From his first appearance in 2017's Dark Days: The Casting #1 to his death in the March 2021 issue Death Metal #7, The Batman Who Laughs has been an intriguing addition to the DC roster of supervillains who wallow in their evilness. Even his costume is terrifying.

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Overkill doesn’t exist when it comes to the fate and life of Bruce Wayne from Earth-22 in the Dark Multiverse. From taking out the Justice League to corrupting all the Robins into a superhero-hating pack of murderers, creating a Dark Army to amplify his reign of chaos and violence, nothing is out of bounds for the evil villain.

Although the Darkest Knight has died, it's possible that The Batman Who Laughs is still around in the Dark Multiverse plotting his return. Till then, it’s time to wonder whether all those exploits really made sense.

8 He Takes Down The Justice League With Ease After Inhaling The Joker's Essence

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Three days after killing Joker and inhaling his toxic Joker essence, The Batman Who Laughs savagely wipes out not only his own allies – Batgirl, Red Hood, Red Robin and Nightwing – and a few days later, easily kills the entire Justice League with their own weapons cache. In all the attempts on the JL by Darkseid and other aliens, even after the occasions where Batman was fighting them, despite the tech and Batman's intelligence, it never happened.

It just seems too easily done, especially given his other unsuccessful encounters against the JL through the Multiverse – wouldn’t they have been on guard?

7 It Seems Like Bruce Himself Could Have Produced An Anti-Toxin To Stop It Before It Started

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On Earth Prime, during the Secret Six story arc, The Batman Who Laughs is captured by the local JL and imprisoned under the Justice League Hall. While he does escape, he ends up tangling with Lex Luthor – who stabs him with a needle containing an antidote.

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It frees the superheroes TBWL recently infected. If he could do it, why couldn’t Bruce have cured himself immediately after being infected – and spared the entire Multiverse? Or – did Bruce secretly want the transformation to happen? It seems like he went straight from consulting with the JL to murdering his proteges.

6 He Is Able To Imprison The Phantom Stranger Despite Their Ability To Teleport, Pause Time, and Fly

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Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen, Conclusion follows the end of the Lex Luthor-Perpetua alliance. If Luthor can cure the effects of Dark Metals in the blood, why can't he cure TBWL? In any case, Luthor's relationship with Perpetua is broken, replaced by The Batman Who Laughs. TBWL persuades her with hidden information he says got after he imprisoned the Phantom Stranger and making him talk.

But – how could he have imprisoned the Phantom Stranger, who can pause time, teleport, fly, and become invisible – among other things? And how could he have gotten him to reveal so many secrets?

5 Barbatos And The Dark Knights Are Defeated But No One Checked On TBWL

Barbatos is batman's god

After the superheroes and villains of Gotham team up as the Gotham Resistance to take down Challengers Mountain, and the JL and the rest of the world's superheroes defeat Barbatos and all the Dark Knights, TBWL and the Joker are trapped in a cave that collapses.

After all the mayhem, somehow nobody stops to check on the man who brought it all together, and The Batman Who Laughs eventually escapes to go on to become an ally of the House of Conquest. Really? The escape seems like a convenient way to continue the story.

4 He Is Taking Blood Samples From The Numerous Bruces To Make A Nonsensical Serum (As It Was The Joker Venom That Turned Him)

Joker Batman Who Laughs

In The Batman Who Laughs Vol 2, Batman and Commissioner Gordon begin to find dead Bruce Waynes all over town, and The Joker attempts to kill himself to turn Wayne into another TBWL. Turns out the existing TBWL is taking blood samples from all the Bruces in order to come up with a serum of some kind. Of what kind?

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It was the Joker Venom that turned him, nothing in his own blood. The scheme itself doesn't make sense, much less the fact that he outsmarts Prime Batman at every turn...except in the end when Prime Batman beats him up. The scheme didn’t work, but it shouldn’t have had any success from the outset.

3 He Gains Doctor Manhattan's Energy By An Incredible Series Of Coincidences That Seem Unrealistic Even For A Comic

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The JL took Doctor Manhattan's energy from Quintessence, and used it to fight off Perpetua. In that complicated story, somehow, Batman (one of them) is exposed to the Comedian's Button, and accidentally granted the power of Doctor Manhattan's energy.

Then, when The Batman Who Laughs is killed by Wonder Woman, (just by chance, with his head and brain intact), and his robotic Dark Knights know to transplant him into the body of the Bruce Wayne he lobotomized just before himself became another Doctor Manhattan, a body he conveniently has lying around somewhere. It’s a mind-boggling series of coincidences.

2 He Is Able To Rig The Sentient Mobius Chair

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In his quest to mop up all the Doctor Manhattan energy in the Multiverse and become the evil smiling Darkest Knight, TBWL wins because, at some point prior to all the excitement with Perpetua, he was able to rig the Mobius Chair to direct all its energy to him regardless of what happened. The Mobius Chair is actually sentient, and chooses who is worthy enough to use it.

In addition, the Chair has a force field of its own, and other protections. Just how was TBWL able to rig it at all, let alone find it?

1 He Triumphs Over Perpetua, A God Who's Existed Since The Dawn Of Time

Death Metal Perpetua death in DC Comics

Perpetua is one of The Hands of the greater Omniverse, the first creator of the Multiverse. Sure, The Darkest Knight has attained the god-like powers of Doctor Manhattan, but how does that make him more powerful than an actual god who's been in existence since before the dawn of time?

It seems disproportionate, even with The Darkest Knight's formidable powers, especially when he's cut off from the Crisis Energy, and she'd already entrapped him. Somehow, though, he escapes and does her in...only to be eventually defeated by Wonder Woman.

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