Absolute Batman #15 (2025)

Alfred Pennyworth tells Batman the story of the man they know as the Joker. First there is the official story, that he is the latest scion of a dynasty of media moguls stretching back to the late 1800's. His great-great-grandfather, Joseph "Jack" Grimm, was an orphan who made his living as a street performer in Gotham. Jack's clown act was extremely popular and was recorded in one of the first films ever shot in 1888. He was able to parley this into a career on vaudeville when he grew up and eventually open his own theatre "Just Kidding", the precursor to J.K. Holdings, and was an early investor and producer in silent films. By the time he was forty he was rich and rubbed shoulders with Gotham's high society, but largely stayed out of the spotlight. He donated huge amounts to children's charities and officially died in 1938. Jack Grimm's son, Jack Grimm, Jr. took over the family business in the 1920's and expanded it, becoming an early financier of television. He also continued his father's legacy of philanthropy by opening orphanages all over the country. In the 1960's Jack Grimm III started one of the first cable networks in America and in the 80's Jack Grimm IV expanded J.K. into video games and took their philanthropic endeavours global. The Joker, Jack Grimm V, is the most successful of them all; his early investments in online gaming lead him to software and microchip development, taking his wealth almost to trillionaire status and vastly widening J.K.'s charitable programs. On paper, he's the culmination of five generations of a family finding success by making people laugh. The only strange thing about him is that he owns hundreds of tiny, remote, economically useless islands all over the world which he visits a few times a year, supposedly for solo big game hunting trips. However, Alfred's investigation shows that the truth about the Grimms is far more sinister. Jack Grimm I performed outside a dentist's office where they used nitrous oxide. Before performing he would sneak in and leak the gas into the alley, this would make spectators laugh at his act and also make them suggestible enough to hand over their money. As an adult Grimm secretly financed his supposed business rivals to play both sides against the middle; and all his successors did the same, funding both sides of every conflict including both the Allies and Axis in World War II. Right and left. Peace and war. Crime and prison. The Grimm family are in fact the most powerful crime family in history, playing everyone off against each other and profiting off the chaos, and that's what he reported to MI6. Meanwhile, the Joker lands his private jet on one of his islands off the coast of Colombia and heads off into the jungle alone, armed with an arsenal of blades, guns and crossbows. On the hunt he encounters a wildcat, which he wrestles to the ground and then brutally stabs to death. He hears a voice in the distance and follows it to a shack on the beach. A dishevelled old man sees him and calls out, saying he's been stranded there for thirty years. However, when the Joker gets close the old man recognises him and flees in terror, screaming that he can't be who he appears. Batman can tell there's more Pennyworth isn't saying and demands that he tell him. Alfred agrees, but warns him it will sound crazy. He reveals that when he investigated further he discovered that the people who were laughing at Jack Grimm's act in the old film reel all died after shooting finished, poisoned by strychnine. Throughout the decades people who crossed the Grimms came to mysterious bad ends, including an FBI agent he knew called Harvey Harris who disappeared in a freak boating accident in the 1990's. The Grimms also apparently financed the development of weapons of mass destruction, and would personally watch the tests while laughing, the only time the Grimm men were ever seen to laugh. He suspects that the Joker does not kill his enemies, he imprisons them on the islands for years until he decides to kill them. Batman tells him to keep going and Alfred tells him that he thinks Grimm is doing something with the children from the orphanages and the research from the Arks. Bruce yells at him to stop dancing around it and say what he really believes about who the Joker is. Finally Alfred admits that he believes there is no Grimm family, there has only ever been one Jack Grimm. Somehow, through magic or science; the man behind Ark M, the Party Animals and Bane is the same boy who was performing in the alley in 1888. On the island the Joker strips off his clothes as the marooned man, who is in fact Harvey Harris, tries to run for his life. The Joker shoots Harris in the ankle with a crossbow and then begins to change. His body warps and twists with the sound of cracking bones, his skin bleaches white, green horns and spikes sprout all over his head and back, his nails grow into claws and rows of snaggled teeth sprout in his jaws. Laughing maniacally, the Joker leaps on Harris, rips him apart with his bare hands and devours him. After hearing the story Batman leaves, ostensibly to check on Waylon Jones, but Alfred can tell he's struggling to process what he's heard. Alfred internally curses himself for unloading all of that on Batman because he couldn't stand being the only one who knew the secret anymore, even while Grimm is three thousand miles away from Gotham. However, unbeknownst to Alfred the Joker has arrived in Gotham from the island. The Joker watches Batman swinging overhead from the alley where he used to perform almost a century and a half ago, then drives to his manor outside the city. He tells his butler that he has plans to make and opens up a secret passageway behind a grandfather clock to reveal a staircase leading down. He goes down and tells the butler that he will be in "the cave".