Created by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson in 1940, few villains have haunted the imagination of pop culture like the Joker. For a major factor in the Joker's longevity as a character is the fact that there are so many facets to him, and a great deal of room for interpretation (just compare the performances of Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Mark Hamill and more). There are times in his history where he's been very much cast in the role of the clown; others when he's a damaged man in need of help; others yet where he's a truly terrifying figure.

His latest cinematic depiction, Todd Phillips' upcoming Joker, earned critical acclaim during its festival premieres for how the film is a much weightier examination of the character's origins, but as seen below plenty of artists, across many mediums, have found different approaches to just what the Joker is capable of, what he might represent in a narrative, and how his seemingly mad point-of-view sometimes seems quite sane. There are many more moments that could have been included here, but these 30 feel like a good start.

The Joker As a Showman

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Image via Warner Bros.

Batman (1967) — Cesar Romero Surfs!

There’s no way to do this list without representing at least once the goofy pure charm of Batman (1966) and the incredibly committed performance of Cesar Romero as the Joker — seriously, behold this super-cut of his laughs, which offer a manic energy which fits perfectly in this heightened interpretation of these characters. If you’re on board for that level of camp, Romero’s interpretation of the character is pretty delightful across the board, but probably reached its pinnacle in this moment. Why do Batman and the Joker get into a surf contest in the season three episode “Surf's Up! Joker's Under!”? The question really worth asking is “why didn’t it happen sooner?”

The Dark Knight Returns (1986) — Joker's Suicide

When Joker returns to torment a 55-year-old Batman in Frank Miller's 1986 classic novel, he makes his target clear — not Batman's life, but his reputation. Choosing to kill himself (by breaking his own spine), he effectively frames Batman for his death, leading to him having to once again flee the police; it's a haunting sequence that is also another example of how much the Joker values having the last laugh, no matter what the cost.

Batman (1989) — A Dinner Date with Vicki Vale

Is it the banging soundtrack? (Rest in power, Prince.)  Is it the scattered corpses? Is it the gleeful defacement of art? Is it Jack Nicholson’s giddiness at really and truly embodying a bad guy? It’s all that and more. Part of the fascinating menace of this character is the clash between the cartoonish and the horrific; it’s a contrast which puts the audience firmly in the very nice high heels of Vicki Vale, as she faces off against Nicholson’s Joker in all his suave scariness. Plus, the button of the scene — the reveal of Joker's girlfriend's disfigured face — adds an extra level of horror.

Batman: The Animated Series: "Christmas With The Joker" (1992) — Joker Loves a Classic

The second-ever episode of The Animated Series is a Joker-palooza of moments, but quite honestly his big inaugural animated adventure is a winner simply for the moment when Joker goes out of his way to ensure that Batman takes a cream pie to the face. One fascinating aspect of the Joker as a character is that his freedom seems relatively unimportant to him; it’s the stunt or the joke that matters more.

Batman: The Animated Series: "Joker's Wild" (1992) — Joker Sees a Branding Opportunity

It's interesting how so often a great Joker story doesn't feature him as the primary villain; this Batman: The Animated Series episode is a perfect example of that, as the Joker sets out to destroy a new casino using his likeness — which is exactly what Kaiser, the crooked businessman who built the casino, was hoping for. Joker, of course, doesn't react well to finding out that he was being manipulated by Kaiser — deciding instead that he should take over the casino instead of destroying it. Joker occasionally proves himself to have a good head for business.

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Image via Warner Bros.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)  A Moment of Self-Reflection

One common theme faced by portrayals of the Joker is the question of how big is too big? Perhaps because of the animation, or because of Hamill’s performance style, The Animated Series and associated series tend to hit the more campy side of the spectrum, but there’s a clever moment of the 1993 feature-length adventure which acknowledges it. Joker’s presence in Mask of the Phantasm is a bit of a red herring, as the real villain Batman faces is the return of lost love Andrea, but he does shine as he confronts the masked figure who’s been eliminating the mobsters of Gotham City: “The costume's a bit theatrical, but who am I to talk?” (Later, he and Batman get into a fistfight while Joker flies around wearing a jetpack. Normal supervillain stuff.)

Batman and Captain America Vol. 1 (1996) — Joker Is No Nazi

It is wild, that in 1996 a DC Elseworlds adventure featured an actual crossover with one of Marvel's biggest heroes. (Imagine that happening in a post-Disney era — though Disney will probably get around to acquiring WarnerMedia at some point in the future.) Created by pioneer John Byrne, this comic is hard to track down but has been featured online frequently for one key moment: While initially the Joker teams up with Captain America villain Red Skull, he turns against him after discovering that Red Skull is, y'know, a Nazi. "I may be a criminal lunatic but I'm an American criminal lunatic," he shouts, yet another reminder that the character has his own very unique set of ethics.

