10 Most Inappropriate Joker Storylines

5. Torturing Harley Quinn - Death Of The Family

Joker Harley Quinn
DC Comics

Unfortunately for Harleen, there have been several times where readers have seen her being tortured or abused by the Joker across the years. What makes the torture of Harley Quinn even more twisted in Running with the Devil - itself a part of the larger Death of the Family arc - is how this sinister physical torment is matched by the revelation that Quinzel is not the "first" Harley.

Having been presumed dead, this Suicide Squad tale finds the Joker returning to action, reclaiming his face - it'd been skinned off him previously as part of said 'death' - and looking to teach Quinn a lesson. That lesson was, as ever, that she should be subservient to him and that she should ditch Task Force X. With the Maid of Mischief unwilling to do this, that leads to a fight between the two which results in Harley being poisoned and chained up in a dark, dank dungeon.

It's in this dungeon that the reveal is made that Harley Quinn is not the first of her kind. In classic Joker fashion, this reveal is accompanied by the skeletal remains of those purported other Harleys.

Quinn would eventually manage to escape her shackles, but, by then, the Clown Price of Crime had already turned his sights to Barbara Gordon as his larger Death of the Family plan continued to come together.

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