Greatest Villains of All Time: The Joker
The Search for the Greatest Villain of All Time
I honest tried not to pick the Joker. I wanted to be that annoying contrarian who insists he’s overrated and not the greatest villain of all time… but it simply cannot be done.
That said, I won’t be bringing up The Dark Knight. Not because it’s unnecessary (which it is), but because I believe the Joker’s impact in that film owes more to Heath Ledger’s phenomenal performance than to the character itself. Let’s be real—Ledger could’ve made even a nameless henchman iconic with that level of talent.
Unholy Matrimony
Never in the history of anything has there ever been a hero-villain dynamic so perfectly matched by being complete opposites. Batman and the Joker are distorted reflections of one another: where Bruce clings to his sanity, the Joker revels in his madness. He knows he’s Batman’s inverse—and he takes pride in it. Batman refuses to kill, while the Joker will gleefully destroy everyone close to him, all without ever laying a hand on Batman himself. They give each other a twisted sense of purpose that neither could achieve with any other counterpart.
It’s no exaggeration to say the Joker is just as iconic and recognizable as Batman himself.
The Clown Prince of Crime
The Joker is an unpredictable psychopath with no regard for human life—not even his own. He isn’t driven by power, money, or fame. He doesn’t want to rule Gotham or reshape the world. To him, everything is a joke, and nothing matters. He’s the embodiment of madness, made grotesquely literal when he had his face surgically removed, only to staple the decaying flesh back onto his bloodied skull.
With no grand plan, no ideology, he lives only to spread chaos, rack up a body count, and drag the world into anarchy. The only thing that gives him lasting satisfaction is tormenting Batman. While Gotham’s other criminals fight over territory and profit, the Joker tears everything down for the sheer thrill of destruction—and basks in the mayhem.
Though he has no superpowers, the Joker outclasses most supervillains who do. He’s in a league of his own—an architect of madness and mayhem with a rap sheet unlike any other. But he doesn’t kill aimlessly. His crimes are deeply personal, calculated to shatter his enemies’ spirits. Why murder a random civilian when he can kill Batman’s sidekick, Jason Todd? Why manipulate a stranger into violence when he can trick Superman into killing Lois Lane—triggering the destruction of all of Metropolis?
For the Joker, the horror lies in the intimacy. His atrocities don’t just leave a trail of bodies—they leave guilt in their wake. If Jason hadn’t been Batman’s protégé, he’d still be alive. If Commissioner Gordon hadn’t been Bruce’s ally, his daughter wouldn’t have been paralyzed. His wife wouldn’t have been murdered.
And it’s not just heroes who suffer. Fellow villains aren’t safe either. He once skinned a former partner alive to reclaim turf after a stint in Arkham. When Maxie Zeus dared to challenge him, the Joker responded by bombing an entire school—just to kill Maxie’s nephew.
The Joker doesn’t just destroy his enemies. He annihilates their sense of self, their sanity, their very reason to fight.
