James Gunn left the Joker out of The Suicide Squad because he’d be useless in a fight
James Gunn actually had a good reason not to bring back Jared Leto's Joker, and it's not because he sucks
Film News Joker
Nobody should ever need to actually come up with a good reason to leave Jared Leto’s Joker out of a movie, since he’s Jared Leto’s Joker, so kudos to James Gunn for actually having a solid answer—beyond “because he sucks”—for why he never considered having Leto stencil “damaged” (or maybe “the damaged” in honor of the sequel’s title) on his forehead and pose with a bunch of carefully arranged knives in his The Suicide Squad. Speaking with The New York Times, Gunn explained that he never considered bringing back Leto’s Joker from the David Ayer Suicide Squad movie because “he wouldn’t be helpful in that type of war situation.”
Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, as seen in the trailers, largely seems to take place in one big warzone, which is why he has assembled a much bigger cast of no-name DC villains than the last movie, and it really makes perfect sense that there’d be no reason to bring the Joker along for a mission that seems to require some level of strategy and… you know, competence. (One could also argue that Gunn’s reasoning is a subtweet in the direction of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which added a scene where Joker was on Batman’s team in the post-apocalyptic alternate future or whatever, but we’re going to assume that Gunn had better things to do in 2020 than watch that movie.)
The New York Times also asked Gunn about Will Smith, who backed out of The Suicide Squad before even being officially attached due to some kind of scheduling conflict, but it sounds like the director never really intended on using him in the first place. Idris Elba’s Bloodsport is replacing Smith’s Deadshot as the “very competent gun guy” archetype in the new movie, and Gunn says he just “really wanted to work with Idris” in something and figured that Elba would be good at pulling off the “gruff, Unforgiven-type feeling” that he was looking for to center his movie around.
Elsewhere in the interview, Gunn talks about how he found out he had been fired from making a third Guardians Of The Galaxy movie (before later getting rehired) and offers a nuanced reaction to “cancel culture.” He also mentions that Warner Bros. approached him almost immediately after all of that happened and asked him to make a Superman movie, but he chose to sit back and find a project that he really thought could be “great,” and that’s how he landed on The Suicide Squad. It’ll be on HBO Max and in theaters on August 6.
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The best Troma alumni. Seeing Lloyd Kaufman in GOTG was incredible to me, and props to Gunn. Slither is a B movie gem to boot.
Super is legit one of my favorite movies of all time. As much as I love Guardians 1 & 2 and Slither, Super is that rare piece of pop culture that feels like it was scraped directly from my subconscious.
I couldn’t enjoy Super because I’d already seen Defendor.
And I didn’t watch Defendor because I assumed it would be nowhere near as weird or great as Super!
Defendor is more about what would actually happen if someone was deluded enough to think they were a superhero (Special is similar, but it’s because that protagonist is on experimental drugs). So during Super I was constantly annoyed at the lack of consequences for anything the protagonist did, as if it were an actual superhero movie (and not one of the better ones).
Seriously, Joker is one of the most overused, overhyped villains in comic history. Mostly because nearly every Joker story since the 80’s is in some way been derivative of The Killing Joke. Hell, one of the most annoying parts of The Killing Joke (Outside of the grudging of Barbra Gordon.) is the hundreds of Joker fans who don’t get the point of the story: The Joker is wrong. He subjects James Gordon to torture under the idea that all it takes to make someone like him is “One really bad day.” and Gordon doesn’t break.
That’s what they always forget about the joker, he isn’t just one thing. Every time he appears he’s different, from the clown Prince of crime to an evil psychopath.Even though they were decent stories, Miller and Moore didn’t do the character any favours
I’m pretty sure Moore expressed regret in writing that book, pretty soon afterwards.Miller on the other hand… yeah I couldn’t defend the guy even if I wanted to.
Can you blame them? That Joker from the Killing Joke was a great Joker. It gave us forever-classic Jack Nicholson’s, Mark Hamill’s, and Heath Ledger’s Jokers.But yeah I agree that it is time to move on from the Joker. There’s no way to even capture such lightning-in-bottle like any of these three again. There’s wealth of other great villains to use instead. Hell, look at Gotham TV show, they wisely used a lot of other villains and many of them are quite a hoot for different reasons (Zsauz is forever great~)
But yeah I agree that it is time to move on from the Joker.Are you sure? Don’t you want to see Timothée Chalamet’s take on the Joker?
Manic Pixie Dream Supervillain
“You complete me.” – The Joker, in the romantic comedy ‘The Dark Knight’.
Manic Pixie Dream Supervillain
Eh, I have pretty much minimal interests in the movie. I might give it a watch if the reviews gave it incredibly glowing acclaims.
Which movie—the one I made up, starring Timothée Chalamet?
No. I want to see Glenn Close’s take. She can do anything.
A Bobcat Goldthwaite (in his prime) joker, a Sam Kinnison, or a Crispin Glover woulda been fun. As for now, I don’t know who is unhinged enough & youngish to do it right.
Timothy Olyphant’s take maybe
I do… now.
You forgot the fourth incredible performance:But yes, The Joker can be a good character, but it’s highly dependent on the writing and the performance. Unfortunately, a handful of really good performances have led a lot of people to believe “Well, this must be one of the great and important characters of our time” despite the fact that there’s a lot of room for error in the archetype of “Crime clown.”Everybody wants to be The Joker, but most land closer to The Junker.
Damn speaking of fourth, I almost forgot Caesar Romero’s Joker. Granted, he’s not based on Killing Joke’s Joker, but he’s still pretty good Joker in his own maniacal ways.
The best Joker on Batman ‘66 is the Riddler.
Fuck Kinja.
The best Joker on Batman ‘66 is the Riddler.
