The Joker Actually Died In DC’s First Batman Comic

Comic book characters have a long and storied history of dying and coming back to life, but fans might be surprised to know that Joker, Batman’s most iconic foe for nearly a century, dies in the Caped Crusader’s very first book, Batman #1. And he goes out in an embarrassingly anticlimactic fashion.

The 1940 book features several Batman stories, two of which feature the Joker. The introduction of The Joker is preceded by a brief history of how Batman came to be who he is, showing us the shooting and subsequent training that fans have seen countless times by now. We meet The Joker on Gotham’s airwaves as he terrorizes the city via radio and declares his plot to kill its elites and steal various precious gems while he’s at it. After Robin gets kidnapped (because of course, he does) and following a series of scuffles, Batman eventually leaves Joker in front of police headquarters and he’s sent to state prison. The second story is unrelated to Joker but does feature the introduction of Hugo Strange, as well as Batman’s first murder in his own standalone books when he kills an escaped mental patient in a shockingly brutal manner.

The next story, The Cat, introduces us to Catwoman for the first time, but it’s the final story, The Joker Returns, that features the clown’s first death. The Joker Returns sees the villain escaping from prison just two days after his capture, blowing up his cell wall with the chemicals that he… apparently always keeps stored in his false back teeth. Joker retreats the laboratory he has hidden underneath a decrepit cemetery and plots his next moves, taking to the radio again because that seems to have been his thing at the time. A ridiculous plot ensues that only could have come from The Golden Age. There’s poison-dart-launching telephones, more stolen gems, poison playing cards, Joker hiding in a sarcophagus, and Batman assaulting police for trying to remove his cowl.

It culminates in a duel between Joker and the Batman in which the former lunges at him with a knife. Sidestepping the strike, Joker bounces off a wall and accidentally plunges the blade into his own chest. And so seemingly ends The Dark Knight’s greatest foe, basically dying in the comic book equivalent of slipping on a banana peel. Laughing at his own death, the comic declares that  “The Joker has played his last hand and lost.” Batman leaves his still smiling husk on the street as police arrive.

In what may be the quickest turnaround of a “dead” Joker being revived, a few panels later see police and doctors shocked that the presumed corpse is somehow still alive, despite The World’s Greatest Detective having declared him dead hours ago. One would think that with all his acquired knowledge, Batman would know well enough to check for a pulse.

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