A compilation of the worst Batman villains has been posted and it is sure to spark debate. The Joker coming in at #5? Mr. Zsasz at #1?
The Joker:
This guy is only #5 out of respect for all the good Joker stories that there have been. Unfortunately, most all of those stories were published before 1988, which is coincidentally around the time The Killing Joke was published. It’s not like the Joker was a harmlessly comical jackanape before the late 80s, but man, turning him into a quasi-genocidal embodiment of mass murder and psychological torture as a way of life really stretches credulity, and that’s saying something in the context of a book predicated on a mentally ill billionaire dressing like a bat in order to beat up criminals with the putative support of local law enforcement. I had even forgotten, until Tucker reminded me, the bit in Joker’s Last Laugh where – having almost destroyed the entire planet by drugging a whole bunch of deadly super-villains with Joker toxin and trying to kill the President of the United States – the Joker is once again saved by the Dark Knight performing CPR after Nightwing almost beats him to death. Seriously: the character has become so perversely demonic that keeping him alive in-story warps and distorts every other character and plot element around him. The Batman – and half-a-dozen other heroes – have saved his life so many times, it’s stupid. And sad. Still: we’ll always have “The Laughing Fish,” and he was good on Batman: The Animated Series.
I mean, seriously, heroes don’t want to kill villains, even the worst villains, because that would prove that “we’re no better than them!” Does that mean a cop who fires his gun is no better than the bank robber firing at the cop? Really? I’d like to see you explain that to the local police union. The answer to this question is simple: don’t turn every villain into a mass-murderer and we can go back to not caring if the Justice League forgets to read Felix Faust his Miranda rights.