Justice League: "Wild Cards" (2003) — Joker Loves an Explosive Twist

No one plays a cat-and-mouse game like the Joker, and this great two-part episode from the second season of Justice League is a shining example of that. Having turned the Vegas strip into a bomb-filled, televised obstacle course for our heroes, Joker spends much of the episode taking great delight in not just tormenting the League, but narrating their attempts to diffuse the bombs (always a showman). At the climatic end of Part 1, Joker observes Hawkgirl and Green Lantern sparring over an armed bomb, picking up on their ever-present sexual tension, telling the viewers: “Will true love conquer all?” He grins. “Not on my show.” And then he detonates the bomb early, nearly killing Green Lantern, but fulfilling one of his character’s most reliable aspects: The need to create a spectacle.

The Dark Knight (2008) — Blowing Up the Hospital

Real talk: This list could have easily just been 30 iconic moments from Christopher Nolan’s iconic sequel to Batman Begins. But, if we have to narrow it down, let’s start here. Nolan really blew up an old abandoned building for the hospital sequence, the sort of bold you-get-one-take choice that could easily go awry. Fortunately, Heath Ledger was so in character that he improvised flawlessly through the entire sequence, shaking the “detonator” with the same real frustration that someone might apply to their malfunctioning remote control. When the explosion happened, a few moments later, the scene was better than could have been imagined, because of Ledger’s realness.

The Joker As a Source of Chaos

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Image via DC Comics

Batman #66 (1951) — Joker’s Boner

Excerpted from a comic from a different time  the “Joker’s Boner” storyline is more an internet meme than a notable moment in the character’s history. But still, look, the Joker says “boner” a whole bunch of times, and yes the word meant something very different in 1951, but still: “Gotham City will rue the day it mentioned the word ‘boner’”! If the Joker had a sense of humor about himself, he’d get why this was funny.

Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) — Paralyzing Barbara

It's a life-changing moment for one of the Batman mythos' most popular characters, but it's also a moment which makes it clear the level of darkness Joker is capable of. When it comes to guns, Joker goes back and forth on using them, and sometimes he's at his scariest when he doesn't. But in this case, the combination of home invasion and the single gunshot wound, accompanied by a nonstop stream of puns based on Batgirl's secret identity as librarian Barbara Gordon bleeds, is classic Joker, taken to the next level when he undresses her for a series of photos designed to make her father, Commissioner Gordon, go insane. It's maybe one of the character's darkest moments of all time.

Batman: A Death in the Family (1988) — Joker Kills Jason Todd

It's not only Batgirl who was a victim of Joker's violence in the comics by a long shot — just ask Jason Todd, another member of the Bat-family whose time as the second Robin was cut short after Joker kidnapped and beat him nearly to death with a crowbar. It's the crowbar which stands out in the memory, as there's no gag or pun to the choice of weapon; it's just Joker at his most violent, and memorably so. To be fair, it's an explosion — as well as the readers of Batman at that time, who voted via 900-number to kill off the unpopular character — which actually causes Jason's death. But the image of the badly hurt Jason remains a shocking reminder of Joker's ruthlessness.

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Image via Warner Bros.

Batman: The Animated Series: "Almost Got 'Im" (1992) — Collateral Damage

A classic Batman: The Animated Series installment that lets the most iconic Batman villains tell stories about a time they came close to killing their foe, "Almost Got 'Im" features another example of Joker's approach to villainy — if you can't get your target, aim for those around him. The climax of the episode comes from Joker's story, which reveals that he and Harley Quinn have captured Catwoman and are preparing to literally turn her into cat food: a very Joker-ish threat.

Batman: The Animated Series: "The Laughing Fish" (1993) — Joker's Patent Is Pending

“The Joker’s insane schemes make sense to him alone,” Batman observes. But nothing speaks to this quite like the Joker deciding that what he really, really wants is to have the patent on a new strain of smiling fish that have been introduced into Gotham harbor. Nothing says “children's’ entertainment” like a storyline focused around filing the necessary paperwork to get a legal claim to the profits; at a certain point, the Joker has become so much a force of anarchy that the most anarchic possible move is to go legit.

Justice League: "Injustice for All" (2002) — The Joker Betrays Lex Luthor

Joker's animated appearances outside of Batman: The Animated Series were limited, but one common thread was that he's not exactly a team player. "Injustice for All" highlights that fact when he helps some of his fellow villains capture Batman — but while Lex Luthor demands that they keep him alive, Joker has his own plans, aiming to take advantage of his nemesis in chains by eliminating him. Given that Batman's pretty damn hard to kill, Joker's strategy actually makes sense: The character can often be a fascinating one in moments like this, when his criminal mind actually follows a logical path... evil, yes, but also practical.

