A Brief History Of The Joker
3. The Man Who Laughs - How The Joker Came To Be
The Man Who Laughs - the silent 1928 adaptation of the famous Victor Hugo novel - is commonly cited as the main inspiration for the Joker, and for good reason.
Conrad Veidt's rendition of Gwynplaine - the eponymous character from the novel - is thoroughly unsettling, and it proved to be enough to spark interest for the trio of Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson - the latter two of which held the most influence on the Joker's creation and subsequent development in the years immediately following the character's introduction - to create a villain in his image.
The story of the Clown Prince's creation is hotly contested however. Bob Kane, a person usually reluctant to share any credit with his coworkers, stated that it was he and Finger who first conceptualised the concept of the Joker, and that Robinson offered nothing apart from the character's iconic playing card. Historians have, however, more often cited Robinson and Finger with the character's creation and subsequent development, with both the artist and the writer having presided over the Joker's formative years as Batman's arch rogue.
And so, the Joker first debuted when Batman transitioned from the pages of Detective Comics to his own series in 1940, with Kane's pencils from the issue providing the character's now definitive look. His first appearance was far more macabre than most would perhaps suspect as well, with the Clown Prince having marked his entrance by murdering several characters in a one-man crime spree. It would also mark the first use of the character's iconic 'Joker Venom' - a chemical concoction designed to kill and leave victims with a hideous grin on their face - with the Boy Wonder himself almost being drugged close to the story's conclusion.
The character would take on various forms in the years following, but interesting to note is that it would take decades for him to return to this original depiction, as the Golden Age of comics soon became a Silver Age of sci-fi, fantasy, and light-hearted story-telling.