Joker Origin Movie: 7 Comic Storylines DC Could Adapt
6. The Man Who Laughs
DC Comics
The Man Who Laughs gives the modernising treatment to the Joker's original appearance in Batman #1, and it's actually rather good. The title itself is actually a homage to The Man Who Laughs film, which inspired the Joker back in 1940 with Conrad Veidt's portrayal of the eponymous character.
The Ed Brubaker, Dough Mahnke comic also serves as a sequel of sorts to Batman: Year One, showcasing The Dark Knight's first meeting with the Clown Prince as the first of Gotham's supervillains embarks on a murderous rampage - ostensibly without rhyme or reason.
It's a suitably dark tale, and one that touches upon the various origins of the character sporadically throughout. It's also a story that spotlights the relationship between Joker and Batman in a really compelling way, and though the film hasn't touched upon the Caped Crusader yet, if it does, The Man Who Laughs provides the building blocks with which to forge that relationship anew.
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 written 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 Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
