Moving On - Children of the Children of God

Not much is known about who the Joker really is, but that's not going to stop me from writing this.

According to the Joker in the Killing Joke, he worked as a lab assistant at a chemical factory. He wanted to be a stand up comedian, so he quit to be a stand up comedian. He was a pretty much out of work, unsuccessful comedian. (Whether or not any of this is true or not isn't known.) However according to that story, he was married and trying to get odd jobs while looking for a place to do his act. He was nervous on stage, often messed the jokes up, and in the end just didn't seem funny.

Because of this, he didn't get many jobs doing his acts, and when he did, it didn't turn out well. He didn't really know how to present his jokes, and either came up with ones where the punch line was hard to get or not really there. He lacked the confidence and outgoing personality this job required. He was concerned with taking care of his wife, who was expecting their first baby, paying bills, putting food on the table, maybe moving up to a bigger and better apartment.

For one they were living in a bad part of Gotham, and the apartment was small too. With the new baby on the way he needed money, he seemed naturally like a good, generally nice person, who become so very lost in his troubles and responsibilities that he had no escape, no help, and no place to turn to. In his desperation he took a job for the red hood gang, it seemed like a simple job, and he didn't really have to do anything but wear the red hood. Plus the money was pretty good.

Only, that night, before he goes out to do it, his wife and baby die. It was caused by a freak accident with a baby bottle heater. Everything just seems awful, he's in a real shock, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. She was gone, and so was his baby and any reason he needed that money for. So he tries to back out of the robbery, only they won't let him. So he's forced to go through with it, he can hardly think straight. It's like life just took a plunge into hell for him, there's not even really a reason to live.

But he doesn't have time to think about that, he has to go through with the robbery. So they go to the Monarch Playing Card company, only Batman shows up and thinks that he (pre-Joker, Joker) is the leader of the gang because he has the red hood on and goes after him. He's confused and scared, he doesn't know what to do and the rest of the gang has left him, in utter fear and without any other escape he jumps into a vat on chemical waste trying to escape.

From there he swims through the drain pipe, and comes out at the river bank behind the place. His skin is burning and itching, he's dripping in chemical waste. He falls to his knees by the water, and rips the hood off. His reflection looks back at him from the shallow puddle of water by the river, and as he seems himself, the chalk white skin, blood red lips, green hair. He starts laughing, and laughing, everything from that bad day has built up, until, just seeing himself, and he snaps.

He becomes the Joker.

From that day forward everything was different, he was different. Whatever life he had before that point no longer existed, and whomever he was before that was gone as well. He was the Joker, no one and nothing else but that. He has plagued Gotham city with madness, and haunted Batman with every fiber in his body. He has the complete confidence and pose to deliver jokes with the true flair of a comedian, and he always gets the punch line right. Plus, if the audience doesn't like the joke, he can just kill them.

He has true intelligence, his plans and plots are constructed with brilliance, and his very thought pattern is amazing. He has gained the utter freedom that can not even be dared to dream by most, and he controls it all with the grace, pose, and insanity that makes him the Joker.