The Joker Reforms!

[cyberghostface]

From Batman #16.

.

Story opens with Joker and three of his men staging a getaway on a plane. The engine starts to sputter and the men jump out on parachutes.




Joker (under the name Ed Smith) decides to hand the stolen jewels over to the authorities. The town decides to throw him a celebration. Meanwhile, Batman and Robin have tracked him down.






Batman and Robin take the Joker away, only for them to be ambushed by Joker's old crooks. One of them tries to shoot Batman but Joker punches him out for trying to shoot an honest man like Bats.




Joker sees if he can return it to the express station and his goons think that he's trying to rob it without them. They go after him and Batman and Robin have to rescue him. One of the thugs knocks Joker unconscious.

Comments

[crinos]

Hard to believe there was once a time where The Joker was just a super intelligent and unpredictable criminal mastermind and not a homicidal maniac with a body count in the low thousands who hacked off his face and sewed it back on.

[silverzeo]

What about the whole spilt tounge deal?

[jlroberson]

Well, tongues heal fast. Scarily so. Unless you sever them anyway.

[leoboiko]

Yes, it’s interesting to see “greed” as a motivation.

(and crafty clown of crime! grinning gargoyle of greed! the pitfalls of peril and mazes of mystery!)

[icon_uk]

I miss that Joker sooooo damned much.

[lego_joker]

As do I.

This story, though, isn't really the best example of that. This Joker is just... well, kinda boring, not to mention colorless. You could swap him out with the Penguin, or any random big-time mobster, and it really wouldn't make a difference.

[crinos]

+3 from me.

I used to own a copy of "The greatest Joker stories ever told", which featured a ton of Joker stories, the majority of them from the Silver age, which is by far my favorite incarnation of the character.

This is the Joker who sold holiday themed crime set ups to other criminals, dressed up as Falstaff to steal a socialites jewelry at a production of Hamlet, and once had a utility belt filled with practical jokes he used to match Batman's utility belt.

Heck, in one story Joker actually faked being crazy so he could get into an asylum and find out where one of the inmates had stashed his loot. Silver Age Joker wasn't insane, he was just a trickster who used weird plans and gadgets to compete with Batman.

[silicondream]

Not that superintelligent, if he couldn't think to fire a gun before Robin somehow pushed a stack of boxes onto him from twenty feet away. Maybe his head was still fuzzy.

[crinos]

Well I meant super intelligent as in he was smart enough to keep up with Batman, not like Lex Luthor or Brainiac super intelligent.

[donnblake]

So, even if there weren't pictures of the Joker being circulated, you'd think even in Farr's Corner they'd have got the "Green hair, white skin," memo...

[mistervader]

Joker Swag. Justin Bieber apparently retroactively made that term a thing even in the golden age, I see. /sarcasm