He’s the best live-action Joker! The critical part, for me, is that he treats it all as a joke. Little Jackie N brought similar energy but it seems that each iteration moves further away from the thing that makes him a fun villain.
To be fair, the other three I listed are also “fun” in their own way, especially Mark Hamill’s Joker who has just the perfect mixture of maniacal zest and macabre streak to him. But yeah ever since Heath Ledger’s Joker entered the zeitgeist, no other Jokers since are as fun or crazy as these best ones. It’s like they didn’t know how to follow up or continue to do him justice. We already have reached the peak Joker, there’s no going back now. Jared Leto’s Joker had proven that.
Seconded. For all the camp, Batman ‘66 was relatively faithful to what the comics had been doing. Cesar Romero pitched his performance appropriately. At this point, the Joker wasn’t the murderous psychopath of his earliest appearances, and it would be several years before comics writer Dennis O’Neil returned to that concept of the character. Romero’s Joker was a crooked comedian eternally in search of a punch line.
Butch Romero was clearly the most deranged Joker, as you gotta be an All Timer psychopath to cover your face with greasepaint OVER your mustache. Just absolutely gdamn terrifying.
If I had my way, I’d lean into the villains who are closer to monsters, like Man-Bat. Could you imagine a Batman film that’s also a monster movie?? And with someone like Man-Bat, you can write easy parallels between the creature and Bruce Wayne, wondering if he’s the real monster, etc etc. Seriously, that screenplay writes itself.
for real. or Clayface or Killer Croc or any number of other freaks! Horror monsters are definitely part of Batman’s pastiche along with a whole lot of other garish sub-genres. I’d love to see more standalone Batman movies that dig into different pulp, horror, and sci-fi sensibilities than another epic trilogy or universal crossover tbh.
Funny that you mention Gotham, though not a perfect show, often mined a lot of fun from the other villains, especially when the writers went for ghoulish humor. I really liked the show’s take on The Penguin, Professor Pyg, and even the Joker not Joker Jerome, who was fun because it allowed them enough wiggle room to play around with the archetype. The Joker is stale, and people tend to forget he’s more fun when the balance is between dark humor and menace. Enough of the edgy and gritty Jokers. They suck.
I’d argue Joaquin Phoenix does a pretty damn good job of capturing that lightning and the reason we’ve seen so many awesome interpretations is because of the iconic archetype greatness of the character.
He was a great Joker. But part of what made him a great Joker was that he was fucking delusional, and Batman and Gordon prove him wrong.
Ledger’s Joker understood megalomania, but not ordinary people. Maybe Dent or Batman would’ve mulled over what to do with the bombs on the ferries, but ordinary citizens and convicts just went “Fuck that!” and yeeted the detonators over the side. They weren’t gonna play that game.
Ledger’s Joker understood megalomania, but not ordinary people. Maybe Dent or Batman would’ve mulled over what to do with the bombs on the ferries, but ordinary citizens and convicts just went “Fuck that!” and yeeted the detonators over the side. They weren’t gonna play that game.
To be fair, the reaction from the Gotham Civilians and Convicts was pure plot armor for Batman. It was completely out of character for Gotham in general up until that point. The whole Dent coverup (and reaction when Bane revealed it) was more in line with what should be expected from Gotham.
Plus the film just handwaves away Batman’s complete invasion of everyone’s privacy to find the Joker by saying he’ll destroy it later.
That’s my main disappointment with The Dark Knight. They swapped out who Joker tried to turn to Harvey and made him successful. Such a great movie, but with that big, stupid choice at its core.
The movie hints that Harvey has a dark side before he turns when he psychologically tortures the mentally ill guy. Joker is more of a catalyst than the cause of his turn. Plus, the ferry scene is a direct refutation of Joker’s philosophy.
I think it’s underplayed, but there’s also the suggestion that Harvey leaps at the opportunity to have something else to blame for his slide into villainy (the Joker) rather than take responsibility for his own part in it. (Like you say, he does torture that Joker henchman, plus he’s working with a vigilante and pushing the law to breaking point to get the results he wants.) Batman calls him on it when he tells Harvey to aim the gun at those responsible – himself, Harvey and Gordon – but Harvey still wants to be able to deny responsibility, which is the whole reason he uses the coin. As fucked up as he is, the Joker is one of the few characters in the film who genuinely owns his actions.
That dark side is just an act though, he had a double sided coin that means he can never lose that situation.
That doesn’t feel accurate at all. The Dark Knight showed that even though the Joker could corrupt one person, he couldn’t corrupt Gotham (as shown by the citizens on the boats not blowing each other up)
That’s my main disappointment with The Dark Knight. They swapped out who Joker tried to turn to Harvey and made him successful. Such a great movie, but with that big, stupid choice at its core.
It wasn’t really much of a stretch, though, because we know Dent goes bad.
I disagree. I think it’s a great idea writing-wise because the ferry scene utterly disproves everything about the Joker’s philosophy, showing that instead of some grandiose statement about the human condition, he only proved that if you subject someone to enough abuse, they might snap, particularly if they are already troubled. He’s even more wrong here because his entire nihilistic philosophy is undone by someone who by all means should have confirmed it.In The Killing Joke, Joker at least finally realizes at the end that Batman is the man who snapped with “one bad day”, except the irony is that Bats’ “one bad day” turned him into his greatest antithesis and not another Joker.
