10 Terrible Mistakes That Nearly Ruined The Joker For Everyone

4. Making Him A Whipping Boy

It's a gimmick that keeps coming back, if only because it's so easy: if you want to build up your new character, have him overpower someone whom readers know is a big deal. In "Hush Returns," in Batman: Gotham Knights #50-55 the Joker gets this treatment. Outmanoeuvred by the then-new villain, the Joker loses his men and gets beaten to a pulp, only escaping when Batman interrupts. Just getting beaten up wouldn't be so bad - the Joker does that all the time - but he usually has a sense of humor about it. Here, he snivels lines like "Do you know who I am?" then goes running back to the funhouse from The Killing Joke like a kid running back to mommy. What Fixed It: The Joker got revenge on Hush in their next encounter, knocking him out and fixing him with a faulty pacemaker. Scans of Hush's defeat of the Joker are really hard to find, indicating the Internet itself is trying to forget this one.