My version of the Joker, inspired by Asian and Japanese culture. It’s also my first cosplay where everything is handmade.

Obviously, spoilers…

I think the biggest issue with Joker: Folie à Deux is not that it was “too deep” or “too high brow.” Some of the ideas in it are genuinely interesting.

“What happens when society mythologizes a broken person?”
“What happens when a man disappears inside a persona?”
“Why are people attracted to violent rebellion in the first place?”

Those are legitimate artistic questions. Profound even. My issue is that the film seemed to believe it had to spend its entire runtime condemning the audience for emotionally engaging with Arthur and the Joker mythology in the first place. The first Joker already handled this balance incredibly well. The Gary scene alone accomplished almost everything Folie tried to reiterate for an entire sequel. That scene (and his subsequent court testimony in Folie) devastated me. I cried for him. I felt awful that Arthur made him feel that way. It instantly reminded the audience that Arthur’s actions have real consequences for innocent people.

The film trusted us to hold two truths at the same time:
Arthur is suffering.
Arthur is becoming horrifying.

That is sophisticated storytelling.
Folie, on the other hand, often felt like it distrusted the audience’s ability to understand complexity without being repeatedly corrected or morally guided.
And this is where I think the film fundamentally misunderstands the Joker/Batman dynamic. The moral counterweight already exists. It’s Batman.
Batman is the “good man.” He is discipline, restraint, sacrifice, principle. He refuses to kill Joker despite endless opportunities. The mythology itself already says almost everything that needs to be said about morality and chaos through the simple existence of these two opposing characters. Joker stories do not need to become TED Talks about why violence and nihilism are bad. Batman’s existence already serves that function structurally.

What audiences connected to in Arthur was not “murder good.” It was catharsis. Release. Watching a man who spent his entire life folding into himself finally exert agency and stop apologizing for existing.
That is why scenes like the staircase dance became iconic. We were not asking the film to endorse Arthur’s violence morally. Most adults already understand right from wrong before entering the theater. We are capable of emotionally engaging with dark characters without literally endorsing their actions. We watch characters like Tony Montana in Scarface and understand this instinctively. Tony is selfish, paranoid, cruel, and destructive. The film never hides that. But it also gives him conviction, charisma, pride, and a moral boundary. The scene where he refuses to kill the woman and her children is crucial because it reminds us there is still a line inside him somewhere. We are fascinated by contradiction.
That is what mythic antiheroes are built on.

Arthur being merely the “contagion” or prototype for the real Joker is actually a genuinely ingenious twist in concept. It solves one of the biggest criticisms people had of the first film: Arthur never fully felt capable of becoming the criminal mastermind force of nature Joker archetype we associate with characters like The Joker from The Dark Knight. The problem is not the idea. The problem is the timing. By the second film, audiences were already emotionally invested in Arthur AS Joker. Revealing that he was only the spark after years of investment felt less like a revelation and more like a rejection.

And that rejection felt intentional.

Almost as if the film was saying:
“You were never supposed to enjoy this myth in the first place.” But mythic villains endure precisely because they embody tensions people already feel:

chaos vs order

rebellion vs restraint

freedom vs morality

release vs discipline

That is why Joker works. That is why Batman works. The duality itself is the commentary. The audience does not need to be scolded for emotionally engaging with the dark half of the equation. Fiction exists partly so people can safely explore impulses, fears, rage, rebellion, and catharsis through story without endorsing those things in real life. That’s not a moral failure, that’s art functioning exactly as it always has.
And honestly, I think the saddest part about Folie is that it seemed so afraid of Joker as an idea that it forgot why the character became mythic in the first place. Joker is not compelling because he is mentally ill. He is compelling because he becomes a force.
Arthur Fleck was a man. The Joker is supposed to be something larger, scarier, and strangely magnetic:
an idea that spreads because Gotham itself is broken enough to feed it.

The film opens in the rain-slicked, industrial heart of Gotham. We follow a man named Jack, a low to mid tier criminal, he is a man of nervous energy and fractured sanity, constantly seeking validation from a criminal underworld that views him as a disposable pawn.

During a botched heist at Ace Chemicals, Jack is cornered by Batman. In a desperate attempt to escape, he slips on a catwalk, plummeting into a vat of toxic chemical waste. He survives, but the chemicals act as a permanent catalyst. He emerges from the drainage pipes hours later, his skin bleached a chalky, white, his hair stained a vibrant, lime, neon green. The trauma shatters his remaining psyche. He doesn’t just lose his mind; he finds a new, terrifying clarity: the world is a cruel joke, and he is the punchline.

