In this version, however, his wife was kidnapped and murdered by those same gangsters, in order to force his cooperation in the Red Hood robbery. In a recent comic book (Batman: Gotham Knights #54 - 2004), it was heavily implied that much of the above origin was in fact true, with details of it being backed up by a witness to the death of the Joker's wife. This turn of events, compounded by the man's misfortunes on that one day, caused him to go completely insane and resulted in the birth of the Joker.
Once there, he discovered, to his horror, that the chemicals permanently stained his appearance into that of a clown-like being with chalk white skin, ruby red lips and bright green hair. In panicked desperation, the engineer escaped by diving into a toxic waste vat and swam through a pipe leading to the outside. The criminals were gunned down and the engineer found himself confronted by Batman, who was investigating the disturbance. Once inside, they almost immediately blundered into security personnel and a violent shootout and chase ensued. Unknown to the engineer, this was simply a way to implicate any accomplice as the mastermind of a crime to divert attention from themselves.
Grief-stricken, the engineer tried to withdraw from the plan, but the criminals strong-armed him into keeping his commitment to them.Īt the plant, the criminals made him don a special mask to become the infamous Red Hood. During the planning, the police came and informed him that his wife had just died in a household accident. Desperate to support his pregnant wife, he agreed to guide two criminals into the plant for a robbery.
In that story, the Joker was an unnamed engineer who quit his job at a chemical company to become a stand-up comedian, only to fail miserably. This origin was greatly expanded upon in the 1988 graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke written by Alan Moore. (In the light of later developments, it's worth noting that even in this story, the only source of information about who the Joker was before his fateful run-in with Batman is the Joker's own recollection) In an encounter with Batman, he jumped into a pool of chemicals to escape pursuit, and this permanently dyed his skin white and his hair green, giving him the appearance of a ghastly clown.
In a 1951 story an origin was told in which he was originally a criminal who called himself the "Red Hood". The definitive origin and actual name for the character was never established in the comics (although some people now assume his real name is Jack Napier as in the 1989 Batman movie).
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