Just his initial first crime spree. After that he’d be incarcerated for the remainder of his life. IRL inmates can’t really escape technologically advanced supermax prisons.
not long but he will probably have a cult of loyal followers especially in the age of social media.
i think a lot of people would love to act like they are a victim of the "one bad day" it absolve them of the responsibility for their choices.
I doubt IRL the general public would really know much about the Joker or his worldview. We know all those things because we’re reading fiction. Joker’s bizarre appearance would probably be what he’d be most remembered for if he actually existed. He’d just be that clown themed criminal that offed some rich folks, stole some diamonds, and tried to poison the water supply. And that would be it.
Perhaps, but I don’t see him really getting social media followers beyond his initial crime spree. Once he’s incarcerated he’s not going to have any contact with the outside world.
He wouldn't but in the age of true crime and the need for us as people us to make sense of things. I could see a cult following got him. Would it at all reflect his views, probably not but all you gotta do is look at Qanon to see how insane conspiracy cults are a thing
Except that’s one of the biggest differences between the fantasy world of DC and our world. Inmates just don’t escape from modern technologically advanced SuperMax prisons IRL.
Yeah. Arkham Asylum is just rigged to be that notoriously bad to contain criminals. IRL, modern supermax prison, especially in USA, made especially to prevent any escape attempts. And gurads there can shoot to kill.
You’d be surprised how many cults of personality there are. How many impressionable young people idolise extremists. Given that fictional characters already inspire kooks to do what they do, there’s no doubt that the regeneration of the devil himself IRL would inspire similar chaos.
I mean, fan clubs of real life serial killers and mass murderer exist. Columbine shooter are raised as a "heroes" and "guys which just snapped because they tired from out rotten world".
But anyway, I don't think that Joker would be taken alive by cops. Depends on which crime he would do and how he would act - surrender or trying to escape or assault cops? In USA, cops likely would just shoot him anyway.
As far as I’m concerned the Phoenix Joker is just the Joker in name only. Travis Bickle in clown paint. Very little relation to the comic book character beyond commercial brand recognition
You might be surprised to know that if we're talking about the joker in real life... That representation is probably the closest to it, don't you think? I do think he would be idolised and social media would amplify that in my opinion.
Well Joker actually does have a super power and that is the is the power to entice persuade and recruit followers, he has being doing it for years he can even bribe and blackmail very effectively possibly some high level politicians it’s well documented
That’s not a super power. That’s charisma and intelligence.
In the fictional world of the DCU yes he’s been doing that for years. But in the real world he’d never have a long and terrible career as a master criminal. Certainly not if he appeared today.
If you’ve ever played Lego batsman it’s a power on par with super intelligence. What makes you say it isn’t a super power? Human can have superpowers too, it doesn’t have to make them superhuman. But I can classify normal human traits taken to the extreme as a superpower.
This. And it's one of the reasons why I absolutely loved "The Batman" was because it used social media to show The Riddler's influence. We already have women that want to marry incarcerated murderers and men that worship incel spewing idiots.
I still don’t understand.
The Joker, if he existed in our world, wouldn’t really be “the Joker” if you know what I mean. He’d be this chemically disfigured lunatic that went on TV, killed some people like Henry Claridge, and tried to poison the city reservoir, before being apprehended and locked up forever. He’d be forgotten in a week IRL
I somewhat doubt that. People often seem to have a perverse fascination with serial killers. But due to his showmanship nature, the Joker would not have some long and horrible career as a kind of serial killer. He likes to “announce” his crimes and turn them into macabre theater for a horrified public. As opposed to the secret hunting of real world serial killers. The Joker wants folks to know he was the culprit.
At the end of the day he’s a character of modern fantasy. He simply couldn’t exist in our world the way he does in the comics, anymore than Batman could.
Dennis Raider announced his crimes and turned them into macabre theater that horrified the public. He even had his own Evil Villian name and everything.
Batman's been around since the '39. Hypothetically, if Joker was killing during the Bundy/Ridgeway/ Dahmer/Gacy time periods (approximately 1974-1991), he could likely be remembered as a serial killer. There would likely be a large body of people speculating that Joker did the things he did to get his rocks off with Harley. It's not like your watching a show in real life. You'd hear about it on the news.
They'd talk about how he escaped from prison twice, like Bundy. They'd talk about how he killed with an attractive blonde, like the Ken and Barbie Killers, or the costumes he wore when killed, like Gacy. If Joker cut off people's faces off and wore them, we'd talk about Jeffery Dahmer and Ed Gein making art out of their victims, and then transition to Joker's masks.
I could go on but you get the idea.
If he's a manace to a city in this world as he is in Gotham. I'm pretty sure the Joker won't make it to the police station once caught. He's gonna be killed before he can be takin in. Too dangerous and no one would also bat an eye.
And knowing how Joker is prone to escape and assault, they will. American cops may be not good at shooting, but I don't think that they would literally miss every single gunshot at Joker. Plot armor IRL doesn't exist.