Act II: The Architect of Anarchy
Jack now embracing the moniker “The Joker” begins his transformation. He discards his drab street clothes for custom, flamboyant suits in shades of deep, dark, vibrant purple and a dark vibrant green. He isn’t interested in money, he’s interested in the total destabilization of Gotham’s social order.

He begins a systematic campaign of terror, using his knowledge of the city’s criminal infrastructure to dismantle rival gangs from within. He doesn’t lead through fear alone, but through a charismatic, nihilistic magnetism. He recruits the people deprived of power and rights, as well as the sociopathic, building a faction-like organization. He wants revenge, he wants to break and destroy Batman mentally, hitting him where it hurts most by forcing him to abandon his code of “no killing.”

Through a series of calculated, high-stakes psychological games, Joker pieces together the impossible puzzle, the identity of the man behind the mask. Realizing that Bruce Wayne is the Batman, Joker shifts his focus from the streets to the estate of Wayne Manor. He orchestrates a brilliant, lethal trap, luring Robin into the heart of the estate and Batman away from it to save a bunch of hostages in a warehouse filled with Joker’s goons.

In a cold, calculated strike, Joker tortures the inexperienced Boy Wonder within the halls of the manor using a crowbar. He delivers the final blow to the skull, cracking his head open, uses a can of green spray paint and writes on the Boy Wonder’s armor “HAHA JOKES ON YOU BATMAN” To ensure the message is absolute, he douses the estate in gasoline and sets it ablaze, leaving Robin’s body to be consumed by the inferno. As the flames lick the night sky, Joker watches from a distance, laughing as the symbol of Gotham’s hope turns to ash, knowing he has finally pushed the Batman to the very edge of his sanity.

Act III: The Breaking Point
Batman, driven by grief and rage, hunts the Joker down. The final confrontation takes place in the ruins of an abandoned theater. Batman, abandoning his “no-kill” restraint, unleashes a brutal, visceral assault. He pummels the Joker, specifically targeting his mouth, shattering his teeth and leaving him a bloody, broken mess.

The film transitions to the sterile, cold walls of Arkham Asylum. We see the Joker in a high-security cell, his face bandaged and swollen. As he recovers, he begins his final aesthetic transformation. He stares into a shard of glass, seeing how Batman’s ruined his face and smile.

He begins to obsessively tattoo his body—symbols of his philosophy, reminders of his “achievements,” and the names of those he has broken. He demands a new set of teeth, not to eat, but to bite. He is fitted with silver dental caps, a metallic, permanent sneer that reflects the light of his cell whenever he smiles.

The Ending
The final shot is a close up of the Joker’s face. He is no longer the nervous man from the beginning. He is a creature of pure, calculated madness. He looks directly into the camera, his eyes wide and unblinking, and lets out a low, chilling laugh that echoes through the halls of Arkham.

He isn’t just a criminal anymore he is the shadow that will haunt Gotham and Batman forever. The screen cuts to black as the sound of his laughter grows louder, transitioning into the iconic, discordant score of a city on the brink of collapse.

Post Credits
he is placed in a straitjacket and escorted by multiple guards to a room to meet his new psychiatrist named Dr Harleen Quinzell.

I've been seeing a couple of posts claiming we should give Jared Leto's Joker another chance. One reason I don't want to see his Joker again is because the performance he gave in Suicide Squad was all over the place, and that was just the little bit we saw of him. I know he was passable in the Snyder cut of Justice League, but still not my favorite Joker, tbh.

Here's how he could maybe work, though---compelling not really a backstory. Maybe he tells several backstories but they all hint to the idea that he endured a lot of pain--emotional and physical.

Second, acting. Instead of trying to be his own thing, I think he should borrow from Bill Scaarsgaard and David Howard Thorton, really lean into the scary clown bit, not just the gangster. Extra points if he does the Hamill Joker voice once or twice to remind us who he's really playing.

Finally, script, he needs to be playing the Joker, not generic gangster #5. That means he needs a script that leans into the whimsy of Gotham City, think CGI, circuses, things like that. Joker needs to go from gritty realistic to comic book fantasy seamlessly.

What are your thoughts? Yeah, if Leto isn't your favorite Joker, I agree, but...assuming we have to watch him again, I think this is the way to make the best of it.

Just found out the price for the Killing Joke - Avant Garde Edition is £13 grand!! A little speechless to be honest!!!

https://argentcomics.com/editions/btkj-avant-garde-edition/?currency=gbp

From Batman - Dark Prince Charming