Uncertainty surrounds the Joker. In Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke, the Joker is given a definitive origin narrative, but the story ends with the Joker acknowledging that it could have been another lie. For years, fans have speculated about the character’s identity, with a few different identities being bandied about, and his true origin being close to being found.
Flashpoint Beyond #5 (written by Geoff Johns, Tim Sheridan, Jeremy Adams, Xermánico, Mikel Jann, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Jordie Bellaire, and Rob Leigh) revealed a multitude of information. However, nothing could compare to the shock value of what Flashpoint Joker told Thomas Wayne.
Since she had barely escaped death the previous time she was seen, the Flashpoint Batman’s wife had been studying time travel in secret. She had also been looking for time travelers in this alternate history, so she was familiar with the previous timeline’s inhabitants. The Joker was one of those people.
Joker’s real name is finally revealed: Jack Oswald White
In Flashpoint Beyond #5, the Flashpoint version of Martha Wayne, who became the Joker in her universe, revealed that she was told about the Joker in the main #DC Universe. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/BEFm98kSPN
— Startefacts (@startefacts_) September 7, 2022
Previously, Martha had questioned Psycho-Pirate on the discrepancies between the two versions of events. The true identity of the Joker, Jack Oswald White, was revealed to her by him. In this alternative history, he was a happily married man who raised a family at Wayne Casino. Flashpoint Joker opted to spare her counterpart’s life after killing everyone else connected to the canon DC universe. The primary reason being that she observed his family to be more content than her own.
Given how secret the Joker’s identity has been, this is a stunning turn of events. To give the character a proper name would be to risk ruining the mystery surrounding them, so no one has done so before. This discovery, however, connects to a different contemporary narrative that explored the Joker’s background in an effort to provide greater clarity.
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The ending of Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok’s Batman: Three Jokers was significantly more conclusive than hinted at by the title. One was killed by Jason Todd, while the other was killed by the one who was still alive, making the survivor the final Joker. In the final scene of “Three Jokers,” he is revealed to be the character’s authentic incarnation. His backstory not only mirrored the one presented in The Killing Joke, but also included an intriguing twist that bolstered the character’s credibility.
A week after meeting the Joker for the first time, Batman reveals to Alfred that he already knew his name in the last pages of Batman: Three Jokers. There were two clues on this line. The first is that after Batman met the Joker, he quickly stopped taking the other two seriously.
The second is that the origin of the Joker as shown in The Killing Joke is factual, albeit with one key detail that the Joker himself is unaware of. Instead of dying, his wife and child simply fled. This issue’s Flashpoint Joker refers to the same family, but in this version of events, everyone gets along famously and lives happily ever after.
As the events of Three Jokers came to a close, Batman made it clear that the public must never learn the Joker’s identity lest the press discover where his family has been forced to go into hiding. It wouldn’t take long for the Joker to figure that out and then come back to kill them.
The fact that Martha disclosed it in a setting where the Joker’s identity would not be compromised hints that this is, in fact, his true name. His real name and background can now both be officially confirmed. It seems as though all of Joker’s mystique has been lifted, but is that really the case? Throughout the years, various monikers have been proposed for the Joker.
According to polls, Jack Napier has more fans than anyone else. A character named Jack White first appeared in the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum. One of the concerns with this new information is that it has been used as an alias previously and might be used as one again.
Another explanation is that the Joker’s moniker was already familiar to Psycho-Pirate. In spite of his special circumstances, he has no business knowing it. Not only that, but Three Jokers hasn’t even been officially recognised as canon, which would undermine the significance of this discovery. Both fans who believe Joker’s origins should be left a mystery and those who desire a conclusive answer will find something here to their liking.