I agree-the fact that the passengers/prisoners’ decisions not to blow each other up doesn’t match our expectations about Gothamites is the point of the scene and in many ways the climax of the film. Joker is all about pushing people in order to reveal their dark side or willingness to do horrible things (like him), but he’s ultimately proven wrong when both a boat full of Average Joes and a boat full of the “worst” people in Gotham both refuse to do something horrible in order to save themselves. It’s kind of nice and heady for an action film-Joker isn’t defeated by Batman punching him out or defusing the bombs; he’s defeated by the people of Gotham collectively rejecting him.(The fact that the Joker was able to push Harvey, and to a lesser extent Batman, to cross their own lines is more of a consolation prize)
I’d love to see a lighter Joker, someone more in line with the Hamill TAS one, or even Nicholson. The fun of the Joker is that he’s the opposite of Batman. Good but sad and dark VS evil but happy and silly. As great as Ledger and Phoenix were, I’m very happy to take a break from sad Joker.
As great as Ledger and Phoenix were, I’m very happy to take a break from sad Joker.
What I loved about Ledger’s Joker was the Agent of Chaos element he brought to the character. I wouldn’t call Ledger’s version a sad Joker. Anarchic yes, chaotic yes, but not sad. I never saw Phoenix’s performance and refuse to, because the Joker is not a character that needs an origin story or deserves sympathy. The Joker is like a tropical storm: I just need to know it’s coming and that shit’s gonna get fucked up. I don’t need to know how the storm formed and I don’t want to feel bad for the storm.
The idea of “Guy who loves to do crime, theatrically” was still a major part of Ledger’s Joker, it just got overshadowed by all the Nolan grit. Which is a damn shame, because that’s probably what really set the character down the “Damaged” path afterwards.
Y’know what’s weird revisiting Ledger’s Joker? We don’t get confirmation one way or another that he’s insane. Think about it, we really don’t. All we know is that he’s willing to go further than the other criminals in town are willing to. He has so many plans and contingencies going at once and has his henchmen co-ordinated enough that he can’t be completely out of it. The make-up, costumes, and laughter are just his ways of committing to the bit.
He talked about not having a plan but was repeatedly shown to have some seriously detailed plans. It was more that he had a chaotic factor to his plans that Gotham’s criminals and Police couldn’t adapt to. He was a kind of anarchist who’s biggest failure came when Gotham’s citizens randomly decided against selfishness at the end. Which was totally out of character for the entire city up to that point.
I find it interesting that people seem to take Joker’s “do I look like a man who has a plan” line sincerely. He’s lying, just like he lies to everyone throughout the movie to accomplish his goals. He’s clearly the biggest planner in the movie, even more so than Batman, who’s mostly forced to react throughout the movie. I think we’re used to the “noble villain” trope where bad guys operate based on their own moral code that we end up applying it even to villains who demonstrably don’t operate that way.
The mistake the characters make is they assume The Joker has one ultimate plan leading towards victory. The Joker protests otherwise, but more likely I feel he has multiple plans going at once where any one of the outcomes would satisfy him.
Like his attack on the motorcade:
– If he kills Harvey Dent and/or Batman, then his two biggest threats are out of his way.
– If Batman kills him, he gets Batman to break his “one rule”.
– If he gets arrested, he has that one henchman with a bomb in his stomach so he can escape, and the rest of his team are ready to kidnap Harvey and Rachel as a distraction.
Yeah, that whole “do I look like a guy with a plan” bit… but then he’s had time to wire an entire hospital up to explode… he’s definitely not “out of control” insane.
I’ll agree with you that Joker is way overused. I have to disagree with you that Joker was completely “wrong” in The Killing Joke. Sure, he failed to break Gordon, but he drove Batman to kill him. Arguably, Batman was already primed for a mental break, though:
No he did not kill him, that was a myth Grant Morrison made up. Here’s the script Moore wrote out for that last page and nowhere does it indicate that Batman kills the Joker (https://screenrant.com/the-killing-joke-batman-killed-joker-grant-morrison/).Furthermore, Ostrander and Yale’s Suicide Squad run re-introduced Barbara Gordon as Oracle and specifically mentions the events of The Killing Joke where she was paralyzed in Suicide Squad #48.The fact that Babs’ paralysis was a direct result of the events of Killing Joke and the Joker’s continued existence in stories with Oracle are just further proof that the idea that Batman killed the Joker at the end of the story is just an urban legend.
Two points: First, nowhere in the script does it say that Batman doesn’t kill Joker, and there’s just as much textual evidence for a murderous Batman as not.
Second, I’m not arguing that the story hasn’t been adopted as canon. I’m arguing it shouldn’t have been.
The lack of evidence that Batman doesn’t kill the Joker is not evidence that he did. I think if Moor had wanted that to be the takeaway, he’d have made it explicit.
Moore is infamously inscrutable. Dude works as much in subtext as text. That said, that’s what makes literary analysis so appealing: the fact that, as long as the textual evidence can be cited, any interpretation is valid. Laserface isn’t wrong when he says Batman doesn’t kill Joker, because that read is correct if you take it as part of a canonical entry. When read as a discrete story, Batman kills Joker. Laserface calls Morrison’s interpretation “a myth,” but that’s not really really what literary analysis is. Comics are art and art is subjective, especially the work of brilliant artists as Moore. If Moore wanted a definite, concrete resolution to that story, he’d have written it in such a way that would defy interpretation. The published text, as well as the script, is vague in a way that I have to believe is vague.
Well, Alan Moore famously 1) Wrote lots of alternate history/“imaginary” (aren’t they all?) stories for DC, so who knows what his intentions were with Killing Joke. 2) DC, for its part, famously takes Moore stories and makes them canon/part of the DC continuity whether he wants them to be so or not (Watchmen).
No he does not kill Joker. The whole point of that scene is Joker understanding and thanking Batman for the fact that he knows Batman is trying to reach through to him but he knows he’s just too far gone to ever be able to return to normalcy. He cracks a joke, they both laugh. Its the most normal thing they’ll ever do before they go back to beating on each other. Its a moment of understanding and a moment of normalcy, something they almost never have between them.Is it a good ending to a book where Barbara Gordon has been left paralysed from the waist down and Jim Gordon has been subject to mental and physical torture? Probably not.