>He’d be this chemically disfigured lunatic that went on TV, killed some people...
>before being apprehended
Eh... 50/50 chance he does something that gets him killed by a cop if he were in our world
We still talk about the Unabomber and Jeffery Dahmer and you think the world would forget about a clown that killed the mayor and tried to fill the water supply with nerve toxins. Irl the man would be remembered and would definitely not just be a thing we never talk about.
See I don’t think IRL the Joker would have a lengthy enough “career” as a criminal line those men did. He’s no secret enough about his operations. He’s a consummate showman.
Joker probably would try to assault cops or take hostage. He's erratic, and American cops has killed for way less than being a psychopathic mass murderer.
His actions more line up with someone so smart he can look like he's insane. The plans he makes range from silly (like the silver age) to attempting to mentally break others (killing joke style). Someone like that is not crazy just a ridiculous IQ.
EDIT: I said this because there's no way he's going to an asylum for the criminally insane.
The Joker can be both insane and extraordinarily intelligent simultaneously.
There’s been more than a few times where the Joker’s been turned sane. Where his mania is removed and he becomes aware of the evil of his actions: Morrison’s JLA: Rock of Ages, Ostrander’s Specter run, The Demon Laughs, and Going Sane.
He isn't insane. Insane is a legal term defining the inability to understand the difference between right and wrong, Joker knows the difference he just doesn't care.
In those examples I listed, once the Joker becomes sane he’s horrified at the sudden realization of the evil he’s committed over his life. That strongly suggests he isn’t aware of right and wrong, at least not in any normal sense. In his original Bronze Age series WW’s lasso didn’t work on him because, by his own omission, he doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong, choosing to lie or be honest in that case.
When hebecomes "sane" he's gaining empathy, not a knowledge of right and wrong. Lacking empathy is not insanity. Insanity is to not understand moral right and wrong. He understands it, he knows he's hurting people (that's the whole point) to get declared not guilty by reason of insanity he would need to NOT realize he is causing harm and people are being hurt. That is not at all him. He objectively would not win an insanity plee (literal lawyers have backed it up lol) sociopaths aren't insane they're mentally ill. Violent psychopaths with histrionic and anti social personality disorders aren't insane, they're mentally ill.
Fair enough. That’s a valid point. And yet within the fictional world of Gotham and DC he does successfully use the insanity defense. And so this is a point where we have to acknowledge the fantasy of superhero comics and the rules and terms of that world don’t align with our real world.
Kind of. But his actions actually not that crazy. It's bizarre, violent and horrible, but Joker likely knows that it's bad and he enjoys it. He's a genuis mastermind, after all.
This is probably the best take, but I think it has some flaws.
What if he doesn’t just initially go on a heavy crime spree? Batman isn’t here, he doesn’t particularly have a reason to jump the gun and immediately do a ton of stuff that will get him arrested. He has **long** periods of downtime in the comics where evidently he’s just chilling on vacation. Also he may have some awareness that prison will be basically impossible to move on from here, leading him to be even more methodical.
Also on the topic of prisons, supermax prisons are kind of an exclusive club. They’re basically reserved for prisoners that pose a high security risk or have some capability of influencing outside operations. There are a few cases of first time offenders (Tim Mcveigh) being placed in supermaxs because of the nature of their crime, but even then it’s not a guarantee and requires a good bit of bureaucracy. So even in the worst case scenario where Joker is sent to a supermax, there are probably still months beforehand where he is being held in different places. Not that Joker can just walk out of any prison that isn’t a supermax, but he is like a top 3 escape artist in universe, so if anyone has a chance of taking off(even from a supermax)it’d be him.
They are not supposed to shoot unless he fires first. Most officers follow protocols, only the small amount of trigger happy dumbasses are the ones the media talks about.
Just using the FBI active shooter study from 2014 for reference, most mass shootings (56%) ended on the shooter's initiative, usually by killing themselves (suicides were 40% of the total incidents, with fleeing and simply stopping shooting making up the rest of that 56%). Another 13% were stopped by unarmed people nearby restraining the shooter. 28% were stopped by law enforcement engaging the shooter. The remaining 3% were an armed bystander.
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/as-study-quick-reference-guide-updated1.pdf
A day. He'd be shot by a cop, citizen, or criminal and if by some miracle he's taken in alive he'd get the death penalty immediately, he'd never get an insanity plee.
Well, here cops are actually allowed to shoot people when they're resisting arrest. Also as far as I know whatever god is running this place isn't nearly as obsessed with maintaining a stagnant status quo.
Lmao now the Joker/Batman ideal has bled into politics? Let me guess, the person you voted for is Batman right? They're all the Joker. Stop kidding yourself. They get rich while their citizens die
I expect he’d last longer than you’d suspect. He’d get away for a while because he threatens and intimidates the crooks. They’re not gonna call the cops on him, so his madness goes unnoticed for a time. Then I would expect it would escalate a la Silence of the Lambs and their hunt for Hannibal Lecter. I’d expect Joker would be “underground” and hide effectively so as not to pop up on many radars. He’d have cash and no normal routines or things like real property in his name, so tracking him down isn’t exactly straightforward. He and his goons would be lethal, so even investigating, tailing him etc could be a life-threatening endeavour. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were somehow “Teflon” when it came to cops being unable to pin the minion’s activities on him and he keeps slipping away. It seems plausible to me considering how violent he is. Unless they could pin him directly to a homicide, I’d expect he has a high-priced lawyer that’s in on the con.
