Batman: The Animated Series 10 Best Characters

For people of a certain vintage, the voice they think of when they think 'Batman' is Kevin Conroy. Like yin and yang, many people feel the same about the Joker, as portrayed by Mark Hamill.

While Jack Nicholson played a fine Joker in Burton's Batman, due to the sheer volume of episodes the Joker appeared in, Hamill had a chance to play with the character and explore the nuances of voicing the best member of Batman's considerable array of foes.

Hamill's Joker was at turns hilarious, pensive, and terrifying, able to convey more through varying types of laughter than many actors could with full dialogue. While Nicholson's Joker was a thinly veiled psychopath, B:TAS' Joker was terrifying simply because at times he sounded so...well, normal. Only to turn on a dime and spend the next scene throwing Batman off a building or slapping Harley around.

Which brings us to another aspect of this Joker - his now-iconic relationship with Harley Quinn. The writers of the show were able to accurately portray exactly how domestic violence happens in real life, using the cycle of build-up, violence, honeymoon period, repeat. It was extremely heavy material for a cartoon, made all the more real by Hamill's portrayal of a Joker whose voice could be smooth as honey while still uttering horrible threats.

It's no surprise several of the best episodes of the show revolve around this iconic villain.