I wrote this idea for a Joker movie and just a Joker movie a while ago. I've always kind of wanted to draw it out as my own comic but never did.
Jack washes ashore about one mile away from a chemical factory in the midst of destruction. He lies at the outlet of a ditch and is found by Lonny Haggen, a fellow mobster. Lonny seems quite unworried and in control considering what just went on.
“How did you make it out?” Lonny asks not even breathing hard. Panting and aching Jack replies, “I swam through something marked chemical drainage.” “Good God man, do you know what kind of crap is in there? … But your alive, I guess.” Lonny says bewildered. “Hardly, my eyes, skin and mouth are burning” Jack moans. “OK, get up and get in the car and don’t even think about getting in the back seat… it’s the trunk for you.” Lonny shouts. Jack with his face muffled in the dirt says, “I can’t move… I feel like I’m being burned alive.” Lonny screams “Doncha hear those sirens the cops are coming… Get up and get over hear now!” Jack crawls to the car but collapses about half way there. Lonny grabs a blanket from out of his trunk and puts it over Jack. Using fingertips only he helps him get into the trunk and slams the door shut.
While in the trunk Jack hears Lonny on his cell phone “What do you want me to do with him…Are you sure… Ok, if that’s what he wants.” “Where are you taking me?” Jack shouts through the back seat. “They said to take you home.” Lonny chuckles.
They arrive at Jacks apartment, which is quite humble for a high-ranking mobster. Lonny knocks on the door and the instant it opens he throws Jack through. Jack wife, Maureen, screams, “ Oh my God, what did you do to him?” Their child starts to cry and a neighbor yells “Shut that kid up.” Lonny smirks and says “Someone will be back for him tomorrow. Make sure he’s cleaned up by then.” Maureen slams the door and rushes to her husband. “Jack, what happened?” she asks. Jack still moaning in pain responds, “I don’t know. Me and the boys had a job to do and people came out of nowhere. I don’t know who they were a rival mob, undercover cops, I just don’t know.” “How did you get out?” Maureen says holding back tears. “I found a drain and swam through it until it took me outside…that stuff, I’m burning, it went in my nose, my mouth, my eyes…” Maureen runs and grabs a rag and begins to wash him. “I’ll clean you up and get you to a hospital.” she says. “No…No,No,No…I’m not that bad.” says Jack pathetically. “Harry…” says Maureen. “Just please” Jack stands to his feet. She swears to him that she will not call the doctor and Jack stumbles across the room and gives her a hug. As he makes his way to the bedroom he passes out.
Jack wakes up the next day to hear his child crying and his wife arguing with their neighbor. He is very pale and his eyes are bloodshot. Maureen slams the door and yells “ Jackie get to bed. NOW!!!” Jack laughs (a little to hard). “I wasn’t trying to be funny.” she says. Jack responds, “I wasn’t laughing at you.” “So what were you laughing at?” Maureen says crossly. Jack shakes his head and says, “I don’t know.” “It must be your fever breaking.” Says Maureen feeling his forehead. Jack goes to get dressed asks his wife to let him know when those men get here adding “I don’t want them here any longer than they have to be.”… “ Your not going with them are you.,” says Maureen. Jack grabs his wife by the shoulders and says “Believe me its for the good of this family. I know that you can’t possibly understand.” Jack turns away itching and rubbing his eyes.
After getting down a bowl of soup Jack hears a knock at the door. Maureen slightly opens it and the door is forced open the rest of the way by 2 mobsters. McNamara and O’Harrah just stand at the door and say “C’mon.” Jack grabs his jacket and sickly walks out the door.
While getting in the car O’Harrah twists his head back and forth and pouts his lips. McNamara asks “What’s the matter with you.” “It’s this tie. It doesn’t look the same in this natural light. It looks good in-doors but now I don’t know.” says O’Harrah with a snobbish tone. “You’re such a girl.” McNamara laughs. “Leave me alone you slob. I'm changing it!”states O’Harrah. “We’ll be late!” replies McNamara. “We will not! I’ll be a second.”says O’Harrah sternly. Jack sits in the back seat in the fetal position giggling. As they arrive at the mobsters house Jack begins to puke. “Oh Jesus, get him out of the car.” O’Harrah shouts. Jack gets out of the car and passes out on the lawn.