Birds of Prey: "Pilot" (2002) — The Joker Haunts Barbara Gordon

Many people don't remember the 2002 attempt to translate the great comic book series into a WB drama (10 years before Greg Berlanti began taking over the CW with his DC shows), and there are some good reasons for that. But the series did make a point of highlighting the Joker's role in the origin story of Batgirl-turned-Oracle Barbara Gordon (a back story inspired by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke), depicting the clownish villain as less interested in puns and more interested in brutal vengeance, not just delivering the gunshot that cost Barbara her ability to walk, but also killing Selina Kyle, who in this version was the mother of Bruce Wayne's child. The show made the... interesting choice to cast actor Roger Stoneburner as Joker on screen, but dub his performance with Mark Hamill's voice, leaving us to wonder how the nightmarish flashes of Joker we get in the pilot might have played had the show lasted more than 13 episodes.

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Image via DC Comics

Joker: The Man Who Laughs (2005) — The Joker Recruits

This follow-up to the classic Frank Miller comic Batman: Year One introduces the Joker for a new era of continuity; Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke used the Joker's 1940 introduction as inspiration, while also using Miller's diary-based style to provide the inner narratives of Batman and Jim Gordon. The result is appropriately gritty, including a chilling flashback to how Joker recruits a gang of henchmen — shooting his way into an psych ward and handing out loaded weapons to the patients. The character design hearkens to the more cartoonish depictions of the character, which makes it all the more jarring when he casually kills in cold blood.

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000) — Joker tortures Tim Drake

The legacy of the Joker was always a part of Batman Beyond, largely thanks to the Jokerz gang that terrorized futuristic Gotham, but it wasn't until the show got its own feature-length adventure that the infamous clown made the trip to the year 2040 — despite the fact that he died decades before. Taking a far darker approach than TAS (infamously so), Return of the Joker reveals just how Joker died, a moment which is just the cherry on a shocking flashback centered around the brutal torture of young Tim Drake, who ultimately pulls the trigger on a spear gun that skewers him. It's of the few times Joker's death has ever been depicted, and his last words are perfect: "That's... not funny."

Suicide Squad (2016) — Jared Leto Goes Too Deep Into Character

Maybe this is the best indication that a character who’s super-fun in the media might be a total pain in the ass to know in real life: Those who followed the development and production of Suicide Squad were treated to no shortage of stories about Jared Leto's "preparation" for playing the Joker, including sending anal beads and used condoms to his co-stars, saying that "The Joker is somebody who doesn’t really respect things like personal space or boundaries.” It might have been true to the character, but it also sounds like he was a nightmare co-worker. Viola Davis' face at the Comic-Con panel preceding the film's release says it all for us.

The Joker As a Tragic Person

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Image via Warner Bros.

Batman: The Animated Series: "Joker's Favor" (1992) — An Average Joe Steals Joker's Thunder

Narratively, one of the more interesting Animated Series episodes because it’s framed around the point of view of Charlie Collins, an ordinary guy whose brief moment of road rage ends with him owing the Joker a “favor.” As seen more than once on this list, there’s nothing the Joker wants more than to get a laugh out of Batman, and perhaps the ultimate humiliation he experiences at the end of this episode is that it’s Charlie, not the Joker, who gets him chuckling.

The Batman Adventures: Mad Love (1993) — Joker's Father at the Circus

This comic book one-shot, which was later adapted as an episode of The New Batman Adventures, is focused on the origin story of Harley Quinn. But a key moment of insight comes from Dr. Quinzel's eye-opening therapy sessions with the patient she would eventually fall in love with — Joker tells a story about how as a kid, his father was abusive, and that the only time he ever laughed was during a trip to the circus. It's not so much the story Joker tells as it is Batman's later revelation that the story which made Harley feel sympathy for the Joker was one of many lies that he's told about his past. Harley and Joker's relationship is the textbook definition of toxic and sad, but one of its most heartbreaking elements is this reveal, and the betrayal Harley feels.

Superman: The Animated Series: "World's Finest" (1997) — Joker Goes Down With His Ship

An opportunity for Batman and Superman to team up also means an opportunity for the Joker to face off against not just the Caped Crusader, but Metropolis's notorious multi-millionaire. It's a solid Joker caper, one that ends with the Joker presumed dead, but while anyone who's ever seen a TV show knows that's not likely true, our last glimpse of him on a crashing hovership, laughing maniacally, feels like, if it stuck, it would be a fitting end for the character.