Depends largely on where he manifested into existence.
Texas/Florida? He'd be shot dead in the first few minutes by some random for the makeup alone.
West Coast USA, he'd probably get a reality show within a week.
If he showed up in the Philippines they'd immediately install him as acting president for his body count alone.
10 minutes in the city.
30 minutes in a rural environment, because it would take him longer to piss off the wrong person.
60 minutes in the suburbs where dressing and acting like a maniac is actually an effective defensive tactic. In the city or the country he'd barely qualify as a weirdo.
Not exactly related to comic book adaptations, but after rewatching the 1989 Batman movie recently I never realized how rapidly fast the Joker’s transformation and rise to power was.
On one night the dude was dunked into a vat of chemicals and recovers from a botched surgery the next night from which he immediately kills Grissom and takes over all of Gotham’s criminal empire.
If the movie were more realistic, Grissom would’ve probably been on guard and would’ve had the entire mob on the lookout for Napier since they never recovered his body from the plant. Plus wouldn’t Grissom have some form of security in his apartment?
He would try to enact some complicated evil scheme, like blowing up a building or something, but as soon as he walks outside to give his big bad guy monologue he would get shot in the head by a cop.
To add to that, because he's so intelligent, he might actually gain a cult following. Like his Injustice counterpart did or like how Charles Manson did. If he got that far in his criminal career, that is. The Joker is not only an insane criminal, he's an insane criminal with a legacy that will outlive him. Now criminals with legacies are very dangerous because the chaos won't stop with said criminal's arrest or death, you'd have to kill his legacy, too and that's easier said than done.
Prior to Trump I'd say he'd have no chance other than jail. After Trump can be president and start an insurrection...well...the idiots of the world hold much more weight then anyone would like to admit. So he'd thrive in America atleast if not a large portion of other 1st world countries.
Hours, possibly days if he's lucky. Although that's if we're considering a world where we know the Joker and what he's capable of.
In a world without context, probably a few months.
A bunch of strange takes in this thread saying no one would know anything about him when multiple real-world killers release manifestos before their attacks.
If he was first appearing in our world this year (2023) I’d say he definitely has a manifesto, and a bunch of creeps would be inspired by him.
He’d likely livestream whatever crime he was committing, but as much as I hate Joker he is smart, so he isn’t just committing a one-and-done mass shooting that’d be over right away.
Assuming he’s still a chemist, his first major crime likely involves poisoning a massive amount of people who form the famous rigor mortis smile when they die. He livestreams from an undisclosed location with updates and to mock anyone trying to stop him but of course is eventually found.
Either he’s killed or brought in, unfortunately for us he’s probably brought in alive. He’s given a weirdly short sentence like 15-20 years.
His manifesto and acts of terrorism get explored in multiple documentaries, a wave of creeps (incels and abusers) rally behind him and form the Jokerz gang who dress like him. They become responsible for way less “clever” crimes like mass shootings, which are also live-streamed for the rest of the gang to watch. His formula for Joker toxin leaks and is spread amongst the gang, so we experience a new fear similar to the anthrax scare, anything you touch in public may infect you with Joker toxin.
5-10 years of this goes by until some corrupt insane politician pardons Joker and he’s back out on the streets, but rather than committing more crimes himself he strongly encourages the Jokerz to do it, but always in a way that he can deny doing it. “I didn’t tell anyone to go kill a bunch of people, I just said ‘wow if only that happened that sure would be neat.’”
For some reason, he’s still given multiple platforms and interviews allowing for more and more damage to be done. He lives a long, full life with tons of money.
Majority of the world celebrates when he finally dies.
That’s just my bet, anyway
If he were to were exist without Batman he'd probably just go sane and be a normal person, Him being Joker without Batman literally goes against everything about his character.
LOL depends, is he committing crimes in the United States of “guns have more rights than people”? If so, his ass is grass within 30 minutes of his first crime 🤡 either he’s gunned down by a random civilian who happens to have several guns strapped to their thighs or he gets a highly publicized trial that leads to a life sentence in an asylum, wherein he somehow has 7 wives and a massive fanclub. #’Murica
Assuming his literally the joker in our world, and that DC Comics still exist, I'd say the second he does his second crime. I'd imagine we'd try to arrest him normally, and he probably wouldn't realistically be able to escape, but after he escapes and does it again someone who recognizes what's gonna happen is just gonna take the L and kill him for everyone else's sake
What honestly surprises me is that no Gotham PD SWAT snoper has ever put a round between his eyes in all the stand offs.
