Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Absolute Batman #15
DC Comics’ newest incarnation of The Joker might be the most chilling reinvention yet. However, he’s also the exact opposite of Heath Ledger’s version from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.
In the comics’ Absolute Universe, the brand-new Absolute Joker is all kinds of horrifying, a true monster who’s the stuff of eldritch nightmares. However, while Ledger’s Joker was a typical mortal criminal operating on chaos, DC’s Absolute Joker is generating chaos on a whole other level and on the opposite side of the spectrum.
DC Just Debuted Its Monstrous Absolute Joker
In the Absolute Universe created by Darkseid, the Joker has a real name: Jack Grimm. According to reports from Alfred Pennyworth and his work for MI6, Grimm is a billionaire who’s quietly manipulated Gotham and the world from the shadows for decades, profiting from chaos as well as reveling in it, sowing a trail of blood and death like none other.
Grimm is also unnaturally long-lived, though Alfred isn’t sure if that’s a result of dark science using orphan babies, a dark pact with a demon, or some horrifying combination of the two. The shadow of Absolute Joker has lasted for generations, capable of transforming into a multi-fanged, horned abomination, something between a demon and an apex predator.
However, what I found to be terrifying was how this Joker operates in the exact opposite way to Heath Ledger’s version from The Dark Knight.
Heath Ledger’s Joker Was Scary Without Needing Money
Heath Ledger’s Joker remains one of the most iconic superhero film performances. He was terrifying without wealth, legacy, or power structures, and he excelled when it came to the philosophy of anarchy and chaos, his impact being so huge despite how little he needed. If anything, lacking resources made him even scarier, as he had nothing to lose.
The clearest example occurs in the scene where he burns half the mob’s fortune. As the inferno swallows millions, he explains that money is irrelevant: “It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message.”
The Dark Knight’s Joker was driven by ideas, not profit, and his ideology made him all kinds of unpredictable in Nolan’s The Dark Knight: “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical. Some men just want to watch the world burn.“
Gasoline, bullets, and homemade explosives were all Ledger’s Joker needed because they were cheap and accessible. His threat wasn’t scale; it was psychology. His genius came from weaponizing fear, turning the ordinary into tools of terror. Despite being a mortal man, Joker was chaos incarnate in Gotham.
This Joker thrived specifically because he had no infrastructure. No fortune. No supernatural enhancements. His horror came from the idea that chaos and madness don’t need much help; they only need intention and “a little push.“
The New Joker Is Terrifying For The Exact Opposite Reason
Conversely, Jack Grimm’s Absolute Joker flips that philosophy on its head, and he’s still horrifying for completely different reasons. He’s not just a message; he’s a murder machine. He’s horrifying because he has every resource imaginable: wealth, power, influence, dark science, and perhaps even more ancient tools at his disposal.
Things get even worse by the final pages of Absolute Batman #15. After Bruce and readers are told the entire background and everything Alfred has gathered about Grimm, we see Grimm himself in Gotham City, returning home to a huge mansion with a butler awaiting his arrival. Not only that, but he’s even got his own cave hidden behind a grandfather clock.
The parallels are clear: Absolute Joker is the dark inverse of the mainline DC Universe’s Bruce Wayne, a dark billionaire who has profited forever by constantly playing humanity against itself in various arenas, all while claiming victims along the way. In the Absolute Universe, it’s clear that this Joker is defined by staggering excess.
That shift changes the stakes, especially considering just how little Absolute Batman has to work with. Grimm doesn’t need to steal weapons. He makes them. He doesn’t need to recruit criminals. He buys institutions like Ark M and creates his own monsters. It’s been proven that he quite literally owns Gotham in this tragic universe created by Darkseid.
While this inversion of Gotham’s greatest hero and villain is all kinds of fascinating, it’s also very cool to think about how Absolute Joker is so dangerous precisely because he embodies everything Heath Ledger’s Joker rejected. Wealth. Legacy. Control. Infrastructure. Power.
Absolute Joker’s not just chaos in the streets as a giant monster; he can also be chaos with a boardroom at the same time. As DC Comics pushes further into this dark new universe, it’s clear that the scariest version of the Joker isn’t the one who has nothing—it’s the one who has everything (and terrifyingly more).
Absolute Batman #15 is on sale now from DC Comics.
- Created by
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Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Todd Phillips, Scott Silver
- Movie(s)
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Joker, Joker: Folie a Deux
- Character(s)
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The Joker, Harley Quinn, Murray Franklin, Sophie Dumond, Penny Fleck