Miller’s Dark Knight Returns is a genuine classic with a baleful influence on the next 30 years of comics.The Killing Joke is… really nicely pencilled? I mean it’s Alan Moore so it’s not exactly incompetent, but I feel like its reputation far outstrips its actual quality.
Nah, he’s the greatest comic villain of all time if you’re being honest. That’s why top actors fall all over themselves to play him, and why they’ve been rewarded with an Oscar for it half the time. Don’t worry, you can still like things that Zack Snyder touched.Now say “Hell” to start a sentence and post some comic panels.
I have the same issue with the Joker as I do with every other nemeses (ex.: Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom). It’s not that there’s never any good stories with these villains – after all, they got that title for a reason – but too often, writers feel the need to justify their status as “the worsts” and try to force an “event” when just a simple story would do.
I think Joker is only an interesting villain in relation to Batman, to the point where I think he shouldn’t appear in anyone else’s stories. The Joker works well when he’s a test to Batman’s commitment to actual justice over revenge, and a chaotic contrast to the order Batman tries to preserve. In any other circumstance, he’s just a creepy murder clown, and that’s an idea we’ve seen plenty of. (Granted, Joker was one of the earlier examples so it’s not the character’s fault that the trope is played out, but played out it is.)
Between that and people thinking the end of the book features Batman breaking Jokers neck i begin to wonder if some people just look at pages and make shit up themselves.
the fluoro hair and eyebrows aren’t doing him any favours either..
The same people who miss the point on the Joker are usually the ones that think the relationship with Joker and Harley are something to aspire to.They miss that it’s a very abusive relationship
Spot on, Joker does break Batman to end killing Joke but Jim Gordon holds it together. Joker should be used randomly to further along stories or you bulid to him. No need to use him in every movie.The Justice League and JLU cartoon did such a great job of not having to use the Joker for 2 episodes in different seasons.
Really looking forward to this. Hopefully it will be the movie I wanted the first one would be. Gunn certainly has the right attitude for it, and the cast is great
Man, did Disney shoot themselves in the dick on that one, but I’m glad that we get a Gunn-helmed GOTG and Suicide Squad. I didn’t hate SS as much as most, but I think he is definitely one who could improve on the tone.
Isn’t Gunn still making the next GotG? Disney doesn’t seem to have hurt themselves that much.
IIRC, WB hired Gunn for The Suicide Squad while he was still fired by Disney for making child molester jokes years ago. Then Disney re-hired him, so nobody lost anything.
Before Gunn got fired, there were rumors that he was going to be given more Marvel projects. I think it’s been publicly debunked but he certainly was setting up much more than just one sequel in GotG2. And I think he is just flat out done after GotG3 now. So I do think it hurts Marvel a bit as Gunn would have been great to have longer term.
To be fair, those rumors are constant about anyone who does well in the MCU. It took a day for rumors that Waititi is taking over GOTG3 to arrive, only for that to turn out to be bullshit.Hell, I remember reading that Gunn wasn’t 100% sure he’s coming back for GOTG3 because it’s ultimately not his decision, and now he’s saying that he’s not thinking about 4 because 3 is meant to finish the arcs he started in 1.The bigger impact is that all that bullshit moved Phase 4 around, but COVID would have done that anyway and it’s clear that Feige accounted for that possibility, which is why they’re setting up the multiverse so early.
It’s OK, Disney can just back up a dump truck of cash to James Gunn’s house and have him direct a new Star Wars trilogy.
Except GOTG3 was originally supposed to kick off phase 4 in may of 2020. Covid would have still delayed it, but it at least wouldn’t have caused the re-shuffle of release dates.
Yes, but it probably would have happened MUCH sooner if Disney had not “jumped the Gunn”, so to speak.
It impacted Marvel’s phase 4, as its original release date would have been May or June 2020. Covid would have delayed it, but it likely would have been out this year.
I love Gunn, but this reeks of watered down GotG to me…
Couldn’t you say the same for Harley Quinn? Not that I want Joker included because that version is beyond awful, but you know.
Harley is a brawler and more tactical
One thing that Harley has over the Joker is loyalty. Now that she’s got Mr J out of her system, she seems committed to the Squad. (The trailer shows she was really touched that they came to rescue her, so I think she’s all in.) If you bring the Joker to a fight, you’d never know if he might suddenly switch sides just for funsies.
Injustice 2 shows that nicely – she’s part of the Bat family there because at the end of the day she’s looking for a purpose AND some co-dependency. Joker was an andrenaline rush who also needed someone to lord over, so Injustice!Batman who is basically the same but is also generally much more trusting and needs some indirect way to atone for neglecting Damian is a great fit.
Kudos to James Gunn for finding a diplomatic way to explain Joker’s absence when we all agree it’s simply because he well and truly sucks.
Canonically, Joker is on par with Batman in terms of his ability to fight so that’s a bit of a silly excuse. I think “he sucks and his overused” is a much better reason and Gunn shouldn’t be afraid to just be honest about it.
Yeah, but Batman honestly wouldn’t be much use for this kind of villain. Oh, we like to believe he can take on anyone, but you have to admit kaiju are out of his wheelhouse.
Depends on if he packed his Kaiju repellant spray before leaving the Batcave that morning.
Dude, it’s Batman. Of COURSE he packed the Kaiju repellant spray somewhere. Just. In. Case.
“All I’ve prepped for is Godzillas, Clark. Godzillas are easy to prep for. You hatch ‘em, they make a be-line for Tokyo every single time. Should see those things go.”