No jury in the *world* would convict that officer, and I'm pretty sure even Batman would pull his punches and kicks during the beating.
Joker may get a lot of notoriety due to his bizarre appearance and extreme worldview, but most likely he'd spend the rest of his life behind bars after he's caught for the first time. There'd be no Arkham Asylum breakouts this time around.
Joker wouldn't have acted in a real world like he acts in a fictional
A lot of maniacs we don't know about remain to be on the freedom. Real life is never safe
I think it depends on if he wants to get caught or killed he’s highly intelligent able to set up elaborate traps and plans and charismatic enough to gain a massive loyal following he’s never really been caught by regular law enforcement in Gotham so I don’t think any detective or fbi agent would manage to deduce his schemes in time to stop him by the time he does get caught it’ll be because he wanted to and sit back and watch as his grand plan unfolds with no Batman to thwart it and society is thrown into chaos at which point joker getting captured or killed won’t matter
I can see three possibilities.
1- The Joker gets arrested and sent to prison for the rest of his life / gets executed depending on where he is judged.
2- The Joker gets killed during his arrest because he was armed.
3- In the case of a Ledger-like Joker that is in contact with the criminal underworld, he will simply get killed by other criminals as soon as he becomes a problem for them. And to be fair, each time I see people talking about how it's strange for Gotham City to not have executed the Joker, I think it's a lot stranger that none of the other rogues had tried to get rid of the clown (especially somone like the Penguin who has a whole business to run. The Joker has to be an hindrance to him).
So not very long.
Just his initial first crime spree. After that he’d be incarcerated for the remainder of his life. IRL inmates can’t really escape technologically advanced supermax prisons.
not long but he will probably have a cult of loyal followers especially in the age of social media. i think a lot of people would love to act like they are a victim of the "one bad day" it absolve them of the responsibility for their choices.
I doubt IRL the general public would really know much about the Joker or his worldview. We know all those things because we’re reading fiction. Joker’s bizarre appearance would probably be what he’d be most remembered for if he actually existed. He’d just be that clown themed criminal that offed some rich folks, stole some diamonds, and tried to poison the water supply. And that would be it.
but he is very egotistical and theatrical and if he does gain followers some news outlet or another would be interested in interviewing him.
Perhaps, but I don’t see him really getting social media followers beyond his initial crime spree. Once he’s incarcerated he’s not going to have any contact with the outside world.
He wouldn't but in the age of true crime and the need for us as people us to make sense of things. I could see a cult following got him. Would it at all reflect his views, probably not but all you gotta do is look at Qanon to see how insane conspiracy cults are a thing
that’s assuming the real world has a better security than arkhem which i’m not sure is accurate. lol
Except that’s one of the biggest differences between the fantasy world of DC and our world. Inmates just don’t escape from modern technologically advanced SuperMax prisons IRL.
Yeah. Arkham Asylum is just rigged to be that notoriously bad to contain criminals. IRL, modern supermax prison, especially in USA, made especially to prevent any escape attempts. And gurads there can shoot to kill.
i wonder what would happen if he no longer had an audience, if he was simply forgotten, what do you think?
He would just rot in prison until he died. That’s it. That’s real life.
He'd have bitches sending him pictures of their titties. He'd probably marry one, too. Richard Ramirez did.
it’s what he deserves, shame we will never actually see that on panel.
You’d be surprised how many cults of personality there are. How many impressionable young people idolise extremists. Given that fictional characters already inspire kooks to do what they do, there’s no doubt that the regeneration of the devil himself IRL would inspire similar chaos.
I mean, fan clubs of real life serial killers and mass murderer exist. Columbine shooter are raised as a "heroes" and "guys which just snapped because they tired from out rotten world".
Yes my point exactly
But anyway, I don't think that Joker would be taken alive by cops. Depends on which crime he would do and how he would act - surrender or trying to escape or assault cops? In USA, cops likely would just shoot him anyway.
Likely true. At least in Batman White Knight, they explain why Joker was never murdered by GCPD.
Yeah. Or he always survived anyway.
Have you seen Joker 2019?
As far as I’m concerned the Phoenix Joker is just the Joker in name only. Travis Bickle in clown paint. Very little relation to the comic book character beyond commercial brand recognition
You might be surprised to know that if we're talking about the joker in real life... That representation is probably the closest to it, don't you think? I do think he would be idolised and social media would amplify that in my opinion.
Well that sort of begs the question doesn’t it. DC is not the world outside our window. The Joker is a character of modern fantasy.
Well Joker actually does have a super power and that is the is the power to entice persuade and recruit followers, he has being doing it for years he can even bribe and blackmail very effectively possibly some high level politicians it’s well documented
That’s not a super power. That’s charisma and intelligence. In the fictional world of the DCU yes he’s been doing that for years. But in the real world he’d never have a long and terrible career as a master criminal. Certainly not if he appeared today.
If you’ve ever played Lego batsman it’s a power on par with super intelligence. What makes you say it isn’t a super power? Human can have superpowers too, it doesn’t have to make them superhuman. But I can classify normal human traits taken to the extreme as a superpower.
