BATWOMAN Just Revealed The Fate Of The Arrowverse's Joker And Dropped Some Big Batman Hints

BATWOMAN Just Revealed The Fate Of The Arrowverse's Joker And Dropped Some Big Batman Hints

During last night's episode of Batwoman, some major hints were dropped about the fate of the Arrowverse's version of The Joker, and Batman's whereabouts were also revealed. Read on for details...

News
By JoshWilding - Apr 27, 2020 02:04 AM EST
Filed Under: Batwoman

The Arrowverse's Gotham City was introduced fairly late in the day, and there have been questions from fans as to why The Joker has never shown up. During last night's episode of Batwoman, Kate Kane was shown to be struggling to continue her superhero activities after murdering Dr. August Cartwright, the man who kidnapped her sister Beth. 

During a heated argument with Luke Fox, Kate talked about breaking Batman's "no-kill" rule, and he responded by saying, "Ever wonder why the Joker hasn't reared his head in five years? He's not in Arkham, Kate. Both you and Bruce stared into the abyss." 

That's a strong hint that the Caped Crusader actually put the Clown Prince of Crime down once and for all, and likely explains why Bruce Wayne vanished. According to Luke, The Joker's death took place five years prior to the events of Batwoman, whereas Batman vanished three years ago. 

Common sense says that what he did stuck with him all that time, and it's going to be interesting to find out whether this is something The CW series ever addresses a little more directly. 

Unfortunately, with Batman off limits to the network, we may never get to learn more about what happened to him or The Joker. We'll just have to wait and see, but this episode definitely dropped some big hints about both Batman's disappearance and why Kate has never faced that iconic villain. 

What did you guys think about this revelation in last night's Batwoman?

