Batman: The Caped Crusader Will Dig Deep for Its Joker

Even to this day, after Academy Award-winning turns by Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix, many still consider the best Joker to be the one that Mark Hamill brought to life on Batman: The Animated Series. Thus, there’s been a lot of expectation building for the Animated Series‘ spiritual sequel Batman: Caped Crusader and its depiction of the Joker–expectation that the series plans to meet by going in a very direction.

Speaking with The Direct, James Tucker, who serves as showrunner alongside Batman: The Animated Series producer Bruce Timm, teased some details about the show’s Clown Prince of Crime. “I think it’ll be a new take on the Joker for people who only know of… If Joker begins with Mark Hamill and Jack Nicholson, this take on the Joker will be very different for them,” said Tucker.

Tantalizing as those comments are, they’re neither surprising nor worrisome. They aren’t surprising because the first season of Caped Crusader featured fresh spins on established characters. Most notably, the Caped Crusader gave viewers a methodical, chilly Harley Quinn, far removed from the lovable maniac who Timm originated in Batman: The Animated Series.

They aren’t worrisome because we’ve seen a lot of the Joker lately, and almost every version has been a variation of the punk psychopath that Ledger portrayed in The Dark Knight. From Jared Leto’s also-ran in Suicide Squad to the face-removing version that Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo made in DC Comics to even Phoenix’s sad sack, the Joker exists primarily as an amoral terrorist. Even Jack Nicholson’s frustrated artist version of the Joker seems to be forgotten by modern storytellers, let alone the many versions of Joker as a prankster or criminal mastermind, who appeared in comics before any movie adaptation.

Of course, one of those modern Joker takes came from someone heavily involved in Caped Crusader. The series is also produced by director Matt Reeves, who gave us Barry Keoghan as a heavily-scarred Joker in a few brief scenes in The Batman. Surely, Caped Crusader must follow the producer’s lead, meaning that we’ll get a variation of Keoghan’s Joker in the show.

But Tucker assures viewers that’s not the case. “We weren’t given a mandate to match what he was doing,” Tucker said of Reeves. “He’s been very accommodating in that he understands our show is separate from what he’s doing in the movies and he gets where our influences are coming from and he understands it.”

Instead, Tucker says that the Joker of Caped Crusader will be from deep in the pages of DC Comics. “For people who’ve read comics for a long, long, long, long time, it won’t be [surprising],” Tucker teased about his show’s Joker. “I think some people will recognize it and go, ‘Oh, I see what they’re doing.’ And other people will go, ‘Wow, this is different.’ But, I think it’s all Joker.”

Whether fans will agree and hold this Joker in the same esteem we hold Hamill’s, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Batman: Caped Crusader season 2 will stream on Prime Video.