* A kaiju is destroying Gotham City*
Batman: Good thing I planned for this. *He pushes a button on his utility belt**The giant dinosaur in the Batcave comes to life, rises to the surface via a special elevator platform, and proceeds to beat the shit out of the kaiju*Robin: Wait, that thing was alive?Batman: I named him “Tiny.”
I want to see that SO MUCH!
I like the “Tiny” line. I love grim, dour Batman as much as the next guy, but I also think writers should cut that through with a bit of whimsy every now and then. The idea that Batman would both have and name a pet dinosaur is just the right kind of funny for the character.
Sometimes they manage to still sneak that whimsy in (this page is from Batman Universe #3.)
Batman’s real superpower is money. Sure, theatricality and misdirection won’t do much against a kaiju, but that just makes Batman pour money into R&D.The bigger question is, did Gunn not notice that Harley Quinn’s in his movie? And that the main difference between her and Joker’s skillsets is…gymnastics?
You know, if DC just killed off The Joker and pledged not to use the character for at least 5 years I think it’d go a great way to revitalizing him. They could even make it a murder mystery.
Yeah, I don’t think DC can resist making money for 5 years. At the very least, they did try to avoid using him for almost one whole year as a set-up to Scott Snyder’s Death of the Family, so there’s that, but I can’t see them doing that again to their most famous villain.
Which one? Isn’t the Joker supposed to be some kind of god-like force of evil with multiple incarnations running around simultaneously now?
No, because that is a very unprofessional response from someone working at the studio that owns said character.
I think the Joker sucks the big one and am super sick of him, but James Gunn making fun of the Joker seems like a great way to turn a massive army of morons with cash against hismovie.
I don’t know about that. Throughout the years, Joker’s been written inconsistently when it comes to his fighting prowess. Sometimes he can hold his own against Batman, but sometimes he’s a wimp who gets taken down with a couple of punches and a kick.
Not a great idea for a director on a promotional tour to slag off his employer’s cash cow.I’d imagine it was also a factor that with these characters, he can kill off anyone bar Hatley Quinn. He can’t touch the Joker.Also, he probably didn’t want to deal with Leto in method Joker mode.
“After the whole Cernovich thing, I’ve received enough dead rats and used condoms in the mail to last me a lifetime, thank you very much.”
I’ve never accepted any version of the Joker that can fight. I can accept him being super tricksy, having tons of gadgets, even just being super hard to land a punch on….but not that he could actually fight
Joker’s catchy, but I’ve always hated his concept. He might be dangerous in an unpredictable, rabid dog kind of way. But in no way does insanity make you a brilliant planner or fighter; quite the opposite. It’s just a completely nonsense idea, which is why he’s not in this movie.
Except he’s not, because Batman rarely fights the Joker head-to-head. Joker usually employs henchmen or deathtraps or hostages or what-not to soften Bats up first. His deal is mind-games, not fistfights. The climax of most Batman/Joker showdowns is Batman getting past a series of traps and then taking Joker out with one good kick to the ribs.
Joker is dangerous when he has the time and resources to prepare a big scheme. But that doesn’t lend itself to a team dynamic.
I think this is a misunderstanding of what Gunn said, which isn’t “Joker is useless in a fight”. Gunn’s specific words were “he wouldn’t be helpful in that type of war situation.”. And he’s *absolutely* right. Because the Joker is the kind of unpredictable agent of chaos that Waller is smart enough to avoid. So it’s not that Joker can’t fight, it’s because Waller would be batshit crazy to bring that kind of unpredictable factor into a situation.
That’s what I took it to mean. The rest of the Squad may be unpredictable career criminals, but they can be bargained with and/or threatened into doing what Waller wants. Even a bomb in his neck isn’t necessarily enough to get Joker to follow orders.
Yeah, Joker’s fighting strengths are somewhat similar to Batman’s in that his strengths are stealth and intelligence (Batman’s more preparation and Joker’s more chaos but Batman also improvises well and Joker plans more than he lets on). If the Joker has enough freedom to use those in an advantageous way, he’s also free enough to cause harm to the mission or civilians and he doesn’t have enough motivations to convince him not to cause harm.
You just exaggerated a little there too.
Nobody is on par with Batman, his super ability is to always win.
Brought down Superman, Darkseid, the whole universe because he went a little paranoid…
The Joker can take an ass whoopin, that’s about it.
“Canonically” is a dicey word to use with comics. Joker’s been used by so many different writers, and they’ve shown him with everything from superhuman strength to the level you’d expect from someone that skinny.
I am struggling to think of any time I have seen Joker holding his own in a straight up fight. He’ll beat, maim, or kill someone who has been tied up, Joker toxin-ed, laughing gassed, beat up by henchman, psychologically scarred or tortured etc., or use the element of a surprise, but he’s not a fighter and I would be interested to see examples to the contrary. Not that I don’t believe they could exist, as MANY versions of the Joker have been written and “canon” means jack shit when you can easily find multiple contradictory origins/explanations/iterations of the Joker. For instance I enjoyed Grant Morrison’s unification of Joker versions but have zero interest in the “Three Jokers” stuff that Geoff Johns went into in recent years. And a Joker whose a fighter and not a mad thinker is just less fun to me personally, in Scott Snyder’s Batman run I hated when his version of Joker showed up and immediately snapped like 17 cops’ necks in the Gotham Precinct and all he had to do was knock the lights out for a minute.
This is the only version I can think of that portrays him as a fighter. I didn’t watch this show but caught a clip years back, and wasn’t a fan of the fighter aspect or general character design, though it is an interesting alternate take on the Joker. The fact that I found it so jarring, though, kind of proves your point that it’s out of step with how he’s usually portrayed.
Nonsense. Everyone’s helpful in a war situation. You need fodder to soak up bullets.
