Spoilers for “Absolute Batman” #25 to follow.
The latest, now-concluded arc of Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s “Absolute Batman” is called “The Straw Man,” after its central villain Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow. But Scarecrow’s ticket got punched one issue early, back in #24 when Batman left him tied to a wooden post like his namesake. It was the most satisfying beat down in “Absolute Batman” since Bruce defeated Bane back in #14, but it’s only a small win before the storm.
In “Absolute Batman” #25, Bruce comes for Crane’s boss: Jack Grimm, the trillionaire who never laughs except when he turns into a giant, man-eating clown devil. “Absolute Batman” flips the Joker on his head by giving him classic Bruce Wayne’s wealth. As we saw in issue #15’s Joker origin, Grimm even has a cave hideout underneath his Gotham City mansion. Batman falls into that cave and barely escapes with his life.
The “Absolute” Joker is, somehow, immortal, having posed as his own descendants (Jack Grimms I-V) since the late 19th Century. Previous issues have shown Grimm as a child during the 1880s, so the book has been suggesting he’s merely a century plus old. But now, issue #25 reveals that the Joker could be much more ancient.
Therein, we see Grimm’s cave contains glass cases holding historic suits of armor, including those of a Roman soldier’s, a samurai’s, etc. The last case is empty — because Joker is saving it to display Batman’s costume. Implicitly, the suits in the preceding cases belong to defeated foes of his long past, and Joker taunts Batman with that implication.
DC Comics“Absolute Batman” has previously hinted that Joker was Jack the Ripper in another life. So, just imagine what other historical monsters might’ve been him in disguise.
Absolute Joker might be centuries older than it first seemed
A fundamental change “Absolute Batman” makes is that Batman is chaos and the Joker is order, rather than the traditional vice versa. The Joker and his allies even call themselves the Justice League, because as far as they’re concerned, they’re protecting the natural, just order of the world where the few haves reign over the many have nots. Joker/Jack Grimm himself represents the evils of inherited wealth, something Scott Snyder has said was inspired by his own childhood growing up around among trust fund kids in New York City. Joker is the “totality” of the solipsism and detachment from reality that comes when you have great money and power.
Batman is the rare individual of strength and principle who is looking to destroy the Joker’s power base. The Joker views those sorts of heroes as “clowns” because he finds their crusades naive and hopeless. But if the Joker has been around spreading evil for centuries, then there’s a chicken and the egg dilemma: Is the world unequal because that’s the natural state of humanity, or is it because he keeps pushing it that way?
The idea that Batman is but the latest in a line of heroes who tried and failed to oppose the Joker echoes themes of Snyder’s past “Batman” stories. His now classic arc “The Court of Owls” was all about Batman realizing there are parts of Gotham’s history he doesn’t know about — like the cabal of owl-masked aristocrats running the city from the shadows. The Court of Owls’ labyrinth is filled with framed photos of their past victims, a visual that hits a similar note as Joker’s trophy case in “Absolute Batman” #25.
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In Absolute Batman, it’s not wise to trust the Joker
“Absolute” Joker’s immortality also goes back to one of Scott Snyder’s earlier comics: “Batman: Endgame,” where Joker appeared to reveal himself as a Pennywise-esque demon haunting Gotham for centuries. While “Absolute Joker” is what the Joker pretended to be in “Endgame,” that story is also a reminder not to take Joker’s words at face value — especially coming off this arc.
“The Straw Man” was about Joker and Scarecrow trying to shake Batman’s beliefs about himself. They convinced Bruce with (probably) half-truths that they orchestrated his father’s death and him becoming Batman as a long practical joke. They even offered him video “proof” that Thomas Wayne is still alive. (That one was probably just a disguised Clayface, but Bruce fell for it.) All the while, they made Gotham City believe Batman is a criminal who murdered former mayor Jim Gordon and Tim Drake, one of Jack Grimm’s flock of Robins.
Notably, “Absolute Batman” didn’t have Bruce definitely disprove Scarecrow’s lies with hard evidence. At his mother Martha’s urging, Bruce simply looked deep into himself and decided he knows who he is and why he became Batman. As Harley Quinn advised Batman: “Even if it’s true, it’s not true.”
So yeah, while the Joker’s power to become a giant monster is incontrovertibly true, we only have his word he’s been around for multiple centuries. Some ancient suits of armor in display cases are also quite easy to stage. Joker might be old, but not that old. Or maybe he really has been around since the Roman Empire, if not earlier. Like the mysteries about Bruce’s past in “The Straw Man,” and the Joker’s origin in past iterations, it’s probably for the best if we never get a definitive answer.