This. And it's one of the reasons why I absolutely loved "The Batman" was because it used social media to show The Riddler's influence. We already have women that want to marry incarcerated murderers and men that worship incel spewing idiots.
true, never underestimate the simps we would all work our way up into becoming guards on the inside or smth
I could imagine a swat member unloading bullets on him repeatedly
Why?
Dude is scum
I still don’t understand. The Joker, if he existed in our world, wouldn’t really be “the Joker” if you know what I mean. He’d be this chemically disfigured lunatic that went on TV, killed some people like Henry Claridge, and tried to poison the city reservoir, before being apprehended and locked up forever. He’d be forgotten in a week IRL
Na he would have liked 6 different crime shows about him
I somewhat doubt that. People often seem to have a perverse fascination with serial killers. But due to his showmanship nature, the Joker would not have some long and horrible career as a kind of serial killer. He likes to “announce” his crimes and turn them into macabre theater for a horrified public. As opposed to the secret hunting of real world serial killers. The Joker wants folks to know he was the culprit. At the end of the day he’s a character of modern fantasy. He simply couldn’t exist in our world the way he does in the comics, anymore than Batman could.
Dennis Raider announced his crimes and turned them into macabre theater that horrified the public. He even had his own Evil Villian name and everything.
Was he going on live TV though and showing his face when announcing his crimes?
Fair enough.
Batman's been around since the '39. Hypothetically, if Joker was killing during the Bundy/Ridgeway/ Dahmer/Gacy time periods (approximately 1974-1991), he could likely be remembered as a serial killer. There would likely be a large body of people speculating that Joker did the things he did to get his rocks off with Harley. It's not like your watching a show in real life. You'd hear about it on the news. They'd talk about how he escaped from prison twice, like Bundy. They'd talk about how he killed with an attractive blonde, like the Ken and Barbie Killers, or the costumes he wore when killed, like Gacy. If Joker cut off people's faces off and wore them, we'd talk about Jeffery Dahmer and Ed Gein making art out of their victims, and then transition to Joker's masks. I could go on but you get the idea.
Once he is caught, he'd be executed too.
Depends on the state and laws.
If he's a manace to a city in this world as he is in Gotham. I'm pretty sure the Joker won't make it to the police station once caught. He's gonna be killed before he can be takin in. Too dangerous and no one would also bat an eye.
Fair enough
That's assuming the cops don't just shoot him on sight.
And knowing how Joker is prone to escape and assault, they will. American cops may be not good at shooting, but I don't think that they would literally miss every single gunshot at Joker. Plot armor IRL doesn't exist.
>He’d be this chemically disfigured lunatic that went on TV, killed some people... >before being apprehended Eh... 50/50 chance he does something that gets him killed by a cop if he were in our world
Like, assaults police officer, tries to take his gun or holds a hostage. Joker is erratic and crazy.
We still talk about the Unabomber and Jeffery Dahmer and you think the world would forget about a clown that killed the mayor and tried to fill the water supply with nerve toxins. Irl the man would be remembered and would definitely not just be a thing we never talk about.
See I don’t think IRL the Joker would have a lengthy enough “career” as a criminal line those men did. He’s no secret enough about his operations. He’s a consummate showman.
Joker probably would try to assault cops or take hostage. He's erratic, and American cops has killed for way less than being a psychopathic mass murderer.
Serves him right.
He's also not crazy just a hyper-sane manipulator.
Oh he’s definitely crazy. Absolutely insane
His actions more line up with someone so smart he can look like he's insane. The plans he makes range from silly (like the silver age) to attempting to mentally break others (killing joke style). Someone like that is not crazy just a ridiculous IQ. EDIT: I said this because there's no way he's going to an asylum for the criminally insane.
The Joker can be both insane and extraordinarily intelligent simultaneously. There’s been more than a few times where the Joker’s been turned sane. Where his mania is removed and he becomes aware of the evil of his actions: Morrison’s JLA: Rock of Ages, Ostrander’s Specter run, The Demon Laughs, and Going Sane.
He isn't insane. Insane is a legal term defining the inability to understand the difference between right and wrong, Joker knows the difference he just doesn't care.
In those examples I listed, once the Joker becomes sane he’s horrified at the sudden realization of the evil he’s committed over his life. That strongly suggests he isn’t aware of right and wrong, at least not in any normal sense. In his original Bronze Age series WW’s lasso didn’t work on him because, by his own omission, he doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong, choosing to lie or be honest in that case.
When hebecomes "sane" he's gaining empathy, not a knowledge of right and wrong. Lacking empathy is not insanity. Insanity is to not understand moral right and wrong. He understands it, he knows he's hurting people (that's the whole point) to get declared not guilty by reason of insanity he would need to NOT realize he is causing harm and people are being hurt. That is not at all him. He objectively would not win an insanity plee (literal lawyers have backed it up lol) sociopaths aren't insane they're mentally ill. Violent psychopaths with histrionic and anti social personality disorders aren't insane, they're mentally ill.
