Hold onto your butts, comic fans, because they’re about to get blown completely off.
Inarguably the most iconic comic villain of all time, The Joker is perhaps singularly responsible for the enduring success of Batman – maybe even more than Batman himself.
The demented Joker has been the arch-nemesis of the Dark Knight for his entire existence; the yin to the yang; without one, the other cannot exist; the perfect clash of good and evil.
And through his various incarnations in both printed form, and on screens (portrayed by Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, the yet-to-be-released Jared Leto version, and the animated incarnation expertly voiced by Mark Hamill, to name but a few) the one constant remains: Very little is known about the Joker’s “true” identity or his history.
Deliberately ambiguous, the Joker himself once famously stated “If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!” back in the iconic one-shot marvel The Killing Joke.
By-and-large, that’s how he’s stayed. Until now.
DC Comics has confirmed that – in one multiverse, at least – the Joker’s real identity will at long last be revealed. And they’re doing it very soon.
Appearing at WonderCon, the DC team behind Justice League confirmed that the upcoming Justice League #50 will included the revelation of Joker’s real name.
This, of course, isn’t the hugest of surprises to any of you following the series.
In Justice League #42, Batman gained access to the Mobius Chair, which possesses omni-knowledge (it knows goddamned everything, in other words). Testing it out, Batman asked the chair to name the man who killed his parents, which it nailed by replying Joe Chill.
Batsy then asked it what the Joker’s real name was, and it obliged.
Readers weren’t told what the chair said, but based on Batman’s reaction it would appear the Joker is (or was) someone he knows.
Justice League writer Geoff Johns further ramped up the mystery shortly after the DC Rebirth event at the Con.
“The answer probably won’t be an answer people predict.”
Justice League #50 is scheduled to hit shelves on May 25th. Until then, let wild and rampant speculation commence.
Source: IGN.
Photo: IGN.