My feelings about the death penalty in the real world aside, it’s weird it’s not a bigger thing in these fictional universes with mass murderers running around. It’s a very dissonant thing in adulting superheros I think. At worst an Amanda Waller type assigns him and if someone asks how the Joker is useful she shrugs and says “who’s gonna miss him?”
if you want to get riled up read Batman: Devil’s Advocate.
Joker gets sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit and Batman works to exonerate him before time runs out.To me what’s more unrealistic than the lack of supervillains getting the death penalty, is the lack of cops just shooting them. you can’t tell me GCPD wouldn’t have a shoot on site policy for the Joker, especially after what he did to Gordon and his family.
It’s complicated. The reason they don’t have a shoot-on-sight policy for supervillains is because they’re subconsciously protecting themselves from the knowledge that they exist inside a twisted funhouse-mirror fictional universe solely for the amusement of decadent eldritch beings.You shoot at some random, barely-has-powers nobody like Joker a few hundred times and he never gets seriously hurt – or even hit, maybe – and the illusion starts to crack. Then they’re all Joker. Worse, they’re all Joker-Deadpool.
It’s absurd the Joker is still alive even in the DC universe. They should let him loose near Houston TX; a Girl Scout troop would hunt him down. The Joker is a character I think deserves a legacy replacement. I would love a series where he gets caught, tried, and to his own horror actually gets executed. The Joker is so emblematic it would be easy for Batman to write a new Joker.
Sargent Rock, giving out the orders to the suicide squad: Joker, your job is to tell everyone on the enemy side your edgy and provocative opinions. Be sure to yell and wave your arms so they all have your attention.Joker: That plan sounds crazy! Or, as I like to call crazy things, “normal.” I’m the Joker.
Rock: Cool. Now get out there and die in a society.
“Should I offer to give them a reach-around?”“I can’t think of any reason on God’s green earth why you would, but sure, if it makes you happy.”
would 100% have been fine with them Affleck-in-Smoking-Aces-ing him
Aw man, a Gunn Superman movie could have been great. Could have been silly, campy, and given us our dorky Superman we’ve needed on screen for ages.
I’m super amped for The Suicide Squad and as a huge fan of James Gunn I think it is a perfect fit for him, but damn it would have been fun to see him make a Superman movie. He strikes me as a nerd who “gets” comics and characters enough that he would adapt his style to Superman instead of trying to change the character to fit his style, and pushing him outside of his comfort zones could help him grow as a director.
I’ve been saying for years: Just Make All-Star Superman Into A Movie You Fucking Cowards, and Gunn seems like he’d be an excellent candidate to do just that.
Who else thinks Leto is going to hear about this and will challenge Gunn to a fight or something?!
I can see that, just replace the fish with used condoms.
I’m pretty sure the actor who isn’t in this movie already knew he wasn’t in this movie.
At least it’s better than using Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, who in addition to being being mentally ill is also dumb as a rock and not a particularly fearsome fighter.That was my single biggest issue with that movie. The whole time watching it I kept asking myself “This guy is supposed to be Batman’s greatest enemy?”
…Yes, as far as we are all concerned.
I refused to see that movie. It wanted to be talked about more than it wanted to be good and entertaining in its own right. It’s like calling someone “motherfucker”: two words put together to illicit a reaction.
you missed out
Lukewarm take: it’s fine. The movie answers a question nobody was asking (“What if Travis Bickle became the Joker?”) in an exceedingly cynical and unoriginal way, but the core cast (obviously Phoenix but also Zazie Beatz and Frances Conroy) is great and it’s competently made. I remember we were all briefly concerned that it was going to be some kind of era-defining statement but then COVID happened and boy does that seem ludicrous in retrospect.
I finally got around to watching Joker the other day, and I thought it was pretty interesting for what it was trying to do, even if what it was doing wasn’t super original by this point. However
(MAJOR JOKER SPOILER ALERT IN CASE ANYONE CARES)
I was somehow disappointed that they actually 1. showed Batman’s origin at the end and 2. made Joker indirectly responsible for it. For me, that scene shifted the story from “interesting standalone take on Joker in the ‘real’ world” to “kind of weird Joker-centric take on the Batman story.” Using the Batman/Gotham City setting for a unique story was one thing, shoehorning in Bruce’s parents getting killed (and not even using it as any kind of payoff for the “is Joker Thomas Wayne’s son” subplot, since I don’t think Joker even knew the killing happened) just seemed to take away from the movie.
How would you know that if you didn’t see the movie?
It’s actually a pretty good movie if you like the feel of early to mid 70s character study films.
It’s a decent pastiche of Taxi Driver and King of Comedy with the twist that the protagonist’s mental health issues are more explicitly diagnosed in this version.
That movie has multiple issues. A queasy disregard for black people in that it’s clear the black woman in his apartment building and the black woman psychiatrist at the end are killed off screen, whereas white people are seen killed. This leads to white lives having more value than black lives. The dreadful Xerox of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, the weak storytelling presented as deep, the on-the-nose choice of music, the misguided exploitation of our current political divides, and more.
I find it hard to imagine that they didn’t know about Bernie Goetz when they made that subway scene, but using it in the way they did is consistent with inch-deep thoughtfulness.
Give him TIME. Arthur just realized there’s some power in being certifiable, so let him hone it honey.
Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, who in addition to being being mentally ill
I refuse to give the character that excuse. I’m tired of mental illness being used to excuse assholes being assholes.
I read the movie as Joaquin being a proto-Joker, not the actual Joker that Batman goes on to grow up and fight.
I thought the same. Phoenix’s Joker inspired the person who became Bruce’s nemesis, and Bruce’s experience with Arthur may be why he reacts so viscerally to the second-gen clown, especially considering the whole “three Jokers” idea DC was plotting at the time.