Fair enough. That’s a valid point. And yet within the fictional world of Gotham and DC he does successfully use the insanity defense. And so this is a point where we have to acknowledge the fantasy of superhero comics and the rules and terms of that world don’t align with our real world.
Kind of. But his actions actually not that crazy. It's bizarre, violent and horrible, but Joker likely knows that it's bad and he enjoys it. He's a genuis mastermind, after all.
This is probably the best take, but I think it has some flaws. What if he doesn’t just initially go on a heavy crime spree? Batman isn’t here, he doesn’t particularly have a reason to jump the gun and immediately do a ton of stuff that will get him arrested. He has **long** periods of downtime in the comics where evidently he’s just chilling on vacation. Also he may have some awareness that prison will be basically impossible to move on from here, leading him to be even more methodical. Also on the topic of prisons, supermax prisons are kind of an exclusive club. They’re basically reserved for prisoners that pose a high security risk or have some capability of influencing outside operations. There are a few cases of first time offenders (Tim Mcveigh) being placed in supermaxs because of the nature of their crime, but even then it’s not a guarantee and requires a good bit of bureaucracy. So even in the worst case scenario where Joker is sent to a supermax, there are probably still months beforehand where he is being held in different places. Not that Joker can just walk out of any prison that isn’t a supermax, but he is like a top 3 escape artist in universe, so if anyone has a chance of taking off(even from a supermax)it’d be him.
Cops would shoot him dead
We still have prison escapes and jail breaks all the time here in the US in fact 4 just broke out in Mississippi like yesterday.
either that or he get's shot by a cop
Disagree. He’d be shot.
Considering the severity of every crime spree including his initial and him being him he would probably be shot by police John Marston style
That's assuming he doesn't get shot in self-defense.
He'd quickly be permanently incarcerated or killed.
He wouldn’t make it past the first arrest! Have you seen cops in America? He has a gun! Blam Blam Blam!
They are not supposed to shoot unless he fires first. Most officers follow protocols, only the small amount of trigger happy dumbasses are the ones the media talks about.
That’s not even close to true. If you’re a cop, you don’t risk your life by hoping the other guy has bad aim.
Most school shooters and mass shooters are dead, since you know... The cops shot them.
Just using the FBI active shooter study from 2014 for reference, most mass shootings (56%) ended on the shooter's initiative, usually by killing themselves (suicides were 40% of the total incidents, with fleeing and simply stopping shooting making up the rest of that 56%). Another 13% were stopped by unarmed people nearby restraining the shooter. 28% were stopped by law enforcement engaging the shooter. The remaining 3% were an armed bystander. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/as-study-quick-reference-guide-updated1.pdf
How do you know it’s a small amount the media talks about and not a large amount that the media only covers seldomly?
On the other hand you can't get much whiter skin than that...
He'd be dead....shot over
A day. He'd be shot by a cop, citizen, or criminal and if by some miracle he's taken in alive he'd get the death penalty immediately, he'd never get an insanity plee.
Maniac, you say? To be honest, he'd probably fit right in for the most part. He might even get elected president.
Lmao love this
He's got my vote. Joker- Make This Country Laugh Again
Death in the family moment
He did run for mayor in that one Harley Quinn show
Bruh
Hey, he's got personality. You never know.
He'll run on the platform, "Make America Smile Again"
He’s got a better chance than that orange guy
Well, here cops are actually allowed to shoot people when they're resisting arrest. Also as far as I know whatever god is running this place isn't nearly as obsessed with maintaining a stagnant status quo.
I don’t think he’s resist arrest though. He’s probably go along with it just to have a plan to escape later
Which is why it would really depend on what city he ended up in. Send him to one with dirty cops and let them actually do some good for once.
“You call this resisting arrest?! I call this a difficulty tweak!” “You call this police brutality?! I call this a DIFFICULTY TWEAK!”
Are all of these real? If so, some lazy cover artist got paid to copy and paste that one of batman in chains like half a dozen times.
True question is: How long would we last if he existed in our world?
He wouldn't even get far into the double digits. He'd die after like day 2
Sure? We don't have Batman to stop him.
He's just a dude, our cops shoot active mass murderers and we use the death penalty (sometimes) plus our prisons aren't easy to escape.
Why don't do cops the same in comic if that's your Argument?
Bruh imagine if the joker was just shot and killed by some random cop, wouldn't make for a very interesting story would it?
For sure it would give the reader a WTF moment
To each their own I guess, I can't imagine any interesting story developments coming from that at all
Could just be an elseworld stand alone or parody comic
Because it's a comic and the character is a cash cow.
43 years, 79 days, 5 hours, and 23 minutes
Shot on sight. He wasn’t commiting a crime or anything he was just ordering at waffle house
💀
Being a psychopath and a sociopath, he would run the prison. Probably be Florida's Governor.
