The Joker’s Most Heinous Act Spared Him An Untimely Death
Murdering Jason Todd may be the worst thing the Joker has ever done, but it might have prevented him from meeting his own gruesome end. An old interview sheds light on why «Death in the Family» is probably the best thing to happen to the Joker.
As Batman's oldest adversary, the Clown Prince of Crime has reinvented himself more than any other villain in the Dark Knight's rogues gallery. From a deadly serial killer to a garishly-colored nuisance, the Joker seems to change with every era of comics, becoming whatever sort of threat he needs to be to better reflect the times. If comic fans didn't know before, the Joker's brutal beatdown and murder of Jason Todd was a sign that the modern age of comics was here.
Related: Joker's Superpowered Upgrade Revealed His Embarrassing True Motives
The «Death in the Family» storyline was one of the most explosive comic book arcs of the eighties. And while the Joker's killing of a minor was shocking, writer Neil Gaiman shows that it may have been a good thing for the clowning criminal. In an interview with Chip Kidd on the 20th anniversary of Gaiman's lauded work, The Sandman, the writer discusses why his comic phased out its use of DC Universe characters. Around the 57:31 mark, Gaiman reveals that it was harder to work DC characters into his story because they needed approval and the events of The Sandman needed to fit with DC's continuity. He cites an example of how he wanted the Joker to hang himself as an April Fool's gag in The Sandman #5. Though he initially received approval and wrote the sequence, he was stopped at the last minute and informed the Joker had just died and could no longer be used.
The Sandman #5 was published in May 1989. Four months earlier, Batman #429, which
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