Really, the dumbest thing about that movie was including Batman in it at all. The moment they shoehorned the Wayne family in (and had them get shot, like always) it killed disbelief because there was no way this version of the Joker would ever be a challenge for Bats.
Of course, without the Batman branding it’s just an edgy fake-deep character piece with a lead actor who deserved a better script, but…oh wait, that’s all it ever was.
The moment they included the Wayne’s was a huge tip-off this wasn’t the actual Joker that goes on to poison Gotham’s water supply and fight Batman to me.
#2 Rule of Bat-Flicks: some Waynes gots ta get shot in an alley.
Hey man, you survive going to space in Space Camp and let’s see how stable you turn out!
That was an independent movie about how society handles mental illness that basically had DC characters painted over it to sell tickets. The actors were great but it was little more than a long Scorsese fan letter.
Then again, since the movie turns Thomas Wayne into Donald Trump, I feel like Arthur is a completely appropriate foil for Bat-Don Jr.
Joker isn’t a physical menace, he’s a psychological one.
Joker is super adaptable and is the kind of guy I’d want on my side in any situation, though I’d never turn my back on him.That said, Leto’s Joker sucked and should be left out of all future projects until the end of time.
better if we leave Leto our of ALL projects and not just Joker related (which might be what you’re also suggesting).
Leto is going to play the “Living Vampire” Morbius. He’s a Spider-Man Villain. Brought to you by the fine people at Sony.All this shows me is that God does exist. And he hates us all.
“You can start loving and caring for each other like I asked you to, or you can get more Leto films. Your choice, people.”
Oops, I knew that and forgot (I try to strike Leto from any active thoughts)
Clearly ‘bad in a fight’ is the best and only reason.
We really don’t need more Joker and especially not more of the Leto version.
One could also argue that Gunn’s reasoning is a subtweet in the direction of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which added a scene where Joker was on Batman’s team in the post-apocalyptic alternate future or whatever, but we’re going to assume that Gunn had better things to do in 2020 than watch that movie.Meh. ZSJL at best rose to the level of “fascinating failure,” and the entire end scene was the definition of inessential, but I’ll give Snyder and Leto their due: other than being played by the same actor, the Joker character in that movie had nothing in common with the tryhard walking flash tattoo in Suicide Squad, and was actually a reasonably convincing argument that Leto could have been effective in the part if he were in a movie made by competent people who didn’t indulge his desire to be a complete asswipe to his fellow cast members.
The Mark Hamill joker is the best
I feel like Hamill’s Joker was kind of the answer to the question, “What if Caesar Romero had played the character basically the same way, but as a murderous psychopath?”
Yes, he was that amazing
I haven’t seen any of the DCEU films, but I was under the impression Leto’s Joker wasn’t actually a member of that Suicide Squad, and instead he was just connected to Harley Quinn (who was). Harley Quinn herself doesn’t seem like the right person to deal with the apocalyptic evil too many superhero films use as their stakes, but like I said I didn’t see the film and don’t know how that worked out (nor do I know what Gunn will do with her in this one).
Yes, he’s a secondary villain. Not actually part of the Squad.
I saw the first movie. He’s barely in it and is negligible to the plot. And even in that first go round it seems a number of his scenes were cut or re-edited when they took the whole movie away from the director and gave it to the people who edited the trailer to reshape.
So basically no one but Jared Leto and the people on the movie marketing team trying to fill Hot Topic shelves ever gave a shit about that version of the character, and if it weren’t for pop culture websites and our own fool selves constantly wanting to dunk on Damaged Joker we could have easily forgotten about him by now (I’m like 90% sure Snyder only put him in The Snyder Cut because he knew it would get a bunch of coverage, clicks, and conversation and because he is enough of a contrarian to take a universally hated character/performance and spend millions of dollars stuffing it into another movie).
kudos to James Gunn for actually having a solid answer—beyond “because he sucks”
“Because he sucks” is a perfectly solid answer. Worst Joker depiction, hands down.
Yeah, I disagree with the take here. On one hand, sure, the Joker is way overused. But he is probably no less useful in a fight than Harley, and she’s there. In fact, he is both a brilliant strategist and a hell of a deadly dangerous fighter, so I would think he would fit in just fine. Your biggest reason not to have him join would be that he would be the most likely to ruin whatever plan Waller had in mind.
Oh, so Leto/Joker’s not in it? I might actually watch it, then.
Jared Leto would be useless, but I’m not sure every Joker would be. The Mark Hamill Joker, for example, seemed to be a pretty good fighter, when he wanted to be.
How did you first learn that you had been fired from Marvel?It was conveyed to me by Kevin Feige [the Marvel Studios president]. I called Kevin the morning it was going on, and I said, “Is this a big deal?” And he goes, “I don’t know.” That was a moment. I was like, “You don’t know?” I was surprised. Later he called me — he himself was in shock — and told me what the powers that be had decided. It was unbelievable. And for a day, it seemed like everything was gone. Everything was gone. I was going to have to sell my house. I was never going to be able to work again. That’s what it felt like.Did the experience make you more careful about what you say, whether on social media or in general?Yes and no. I’m more considerate of people’s feelings today. I had talked about this a lot before those tweets were [resurfaced]. They are awful things, that’s what my sense of humor was back then. But before this ever happened, I realized that I had closed myself off to things I thought were schmaltzy because I didn’t want to be vulnerable. This attitude — I can make a joke about anything, look how great I am — that’s just not the fullness of me as a human being. And I learned that long before I got called out for the tweets.The term wasn’t as prevalent at the time, but do you think you were a victim of what people now call “cancel culture”?I understand people’s preoccupation with that term. But it’s such a bigger issue than that. Because cancel culture also is people like Harvey Weinstein, who should be canceled. People who have gotten canceled and then remain canceled — most of those people deserved that. The paparazzi are not just the people on the streets — they’re the people combing Twitter for any past sins. All of that sucks. It’s painful. But some of it is accountability. And that part of it is good. It’s just about finding that balance.Welp.