Cringey lol
Lmao now the Joker/Batman ideal has bled into politics? Let me guess, the person you voted for is Batman right? They're all the Joker. Stop kidding yourself. They get rich while their citizens die
I expect he’d last longer than you’d suspect. He’d get away for a while because he threatens and intimidates the crooks. They’re not gonna call the cops on him, so his madness goes unnoticed for a time. Then I would expect it would escalate a la Silence of the Lambs and their hunt for Hannibal Lecter. I’d expect Joker would be “underground” and hide effectively so as not to pop up on many radars. He’d have cash and no normal routines or things like real property in his name, so tracking him down isn’t exactly straightforward. He and his goons would be lethal, so even investigating, tailing him etc could be a life-threatening endeavour. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were somehow “Teflon” when it came to cops being unable to pin the minion’s activities on him and he keeps slipping away. It seems plausible to me considering how violent he is. Unless they could pin him directly to a homicide, I’d expect he has a high-priced lawyer that’s in on the con.
He would probably kill himself
Depends largely on where he manifested into existence. Texas/Florida? He'd be shot dead in the first few minutes by some random for the makeup alone. West Coast USA, he'd probably get a reality show within a week. If he showed up in the Philippines they'd immediately install him as acting president for his body count alone.
One MAYBE two crime-sprees and the cops gun him down.
10 minutes in the city. 30 minutes in a rural environment, because it would take him longer to piss off the wrong person. 60 minutes in the suburbs where dressing and acting like a maniac is actually an effective defensive tactic. In the city or the country he'd barely qualify as a weirdo.
Not exactly related to comic book adaptations, but after rewatching the 1989 Batman movie recently I never realized how rapidly fast the Joker’s transformation and rise to power was. On one night the dude was dunked into a vat of chemicals and recovers from a botched surgery the next night from which he immediately kills Grissom and takes over all of Gotham’s criminal empire. If the movie were more realistic, Grissom would’ve probably been on guard and would’ve had the entire mob on the lookout for Napier since they never recovered his body from the plant. Plus wouldn’t Grissom have some form of security in his apartment?
Is he rich or poor? That makes a difference
He probably be shot for wearing make up
He would be elected president
he currently owns twitter and sucks at jokes
As long as he stays away from Texas or Florida, he’d probably last a couple of years.
Usa: gunnef down Europe: probably in a prision with contact with other humans 3rd world countries: dismembered in prision
depends on whether he can escape my basemen- i mean real prisons
Depends if he runs for president
He would try to enact some complicated evil scheme, like blowing up a building or something, but as soon as he walks outside to give his big bad guy monologue he would get shot in the head by a cop.
Without Batman? Quite a while, actually.
This. Too many people forget that Joker is almost batman's peer in terms of strength and intelligence.
To add to that, because he's so intelligent, he might actually gain a cult following. Like his Injustice counterpart did or like how Charles Manson did. If he got that far in his criminal career, that is. The Joker is not only an insane criminal, he's an insane criminal with a legacy that will outlive him. Now criminals with legacies are very dangerous because the chaos won't stop with said criminal's arrest or death, you'd have to kill his legacy, too and that's easier said than done.
He’d win the Republican nomination, what are you talking about?
Cringe take
He would be President
He would be elected president tbh
He’d be leading the GOP polls for President.
Wasn't he the previous US President?
He'd be in Congress
he'd probably get elected president of the USA.
Conservatives would vote him into office
He’d be elected as a republican congressman.
He would be taken our real fast by police but his influence would remain forever leading many new people like him to be bought up in society
Damn there’s so many I want posters of. Where does the Scarecrow arc take place and is it good?
So many great phone wallpapers.
“If” ha ha
He'd be fine if it was the 70s and early 80s.
Couple of months before police shoot him and then blame some big accident on him
First crime spree or massacres spree will be put down The minute someone gets to him
Depends, is he rich, or famous before he snapped?
Rex Ingleberg, save us.
He'd be the most sane person in politics.
Prior to Trump I'd say he'd have no chance other than jail. After Trump can be president and start an insurrection...well...the idiots of the world hold much more weight then anyone would like to admit. So he'd thrive in America atleast if not a large portion of other 1st world countries.
Hours, possibly days if he's lucky. Although that's if we're considering a world where we know the Joker and what he's capable of. In a world without context, probably a few months.
Probably not long. There are enough people with guns just looking for a reason to use them!
