Ranking Every Joker Origin Worst To Best

5. Mad Love

Batman: Mad Love is one of the all-time great Batman stories.

Told in the Animated Series style by Bruce Timm and co-written by fellow BTAS alum Paul Dini, Mad Love chronicles the origin of Harley Quinn and details her abusive relationship with the Joker in explicit detail. It reveals how, while working as a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, she was manipulated by the Joker to the extent that she fell in love with him, assumed the Harley Quinn identity and broke him out of the Asylum, believing Batman to be the true villain in the pair's near constant cycle of violence.

During their therapy sessions, and in a bid to charm Quinn, Joker recounts a story from his childhood. He claims his father was abusive, and that the only time he ever saw his dad happy was when they went to the circus and observed a clown performing a classic routine. The next night, eager to win his father's affections, the childhood Joker greeted him with his dad's pants on, reenacted the skit, and tore a hole in them, only to have his nose broken for his troubles.

Later, while tied up and at the mercy of Quinn, Batman reveals that it was all a lie, claiming that it was just another tall-tale in the Clown Prince's list of tall-tales.

He recounts the story about his abusive father, one about his alcoholic mom and another about him being a runaway orphan. All are said to be a ruse, but they go some way in speaking to the best Joker origin of all - the one that doesn't exist.