As Jack wakes up he is face to face with McNamara. Jack rises to find that he’s covered with blood and it’s not his. McNamara is dead and his lips have been sliced off. His mouth is also cut ear to ear. As Jack panics he runs throughout the house and sees that this has happened to O’Harrah, what must have been his wife, what must have been his mother, and the dog. He finds the bathroom to wash the blood off of himself and notices that his look has worsened. He is now very pale and the skin around his eyes looks infected. His irises (the colored portion of the eye) are also a very yellow or light green.
Jack drives back to his wife and tells her what happen. (The baby is crying and the neighbor is yelling as per usual.) She asks if he’s OK and how come he was excluded. “I don’t know. I passed out and I must have been overlooked because they must have thought that I was already dead.” explains Jack. “There must have been a mob war going on that I’m not aware of. It’s the only thing that I could think of. A rival mob is trying to leave their mark.” Jack sits down to think as Maureen runs her fingers through his hair. “Harry, you’re in trouble and you look like death. Can we please just go away? Somewhere, anywhere.” pleads Maureen. Jacks hand covers the keys, as he knows that what he must do. “Maureen, I’ve loved you ever since we were kids. The people I’m involved with aren’t the type of people that you can just run away from. Danny’s a fair man. (Referring to the Boss) All he wants to do is talk.” says Jack. “Then why are you shaking” Maureen asks. Jack laughs and says that if he has anything else in mind that at least his family would be OK. Both of them cry and embrace.
Upon arriving at the mansion of Danny O’Halloren (The Boss), Jack is greeted by two guards. One of the guards asks, “What the hell happened to you? You look horrible.” Jack just walks past them almost doubled over in pain. Jack lets out a giggle and the guards look puzzled. “I wouldn’t laugh if I looked like that” one of the guards remarks.
Jack enters a room with Danny and his two sons. Danny says, “ What happened to your escorts.” Jack explains and asks why he wasn’t told about a mob war. “What mob war? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Danny says. He then tells one of the guards to go to O’Harrahs house to check it out. He also tells the guard to leave the room as this man has been like family and they have nothing to worry about. “Are ya sure boss?” one of them asks. “Look at him” Danny laughs. Danny explains, “Ya know, Jack, you and all your men were supposed to die in that industrial explosion. Who do you think was shooting at you? Those were my men.” Jack feels betrayed and cries, “ We were like family why, why would you do that?” Danny laughs, “I’m an old man Jack but I’m not that old. You were starting to get a little to big for you britches and moving to the top a little to fast. Our little family here was becoming two separate groups.” Jack says, “I had no idea. I always showed you loyalty.” Danny remarks “ It doesn’t matter what others do, what matters is what I think. I nip problems in the bud. That’s how I’ve grown old in this business.” Jack begins to cry. As he doubles over, he passes out.
Jack wakes up, again covered in blood, he is not in the room that he spoke with Danny in. As he enters the greater hall area he’s sees the walls covered with blood and some of the guards with the same ghastly faces that he saw at O’Harrahs house. He hears some one weakly coughing and he enters the room that it’s coming from. Jack sees that it’s coming from one of Dannys sons. He rushes over to the man, who is badly bleeding, and says “Who did this to you?” “You did.” the man gurgles. He then slumps over and may be dead but Jack stumbles out of the room. Noticing how much blood he has on him Jack runs into the bathroom. He looks in the mirror and notices that his skin now looks translucent and the skin around his eyes and mouth look infected. As Jack walks through out the house he sees everyone dead with their faces carved up. Jack panics runs out the door and drive home.
As Jack runs inside he startles his wife. The child crying and his neighbor yelling are blocked out by Maureen, as she is to concerned with the well being of her husband. She tells him that they will get away from all of this and that she’ll protect him with her life. Nobody will ever find them. Jack sick and exhausted just collapses in her arms and passes out again.
As Jack awakes he hears his child still screaming and the neighbor yelling. (We don’t see his face just over his shoulder. His hair is now green.) Maureen see her husband and shrieks “That’s it you’re going to the hospital.” Jack lets out a loud cackle. (And we zoom into the eye of The Joker)
10 minutes later and in the neighbors apartment.
Wife: “Ya see they're nice and quiet now.”
Husband: “Well its about time they shut that kid up.”
t: ! Still, unless they get creative with the backstory in such a fashion as you suggest...it seems to me the story is headed for a very basic continuity flaw - If they write Bats into the creation of The Joker in a sort of backtrack.