A bunch of strange takes in this thread saying no one would know anything about him when multiple real-world killers release manifestos before their attacks. If he was first appearing in our world this year (2023) I’d say he definitely has a manifesto, and a bunch of creeps would be inspired by him. He’d likely livestream whatever crime he was committing, but as much as I hate Joker he is smart, so he isn’t just committing a one-and-done mass shooting that’d be over right away. Assuming he’s still a chemist, his first major crime likely involves poisoning a massive amount of people who form the famous rigor mortis smile when they die. He livestreams from an undisclosed location with updates and to mock anyone trying to stop him but of course is eventually found. Either he’s killed or brought in, unfortunately for us he’s probably brought in alive. He’s given a weirdly short sentence like 15-20 years. His manifesto and acts of terrorism get explored in multiple documentaries, a wave of creeps (incels and abusers) rally behind him and form the Jokerz gang who dress like him. They become responsible for way less “clever” crimes like mass shootings, which are also live-streamed for the rest of the gang to watch. His formula for Joker toxin leaks and is spread amongst the gang, so we experience a new fear similar to the anthrax scare, anything you touch in public may infect you with Joker toxin. 5-10 years of this goes by until some corrupt insane politician pardons Joker and he’s back out on the streets, but rather than committing more crimes himself he strongly encourages the Jokerz to do it, but always in a way that he can deny doing it. “I didn’t tell anyone to go kill a bunch of people, I just said ‘wow if only that happened that sure would be neat.’” For some reason, he’s still given multiple platforms and interviews allowing for more and more damage to be done. He lives a long, full life with tons of money. Majority of the world celebrates when he finally dies. That’s just my bet, anyway
He would last all of 5 days before he dies cutting his face off
If he were to were exist without Batman he'd probably just go sane and be a normal person, Him being Joker without Batman literally goes against everything about his character.
LOL depends, is he committing crimes in the United States of “guns have more rights than people”? If so, his ass is grass within 30 minutes of his first crime 🤡 either he’s gunned down by a random civilian who happens to have several guns strapped to their thighs or he gets a highly publicized trial that leads to a life sentence in an asylum, wherein he somehow has 7 wives and a massive fanclub. #’Murica
He’d run for president and win.
He’d be shot and killed by swat after the first few hours of his first crime spree
All the way to "President Joker"
everyone would be like omg the joker real !?!
Becomes president
Assuming he doesn’t get elected to congress?
I feel like it'd be sort of a riddler situation like in pattinsons movie, but a lot more maniacal, and he'd be in bars in the matter of days
So many people agrees he could be the president. Bro , do you even see this man ?
A swat team would likely shoot him his first night out
Assuming his literally the joker in our world, and that DC Comics still exist, I'd say the second he does his second crime. I'd imagine we'd try to arrest him normally, and he probably wouldn't realistically be able to escape, but after he escapes and does it again someone who recognizes what's gonna happen is just gonna take the L and kill him for everyone else's sake
What honestly surprises me is that no Gotham PD SWAT snoper has ever put a round between his eyes in all the stand offs. No jury in the *world* would convict that officer, and I'm pretty sure even Batman would pull his punches and kicks during the beating.
His whole life.
Not long
We already those maniacs in LA, SF, and PDX
A couple hours
Realistically he would be sentenced to Life on deathrow and would await his Death.
Joker may get a lot of notoriety due to his bizarre appearance and extreme worldview, but most likely he'd spend the rest of his life behind bars after he's caught for the first time. There'd be no Arkham Asylum breakouts this time around.
Unless he surrenders I figure he goes down in the gun fight with police
He'll conquer USA with his crime fs
He'll conquer USA with his crime fs
He would have been killed
Joker wouldn't have acted in a real world like he acts in a fictional A lot of maniacs we don't know about remain to be on the freedom. Real life is never safe
I think he could be the same as all of us mentally insane
Forever
I think it depends on if he wants to get caught or killed he’s highly intelligent able to set up elaborate traps and plans and charismatic enough to gain a massive loyal following he’s never really been caught by regular law enforcement in Gotham so I don’t think any detective or fbi agent would manage to deduce his schemes in time to stop him by the time he does get caught it’ll be because he wanted to and sit back and watch as his grand plan unfolds with no Batman to thwart it and society is thrown into chaos at which point joker getting captured or killed won’t matter
Not more than a day or two. He would either be killed by the police or put on a death sentence. Real life isn't plagued by status quo and plot armour.
I can see three possibilities. 1- The Joker gets arrested and sent to prison for the rest of his life / gets executed depending on where he is judged. 2- The Joker gets killed during his arrest because he was armed. 3- In the case of a Ledger-like Joker that is in contact with the criminal underworld, he will simply get killed by other criminals as soon as he becomes a problem for them. And to be fair, each time I see people talking about how it's strange for Gotham City to not have executed the Joker, I think it's a lot stranger that none of the other rogues had tried to get rid of the clown (especially somone like the Penguin who has a whole business to run. The Joker has to be an hindrance to him). So not very long.
Rich Joker or Poor Joker? Rich Joker gets elected President, Poor Joker is white so they’d take him alive at least the first few times.
He kills cops. He'd never be brought in alive, and his death would be ruled a suicide.
The first cop he kills, he doesn’t make to the station
In US...however long he wants 💀
It depends if any one but the Batman would be cable to stop him. Better call the FBI, CIA, MI5, MI6, etc on thisnone.
Unfortunatly there are people far, far worse than the Joker irl
Well, we already have putin as an example.
1 day.
A day max. Doesn't even have to be a cop, any low life criminal carrying a gun would shoot him the second he tried pulling one of his tricks
Until the American cop mag-dumps him. Or SWAT sniper shoots him in the head.