10 Terrifying Joker Stories You Never Read
3. Batman: Nosferatu
Long time DC Comics readers are all too aware that tales of the Joker’s origin and early history can be contradictory and unreliable at best, and that truly unique, unambiguous, fresh takes on the formula are rare specimens indeed.
Enter Batman: Nosferatu.
This Elseworlds tale eschews the traditional Joker and instead presents the reader with the nightmarish creature known as the Laughing Man.
A pale skinned chimera, built by the villainous Doctor Arkham from the body parts of countless deceased Asylum patients, this cyborg killing machine has more than a little of The Terminator in its DNA.
On the orders of his master, Dr Arkham, the Laughing Man is sent to kill anybody who threatens his Asylum and the nefarious work he performs within, and to subsequently put a violent end to any who do learn of his malevolent ways.
The Joker has arguably been devoid of any semblance of humanity and the capacity to experience true human emotions in every iteration of the character to date, but never before has it been so literal, so visceral, and so downright terrifying.
The Laughing Man is not a man at all, but a ghoul spliced together by a madman from the very flesh of the criminally insane.