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000) — Terry Taunts the Joker

A consistent aspect of the Joker’s interpretation in the DC animated universe is the pride he has in his abilities as a comedian — as deluded as that pride might be. And thus one of the shining moments of Return of the Joker is when Bruce Wayne’s heir apparent to the Batman cowl, Terry McGinnis, decides to play on one of his key differences from the OG Batman persona — he likes to talk. So what ultimately infuriates the resurrected Joker is Terry mocking Joker’s tired comedy bits, asking “Where’s the A material?” Joker’s fury at this (“Don’t you dare laugh at me!”) fuels him into a final attack that eventually leads to his downfall; hubris more often than not tends to take him down.

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Image via Warner Bros.

The Dark Knight (2008) — Three Different Origin Stories

Of all the scripted elements which make Heath Ledger’s Joker such a fascinating interpretation, one of the most memorable is the fact that while some versions of the character make a point of revealing his origin, while others keep him as a mysterious agent of chaos, writers Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer chose to split the difference. Joker’s three different speeches about where his scars came from (well, we didn’t hear the third one, but we can only assume it’d be a whole other version) was a cruel tease of any lurking humanity behind his exterior — every one of his stories made you think that maybe, deep down, there was someone there who was capable of being reached. But the fact that they’re all different makes it clear that whoever the real man is, we’ll never really know him.

The Lego Batman Movie (2017) — Joker Isn't Special

Of all the voice actors to play the Joker, Zach Galifianakis might not be remembered as the most iconic, but he delivers some genuine pathos in this scene where his naked desire for Batman’s attention is laid bare — but Batman’s not having it. To Joker’s credit, in the annals of Batman’s rogue gallery, he does tend to stand out as the franchise’s most memorable villain. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Batman sees it the same way.

The Joker As a Reflection of Batman

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Image via DC Comics

Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) — Joker Gets a Laugh Out of Batman

Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's take on Joker's origins is a dark and tragic interpretation of the character's story, including the death of his pregnant wife. As mentioned previously, it's also a dark and violent one, but there's something truly poignant about the final moments of this short yet seismic story, in which the Joker gets something he's always wanted: He tells a joke funny enough to make Batman laugh. The two men stand together, laughing in the rain — Joker may be caught, but he wins a whole different kind of victory.

Batman (1989) — Joker vs. Batman on the Roof

"I made you, you made me. How childish can you get?" Joker's battle with Batman on the cathedral rooftop is a perfect combination of elements that make him so iconic: The quips like "You wouldn't hit a man in glasses, would you?", the casual dispersal of props — and also the very real blood on Joker's chin, and the brutal punches Batman lands before Joker pulls him off the roof — come together for a sequence that captures Joker's essence.

Batman: Issues #48-49 (2018) — Why Batman Can Never Be Happy

It's rare to see the Joker have an actually heartfelt conversation with anyone — even rarer for that person to be Catwoman. But on the eve of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle's wedding, a violent confrontation between Joker and Catwoman ends with the two of them badly hurt in the rubble of a church. Ultimately, Joker manages to stand, aiming his gun at Catwoman, ready to kill her, because she represents a chance at happiness for Batman...and if Batman's happy, he wouldn't be Batman anymore, and that would mean there's no one to stop him. Joker passes out before he's able to take the shot, but it's still another fascinating depiction of Joker and Batman's occasionally tangled origins.

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Image via Fox

Gotham (2014-2019) — Jeremiah Eventually Becomes “Mr. J”

The only thing more convoluted than decades of DC Comics mythology is the ongoing interplay between the TV and movie properties; with multiple networks airing or having aired shows utilizing these characters, there’s no clear logic to when and how characters might cross over. Thus, the Fox series Gotham, technically a prequel to the rise of the World’s Greatest Detective, found itself in a position where they couldn’t explicitly add the Joker to its roster of heroes — however, it still managed to ask an important question when it comes to the character: Would he exist without Batman? (Star Cameron Monaghan posted on Twitter that not only was the show unable to call the character the Joker, but there were visual elements they couldn’t include.) Gotham ends with a disfigured Jeremiah Valeska held Jim Gordon’s daughter hostage, before being rescued by a disguised Bruce Wayne; the simultaneous rise of these characters aligns with statements by showrunner Bruno Heller that Jeremiah might be a precursor to the Joker, but not the actual man. Which is not a bad way of getting around those executive decisions.

Batman: White Knight (2018) — Joker As the Good Guy?

For something totally different from your typical Joker story, but equally compelling, there's Sean Murphy's limited comics series that plays with the question of what would happen if the Joker suddenly, thanks to some mysterious medication, became sane? The series jumps quickly to its answer: He would take on the brutality he's received at the hands of Batman legally, calling into question his nemesis' methods and making Gotham question just how much leeway their alleged protector has gotten over the years. The meat of this happens in a courtroom testimony scene that wins over the crowd and launches "Jack Napier's" political career; it's just one twist in the story, but one which effectively uses the Joker to offer, let's say, a different perspective on who Batman is.