It's a known fact for comic readers, writers and characters that Gotham City is home to several abandoned factories and warehouses, which are frequently used as hideouts for criminal elements while undertaking their criminal activities, i.e, crime.

It is also a known fact that criminals are often punched in the face, by heroes, super or otherwise. You and I, being intelligent people, know Joe Chill is quite deserving of one or several of such punches.

In Nineteen Thirty One, the Federal FBI Bureau of Investigation organized a crackdown on crime in the city, as part of a power centralization program undertaken by the president, reacting to an economic crisis. This was, in many ways, the beginning of the age of the superhero. Or, rather, the age of the supervillain. One too many federal man punched a bad guy in a zoot suit into a vat of chemicals, and, let's just say, those fellows weren't exactly beautiful to begin with.

So they all started getting nicknames. There was the Mole, the Coyote, the Shark, the Vulture, the Ox, the Platypus, the T-Rex. You couldn't swing a cat in old Gotham without hitting some ganef who looked like an animal. That lasted until around thirty four, where things were starting to get normal again, and not a minute too soon. But the damage was done. Gotham was the town with the petting-zoo criminals. Every other decade some mollusk crawled out of the water bragging about being the King of Crime.

Did you know Al Capone, AKA Scarface, hated that nickname? Yeah, I know what you're thinking, nowadays, everyone's like, Scarface? That's badass! But back then, it was just an insult. Nice Scarface, jackass. I'll be over here, enjoying my regular, non-mutilated face. Chicks love it. Since, you know, I look like a human being, rather than a target dummy.

Fast forward, eighty years or so, and Gotham's got more criminals than most city have rats. And to make matters worse, some of these criminals are calling themselves "The Rat". Yeah, I'm sure the ladies love it. They're all leading gangs of disposable mooks, trading shots in back alleys and plotting out poorly-conceived heists on museums and so on. It's a miracle people even move there.

So the Joker was a mover and shaker in the Gotham criminal underworld. Some people say he was a security guard who was bribed into letting some safebreakers into a building. So he either:

a) demanded a part of the cut.

b) joined the gang for future break-ins.

c) punched the criminals out, and kept the money to himself.

d) All of the above.

People said "Can you believe that joker?" and "Have you heard about that joker." So eventually, joker became Joker. And he was having his cake and eating it too. He'd join a gang, be a model mook, commit all the crimes (except for rape and child-hurt, because even criminals have standards.) He could make a mob boss a fortune, but he's unpredictable. He suddenly changed his mind, or heart (which one does the thinking again?) and bludgeon all the bad guys in his team, tie them in a bow for the bad boys, by which I mean the good guys. The cops. Bad boys like in the Bob Marley song.

Everyone applauded him, since he was fighting crime. But he did it from the inside. And he profited off it all the while. That's what you get.

I'm rather interested in the Joker, since there's something going on for sure. So I talked with a fivesome of specialists, alienists from the funny farm they call Arkham Asylum.

Meet the alienists:

Doctor Milo: Allegedly an expert in schizophrenia and altered states of consciousness, Doctor Milo is also a skilled neurosurgeon and mentalist. He attributes his professional and academic success to the free time and energy he has since he never changed his hairdo in his life.

Doctor Crane: No relation to Frasier or Niles, Crane is an expert in irrational fears (phobias) and has researched extensively on techniques for building tolerance to fear within controlled environments, often with the help of VR headsets and trained animals.

Doctor Teach: A descendant of the pirate Blackbeard, Teach is a neuropathologist focused on electromagnetic stimulation and chemically-induced hallucinations as behavioral change techniques, though those have yet to cure him of his pedophilia. His favorite Joss Whedon show is Dollhouse.

Doctor Strange: Risen to fame after being repeatedly confused for a character from a Marvel movie, the Croatian-born Strange revolutionary experiments in Epigenetics made him a small fortune, which he is now using to finance further experiments in Epigenetics, and to add to his round-rimmed sunglasses collection.

