A man and a woman talk in a bar...

[espanolbot]

From Batman Confidential 7

It's some time ago in Gotham, and a depressed criminal gets chatting to an attractive blonde woman who is tending the bar,





Later, the guy sends her her college fund, anomymously, after he has a certain change of style...

title: batman confidential
creator: michael green
creator: denys cowan
creator: john floyd

Comments

[inexpediency]

Ha! Cute. I caught on right about at the "Mr. J" part.

[pyrotwilight]

So its Joker pre-crazy?

[espanolbot]

Ehh... Kind of.

He still gets suicidally depressed despite being incredibly good at armed robbery, but because he finds it so easy he starts trying to make it more increasing by making it harder.

Deliberately setting off the alarms when he's perfectly capable of deactiving them and escaping when no one knows he's there, for example. Or targeting the mob.

Encountering Batman though gives him focus, and he ends up getting worse and worse as he knows that's the only way he guarrantees Batman'll show.

Then the incident that changes his colouring happens, and he gets WORSE.

[fungo_squiggly]

I always really liked this scene.

Too bad this story started to suck pretty soon afterwards, and eventually turned so-bad-it's-hilarious with the infamous "Bunny!"-screaming Joker.

[thanekos]

yeah, but then we got Joker as a circus clown with a particularly suspcious bottle of seltzer, so it's all good...

" Spray daddy first! "

" Okay, just remember, years from now in therapy.. "

[nothingbutcake]

Haha, when the bartender first says "joker", I started wondering whether that word would actually fall out of use in Gotham simply due to the terror associated with it (though I don't really hear people use that word now).

But I guess that thought turned out to be irrelevant here.

[espanolbot]

I think that I read somewhere in a more recently set Batman book that using the word "joker" to describe someone caused the person saying it to quickly change it to "jokester" midway through.

[nezchan]

But then they were reminded of Countdown and felt bad anyway.

[foxhack]

Was this series ever accepted as canon?

I mean, it makes a fine elseworlds-type story, but...

[ninjapeps]

I don't know about the rest of the series but when comes to the Joker's origin, I think it's canon that all stories are simultaneously correct and wrong.

[zordboy]

"Not a funny guy, are you?" really gives the game away, doesn't it?

[thehefner]

That, "Get that Joker out of here," and "Mr. J," to name a few, just to hit you over the head with it. Ugh. Way to smugly "clever" for my tastes.

[tornadotwin.blogspot.com]

everything that everyone already said plus the facial features, the name jack and the purple and green backgrounds were nice clues as to who it was. i only caught on when blondie said 'mr. j'

[nezchan]

Jack was what tipped it off for me, although it was obvious from the start it was some baddie or another.

[wizardru]

Hadn't noticed the color choices until you mentioned.

That's rather nice.

[big_daddy_d]

How come no one ever told me about this issue before?! I WANT THIS ISSUE! :D

[lissa_quon]

Hah, nice story, though does that make the bartender Harley?

It fits but thats is a bit too much of a coicidence if it is.

[mistersandman]

I was wondering that too-she's blonde, she's studying psychology, and "Mr. J".

[lissa_quon]

Her boss also calls her Leeny which COULD be derived from Harleen which is her legit name if I'm not mistaken, bit of a stretch, but also too close

[bwhahahabeck]

Yeah, pretty sure it's Harley.

[sherkahn]

I am SO getting those vibes from her. Has to be. Must be Harley Quinzel.

[randyripoff]

Meh.

I'm sorry...the Joker has no history until he falls into the chemical tank...anything else is just idle speculation.

[proteus_lives]

Motto.

I've always thought of him as Gotham's biological response to Batman.

[icon_uk]

Agreed, was not a fan of this story, beyond the Joker giving a college tuition because it amused him to do so (Though making it Harley is too pat) and the aforementioned "Remember, years from now, when you're in therapy, that you chose this", which was a marvelously Joker-ish moment

[equinox216]

Had it at "Not much to laugh about", confirmed at "Mr. J". There aren't a lot of humor-based individuals in Gotham, for some reason.

[stig]

This whole thing could only get more insultingly obvious if he was dealing a pack of cards while tucking into a cream pie.

[aaron_bourque]

Bluergh. Don't ever post Batman Confidential's take on the joker origin again.