When Did the Joker First Kill One of His Henchmen?

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Jan 15, 2020

In their latest spotlight on notable comic firsts, CSBG reveals which issue of Batman was the first one to include just a single story in the comic.

In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Jonathan S., we look into when the Joker first killed one of his henchmen!

Nowadays, it's a common occurrence, SO common that it has become a sort of recurring gag in the comics as to why anyone would ever want to actually be one of Joker's henchmen, since he so often kills them whenever he feels like it. However, anything like this must have started somewhere, right?

Now, when Jonathan asked me, I thought it must have been a relatively modern invention. You see, while the Joker was allowed to kill people when he was first introduced, and honestly, he was pretty deadly there at the start (where killing was as much of his character trait as anything else), but that was dropped very quickly. For decades, then, he was just a regular bank robbing crook, until Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams brought him back to the classic approach in Batman #251, which includes the Joker blowing up one of his henchmen...

As it turns out, though, it was actually MUCH earlier than that.

In Batman #8's "Cross Country Crimes" (by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and George Roussos), the Joker tries to murder Batman at an FBI event...