Ok, I guess I found another excuse to post this:
Rather than tell everyone how I don't want the Joker to have a definitive origin, I'll provide one that encompasses all the different versions I've read over the years (plus an idea or two of my own) and distill it down to one.
The Joker (unnamed) as a young boy: His father was a traveling salesman with a growing mental problem. He was slowly unraveling at the seams. Their home was less than extravagant. Lower middle class, I would say. Young Joker was the victim of self imposed isolation. He and his mother were afraid of other's finding out how the father was unraveling. Each trip back to the family would find the father going further off his nut until one night he came home and just collapsed in an unending rain of tears. He just keep repeating 'Laugh, Clown, laugh' through his tears. His father was put into a mental home and died there. It was discovered too late that he had suffered with a brain tumor.
The young Joker and his mother struggled on without him. The financial burdens were almost too much for them to bear. The mother's solution? She met up with a blue collar working man who would improve their financial situation marginally but enough. Unfortunately, the man was an abuser and often came home drunk with lipstick stains on his ripped t-shirt and leather jacket. Joker's mother withstood the frequent beatings and the infidelities for the sake of the roof over their heads and out of fear of more severe beatings. The new boyfriend disliked young Joker intensely. He was of the opinon that the boy was of no good use and a poof. .. a sissy. When left alone with young Joker, the boyfriend made it a point to slap him around thinking to toughen him up.
He was often tormented by the other kids at school because his clothes were not the nicest and that he was overly close to his mother. Having no friends and no refuge at home, Young Joker isolated himself even further - often spending time alone in the dump yards of the local landfill. Often discovering interesting things discarded by others. One day he came upon an old, broken refrigerator that a rat had somehow gotten into and died. This look at something dead and decaying fascinated him. Eventually he took to trapping animals and, exhibiting cruelty borne out of the violences used on him, left them in the refrigerator to suffocate and die. The decaying process interested him more than the killing.
One night, on returning home from one of his junk yard excursions, he had found his mother bruised and beaten. The boyfriend had gotten to her again. Young Joker found him still in the house ... and drunk. He flailed away with his small fists at the drunken abuser who was easily twice his size. The man dragged the boy out to the front room and decided he would teach the 'little girl' a lesson. He removed his belt and wrapped it around his fist like a strap. He started for his zipper and young Joker suspected what was up next.
He grabbed a fireplace poker and started swinging wildly at the boyfriend. The boy creased the man's face with it. The abuser was at once enraged, coming at the boy like a mad killer. He lunged at the boy and knocked him to the ground, smashing the ceramic clowns his mother had collected. The boy never let go of the iron poker, swinging it as best he could at his assailant. To cut right to the chase, the young Joker ends up killing the boyfriend.
The mother is sent to the hospital and social services puts the boy in a foster home not far from where he and his mother had lived. He still makes his excursions into the dump yard. He continues to put living things in the death trap refrigerator so that he can monitor their death. It gives him the only sense of control he has.
Another boy in the foster home, desperately looking for friendship and willing to settle for this odd person who has come into his life, starts following young Joker everywhere. Annoyed with this constant tag along, young Joker makes a huge bend in the wrong direction and locks up this other boy in the death trap. Maybe he had just intended to leave him for an hour to scare him but, once locked in the box, the fascination took over. The boy was left most of the night. When young joker finally released him, the boy was near death.
The authorities were called in and young Joker was sent to Juvenile Prison. While there, they transferred him to a psyche ward where he spent the years up to his 21st birthday.
On turning 21, he was released. It was his intention to build a new life out of the ashes of the old. He tried legitimate jobs. He even took a wife. The problem was, the money never went far enough and he never made much to begin with. At this point, he found himself in the hands of the mob having spent time in 'Juvie' with some of them. They offered him a chance to make real money. A chance to be a part of something big. He took it and started bringing home cash he couldn't explain to his now pregnant wife. So that she wouldn't have to be a part of this, he assumes a false name.. Jack.. Jack Napier. He manages to keep the two lives separate for a while but then it all comes crashing down when some hoods find his wife and do away with her. 'Jack' stops caring about anything at this point and just gives in to his cruelty. He is now Jack full time, leaving the name he was given at birth behind.
'Jack' becomes an ace hit man. Even his mob bosses fear him. This 'Jack' has a cruel streak that knows no bounds. They decide to deal with him. With rumours of a mythical' Batman' sweeping the city. They concoct the story of 'The Red Hood' with every intention of setting Jack up for the fall. Jack, who now has nothing to lose and takes nothing seriously anymore, agrees to don the hood and play the game.
The Red Hood ends, as we all know, with 'Jack' being dumped in a vat of toxic chemicals and, at last, the complete unraveling of his sanity. His new face resembles the broken ceramic clown that had belonged to his mother. He renames himself after the wild card ... Joker.
And there you have it. My take on how the Joker became who he is. How an abused boy becomes a violent gangster and psychotic killer. How he arrives at the name Jack. How he finally fulfills his destiny and become the most monstrous killer ever concieved.
... And, sorry Alan, he was never a stand up comedian. That part is just too lame for me. .....
This is way too long for Nolan to do anything with but if he could sneak a couple of these elements in, it would certainly make me smile... and without Joker poison.
