10 Times Batman And The Joker Saved Each Other

A running theme throughout many Batman stories involving the Joker is the strange kind of co-dependency the pair share. As has been explored notably in the Arkham games, when one dies or is believed to be dead, at the very least, the other experiences a sense of loss and something of an identity crisis.

This can be seen in the Going Sane story arc in Legends Of The Dark Knight by John Marc Dematteis, Joe Staton and Steve Mitchell. When our deranged villain believes Bats to have died in an explosion, he suddenly begins to struggle to make sense of the world, and of his place in it. He becomes a genuinely good citizen, and achieves happiness, and severs ties with his violent past.

When the Dark Knight inevitably returns, however, so does the Joker. In a city crowded with so many larger-than-life villains as Gotham, one has to wonder whether it is the Bat that brings it out of them. This writer of this arc at least certainly seemed to believe so, at least in the case of his longest standing and greatest enemy.