Batman is arguably the most well-known superhero of all time. Almost everyone knows his backstory: a boy whose billionaire parents are shot dead in front of him. He vows on their graves to rid Gotham City of crime, and faces down criminals while donning the visage of a bat.
The Joker is Batman’s arch-nemesis. He is the most famous supervillain in comic book history. The Clown Prince of Crime has variations to his backstory (or lack thereof) depending on if one reads Batman comics or merely watches the blockbuster films. The Joker is essentially a criminal mastermind who parries Batman’s penchant for preparedness by being wholly unpredictable.
Since the 1940s, these two foes have battled each other with fists, knives, batarangs, and intellect. Their game of cat-and-mouse (or bat-and-clown) is legendary. “Why would I want to kill you? I NEED you” quips The Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight. Whereas Batman wants to lock the Joker away and have him psychiatrically examined as penance for his crimes, The Joker wants to play cops-and-robbers with Batman until the end of days. This allows for a game of chess in which Gotham City is always the board and one player wants the game to continue forever.
The most recent iteration of The Joker, played masterfully by Joaquin Phoenix, is a fairly drastic departure from the source material. In 2019’s Joker, The Joker does not even face Batman, and in fact, operates in a Gotham City that appears to be without the Caped Crusader. Robert Pattinson will portray Batman in 2022’s The Batman. He appears to be conventionally Batman: an intimidating pinnacle of human physical prowess and intellect. There is no way these two iterations of Batman and The Joker should face off on the silver screen.
High Tech Vs. No Tech
Aside from Cyborg, who is essentially a living computer, perhaps no superhero in DC’s arsenal has access to more tech than Batman. After all, Batman is Bruce Wayne under the cowl, and being a billionaire gives one access to technology that the rest simply cannot obtain.
In The Batman’s new trailer, Batman uses one of his gauntlets to electrocute and take down an enemy combatant. Conversely, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker barely knows how to shoot a gun. If the two were to meet in combat, the fight would be over with one use of Batman’s grappling hook, batarangs, or a few punches. The scene would barely be enough to fit a trailer, let alone an entire film.
Batman Can Fight, The Joker Cannot
In The Batman’s trailer, The Dark Knight combines brute force with perfected precision in combat. In comic book lore, Batman is proficient in several varieties of martial arts. The Joker is able to offset Batman’s training with gags, unpredictability, and clever knife-work. However, Phoenix’s Joker is easily kicked to the ground by three smug civilians in white-collar clothing. How would this iteration of the Joker fight against the greatest melee tactician in Gotham City? He simply would not.
Batman is Young and Physically Fit. The Joker is Older and Not Physically Fit.
As previously mentioned, Batman is meant to be the epitome of physical human performance. The Batman’s trailer shows Batman easily neutralizing threats, even when they are armed with guns. Meanwhile, Phoenix’s Joker is so skinny he is practically emaciated in Joker. Also, audiences do not know exactly how old Batman is in The Batman, but Phoenix’s iteration of The Joker is well into his 40s. While that does not make him ‘old’, this plays a factor principally because the character cannot fight to save his life. This fight would be anticlimactic due to differences in age and physical prowess.
Further Confusing DC Chronology
The fact that The Batman is coming into theaters while Ben Affleck’s version of Batman is about to return in the upcoming The Flash film is confusing enough to audiences. Perhaps they exist in different universes, but this has not been made clear and the fact of the matter is DC simply does not have their universe in order the way the competition at Marvel does.
Furthermore, Joker takes place in 1981. The decor, the cars, the overall aura of the movies all suggest this. The Batman looks to take place in the 2000s at the very earliest, if the look of the Batmobile is any indication (as well as the inclusion of a smartphone). This would make The Joker at least 65 if they were to face off against each other, making him approximately twice Batman’s age. If Justice League connects to The Flash but The Batman connects to neither, but does connect to Joker… does that mean there are two different DC cinematic universes? It gets confusing very, very quickly. Best to keep things simple and have these movies stay independent of each other while Warner Brothers and DC attempt to get their house in order.
Joaquin Phoenix’s Iteration of The Joker Is Not Really The Joker
There have been many iterations of The Joker on the small and large screens. Phoenix’s version is faithful to The Killing Joke as source material in that the character is a failed comedian. However, that is essentially where Phoenix’s Joker starts and ceases being a faithful adaptation to the comics or even other Batman films.
The Joker is a character who has a tragic backstory that no one is entirely sure about, but eventually he falls into a vat of chemicals while being chased by Batman. He emerges physically and mentally warped, becoming The Joker. He is not just a clown in facepaint (Ledger’s Joker had this pitfall as well, to be fair). Furthermore, Phoenix’s Joker is not a criminal mastermind, nor an anarchist, nor a gangster. He is really just a man who has lived a less-than-ideal life and has some unaddressed issues. This is hardly a character garnering the attention of the Caped Crusader.
Lastly, in The Batman it appears that there is some sort of Joker gang, with men dressed in punk-rock aesthetics and clownlike face paint. While Phoenix’s Joker does inspire a mob at the end of Joker, this is a movie that did not have a Batman. This mob was rallying against the inequities in society, like a supervillain version of Occupy Wall Street. In comic book lore, The Joker’s misguided minions are fiercely loyal to him because they relish in anarchy, just like their clown prince.
There are simply too many dissimilarities for Pattinson's Batman and Phoenix’s Joker to take each other on in a film. They would mix like oil and water, the resulting outcome leaving a dour taste in the audience’s mouth.
The Batman hits theaters on March 4th, 2022.