Joker (Burtonverse)

Joker was the chosen alias of Jack Napier, a hood whose appearance and was radically and permanently altered by chemicals. He became Batman's first and greatest foe, and the two shared a secret past that made them greater enemies than either first realizes.

Early Life
Born in Brookyln, Jack Napier would come to live in Gotham City and in his school years, he proved himself to be emotionally unstable but highly intelligent and showed aptitude in science, art and chemistry. He also turned to a life of violent crime, being convicted of assault with a deadly weapon when he was fifteen. Jack, at one point, implied that he may have been murdering people, including those who were parents, since he was young.

Years later, Jack as a young man, he and his partner in crime mugged Brace Waynes' parents, Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife, Martha. When Thomas intercepted to protect his family, Jack stepped from the shadows and shot both him and Martha dead before preparing to shoot Bruce, but before he could fire, his panicked partner called him to leave.

Grissom's Number One Guy
As Jack Napier aged, he worked his way up to the mafia ranks and eventually became the consigliere of mob boss, Carl Grissom. Jack often toyed with a deck of lucky cards, which most likely saved his life on one occasion as a bullet hole being in between each card. He would often twirl the cards in small tricks and in stark contrast to his later hilarious attitude, Jack's persona was rather grumpy and sarcastic Jack doubled the competence of Grissom's leadership of the crime family and also snidely retorted to a news broadcast of Harvey Dent's speech about living people in Gotham City.

Napier entered into an affair with Grissom's girlfriend, Alicia Hunt, which prompted the angry crime lord to set his right-hand man up to be killed by the corrupt cop Lt. Eckhardt at Axis Chemicals. When Grissom informed Napier of his entrusted task with stealing incriminating documents from the plant, Napier was again toying with his lucky deck. Grissom's plan went awry thanks to intervention by both Batman and Commissioner James Gordon along with some police officers. After he killed Eckhardt and then caught a riocheted bullet through his cheeks, in a panic, Napier lost his balance and fell off the catwalk. Though Batman caught Napier's arm and attempted to pull him back up to safety, Napier's leather glove slipped through Batman's and he plummeted into the chemical vat below him.

Napier survived and was washed into Gotham Harbor by a drainage pipe. Still submerged, he stretched an arm upward through the water's surface, where his lucky deck was floating. Jack's long chemical submersion permanently wreaked a horrible toll: his hair follicles were altered from grey to emerald green, his skin pigmentation was bleached chalk white and his soft flesh such as his mouth and lips were flushed ruby red.

The Joker
After he saw the horrible result of his chemical exposure, Jack turned to a hack plastic surgeon and was desperate to have his cheek wounds fixed where the riocheted bullet had injured him. Despite going through the long and careful procedure, the surgeon informed Jack that he could simply not fix his face due to both sheer extent of the severed nerves and the surgeon's own lack of effective tools resulting in a permanent smile. Upset with this result and reflecting on all that had transpired, Jack, though apparently trying at first to let it go and failing, lost touch with whatever sanity that he had left. Jack began to laugh maniacally and convulsively, then smashed the mirror that he had held on the table, stumbled out of the room and laughed into the night.

With Jack's mind completely snapped after he saw his bizarre new appearance, he assumed the new identity of "The Joker". Joker murdered Grissom as revenge for setting him up and took over his criminal empire. The Clown Prince of Crime then engaged in a violent, chaotic crime spree with the motive to "outdo" Batman, whom he felt is getting too much press. During a mob summit with the rest of the crime bosses, Jack claimed that Grissom was just hiding, left him as acting president and declared that their action this anniversary was to "run the city into the ground". However, most of the mob bosses, including Antoine Rotelli and Vinnie Ricorso, were suspicious of Jack's apparent orders from Grissom, and Rotelli wondered what happened if they refused. Jack then responded with a handshake and that would be it, however this statement was mean't that it would be it for Rotelli, as he fried and shocked Rotelli with a lethal joy buzzer, which horrified the rest of the mob bosses and with Jack joking about his demise and laughing about it. Jack then dismissed the mob as his own gang rushed in and held them at gunpoint, ordering Bob the Goon to tail Alexander Knox and decided to "grease" all the crime bosses at the summit.

Joker then arrived at City Hall and, after he claimed that the check was written with a dead hand, murdered Ricorso with his quell pen after he claimed that he was his "Uncle Bingo" and had a mime faction of his gang open fire. Later on, the Joker and his gang defaced many of the paintings at the Flugelhelm Museum. He also tried to woo Gotham Globe reporter Vicki Vale, Batman's love interest. When Bruce Wayne learned about Joker, he was shocked about Napier's survival, but when he attempted to protect Vale the next morning, upon hearing the Joker stating similar words his parents' killer said to him when he was younger: "Ever dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight?". Bruce survived Joker's gunshot with an impromptu bulletproof vest, recalling the night of his parents' murder that Jack Napier was the gunman who killed his parents, and that Napier was responsible for his oath to protect the lives of innocent people as Batman.

Death and Legacy
After he announced on television that he would be reigniting the previously cancelled Gotham City's 200th Anniversary Parade, with the Joker throwing twenty million dollars into the crowd. After that, the Joker released a gas form of Smylex out of his balloons. Batman arrived via Batwing, took away the balloons and released them into the nightly sky, causing Joker to kill Bob to vent out of his frustration. Batman then made a strafing run on the Joker, but the crazed clown blew up the Batwing with an explosive round fired from his long barreled gun. Joker then took Vale into Gotham Cathedral and forced her to dance with him. After he walked up to the belfry, Batman, after he defeated a small army of the Joker's men, confronted Joker and vowed to kill him

Personality
Jack Napier was seen at being quite vain with a perchant for new suits and Alicia as his trophy girlfriend. In a contrast to the Joker, Napier was quite humorless, though committing his crimes made large smiles on his face. However, he was still quite psychotic, although not as outwardly. Like many criminals before him, Jack was just as terrified of Batman in their first confrontation.

When he sought out surgery after he fell into a vat of chemicals, Napier probably lost his remaining sanity when he saw his new appearance although he tried to get over it. As a result, the Joker was born, cackling madly. Joker has a macabre sense of humor, which was both surreal and morbid. The Joker was also quite sadistic and found humor in killing and referred to death as "therapy".

Abilities

 * Genius Level Intellect:
 * Expert Marksman:
 * Expert Chemist: