WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Batman: Three Jokers #3 by Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson, and Rob Leigh, on sale now.
Batman: Three Jokers has revealed a lot regarding the origins of the Joker and has answered questions that have lingered for a long time. However, in the process of finding the origins of the Joker, the oldest among them, known as the Criminal, did not survive the series.
While he may have been the oldest of the three Jokers, he was not in fact DC's first Joker. The very first Joker managed to survive into old age, even finally defeating Batman, if only by outliving him and it all took place on Earth-Two.
That honor belongs to the original Joker who appeared in Batman #1 by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Sheldon Moldoff. This Joker remains mostly the same as the modern portrayal of the Joker, with some caveats. He does get transformed into the Clown Prince of Crime by coming into contact with a vat of chemicals, but how he wound up there is different from the present day Joker. Being a disgruntled lab worker, the man who would become the Joker decided that he would amass a personal fortune by committing a series of robberies throughout Gotham. Donning a colorful costume, this man named himself the Red Hood. The first real difference between the past and present, this Joker made a conscious choice to become a criminal, doing it purely out of selfishness as opposed to the modern Joker, who was a man on the verge of bankruptcy, unable to pay the bills for him and his pregnant wife.
The next major difference came in how the Red Hood became the Joker. His robberies gained the attention of not only Batman but Robin as well. Foiling his attempt to rob a Playing Card Factory, the Red Hood tried to escape the Dynamic Duo. Unfortunately for him, the pair corner him on a catwalk. With no other options, Red Hood jumped into a vat of chemicals beneath him. While Batman and Robin presumed he died, Red Hood was washed out into the river and awoke to discover that the chemicals had altered his appearance. Taking the playing card factory's motif as inspiration, the first Joker was born. From then on, the Joker would become one of Batman and Robin's most persistent enemies, staging elaborate heist after heist and challenging Batman in a more personal way than most of his other enemies. In their first battle, the Joker kills three men with his venom before attempting to do the same to Robin. While Batman managed to save his partner, the Joker would flee and go on to cheat death several times to continually torment the Caped Crusader. This began the Joker's habit of never truly dying, coming close several times but always returning to terrorize Gotham City. One time he even died for real, turning himself in and pleading guilty to all his crimes to receive the death penalty. After he had been executed, his goons stole his body and restored him to life with a concoction the Joker made himself.
This version of the Joker would live to a ripe old age, encountering Dick Grayson as Batman after Bruce Wayne retired. But when Wayne's secret was revealed as well as the fact that he died, Joker was unable to accept that and went on one last rampage, forcing Dick to come out of his own retirement to stop him. Convincing the Joker that Bruce was alive and would return for one final battle, Joker was content to wait in a cell to prepare for that moment.
He ended up spending the rest of his life in a cell, having come to accept that the Batman he knew and loved was truly gone. He never returned to haunt Gotham after that, because without Batman, crime has no punchline.