Mark Hamill has revealed that he felt the Batman Arkham Trilogy allowed him to be a “New Joker” compared to his previous interpretations of the villain.
The revelation came from Mark Hamill’s X account (formerly Twitter), where he quoted a post celebrating the 12th anniversary of Batman: Arkham City, which is widely hailed as one of the greatest superhero video games of all time. Hamill noted that because the Batman Arkham Trilogy, produced by Rocksteady Studios, was aimed at a more mature audience and not bound by the constraints of TV censors and Hollywood practices, he could be a “whole new Joker.”
How Arkham Freed The Joker
Mark Hamill was first cast as The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. The show broke many boundaries regarding superhero shows by depicting Batman and other characters as more “serious” and “dark” and showcasing violent events. However, due to the restrictions of the time, things like death couldn’t be shown, and characters like Joker thus had to settle for using his Joker Toxin to make people laugh constantly versus simply killing them like the Clown Prince of Crime does in DC Comics. In contrast, as an M-rated game, the Batman Arkham Trilogy had no such constraints.
While Hamill was already dubbed the “definitive voice of Joker” by most fans and critics, the Batman Arkham Trilogy allowed him to truly dive into the character and his relationship with Batman to deliver quintessential moments that still resonate with fans today. Hamill also got to do monologs that showed the depths of Joker’s insanity yet still conveyed how brilliant he was as a villain. His impact in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City was so grand that even though the character died in the sequel, Hamill returned for Batman: Arkham Knight as a “remnant” of The Joker that resided in Batman’s mind that haunted him, teasing the Dark Knight and trying to take over his mind.
Outside of the Batman Arkham Trilogy, the most violent forms of Joker that Mark Hamill played were in two animated movies: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman: The Killing Joke. Mask of the Phantasm was an extension of Batman: The Animated Series and allowed more violent things to be done in the animation, including Joker bleeding and outright killing people. The Killing Joke was an adaptation of the legendary/infamous DC Comics tale that let Hamill recreate one of the darkest moments in Joker’s fabled history.
The Batman Arkham Trilogy will arrive on Nintendo Switch on Dec. 1.
Source: X (formerly Twitter)
