Ever since Jared Leto's metal-mouthed, heavily-inked juggalo Joker appeared for the first time to a tidal wave of confusion and anger, speculation on just how terrible the performance is going to be has reached fever pitch. The tide was turned somewhat when the first trailer suggested he was actually going to be impressively scary, but almost everything that has come since has focused on the ridiculous details of the character design. As if his having a cane is any indication of anything to do with the performance... Seriously, it's about time all of the Heath Ledger fanboys - who were DEFINITELY just as pissed about the 10 Things I Hate About You star playing their favourite character - got their heads out of the human centipede line of perpetuating misery and accepted that Leto's Joker isn't a crime against nature. While that might be a difficult pill to swallow, if you're willing to put the work in and analyse the character on a level beyond the usual social media ire, there are significant hints that this supposedly brand new deviation of the character is entirely rooted in Batman lore. And though there is little concrete detail on what we can expect from Leto's performance, or how he will fit into the plot of Suicide Squad, there have been some compelling teases to suggest what we will see in the character when he eventually does make it to screen.
11. The Killing Joke
Leto's Joker might not look quite as much like the psychotic ring-master he's dressed up in for the iconic Killing Joke artwork, but ignoring the fact that he owes a lot of his visual elements to Alan Moore's version of the villain would be silly. The smile tattoos are obviously riffs on The Killing Joke's art-work, the purple gloves have been borrowed and while there appears to be more of a pimp vibe to Leto's evening wear, the colours and the odd juxtaposition of his creepy face and curiously formal clothing feel it has too. After Jack Nicholson's vengeful Joker and Heath Ledger's chaotic dog chasing cars, bringing in elements of The Killing Joke's origin dynamic and effectively combining the two ideas (of origin and chaos) to offer an entirely different direction is a smart decision. Obviously the parallel also suggests we can probably expect far darker material than we've seen so far, with the rather tantalising tease that Warner Bros. have further embraced the adult nature of the source material (rather than trying to sell toys).
