10 Things You Didn't Know About The Joker

5. Disappeared For A Decade

All of which sort of spoilt the character. What's intimidating about a clown running around doing pranks? That's basically what all clowns do. It didn't make The Joker particularly interesting as a foil to the Dark Knight when he wasn't doing anything all that law-breaking. Throughout the fifties he was used less and less, in favour of other rogues gallery members like The Penguin and the like, and by 1964 he was removed from the roster entirely by editor Julius Schwartz. And it would stay that way for almost ten years.

Sort of hard to believe now that The Joker, the greatest villain in Batman history, just plain wasn't appearing in print between 1964 and 1973. Even Caesar Romero's peerless, moustachioed performance in the sixties Adam West show didn't convince the comic creators to bring the villain back. At least until Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams proposed a radical reinvention of the character for the story "The Joker's Five Way Revenge", where he reverted to being a homicidal maniac who casually murders people on a whim. Pretty much how he is today.