WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman/Catwoman #1, by Tom King, Clay Mann, Tomeu Morey, and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
In Batman's rogues' gallery, no villain has caused more terror than the Joker. But while he's always been scary, the Dark Knight's greatest foe might be at his creepiest in his golden years.
The Joker has reached retirement age only a handful of times but has managed to instill fresh scares with each incarnation. Now in the first part of the Batman/Catwoman series, Old Man Joker proves he doesn't need a big entrance to make a lasting impression.
It starts when Selina drives to a sunny retirement village in search of an "old friend" and arrives at the door of a doddering old man. Nothing about him is threatening, and there are no immediate clues to his identity. After the two move inside to catch up and chat about grandkids, the old man putters to his easy chair and waxes fondly about the past, all the while he's being warm, friendly, and nostalgic. The fact that there is nothing at all menacing about him makes his eventual reveal all the more horrifying. It's not until Selina mentions that Bruce finally passed away that her host gets emotional. He expresses regret and even grief at "the end of something." When Selina vows to kill him, the old man finally breaks down laughing, leading to his blood-curdling reveal: the senior citizen is actually the same homicidal maniac who haunted Batman for years. The moment is made more impactful seeing Joker in a state that is very unfamiliar to all: as an old helpless man who can't work the volume on his TV. But under the guise of an old man, he remains one of the most sadistic and evil menaces in the DC Universe -- he's still the Joker.
True to his pathology, the Clown Prince of Crime lost all his drive when the Dark Knight retired. In Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, the Joker began the story a complete vegetable and stayed that way until Batman re-emerged from the Batcave. On waking up to his old self, however, the Joker wasted no time in returning to Gotham City and planning his next slaughter. Likewise, in Legends of the Dark Knight #65-68 by J.M. DeMatteis, Joe Staton, and Steve Mitchell, the Joker regained his sanity as soon as he believed he'd actually killed the Batman. Without his arch-nemesis to obsess over, the Joker had no punchline. However, this hasn't stopped him from being a mass-murderer in his retirement. In Mark Waid and Alex Ross's Kingdom Come, a visibly aging Joker was able to snuff out the entire working staff of the Daily Planet in an instant. He even wiped out an entire studio audience in The Dark Knight Returns, killing hundreds more.
There's something in the visual contradictions of Old Man Joker's creep factor: the receding hairline, the wrinkled skin, the weakened, sagging posture that should deem him harmless. But in Justice Society of America Vol. 3's Annual #1 by Geoff Johns, Jerry Ordway, Bob Wiacek, and Jeromy Cox, the Joker of Earth-2 could curdle the blood from the comfort of his wheelchair.
Even in his sunset years, the Clown Prince of Crime has proven time and again that he's deadly and unpredictable as he ever was in his youth. Now that Selina has awoken his old self, whatever the Joker has in store is bound to be terrifying.