10 Batman Fates Worse Than Death

5. Being Endlessly Tortured By A Godlike Joker - Emperor Joker

Emperor Joker Killing Batman
DC Comics

Here's a fate that was so terrible, Batman had to have his memory wiped afterwards to ensure his mind wouldn't break.

Emperor Joker was a short-lived Superman arc where the Clown Prince of Crime was able to deceive Mister Mxyzptlk and gain his godlike powers, which you can probably imagine wasn't exactly good news for the rest of the multiverse.

The Joker gets up to a lot - like, a lot, a lot - of bad stuff in this comic, ranging from genocide to endlessly torturing, killing, and then reviving his biggest enemy over and over, and none of it is pleasant to read. The latter of course involves the Dark Knight, whose mouth the Joker sews shut and tortures, mutilates and then kills in a variety of different ways for an indefinite amount of time.

The worst part? This wasn't even Elseworlds. This was actual DC continuity.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.