So then, the 52 worst DC Comics Characters

Cafe Society
61

It was Lex Luthor who said it.

[spoiler]To Alexander Luthor jr, who had been impersonating Lex while running the Secret Society of Supervillains to further his plan to recreate (and then recombine) the Multiverse. But he thought Joker was too unpredictable to be of use to him.

Lex, however, was not nearly so short-sighted, and he and the Joker tracked Alex down and…made a mess of him.[/spoiler]

62

Wasn’t the Joker. 'Twas Lex Luthor. [spoiler] Lex was mocking Alex Luthor, his interdimensional Doppleganger, much as Alex had mocked Lex a few issues earlier. See, Lex had double dealing with Alex himself since Alex’s presence gave Lex a case of the stupids. Lex was pissed at Alex for impersonating him.

The Joker was just upset that he wasn’t invited to Alex’s party to destroy the universe with all the other badguys.

While this is going on, the Joker is doing his thing upon the man who would have rewrit the cosmos in his own image, with the kind of style and aplomb that only the clown prince of crime can deliver.

The scene works for three reasons.

  1. It’s just cool.
  2. It reestablishes Luthor and the Joker as the top of the criminal food chain after they’ve been sidelined for months by the perpetrators of the Infinite Crisis.
  3. Alex’s brutal end contrasts to the mercy that the heroes show. Just a few pages earlier, Batman refuses to kill Alex (despite having him at his mercy, and thinking at the time that he had killed Nightwing). The heroes also imprison, rather than kill, Superboy-Prime, the other top Infinite Crisis offender. Given that Infinite Crisis was primarily about what heroism means and falling from good in its pursuit, it’s an important thematic point.[/spoiler]
63

Thanks guys (may I make that assumption :D?)

64

Hey, I only got 3 issues or so into IC. I just hate the Joker in general. And I hate that people love him. Ick ick ick.

65

Might I ask why?