Best Joker QOTD
    Major Spoilers

    Major Spoilers Question of the Day: Best Joker Edition

    Matthew PetersonBy 9 Comments1 Min Read

    Recently, in my social media feed, Kevin “the Batman voice of your childhood” Conroy informed Mark “Luke Skywalker and also the cartoon Joker” Hamill that he was the best Joker of them all.  This is high praise, given the number of people who still slobber endlessly about the performance of the late Heath Ledger in ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ and the number of old guys who can’t see anyone but Jack Nicholson wearing the purple and green velvet suit.  For my money, Cesar Romero and his barely-concealed-by-greasepaint mustache were fine, but I cut my teeth on Larry Storch’s Joker, the one who appeared in two episodes of ‘The New Scooby-Doo Movies’ nearly fifty years ago, leading to today’s clown prince of query…

    The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) has never really had a great attachment to the character, but still hates recent the “Three Jokers” revelation, asking: Which version of the Joker is the BEST Joker?

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    Once upon a time, there was a young nerd from the Midwest, who loved Matter-Eater Lad and the McKenzie Brothers... If pop culture were a maze, Matthew would be the Minotaur at its center. Were it a mall, he'd be the Food Court. Were it a parking lot, he’d be the distant Cart Corral where the weird kids gather to smoke, but that’s not important right now... Matthew enjoys body surfing (so long as the bodies are fresh), writing in the third person, and dark-eyed women. Amongst his weaponry are such diverse elements as: Fear! Surprise! Ruthless efficiency! An almost fanatical devotion to pop culture! And a nice red uniform.

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    9 Comments

    1. Vrynn on

      Hamill’s Joker is just too hard to beat.

      Romero was a great trickster/comedian Joker
      Nicholson was a great sinister Joker
      Ledger was a great dark/psychpathic Joker

      But Mark Hamill’s Joker has just the right amount of all of these elements, making him the truest wildcard, and the best Clown Prince of Crime in my book.

    2. Lemmy Caution (@_Lemmy_Caution) on

      Romero by default. Never cared for the cartoon look of the joker so Hamill out. Nicholson was just Nicholson. Ledger was great but in a terrible movie.

      I prefer Frank Gorshin to all of them, really.

      • Hannah J on

        He was The Riddler to Adam West’ Batman, right? I actually saw him do a one-man show about the life of George Burns before he passed. He was a great performer.

    4. Hannah J on

      I really like Mark Hamill, He’s the Joker who occasionally haunts my nightmares. Joker-based hag-dreams are not great by the way.

    5. bob on

      Movies/TV:Ledger by far
      Cartoons/video games: Mark Hamill,although he never would’ve had such a great Joker without doing Trickster on the Flash first.

    6. Nathan J Lueth on

      The Joker basically has two dials: mischievous trickster and the murdering psychopath.
      I think I once heard Paul Dini say of the Animated Series Joker that they wanted to strike the balance and incorporate both of those aspects into the character. Mission accomplished. Mark Hamill’s Mr. J is a Joker for all seasons.

      Buuuuttt…. If someone were to be THAT guy and limit it to the movie Joker’s, then I too must go with Heath Ledger’s portrayal. For my money, no other live action actor has managed to to be so captivating in the role.

    7. Lemmy Caution (@_Lemmy_Caution) on

      Kinda interesting that not a single person even mentioned Leto.