Warning: contains spoilers for Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo #5!Batman and the Joker have been fighting for years, but every now and then they need to team up to face a bigger threat, and surprisingly their latest team-up features Joker getting a brand new Batsuit with an explosive secret purpose. As Joker-themed monsters begin to pop up all over Gotham, Batman even gives Joker his own tactical outfit to help fight back – one that’s hiding an awesome secret.
Readers get to see the Joker’s newest Batsuit in Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo #5 by Marc Silvestri and Arif Prianto. In this issue Batman and Joker are preparing to take on the Bride – someone who has been creating terrifying Joker ‘zombies.’ These monsters have increased strength, increased durability, and have no problem with killing. Naturally, this makes them a huge threat, but Batman has one genius plan to destroy the Jokerized monsters with the Joker himself. The Batsuit Joker is wearing is actually a bomb. Once it goes off it fires gas pellets in every direction, which causes the zombies’ bodies to start self-cannibalizing.
Joker Is an Anti-Zombie Bomb
It strains belief that Batman would ever trust Joker with any kind of weapon, but now fans see that the Dark Knight always intended to weaponize Joker without actually giving him control of advanced tech. Joker has been essential to defeating the monstrosities created in his image, but he’s as dangerous as ever, and is taking great joy in attempting to kill innocents while technically on Batman’s team. However, Bruce Wayne knows his enemy inside and out, and his seeming ‘gift’ ensured that the Joker would enact his plan whether he wanted to or not.
Batman Played Joker Like a Pro
It’s no surprise that Joker accepted Batman’s gift without suspecting its purpose, as he’s obsessed with ripping off the Dark Knight’s outfit. During the Joker War storyline, the Joker infamously wore a desecrated version of one of Batman’s experimental Batsuits. During Year of the Villain: Joker, the Clown Prince of Crime also wore on a Batsuit, albeit one he bought at a costume store, to fight crime in Gotham during Batman’s absence. And even recently, he wore another one in Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing. Batman clearly knows Joker well enough to know he loves the sacrilege of wearing the Bat-Symbol, and to play him accordingly.
Batman and Joker have been fighting each other for almost one hundred years at this point. They know each other better than any other hero and villain dynamic. This is exactly why Batman knew the one way to get Joker to do what he wanted was to simply give Joker his own Batsuit – one loaded with a powerful weapon over which he had zero control.
Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo #5 is out now from DC Comics!
