As a matter of principle, the Joker tried to find everything and anything funny. In doing so, the irreverent treatment of what should be sacred was the ultimate joke. To put any weight to any ideal, any belief was just asking for someone in a clown mask to come up and smash it to bits with a golf club. (Yes, he was aware of the irony of him putting so much meaning to his eternal dance with the Bat, but he'd do something drastic if someone brought it up.) He had tap-danced on countless graves, snuffed out thousands as easily one blew out a candle, maimed many more in the form of masterful artistry.
But there was a craft to his work, chiefly its mutability. (He made a mistake once, in taking himself too seriously. It became funny in hindsight, when that lead to the War of Jokes and Riddles. But he had been so morose beforehand…) A repeated joke was a stale joke; he had to switch it up: it was kid gloves with Robin #1, a crowbar with number two.
Rinse and repeat, yet the stronger Batsy's resolve was, the darker his had to be. It was a game the brain played, smoothing out and deepening with unstable brain chemistry. It was probably partly possibly why Bats kept trying with him: because he wasn't a complete monster in the beginning.
Batman and god did he know that man struck him as someone who couldn't let things go. And Joker's first impression had to be memorable, even if he himself had forgotten what it was. Joker giggled to himself, as he strolled leisurely down the hallway. His cane twirled around and his clicky-clacky shoes tapped out a neat little staccato. A few feet behind him, the dragging drudgery of his minions threatened to ruin his beat.
{shoot him, shoot him, get your hands dirty and do your own work} But that was the thing. He was only as horrible as he needed to be.
That was the irony of success: he had to be bigger and badder, if he wanted his jokes to land. A comedian without an audience was just a pitiful thing, but a joke without any fitting context was disgusting. {You didn't tell a dead baby joke anywhere but a nursery or a funeral, for crying out loud.} Although he couldn't remember if the turn toward the dark and edgy was because of how bright the heroes were or because he needed to fit in with the general mood. Or maybe he was all wrong-wrong-wrong.
Joker paused in front of a red-stripped door, the pattern all splatter-y. He tucked his cane under his arm and plopped a gloved hand on some purple fedora he stole a few hours before. His fist balled up the hatwear and he kicked open the door, throwing it into the room. Almost immediately it was eviscerated by a shotgun blast from the ceiling.
He chuckled to himself, snapping his fingers. His minion quickly hurried up. The Joker could just hear his thrumming, thumping heart {oh-god-oh-god-oh-god, it went.} and turned around, widening his smile. The boring man forced the struggling bound man into Joker's outstretched hand. Then his darling little minion ducked his head, stepping back and trying to shrink into himself.
Working for the Joker was a very high-risk proposition. (Either they got dead or got rich, and such odds attracted the desperate, the risk-takers, and the ignorant.) The man before him was the first one and the Joker took in his fear, relishing it. All the death, all that 'bad business' of killing his henchmen so wantonly had culminated to this: One desperate man in particularly dire straits, needing all the cash he could get his hands on. Cash that the Joker was more than willing to throw his way.
The punchline was going to be one of two things: either the man wasn't smart with his money and got caught like Al Capone or he got away scot-free. But he would always be looking over his shoulder, expecting the Joker. Although he would never come, the Joker had already planned on mailing him several personalized postcards. For years and years. you know, if he didn't die in his service.
He bit back his laughter, before letting it rip as he threw the bound man into the room. Another blast rained down from the ceiling, hitting the prisoner in the shoulder. He crumbled down one knee, before stumbling right round like a dreidel circling a drain.
Then he collapsed, still alive. Ragged breaths of air wheezing out from the bleeding form.
Joker looked at his minion. "Drag him back to the car. Leave him on the curb."
He nodded vigorously. "Y-yes, sir!"
His delightfully expendable minion stepped into the booby-trapped room, paled at the horrors within, and took a big gulp of air. Holding his breath, he yanked onto the writhing prisoner and slowly passed the Joker, who made sure to flash him a nice, frightful smile. The minion suppressed a shiver and continued to drag the body, a red trail following in its wake. A human brushstroke.
