10 Comic Characters Who Have Beaten The Batman

While The Joker is in no way a physical match for his beloved Batman, that doesn't mean he can't still best his nemesis on a fairly frequent basis. Whether it's with a sneak attack (see his Five Way Revenge), cheating (The Mask) or dumb luck, the Joker has defeated Batman on a surprising amount of occasions. Where it really hurts, however, is in his many, many psychological victories.

Murdering Jason Todd, crippling Barbara Gordon, lopping off poor Alfred's hand, kidnapping the entire Bat-family; no other criminal has wrought such damage to Batman and his war on crime like The Joker. He even got the ultimate victory too, in such alternate reality tales as The Dark Knight Returns (killing himself, but getting Batman blamed for it) and Crimson Mist (a vampire Batman story in which Batman finally succumbs to his bloodlust, killing Joker).

There's even been his complete, absolute victory too, in Emperor Joker, in which, after re-shaping the world in his own image, Joker uses his newfound godlike powers to torture Batman to death every day until infinity. This left such a psychological scar on Batman that he could only recover once Superman stole his memories of the incident.

No amount of prep time could help him get over that one, huh.