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tmp3
tmp3 - 4/27/2020, 2:40 AM
Batman doesn't kill. When are these hacks like Snyder and the CW going to understand that.
Highflyer
Highflyer - 4/27/2020, 2:57 AM
@tmp3 - Genuine question, would you consider Burton a hack too?
tmp3
tmp3 - 4/27/2020, 3:18 AM
@Highflyer - I mean, he's been making so many bad movies recently, so maybe. In regards to his take on Batman, it's not exactly comics-accurate, haha. I don't think those movies have aged particularly well, and that take on the character as a whole is kind of boring even removed from him being a murderer; Nicholson, Pfeiffer and DeVito save those films.
WruceBayne
WruceBayne - 4/27/2020, 5:45 AM
@TheJustinHammer - I have a question for you. What effective non-lethal offensive weapons do you think the batmobile and bat plane should’ve had that Snyder’s version of Batman could’ve used that wouldn’t have killed anybody?
ShimmyShimmyYA
ShimmyShimmyYA - 4/27/2020, 5:54 AM
@WruceBayne - emps, tire cutters, some device to immobilize vehicles
GAThrawnIGF
GAThrawnIGF - 4/27/2020, 8:19 AM
@TheJustinHammer - How many comics have YOU read? The amount of times Batman has killed throughout all media is actually double digits. There was an issue where Batman punched someone into a crusher. There was an issue where Batman dropped a multi-ton statue on top of a large group of cultists. Batman's very first appearance had him use a gun and kill people in order to save his girlfriend. Batman killed Joker in the New 52. Pretty sure he killed again in Rebirth. Batman killed Joker in the 89 movie. Batman killed Penguin in Batman Returns. Batman left KGBeast to die in an issue from the 80s. Then there's Frank Miller's material.
GAThrawnIGF
GAThrawnIGF - 4/27/2020, 8:22 AM
@GAThrawnIGF - And then if you're REALLY getting technical, all the times Batman brutally beat someone up, chances are good that 1 out of every 10 thugs would die from their injuries.
OrionPax
OrionPax - 4/27/2020, 8:28 AM
@TheJustinHammer - I totally agree.And considering that are 3 jokers in the comics,i feel like Nicholson’s still holds up.I’m 41 so i’ve been saying this for years,but i didn’t start reading comics because i wanted realism (nolan’s movies are great,but not comic accurate,none of them are really,but Batman & Batman Returns are the only Batman flicks that feel like watching a comic book
WruceBayne
WruceBayne - 4/27/2020, 8:41 AM
@ShimmyShimmyYA - what effect does an emp, tire cutters or some device that immobilizes vehicles have on a stationary pick up truck with a machine gun attached to it shooting 50 caliber rounds at him?
WruceBayne
WruceBayne - 4/27/2020, 8:49 AM
@GAThrawnIGF - I’ve been saying the same thing. Batman originally had a gun and he shot people. He let Ra’s al ghul die in Batman begins.
WruceBayne
WruceBayne - 4/27/2020, 8:58 AM
@TheJustinHammer - they are the objectives. They are the bad guys. We just have a different opinion on a realistic take on Batman.
Baf
Baf - 4/27/2020, 1:22 PM
@TheJustinHammer - I know everyone defends Batman's no kill rule. Truth is its harder to find proof that Batman doesn't kill.
Tufasrox
Tufasrox - 4/27/2020, 2:59 PM
@GAThrawnIGF - very true!
Slotherin
Slotherin - 5/18/2020, 2:02 PM
@tmp3 - I loved Snyder's Batman because although he wasn't going out of his way to intentionally kill anyone, it was realistically treated as an inevitability of the shit he does.
Highflyer
Highflyer - 4/27/2020, 2:59 AM
I kind of feel like the no kill rule works better for a young batman, its only when you get to a seasoned batman and a joker who has escaped a dozen times and committed mass murder each time that I start to roll my eyes. It becomes a cycle that costs so many lives.
Highflyer
Highflyer - 4/27/2020, 3:10 AM
@TheJustinHammer - When I mean younger batman, I mean the idea of not killing would probably seem possible and have a good outcome as appose to sticking by the rule for a decade and see the same result. I like it when Batman does acknowledge his rule as being somewhat problematic. Like in The Dark Knight Returns ("The people I've killed by letting you live.")
Slotherin
Slotherin - 5/18/2020, 2:04 PM
@Highflyer - I feel you... after some time, he'd grow past his views and start to be realize "[frick]... this isn't working."
bkmeijer2
bkmeijer2 - 4/27/2020, 3:03 AM
I really hope Reeves doesn't go with a killer Batman. Even in the Nolan trilogy I sometimes had the idea that Batman kiled (although indirectly). If they want to kill Batman rogues, just have the police do it then
Highflyer
Highflyer - 4/27/2020, 3:05 AM
Also, does anyone find it a little hard to believe that no police officer or sniper was able to get a head shot on the joker during his crime sprees?
Kyos
Kyos - 4/27/2020, 3:11 AM
KWilly
KWilly - 4/27/2020, 5:48 AM
@Kyos - Batman knows he'd be the best assassin that ever lived, if he really wanted to be. That's why I love that he has morals.
Spock0Clock
Spock0Clock - 4/27/2020, 3:21 AM
I'd like to see a live-action show really exploring a no-kill superhero who has options beyond letting the police arrest them. Some superheroes operate pseudo-jails, so I could imagine MCU Hank Pym running a federally-funded Big House (sort of like the Flash TV show does in... a particle accelerator... is that right? I remember that happening, but as I type it, it sounds ridiculous and like something that would come up more.)

But really, I'd like to see a serious take on the mind-wiping chair from Squadron Supreme. That series did an interesting job exploring the ramifications of personality-readjustment on criminals and what we really mean when we talk about rehabilitation. (There was a less-well executed version of this in Identity Crisis, I think, but they treat it as an exceptionally rare thing and sidestep a lot of the moral implications in favor of showing it just going wrong).

To me, the most terrifying and intriguing prospect of a process that can reprogram a person's mind isn't that it might not work. It's much more interesting is when it works perfectly. Because then you get to the questions of how to do it properly (if you even can), and who decides what aspects of a personality should be changed and what shouldn't.



In the Squadron series, you had someone like Foxfire. She was a villain before getting brain-scrambled, and by the end she seemed genuinely happy to have been brainwashed, like an addict who had taken a magic pill to make the urges go away. But, of course, there is always that lingering doubt that she's actually reformed by the people around her, and even herself. How do you truly measure a good person? And can a person fully offer consent to be brainwashed like that (as I believe the Squadron required) since many subjects doubted the machine worked and it's an open question (to me at least) whether a person can even understand their own psychology enough to comprehend the effect something like this would have.

It's heady stuff to dig into. (Actually, Silver Surfer flirts with it in reverse, doesn't he? Noran Radd "consented" to become the herald of Galactus, but... did he really?)
tmp3
tmp3 - 4/27/2020, 3:26 AM
@Spock0Clock -
But really, I'd like to see a serious take on the mind-wiping chair from Squadron Supreme. That series did an interesting job exploring the ramifications of personality-readjustment on criminals and what we really mean when we talk about rehabilitation.

