Real Life Joker | How a Silent Star Served as Inspiration for the Batman Villain

Let’s see how The Caped Crusader’s arch-nemesis, created in 1940, influenced artists and actors, with comedian Joaquin Phoenix becoming the latest to don the clown mask.

Real Life Joker

Main Key Points:-

• The Joker is Batman’s most iconic villain.
• The character’s creation is debated, but likely influenced by Conrad Veidt’s performance in “The Man Who Laughs”.
• The Joker was designed without a specific origin story.
• Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal in the movie “The Joker” draws inspiration from the comic book “The Killing Joke”.

Backstory — Joaquin Phoenix (The Joker):-

Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Batman’s enemy in The Joker, is the latest actor to portray the cackling madman in cinema, following Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Jared Leto.

The standalone film reinforces the view that, with the possible exception of Superman’s Lex Luthor, the Joker seems to be the most recognized arch-villain to emerge from the comic book universe. It’s easy to see why: with the threat of unpredictability waiting behind that teeth-barring laugh, this Clown Prince of Crime is far more terrifying than your average baddie looking to take over the world.

The real ‘Joker’: What happens if you can’t stop laughing…or crying

Here is a small reference to the previous article:-

Our last post decribed Friedrich Goltz’s experiment with the brain.”Zombie dog real life.” Goltz managed to bring zombie dogs to life by removing large parts of their brains. Despite this, the dogs remained alive, enabling him to conduct further experiments and gather valuable information.

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Conrad Veidt influenced the idea of the Joker:-

The artistic team of Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson created The Joker for Batman №1 comic book in April 1940. While his roots are debated, it is widely accepted that the villain was inspired by the appearance and performance of a forgotten cinema star, Germany’s Conrad Veidt, in a 1928 film adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs.

In a 2009 Comic-Con interview, Robinson recounted that he teamed forces with Kane and Finger right after Batman’s debut in Detective Comics №27, published in May 1939, and began considering the notion of a foe for the masked crime fighter.

As a Columbia University student, Robinson leaned on his literature studies to build the ideal villain. First, he saw that every great hero had an opponent who pushed them to the test, whether it was Professor Moriarty for Sherlock Holmes or Goliath for David.

He also desired someone with distinct physical traits, a la the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Finally, he felt the antagonist needed to have “a characteristic that was somewhat contradictory in terms,” believing that a nasty guy with a sense of humor would give the intriguing psychological depth.

There is a debate about who developed the character:-

Kane remembers things slightly differently. In an interview from 1994 with the magazine Entertainment Weekly, he stated:

“Bill Finger and I invented the real life Joker. Bill was the one who wrote it. Jerry Robinson approached me with a playing card depicting the Joker. That is how I summarize it. Bill Finger brought me a book with an image of Conrad Veidt and said, ‘Here’s the Joker.’ Jerry Robinson has nothing to do with this. But he will always claim that he developed it till the day he dies. He brought in a playing card that we had used in a few volumes for him [the Joker] to utilize as his playing card.”

Kane was officially listed as Batman’s sole creator until 2015, but he was renowned for taking relatively little credit for the comic’s popularity, even though Finger developed Batman’s appearance and created many of the other characters, as well as the plot.

Finger’s recollections of the Joker’s origins varied in various interviews, but he typically credited the team with his conception. At the very least, everyone agreed that Gwynplaine’s transformation into their villain was the result of her sadness and scars.

While his character was supposed to die quickly before being rescued by an editor, he proved to be a source of curiosity for the Batman artists who followed him on his path to becoming the highest-ranking member of the Caped Crusader’s rogues gallery.

Phoenix’s version pulls from “The Killing Joker”:-

As Robinson also stated in the 2009 interview, the Joker was purposely designed without an origin story, allowing for new interpretations of the character on page and screen throughout time.

In one edition of Detective Comics from 1951, the antagonist was scarred after falling into a vat of chemical waste, a concept echoed in Tim Burton’s 1989 film adaptation by Jack Nicholson. That same year, the famous comic novel Batman: Arkham Asylum addressed the character’s fundamental anarchistic drive, a depiction that echoed Ledger’s Academy Award-winning performance in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight 20 years later.

Even Phoenix’s Joker followed a path established previously in the comics. His failed stand-up comedy turned criminal character is reminiscent of the classic 1988 comic The Killing Joke. But his Joker is also one of the few with a civilian name — Arthur Fleck — indicating that Phoenix stamped his unique mark on a character who has inspired painters and storytellers from his inception as a laughing antagonist to Gotham’s savior.

Final Concluding Thoughts:-

• Joaquin Phoenix joins a line of iconic actors in portraying the Joker, solidifying the character as one of the most well-known and feared villains in the comic book universe due to his unpredictable nature and menacing presence.
• The Joker was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, with inspiration from a playing card and actor Conrad Veidt. Despite claims from Jerry Robinson, the true origins lie with Finger and Kane.
• The real life Joker, a popular villain in Batman comics, was created by the artistic team of Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson, and was inspired by the appearance and performance of Conrad Veidt in a 1928 film adaptation.
• The Joker’s lack of a definitive origin story has allowed for various interpretations of the character in different mediums over the years, from comic books to the big screen.
• Different versions of the Joker’s backstory have been explored, such as the chemical waste accident in the 1951 Detective Comics edition and the anarchistic drive portrayed in Batman: Arkham Asylum and The Dark Knight.