What's with the Joker painting his face white now?
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matt_shade — 6 years ago(August 30, 2019 08:15 PM)
In the original source material on which the movie is based, Joker gets disfigured by chemical waste, and it's always proper to adapt as closely as possible to the original source material if you can.
As far as I know there is no original source material, the Joker has no canon origin. The closest is Alan Moore's The Killing Joke (which was intended to be a non-canonical one-shot story) which has the Joker experiencing flashbacks that may not be at all what happened and the story has Joker remark on it in the end "Sometimes I remember it this way, sometimes that way!" This was the basis for how Jack Nicholson's Jack Napier becomes the Joker in Batman (1989).
'(sigh) We humans are stupid egotistical self-deluded beings' -
Put on a Happy Face — 6 years ago(August 31, 2019 02:35 AM)
No it was done in 1951 first, Detective Comics #168. Joker at this time is a thief named Red Hood who robs Ace Chemicals, and falls into a vat of chemicals while escaping the police.
Burton based Batman on this story. He renamed Ace Chemicals to Axis. The Killing Joke came out when Batman was already almost complete, so that wouldn't have been enough time.
"The Killing Joke" flashback scenes reference the 1951 Red Hood story. Except in this new twist, we find out that the Joker was actually duped, and made to wear the Red Hood mask to serve as a decoy for police so the real Red Hood can escape. Much darker and sadder. It makes Joker a victim, like this movie.
When Joker says, "Sometimes I remember it this way, sometimes that way!" the dichotomy is between wether Joker was the set up as the Red Hood or was he the real Red Hood the whole time?
Joker never had a backstory as far as his name, but it was always implied his skin looked like that. In his first appearances, there are panels that show his arms and legs and they're the same color as his face.
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane
By those who could not hear the music.
— 6 years ago(August 30, 2019 02:56 PM)