Again a fit of laughter nearly overtook him as he stepped into the room. Despite the darkness, the rancor of an abattoir had hit him hard. He breathed it in, closing his eyes and savoring it. The Joker didn't need superpowers or 'genius-level' intellect to figure out what happened. What the Joker did have was experience.
He tasted sharp nihilism, the texture of someone having gone through that one bad day. The Joker would have been pleased, but this was the fifth crime scene he visited. The cuts were different each time and the differing types of despair just tickled him. He would have been jealous… but with each crime scene, there was just this sense of staleness.
The Joker sensed that there was this incessant, almost pathological need to make everyone have that one bad day. (a joke that everyone knows has no punchline) He tortured Commissioner Gordon, trying to get him to break. Because a strong-willed, righteous man… breaking. That was the height of hilarity, especially the sound of someone's world-view breaking.
But to extend that effort to everyone? That was just nonsensical and edgy. Not even the fun, over-the-top edgy that the Joker was forced to employ against the Batman. he cut off his own face for a lark, just to keep things spicy between the two!
Normally he wouldn't give a damn unless this serial killer and him crossed paths… but the Batman was gone. Disappeared into the ether, probably on some alien business for the Justice League. The Joker, however, could read the room. He may not always heed the room, but he could certainly read it.
The Batman was gone. Not dead, but gone. While the idea of the Batman fighting tooth and nail to come back, only to find his Bat Family in ruins held a cruel cosmic irony of sorts… the Joker didn't want him to come back to dealing with the Joker and someone kinda like the Joker.
A frown threatened to worm its way on his features.
So, he danced it away. Twirling in place, eyes still closed, he didn't need to see the details of ten deaths. The Batman would care. Have to care. Would care. But the Joker? He was merely… attuning himself to the crazy wavelength that allowed him to, occasionally, step above his weight class.
After all, the line between genius and insanity was quite thin. All that mattered was success. He swirled around, ducking under the tripwires that ran through the room. Dead bodies were propped underneath some of them, a handful of them placed in precious, little poses. {what type postures? didn't matter. what mattered is that only some of them were.}
There was an escalation here. Whoever this serial killer was, he was gathering a band of merry men. The first four crime scenes were the height of passion, of misplaced anger. Beautiful and raw, at first, but then it gradually settled into compliance. Boring, boring compliance.
The traps were new, if a bit amateurish. (the question is whether it's a rush-job or a matter of aesthetics.) The Joker did a hop and a skip, snatching the shotgun from its perch above. He held it like a dance partner, caressing it like a lover. At first, it seemed like a Riddler type of move. {if the fool was working on a budget} But the Joker dismissed that.
Even if the Joker kinda, maybe, sorta hated the Riddler's guts, he afforded him a supervillain's respect. The man was an insane genius, with a compulsion to leave clues to his crime to prove his own intelligence. Plus, he had bit of an ego and would never serve a serial killer in a subservient position. If this was the Riddler's work, he'd leave snide riddles that would point to a future reversal of roles.
The absence of outright clues was a clue in of itself.
The Joker smirked, tossing the shotgun out the window, and rubbed his hands together. Cluemaster, had to be. Though the Riddler had an ego, he had the smarts to carve out and dominate his niche. Whereas the Cluemaster was hungry. A vulnerable type of hunger. Either he'd be wooed by obvious snake-oil tainted words, or he got himself forced into a secondary role.
He sniffed the air and stretched out his hands, letting them feel out the wire. The Joker followed them to a wall, feeling out the knot, probably to some sort of explosive. The knot was… twice-tight. Hasty, yet with some manner of care. Indeed, answer to the question of the Cluemaster was little bit of a, little bit of b.
The Joker nodded to himself and bent down to pick up the shot-up hat. It fell to pieces in his hands, but enough of it remained to take shape. The shape of Batman's cowl, with two eyes hole and pointy ears. Didn't look like much at all, but to the Joker, it was a sign from the universe.
"He-hehe-hehe-hehahahahha!" he belted out, pressing the fabric against in his face.
With Batman gone and someone starting to fit in a Joker-shaped niche, it was high time for the Clown Prince of Crime to reinvent himself for this encounter. The laughter died down to a sinister chuckle. A clown criminal… dealing out vigilante justice in clear homage to the Batman?
Could there be anything funnier?