The Dark Knight: The Enduring Legacy Of Heath Ledger's Joker

11 years ago, the fictional city of Gotham started spilling into our real world. The Bat Signal appeared on the sides of buildings. Supporters of Harvey Dent took to the streets ahead of an election for Gotham's District Attorney. An underground "Citizens For Batman" group was formed per instructions received via pizza deliveries from Gotham City Pizzeria. But while Gotham's white and dark knights gathered their followings, another formed under the banner of one name and one distinctive red-lipped smirk.

At that summer's Comic-Con International in San Diego, clues found on vandalized (or "Jokerized") dollar bills led attendees to a location from which they could watch skywritten laughter and a phone number appear in the sky. They were then sent to bowling alleys and bakeries where more clues could be discovered, stuffed inside bowling ball bags and baked into special cakes. Joker playing cards were scattered at random comic book stores carrying the address to a "Harvey Dent For District Attorney" campaign website. Eventually, the site's photo of the DA-hopeful was mysteriously disfigured by black eyes and a red grin, and some fans found a way to dismantle the image, pixel by pixel, until a new face was revealed underneath Dent's: Heath Ledger as the Joker.

This was actually the first image of Ledger's Joker that was released to the public. No boring press release. No grainy, leaked photo on social media. Fans had to devote their own time and energy into playing the Joker's game, just to get a look at him. Months before the follow-up to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins was released, eager movie-goers had already formed an intimate investment in the character, and the stage for his and Batman's battle for Harvey Dent's soul was set.

This heroically elaborate "transmedia" marketing campaign was proof of just how much pressure The Dark Knight had on it to succeed. In 2008, Batman movies still had a lot to prove after the Schumacher era. Batman Begins had only been a moderate success at the box office -- earning about $40 million less than Tim Burton's Batman -- and the commercial failure of Bryan Singer's Superman Returns two years earlier left almost the entire weight of DC's cinematic canon squarely on Nolan's shoulders.

Even without the legacy of Jack Nicholson's beloved performance hanging over him, Ledger's casting -- as Joker-branded crazy as it seems now -- was highly controversial when it was announced in 2006. Fans were dismayed that the likes of comedic character actors like Johnny Depp and Robin Williams had been passed over; attacking Ledger's "pretty boy" looks and accusing him of having "the charisma of a lettuce leaf." His previous role in Brokeback Mountain meant some of the criticism had a nasty homophobic streak, too.

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As they so often do, low expectations helped elevate what turned out to be an electrifying performance from Ledger. His disturbingly complete immersion into the classic comic book villain was not only a hit with most hardcore fans, but audiences in general, rocketing the film into the record books with its billion-dollar box office earnings. Ledger earned himself a posthumous Oscar, and all of that viral marketing leading up to it all? That won awards as well.

Ledger's performance was almost too good, in fact. One of the few criticisms of the Nolanverse's Joker -- and of the director's TDK trilogy as a whole -- is that the villains threatened to outshine the heroes at every turn. Nolan appeared to be far more interested in Batman's rogues gallery than he was in the Caped Crusader himself. A decade later, this perceived villain fixation has spread through the rest of Warner Bros.' filmmaking division, with multiple Joker-centric and Joker-adjacent projects in the movie pipeline, including at least one sequel to 2016's Suicide Squad -- the first post-TDK film to feature a new actor in the purple suit and clown make-up.

Like Ledger, Suicide Squad's Jared Leto had similar odds stacked against him to succeed in the iconic role, consider he, too, has a delicately-chiseled face and a background in Oscar-courting, indie flicks. Leto also had to get over the added hurdle of his predecessor's performance still being so fresh in people's minds, and his version was introduced in a film that was roundly savaged by critics and polarized fan opinion. In a way, taking on the Joker has become another poisoned chalice job in Hollywood, with comparisons to the unattainable level of genius that came before unavoidable. Leto's grills and on-the-nose tattoos were a noble effort to escape his precursor's shadow, even if his muted cackle failed to send the same shivers down our spines as a single lick of Ledger's scarred lips did.

In some ways, the character's unique malleability makes all versions valid, even if they aren't universally loved. Each cinematic Joker can be distinguished by the different Joker-ism they chose to highlight: Nicholson is the mobster, Ledger is the anarchist and Leto is the thug. But whereas Nicholson's version is fondly remembered like a cool grandfather and Leto's has the "bad boy" branding of a friend's older brother, Ledger's arguably has something stronger and less definable than nostalgia or iconography behind it: idolization. Beyond the garish costume, the Joker is as infamous for what comes out of his mouth as what goes around it. And Ledger's Joker had a lot to say. He had an ideology to spread, not just a hero to beat. He snuck into Harvey Dent's hospital ward to philosophize with him. He delivered chilling monologues about his different past lives. He made us laugh. Can you remember a single joke that Leto's Joker told in Suicide Squad? Did Nicholson's Joker make you jump in your seat during Batman? The actions and motives of Ledger's Joker are still the subject of heated debate amongst fans to this day. For better or worse, he became TDK's breakout star.

Perhaps it's an unfair comparison. Ledger had the benefit of David S. Goyer and Christopher and Jonathan Nolan's combined writing talents behind him, and was part of a self-contained superhero story told in three chapters, rather than the open-ended cycle of universe-building segments that have come to dominate the genre since TDK trilogy concluded. The landscape of blockbuster cinema has changed dramatically in the last ten years, making the chance of a repeat of what Nolan was able to do back then highly unlikely. In turn, this makes Ledger's contribution all the more rarified, and as we await the incoming stream of different actors wearing different Joker faces, his will remain the highest watermark to reach.