But really, I'd like to see a serious take on the mind-wiping chair from Squadron Supreme. That series did an interesting job exploring the ramifications of personality-readjustment on criminals and what we really mean when we talk about rehabilitation. (There was a less-well executed version of this in Identity Crisis, I think, but they treat it as an exceptionally rare thing and sidestep a lot of the moral implications in favor of showing it just going wrong).

They already made that movie, just without the super powers, in 1971
Spock0Clock
Spock0Clock - 4/27/2020, 3:45 AM
@tmp3 - Crucially in A Clockwork Orange, though, the Ludovico Technique didn't ultimately work.



Imagine a world in which it worked perfectly.
Spock0Clock
Spock0Clock - 4/27/2020, 3:51 AM
@RageCipher - Superman does do the Phantom Zone in some comics and shows, doesn't he? But it's always a bit of a cop-out, since he doesn't have to actually deal with the ramifications (and he's not even trying to rehabilitate them).

(And now I'm getting images in my head of Superman pointing the Phantom Zone projector at bad guys and saying "to the cornfield", and thinking maybe there's some thematic gem to making phantom space monsters into the crop that Jonathan Kent's boy ends up farming, but... I've gone crosseyed.)
Spock0Clock
Spock0Clock - 4/27/2020, 4:09 AM
@RageCipher - You are right. If Superman is okay with sending a megalomaniac like Zod into the Zone, then you'd think he'd send people like Max Lord or the Joker there, too (once it has been demonstrated they can't be contained otherwise). Even Lex Luthor at a certain point. They can put Lex in jail, but his criminal operations continue regardless. If the guy just dosed the city with nerve gas and will definitely try to again from inside prison, it makes sense to isolate him permanently.

I've always liked the idea of Superman having his own Big House in Kandor or keeping villains in his menagerie in the Fortress of Solitude (as an alternative to the Phantom Zone), but that line of thinking gets dark and depressing. Still, if I was writing for that CW Superman show, I'd consider giving Jon Cryer the Hannibal treatment with plenty of time to develop the relationship between him and Hoechlin's Supes.
Repian
Repian - 4/27/2020, 3:24 AM
Still, I hope that laughing gas will appear on the Show. The Joker's legacy. Maybe a fan or a terrorist
VicSage
VicSage - 4/27/2020, 5:06 AM
What is this obsession with making him a killer lately?

There's this weird movement of turning Batman into the Punisher and I am not here for it. I am completely open to interpretations, adaptations, and the like, but this is appearing to become the new norm. I was mildly okay with it in Snyder's version, but now? I'd like to see my Batman sans killing please.
Nightwing1015
Nightwing1015 - 4/27/2020, 5:08 AM
I hope they realise this is a bad idea and offer a better explanation if the full story is ever revealed.
soberchimera
soberchimera - 4/27/2020, 6:13 AM
Swamp Thing couldn't even get a full season and this show will probably wind up getting 5....
itzayaboy
itzayaboy - 4/27/2020, 6:15 AM
This hasn’t been canceled yet? I’m sure a lot of people work hard on this but the quality just isn’t good. It’s bad acting. Bad story decisions. It’s on the CW. DC needs to get its head out of its ass and start making things fans actually want. Enough shows and movies about Gotham with no Batman. Batman is great, if you are going to use his property, allies and villains, use him too Also DC overuses him.
itzayaboy
itzayaboy - 4/27/2020, 6:21 AM
I hope this gets the axe. The fans, the true fans, hate it.
storyteller
storyteller - 4/27/2020, 8:13 AM
People keep saying how Batman wasn't a killer in the Nolan films or Batman would never ever kill in the comics.

Both are false. Ra's, Dent, Talia are all people he killed.
In the comics from time to time in order to save others he puts the baddies in a situation where they lucked out in surviving.

The death of Two Face in TDK is a perfect example of that kind of situation.

What Batman does not do is execute people if they can bring them in. So if the baddie can be sent to prison then Batman does not take it upon himself to kill them. In the end Joker is brought in. It's up to the justice system to deal with him(why folks not HQ keep letting him out is beyond me).

Zack Snyder Batman. Yeah those were executions and the movie went out of it's way to say that was a problem. Burton films, no one mentions it in the film. In BVS his new aggressiveness has made him a villain.

The problem is that the first teamup of the World Finest try to deconstruct things when it actually has to build. Then JL destroyed any momentum.

Now why Batwoman hasn't fought the Joker........it's still the first season and she is not Batman. Just like with Supergirl, it's a disservice to give her the others rogue gallery.

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