WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Joker #6, on sale now from DC.
As one of the most infamous, lethal supervillains in the DC Universe, the Joker has no shortage of enemies that would all like to see the Clown Prince of Crime's reign of terror ended permanently. This includes more than just the DCU's superhero community, as the Joker has crossed plenty of his fellow supervillains and antiheroes, all bearing murderous grudges for their own various reasons. As the Joker flees from Gotham City, hunted by the authorities around the world for instigating "Joker War" and blamed for an attack on Arkham Asylum, a deadly family targets the Joker in a way that feels directly inspired by the classic horror movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
A flashback to fifty years prior to the main story follows a young woman being terrorized by a family of cannibals known as the Sampsons in Hooper County, Texas. Revealed to be the sole survivor of a deadly attack that gruesomely claimed the rest of her friends, the woman flees as the family realizes that their estate sits on a large deposit of crude oil. As the Sampson family rises to affluence, they pay off the woman to single out one of the more dim-witted members of their family, Billy, to take the fall for the grisly murders, with the rest of the family avoiding prosecution as they enjoy their immense wealth. However, despite their significant financial windfall, the Sampson family still secretly indulges in their murderous habits, with the next generation of the family continuing the bloody tradition, as revealed in The Joker #6 by James Tynion IV, Guillem March, Arif Prianto and Tom Napolitano.
The Infinite Frontier era opened with Arkham Asylum being engulfed in Joker toxins, with the authorities suspecting the Clown Prince of being behind the attack. While the villain has since privately insisted he was framed, he is now the subject of a global manhunt, with the Sampson family among those vying for the villain's blood. Billy had been imprisoned at Arkham Asylum and was among those killed by the toxins while the younger Buddy Sampson was horrifically disfigured by the Joker after he tracked him down, further fueling the Sampson family's vendetta against him.
There are numerous allusions in The Joker #6 that shows the Sampson family being clear analogs to the slasher film franchise The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, some overt and some much more subtle. In addition to the overall premise of the Sampsons being a Texan family of cannibals that employ chainsaws and sledgehammers to kill their prey, their estate's location in Hooper County is a direct nod to franchise co-creator Tobe Hooper, who directed and scored the first two films in the series as well as producing and co-writing the original film. The Sampson family patriarch is known as Uncle Sawyer, with Sawyer being the family name for the film series' slashers.
Even on the run and outside of his usual stomping grounds, the Joker has proven himself to be just as deadly as ever, eluding and murdering everyone that has caught up to him so far as he continues to travel around the world.
Given their penchant for cannibalism and dismemberment, the Sampson family may give the Joker a run for his money on how twisted they are, with their horror movie inspiration evident, but even the DCU's version of Leatherface appears to be no match for the Clown Prince of Crime.