Anyone even thinking of writing the Joker for DC should check out the Golden Age stories featuring the villainous Clown, the arch-enemy of Magno and Davey, the Magnetic Lad. The Clown is way more bat-poop insane than the Joker ever was. I've always found the mass murder from the Joker to be kind of lame but when the Clown gacks people its freaky and chilling. The Joker kills as a plot device, the Clown kills because he gets off on it. The Clown also looks scarier than the Joker. He doesn't grin ear to ear because of an acid bath or nerve damage, his smile comes from sheer crazy.
In the following Cool Page the Clown beats up Davey in a home invasion, kidnaps and chains him up and dresses him in a clown suit after applying some electric mind-control.
This is also a story where there is so much Awesome that one page can't possibly contain it all without risk of an Awesome Explosion so I included a few extra panels. For instance, the disturbing Mentabelt scene.
That's just so wrong. Keep in mind that this was from a pre-Code comic and it wasn't yet against the rules of common sense not to twist impressionable little minds forever with scenes of homo-erotic bondage, child abuse and fluoridated water.
The Clown then forces Davey to commit evil crimes like beating up old people in a rest home and vandalizing the place. I kid you not.
That's just deranged.
From Super-Mystery v2 #1 (April 1941).
Tags: Golden Age Seduction of the Innocent
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3 hours ago
"...so the old fools will have no place to stay"
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think that was part of some larger master-plan, but it sounds like the Clown was just a 24-karat jerkwad.
Magno appears to be having a Montclair moment while doing some TNT-level thinking.