Joker - Batman - Arkham Asylum

The Joker's exact origin is a mystery, unless Batman was somehow involved. He revealed a possible backstory to Dr. Harleen Quinzel in Arkham Origins and Professor Hugo Strange in Arkham City: he had once been a failed comedian working night shifts at Ace Chemicals in a feeble attempt to support his ailing wife Jeannie and their unborn child. They died just before the night he helped a gang of thieves from The Falcone Crime Family break into the Ace Chemicals plant, disguised as the infamous Red Hood. Batman interrupted the heist, causing the would-be criminal to fall into a vat of unidentified chemicals. Washed from the plant, he removed his disguise and discovered that they had disfigured his entire body, giving him chalk-white skin, green hair and his face a clown-like appearance.

However, Strange refuted this story, claiming that Joker had probably made it up to avoid taking responsibility for his actual actions and pointed out that the clown had told at least ten different origin stories during his career. Joker admitted that even he didn't remember what happened and that the various stories were inspired by a friend who once told him: if you're going to have an origin story, it might as well be multiple choice. It was entirely possible that this was also a lie.

Other versions of the story, told to Dr. Penelope Young, included being born in a small fishing village with frustrated aspirations of joining the circus and being the son of a police officer who was killed by the mob. The Red Hood character, Ace Chemical breaks in, and Batman's presence seem to be the only consistent events in each retelling; the details of whether Batman threw Red Hood into the bathtub, couldn't keep him from falling in, or whether the criminal jumped in to escape justice seemed to depend on Joker's mood at the time.

Even Joker's own insanity can be questioned, as it never impeded his intelligence, ruthlessness and ambition nor prevented him from mastering the chemistry to produce his various toxins and gases. He may not actually have been insane, simply the purest kind of human evil. However, only a true madman could find humor in the tragedies committed by the Joker and at least once suffered intense visual hallucinations, visualizing Batman as a huge winged monster during his second defeat at the hero's hands in Blackgate.

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