In potentially one of the most unexpected dives into the Joker's backstory, this J. Michael Straczynski and Chad Hardin comic sees The Atom enter Joker's mind to cure a specific disease.
While there, he encounters several painful memories that show the Clown Prince being chastised by his family - quite rightly - for killing animals. Joker then seemingly burns his parents alive for their troubles, which duly affects Ray Palmer while he's in his mind.
Whether this was an actual moment from Joker's childhood or just a series of memories he cooked up for his own amusement is unclear, but it did at least give fans the terrifying image of the Atom burning with a menacing Joker grin.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and the Golden Age of Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled.
