pop — but it was so different from the normal look that it wasn’t ever going to become the status quo.
There are two options for why the change was made, the first being that it was used to set up the reveal of Dionesium to readers. Dionesium was sort of like the liquid in the Lazarus Pit, and it was revealed that Joker used the liquid to heal his face. However, there are plenty of other ways to show what Dionesium could do. The other is simply shock value. This was such a good, if unhinged, change for the villain, so just (seemingly) using it to set up a later plot point seems strange.
The Joker is a perfect monster and it can be hard to keep up with the times. The villain has done a lot of terrible things over the decades, and had some iconic looks, which can be hard to top. The Joker losing his face feels like an evolution of the character’s horrific look, and it worked pretty well in “Death of the Family”. However, instead of running with it for a little while longer, DC just reversed course on the entire storyline and made it so it basically never happened. This is the most mystifying part about it.
There have been lots of changes to the characters over the years that don’t really make any sense. However, this one did and it was dropped as quickly as possible. It’s been 14 years since it happened and 11 since it was “fixed”, and I highly doubt anyone really thought of it since its fixing. It had so much potential to give readers a new completely monstrous Joker (imagine Joker tearing off faces and wearing them), but instead it was a plot point. DC makes a lot of strange choices, but this one is so mystifying that even today, fans scratch their heads about it.
What do you think about Joker’s skinned face? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
The post 14 Years Later, I Still Don’t Know What DC Was Thinking With This Joker Change in Batman appeared first on ComicBook.com.
