The bloody, unmoving body of Bruce Wayne lay in back alley next to Dick Grayson's apartment in Blüdhaven. The billionaire had planned on surprising his adopted son, his first partner in crime, but he had decided to leave his uniform behind for the visit. It was meant to be a leisurely aside of a few hours during the launch of Wayne Enterprises' new expansion into the bustling (and newly sanitized) city.
Instead, Bruce had found himself pinned to the grimy wall of the apartment with a gun to his back - a result of his shadowy habits - as he waited for Dick to return home. A single pistol was nothing that the crime stopper couldn't handle, but even the the darkest of knights couldn't stop an errant bullet fired from the shadows of the dark night. The junkie with the gun to Bruce's back had been as surprised as Bruce might have been when his coked out girlfriend's smooth metal cylinder sped through the barrel and fired without warning into the back of Mr. Wayne's head.
The billionaire was dead, and it took only forty-eight minutes for the news to reach worldwide press. Dick knew what had happened before his shift at the precinct was over, but by the time he made it to his home, the body had already been taken away and the alley had already been doused in acetone.
The junkie and his girl were arrested within hours for an unrelated robbery at a liquor store a few block away, and in their state of mind confessed to the entire thing. There was nothing more to it - no grand plot by any of Mr. Wayne's many enemies, no organized effort from a court of owls or gallery of rogues, no unsolved riddle of untimely demise. Bruce Wayne was dead, and with him, Batman.
The funeral was a grand affair arranged by the family's butler, Alfred Pennyworth. He had ensured that every member of Gotham City's upper echelon was in attendance, along with renowned associates and notables from across the globe. For a day, Alfred ensured that all of Gotham wept. Whether for show or sincerity, one couldn't be sure, but all of Gotham wept. Rumors spilled that the likes of a famous jewel thief and a leader of a secret assassin's group also attended the funeral.
People whispered even Batman had become so overwhelmed by the philanthropist's death that he had left the city for good. Rumors were abound, but they could not be verified. No one truly knew why Batman had left the city. They only knew that he had.
And when two months had passed and Batman had still not returned - when Robin had done what little she could in his place after Nightwing had lost an eye in the heat of battle, the city went wild with change.
Slowly, but not so slowly to escape witness, Gotham City's streets filled once again with the corruption that its dark knight had fought against for so long. Illicit activities emerged from the back alleys and back onto the dimly lit streets, and grown even bolder by the void left in Batman's absence, they flooded into the day.
The change was too extreme. It held too much gravitas, and it was almost palpable on the tongue if one were to stick it out - which is why the Joker had had enough. Without the presence of his adversary - no, his reason for existence - there was nothing for him in the city, and so the clown prince of crime left.
He went first to Blüdhaven, but Nightwing was not Batman no matter how hard he tried to be. His brand of vigilante was too acrobatic, too dire, and with the repercussions of childhood trauma already healed, it was not fun for the green-haired man.
Starling City looked promising for a while, but the emerald archer was too flighty and too full of jokes himself to hold the Joker's attention. Central City and even the great home of the journalistic pride of the Midwest were no better. Everywhere he went, the Joker left soon afterwards. He had no reason to stay, and his search for Batman ended in failure.
And so, after two long years of futile journey, after he had learned the true identity of the man behind the cowl, the Joker returned home. Only, it was not his home. Gotham City had deteriorated in his time away. It had become a cesspool of felonious activity with no limiting factor, and it looked much more like the home of one Jack Napier than anything else - a former chemical engineer and failed comedian with no better luck at thievery.
The Joker left this city as well, but he had nowhere else to go - nowhere else to wander and no purpose left in his nonexistent soul. So the Joker was no more.
In his place, the scar-faced man sent The Joke. And what a joke it was. Where the Joker had been a man who wanted nothing more than to watch the world burn, the Joke held a deeper fondness for irony. He brandished a flaming trumpet to announce his arrival and arrived the home of one esteemed Oswald Cobblepot and one Dr. Edward Nigma and one former district attorney amongst many others.
One by one, he marched in, and one by one, they saw the fire in his eyes. The Joke was no joke, and so they stepped aside to follow him. Those who refused met with a fate worse than even the deadliest of them would have imagined. Those who only pretended subservience soon met fates even worse as the army slowly grew.
As they marched, the people watched. As they entered the darkest alleyways and dimly lit streets, the minor thugs joined forced with or against them - or they fled - but the result was always the same: the army marched on, and the joke grew ever more ironic.
As they came out of the shadows and into the light, not a single soul was left who did not oblige. Order had been restored, and there was a new law in Gotham, a new Joke. And the punchline... no one dared to find out.