Joker’s Fight Against Red Hood Showed Everyone the Worst Part of His Character

The Joker is one of the most iconic supervillains in the entire world. His deceptive grin and manic laughter have haunted the pages of comics since 1940, and from them, he has ushered in countless new ages in the superhero world. His eternal rivalry with Batman has pushed both characters to near biblical heights of popularity, with the Joker being more recognizable to the average non-comic book fan than ninety-nine percent of every hero under the sun. Heck, the Joker is a downright household name, and for good reason. He embodies chaos and bombastic destruction in the perfect counter to Batman’s absolute morality and dark-clothed order, and their clashes have been the foundation of most of Batman’s greatest stories.

However, as important and beloved as the Joker is, nowadays, people are seriously down with the Clown Prince of Crime. Ironically, the Joker has become a parody of himself, and that is shown nowhere better than in his clash with the Robin he once killed in DC K.O.: Red Hood vs. The Joker. This tie-in to the DC K.O. event saw the two contestants compete in a three-round one-on-one combat to the death. Ultimately, Joker came out on top, winning the first and final round in the worst way possible. Not only was this win undeserved, but it perfectly captures everything wrong with the modern Joker.

A Revenge Story Weighed Down by the Plot

Red Hood has been eager to rip the Joker apart ever since he was beaten with the crowbar, so when he heard he was allowed to bring one item into the tournament, he decided to bring the ultimate Joker-killer. He brought a gun loaded with Batman’s attempt at a cure for whatever the chemicals did to the Harlequinn of Hate, which Jason had modified to basically be exactly what the chemicals that transformed him were, only a thousand times stronger. He shot the Joker at point-blank range, and the criminal was instantly mutated into a facsimile of smiles and grotesque limbs, but he didn’t die. Instead, he threw Red Hood into the original vat of chemicals and won round one.

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Round two was a personal rematch, with Jason and the Joker taking on their younger forms from “Death in the Family.” Jason easily dominated this round, torturing the clown with the crowbar and letting the bomb finish him off. For the third round, Joker turned into his younger Red Hood self, while Jason finally let go of his obsession and became an older, wiser version of himself. Their fight was bloody and brutal, with the Joker repeatedly stabbing Jason as the former Boy Wonder beat him to death with his own mask. In the end, Jason clearly won, but was mortally wounded. While Jason slinked off to bleed out, Joker wound up winning the round because he attached a device to his own heart, keeping it beating, which is bullcrap.

A Great Character Ruined By His Own Image

The Joker, obviously, is a more popular character than Red Hood. Given that he’s one of the two villains who actually made it past the qualifiers, and those who participate are encouraged to embrace cruelty, it makes perfect narrative sense for the Joker to win this fight. There’s nothing wrong with the Joker beating Red Hood on paper, but the problem emerged with how it happened, because the Joker had no reason to win. Jason outplayed and outfought the Joker at every turn. He literally brought a gun specifically built to kill the Joker, and it didn’t work. Jason actually stopped the clown’s heart in the final round, but for some reason, the Heart of Apokalips let Joker stay on and win when Jason bled out.

How did the Joker survive the poison? Why did he attach that device to his heart, and when did he have the time? Surely, his past self could not have actually had that device already there. The answer to all of this is simply that the Joker needed to win, so his plot armor protected him. This is one of the biggest problems with the modern Joker. He is carried by plot armor through situations that it very much does not make sense in. While Batman’s evolution from a street-level hero to a man with an arsenal and contingency for every situation made sense for his character, it certainly doesn’t for the Joker. 

The Joker is a force of chaos, and yet, somehow, every time he’s in a fight, the world bends over backwards to justify his survival and prosperity. There is no feasible way he should have survived the poison, and definitely no way he could have had the foresight to shock his heart like that. The Joker continues to thrive and make accomplishments that make no sense for his character. Instead of explaining anything, he just does things, which is always far more boring and lazy than showing why he’s capable of any of this, which all feels unearned. Batman has training under the world’s greatest masters and unlimited resources, so his doing these things makes sense. But how does the Joker get these devices and skills?

Simply put, the Joker’s victories almost always read like lazy or narrative-forced writing, which makes them cheap. His backstory and established skills do not say he should be capable of any of this, so when he performs these impossible feats that defy logic to this degree, it is unsatisfying. He doesn’t win by being the Joker. He wins by being Batman in clown makeup, which is the last thing that the Joker should be. The Joker’s plot armor needs to get lowered significantly; otherwise, nothing he does matters at all because there are no stakes.

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