This is, to me, a pretty good response. Gets to what I consider the nuance of the issue, without giving in to any clickbait-y tendencies.
I imagine Feige had ‘Nam-style flashbacks to Ike motherfucking Perlmutter when that shit happened.I think that’s a smart response overall, though. It’s not like he can say “yeah this only happened because Disney got trolled by a bunch of alt right fucks who got pissy about getting dunked on” when he’s back to working for them.
I wouldn’t dare try to make a counter-point to Gunn’s argument because I fully agree.However, I’d like to make a side point: Harley ‘fucking’ Quinn. Does being nimble on roller skates and carrying a mean bat make her anymore qualified other than the fact that people seem to like the character beyond being Joker’s main squeeze and sometimes Poison Ivy’s (sexual) partner in crime? People also seem to like Margo Robbie in that role so it comes as no surprise why she’s in these movies but it doesn’t answer the reason.The ‘why’ is not the ‘reason’. I see no reason at all.
We have never really gotten an actual background on Robbie’s version of the character, but in the comics Harley is at least a collegiate-level gymnast, a solid fighter good with melee weapons, and a borderline-brilliant psychologist who understands and can manipulate people. She’s also willing to kill people if necessary but generally does not do it excessively. One of the reasons the last Squad movie was dumb was because the ostensible reason they were formed was “what if Superman went bad? We need people to take him down.” which made no sense with most of the characters they chose. This movie seems to be going more the direction of the comic, where you use the Squad for black ops, wet works, kidnappings, etc., the whole point is they are an expendable team that no one would believe worked for the US government if they get caught doing something illegal or international incident-y, and Harley makes perfect sense in that kind of situation.
Against Starro? Well, none of these guys really seem equipped for that but at least they have special skills and/or abilities that exceed that of a normal human being.Yeah, I haven’t seen Harley’s PHD in Psychology put to good use much, not in the movies or in any of the STDVD movies.Again, she’s fine up against many of the aforementioned missions but not against super beings.
I avoided the second trailer to try and go in fresh, but my thinking was the mission starts out as something else and then it turns out they aren’t dealing with a political/military coup or something but a Starro situation and they end up being the ones in proximity who can save the day. But I will be happy to be surprised if its completely different, I have a lot of trust in Gunn and it seems they are letting him do his own thing, vs. the first movie where they did not trust and re-edited a director I didn’t like in the first place.
Finally saw Birds of Prey on cable (fun movie; not great but good), and one of the things I like about it is that it acknowledges that Harley is a trained psychologist (she mentions her Ph.D. in a brief voiceover/intro scene), and it actually incorporates that into her character; it’s not a major plot point or anything, but there are several times when she basically dissects others character’s motivations or actions in a very astute way. I don’t think even the generally excellent Animated Series actually bothered that much to show her being insightful in a way that reflected her in-story background.
Harley makes more sense because she’s a good combatant but unlike the Joker, she’s shown that she can be turned “to the good guys”. Not that Waller cares about that on a moral level, but it makes her predictable on a larger scale.Joker is an unpredictable, irredeemable fuckface who you’ll either have to shoot anyway wasting time and resources or who will fuck up the entire plan on purpose. Harley Quinn even at her most villainous can generally be counted on to do the right thing eventually (her big thing is codependency and a desperate need for purpose, which is why she’s been generally so redeemable across different universes), Joker might do it but only if it benefits him personally and even then, you’re basically rolling a d100 to find that. The comic “Justice” is a nice demonstration: Joker does help the heroes from the sidelines in a minor way, but only because he wasn’t invited to help the bad guys (for the usual reasons) and he’s feeling petty about it.
joker would be trying to kill his teammates at random. Just for fun. No thanks.
“[H]e never considered having Leto stencil “damaged” (or maybe “the damaged” in honor of the sequel’s title) on his forehead”.You know, the “Damaged” tattoo gets a lot of (deserved) mockery, but to me the worst one is the smiley mouth he has drawn on his hand, which at one point he puts in front of his real mouth. If I was a henchman and I saw my boss do that, I’d shoot him in the head regardless of the possible consequences. Nothing could be worse than working for that guy.
As opposed to Harley Quinn with her wide skill set of “has a mallet” and “does gymnastics”
Overused? Absolutely. Useless in a fight? Depends on which version we’re talking about. Some Jokers are capable fighters, some are scrawny and make up for it with their cunning.Side note: I am kind of disappointed at the idea that characters with support abilities (speed, flight, healing, a high Charisma stat) are useless. You can’t make a team entirely out of Punch Rockgroins.
I thought Leto made a good Joker. He got a lot of bad press over it, because it made for easy clickbait headlines.
Joker being part of the Suicide Squad would just be wrong anyway.
“Idris Elba’s Bloodsport is replacing Smith’s Deadshot as the ‘very competent gun guy’ archetype in the new movie”Replace “very competent gun guy archetype” with “Black guy” and we might be closer to the actual thought process.
He also mentions that Warner Bros. approached him almost immediately after all of that happened and asked him to make a Superman movie, but he chose to sit back and find a project that he really thought could be “great” lol brutal
I feel like you can make any fictional character fight effectively, you just have to know what their own strengths and weaknesses are and have them take advantage of the former and avoid the latter.A person who says something like “they wouldn’t be useful in a fight”or the classic “Superman has no interesting stories because he can’t be hurt” schtick…Is just a person who lacks the imagination to make it happen.