Batman: Caped Crusader – Does The Joker Appear in Season 1?

Batman: Caped Crusader is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. However, one question Batman fans probably have going into this new series is whether or not the most infamous Batman villain of all is a part of it. 

Is The Joker in Batman: Caped Crusader? 

(SPOILERS) The Joker doesn’t fully appear in Batman: Caped Crusader Season 1 – but a final epilogue scene tees Batman’s archnemesis up for Season 2. 

Batman: Caped Crusader – Joker’s Cameo Explained

The final episode of Batman: Caped Crusader “Savage Night” sees Batman (Hamish Linklater) trying to intervene in the war between Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Diedrich Bader) and mob boss Rupert Thorne. Batman can’t save Dent before he’s shot down protecting Barbara Gordon (Krystal Joy Brown) from one of Thorne’s men; Thorne thinks he’s gotten away clean by eliminating Dent (who knew secrets of his criminal works), but a Batarang into his chair lets Thorne know that The Batman is watching him. 

…Meanwhile, across town, we see a run-down shack that’s filled with the corpses tied to chairs with horrible grins on their pale, dead, faces –  people who were killed by Joker’s laughing toxin. The camera pans over to one victim, still alive, laughing hysterically until his lungs give out and he, too, dies. The camera shows a hand holding a syringe, then a shadowy shot of Joker’s eyes and nose, as he declares that the formula for his Joker toxin is “Perfect.” 

Joker’s voice is low and gravelly – a far cry from the high-pitched nasally voice created by Mark Hamill in Batman: The Animated Series. The scene also clearly teases that this will be an animated version of Joker who is darker and far more in the vein of a true serial killer, rather than the flamboyant comic book-ish version Hamill played. 

A lot of DC fans tend to prefer it when Batman stories take their time building up to Joker. Batman: Caped Crusader shows a lot of confidence in that regard, not investing any more time in The Joker other than this one epilogue scene. Judging from the way the series was willing to make big changes to traditional Batman lore and characters, it’s going to be very interesting to see how it treats the ‘Batman vs. Joker’ rivalry. 

Batman: Caped Crusader is now streaming all 10 episodes on Amazon Prime Video.