Really, Batman? “Come to poppa”?

They were pretty casual about the deaths.

Nitzan, I take it you haven’t seen the panel where Batman says “papa spank!”

I knew you’d have a lot to choose from when I saw the title of this post, but I’m still surprised you were able to get up to 5 by Batman #12. They sure stuck to an idea they liked back then.

To be fair William Hodge, it’s not that they were casual about death – at this point – The Bat-Man who carried a gun and had machine guns on the Batplane was more casual perhaps.

But rather the fall, crash, etc to your death – but oh no – not really, event was part of the readers fictional expectations. If you have seen any of the Saturday Movie Serials made at this time you’d see that kind of impossible/implausible escape from death happens all the time – in other words unless the comic shows the dead body with someone saying “he’s dead Jim” over the dead body, it’s not certain. And even when there is a corpse it’s still not certain.

I guess the closest modern-ish version is the way in which no one was ever shot on the A-Team TV series.

Back in the 60′s Marvel’s villains constantly seemed to die especially Dr. Doom. However, they were very good about explaining how they managed to survive when they showed back up. These days, they don’t even bother. If anyone dares ask about continuity they get called a whiny fanboy.

Yep time to pick up some more Batman Chronicles.

To me, this just makes the Joker look clumsy.

The lighthouse scene reminds me of the CSI: NY finale from last year.

I’m amused that in #5 Robin seems to quite consciously and deliberately try to kill the Joker: in the second panel he intentionally puts himself into a position where he can only flip the Joker over his head and off the railing, presumably down to this death. That’s one bloodthirsty little kid!

The Joker is secretly Wolverine under the white makeup, that’s why he’s able to keep coming back from those massive falls. He’s the best he is at what he does, and what he does is terribly funny.

I would think that after the 2nd fall, Batman and Robin would at least try to see if they can locate the body. They just seem like they stared down and said “oh well, he must be dead” and called it a day. I know that Jack Nicholson’s Joker died by falling in Batman, but I forgot what happened to Heath Ledger’s, although I do know his Joker fell also. Maybe the Joker should stop wearing those big clown shoes?

I love how bored Robin is due to the lack of criminal activity following the Joker’s death. That’s, like, mission accomplished, isn’t it? No crime, the citizens of Gotham safe?

Mental note: When trying to kill the Joker, make sure there aren’t any bodies of water for his ‘corpse’ to disappear into….

Heath Ledger’s Joker was left tied up, hanging upside down with a coat full of knives. How could he NOT get away? But if he comes back, I think he’ll be looking REALLY different.

And Lordy, I didn’t realize the Joker seemingly dying was from way back! I wonder how many times the Joker has seemingly died vs. captured/Arkhamed.

I’m amused that in #5 Robin seems to quite consciously and deliberately try to kill the Joker: in the second panel he intentionally puts himself into a position where he can only flip the Joker over his head and off the railing, presumably down to this death. That’s one bloodthirsty little kid!

He killed people even in his first appearance, knocking them down to fall to their deaths. Batman seeemed quite amused by it all. It’s kind of funny that later on when it was implied that Jason Todd knocked someone down to their death in the 80s it was a big problem for Batman.

I’d love if they kept that characterization for Dick Grayson: callous, bloodthirsty kid, but with the happy-go-lucky aw-shucks attitude!

Wow, that computer re-coloring is hideous. Especially that first panel with Robin, but really all of it.

I knew there’d be tons of stories to fit this pattern, but, dang, five in the first year the Joker was around? That’s insane. Absurd, even.

When you factor in how many times he’s fallen “to his death” since these, and that, when they finally got around to giving him an origin, it involved him falling “to his death” in a vat of chemicals, you’ve really got to wonder if the writers are just playing a huge joke on us, seeing how many times they can get away with this. Either that, or the Joker has a bizarre fetish that makes you wonder if he secretly commits crimes to get enough money for his bungee jumping/skydiving fixation.

I knew there’d be tons of stories to fit this pattern, but, dang, five in the first year the Joker was around? That’s insane. Absurd, even.

To be fair, Batman was a quarterly for its first four issues and then a bi-monthly book after that, so it was a little over two years between Joker’s first appearance in Batman #1 and his fifth “death” in Batman #12.

once or twice it is an accedent after that the guy is just clumsey . truthfull conisidering the first time he fell to his death was when he was the red hood and he landed in the chemical vat bleaching his skin I think he need to talk ot a docter about an inner ear infection

Getting socked in the jaw by the Batman and plunging to your apparent death doesn’t make you clumsy. Batman just has a wicked right hook.

Even today, killing the Joker seems to be rather a difficult proposition. Just off the top of my head, there was the end of “A Death in the Family,” where he took machine-gun fire to the chest at virtually point-blank range, after which he fell out of a helicopter to the water below; and the “Gotham Central” arc where he went on a shooting spree in the squadroom at GCPD headquarters before being shot multiple times in the back by Maggie Sawyer (which, by the way is exactly how cops are trained to shoot: Aim for center mass and empty the clip); and of course he most recently got SHOT BETWEEN THE EYES.
AND HE’S STILL ALIVE.

I like the idea that when the Joker is “dead”, all Batman and Robin do is sit around and yawn and talk about the Joker.

This also happened in the animated series episode, “The Laughing Fish”.

This even happened recently, in this week’s Batman #17.

Joker also falls into the ocean in the original comic book version of The Laughing Fish. Years later, Steve Engelhart wrote a follow up which showed the Joker bedeviling Aquaman in Atlantis. So at least we know where he ends up after all those falls in the water.