Doctor Quinzel: A five foot three, one hundred and twelve pounds Gallic-type blonde, with soft blue eyes, loving dimples and a squeaky, pleasant voice, Quinzel is admired in the psychiatric community for her 20.1 BMI, thin waist and flat stomach, shoe size five, thigh gap, perky breasts with small, upturned nipples and peach-shaped ass. Her psychoanalysis skills become self-evident once you hear how many people mention they'd "Love to lie down on her couch.".

So, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor and hottie. What do your expertise tell us about our old buddy, the Joker? Is he a man, a ghost, a robot? What makes his heart beat?

Milo: In my opinion, the Joker is as human as you or me (meaning, a lot more than Joe Chill is). His career in crime/crimefighting is probably a consequence of opportunity and will. Approached by the criminal element, the citizen who would later become the Joker rationalized his actions by turning coat, thus collapsing the cognitive dissonance between his need to break the law, thanks to financial or social difficulties, and his socio-religious upbringing.

Crane: Doctor Milo's oversimplification is as stupid as his haircut. To suggest the Joker's behavior is standard would be to suggest there are hundreds of Jokers walking around the city. This is obviously not true. It seems obvious to me his behavior is pathological. Most likely, a distrust of authority, so extreme that it'd cause him to disregard the law. Then, after associating himself with a gang, he'd quickly construct that as a value system, which he is again forced to betray.

Milo: In addition to reminding Doctor Crane that his mother had no complaints about my hairstyle, admittedly because she had her mouth full during my meeting with her, I'll chastise him for suggesting the Joker could so quickly construct a new psychological understanding of society as quickly as it's been observed.

Crane: So, that's how it's going to be, huh? I would feel insulted on behalf of my mother for the implication made by Doctor Milo, were I unaware that, lacking a significant body part that would force one to interpret his comment negatively, his suggestion was, obviously, of a different nature.

Milo: Fuck you, Crane, you suck cocks with both mouths in retrospect.

Strange: The truth is, we can only speculate until we've had Joker's brain under an fMRI. That would make obvious what, if any, are his neurological peculiarities. A more thorough approach, then would involve the removal of the cerebellum to compare its physical characteristics to those of a control specimen, such as a newborn baby. Of course, that unfortunately raises ethical concerns.

You don't say, Strange?

Teach: While I agree with Professor's Strange assessment that only firsthand study can allow us to pinpoint the Joker's neuropathology, if any, I do believe imaging technique might give us more interesting answers. I also disagree with his idea that there is an ethical concern involved. In fact, a sufficiently advanced technology could render Joker's, and as a matter of fact anyone else in the world's mental health rights, moot.

Strange: Tread carefully, Teach.

Teach: It saddens me that a skilled academic such as yourself has abandoned the pursuit of knowledge for partisan jingoistic concern with "ethics". As if the ethical benefits of an universal imaging machine wouldn't far outweigh any possible worries.

Strange: You belong in a padded cell, that's a good piece of "unethical analysis" right there. And what's more, once you rot and die there, you child-molester scumbag, or even before that, then we take that pile of manure you call a brain out, and find out what made you want to fiddle kids.

Wow, those people are a class act, for sure. Doctor Quinzel?

Quinzel: Yes?

You haven't made your opinion known. Regarding the Joker. How would you, according to your expert knowledge, describe him?

Quinzel: That very question is about as meaningless as asking how would a mere ant describe the everlasting universe. The word "G_d" itself is a pathetic pastiche of the Joker's superiority to us, yet it is the closest word, in our limited understanding of reality, to one which would accurately describe him. My colleagues might be respected experts, but even them can't come close to understanding the Joker's supreme control over everything that is, was, will be, could be or couldn't be. I, myself abandon all pretense of scientific rigor (for such an idea is laughable when faced with his infinite superiority to us) and dedicate my life, which I now realize to be meaningless, to Joker Almighty, to mold and take – and return, since I know in my heart he can if he so wishes – adding to that my certainty that any shred of doubt about his theodicy would be a crime against creation itself.

I… see. And, doctor Qunizel, what again is your Alma Mater?

Quinzel: I'm a graduate of Peoria's career college correspondence course. My boyfriend at the time was the dean of admissions. But I'm sure that's not why I graduated after only five attempts.