Joker

FOX’s Gotham may have beefed up its Bat-cred to introduce Hugo Strange and Mr. Freeze, but may always have something of grey (er, green) area when it comes to proto-Jokers. We’ve seen one laughed off already, but new photos from an upcoming hour feature Orange is the New Black star Lori Petty looking an awful lot like the Clown Prince of Crime. Harley too!

In honor of the caped crusaders of the convention scene, ComicsAlliance has created Best Cosplay Ever (This Week), an ongoing collection of some of the most impeccable, creative, and clever costumes that we’ve discovered and assembled into a super-showcase of pure fan-devoted talent.

For the past few months, DC Collectibles has been hinting at a series of statues based on the Suicide Squad coming out later this summer. However, the solicitations from DC Comics' toy and statue department have been absent any actual pictures of the inmates from Belle Reve that sign up for a mission that may very well kill them. With the release of the new trailer however, the floodgates have opened, and DC's finally given the Suicide Squad their due. Six of the Suicide Squad's members will be getting high-end statues from DC Collectibles, all of which were revealed for the first time by USA Today. All feature actor likenesses and the costumes they don during what I'm assuming is the latter half of the film after all their origins are divulged, they have a big training sequence, and they band together to take on the massive, mysterious threat Amanda Waller throws them up against.

Since the close of last year, it's been all quiet on the Mondo front. After the bit Marvel art show and subsequent print sale in mid-December, poster and art junkies have been eagerly awaiting the first glimpse at Mondo's plans for 2016. Not only is the Austin art house bringing its first new pieces out today, they also happen to be based on a little movie you might have heard of called The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight, and Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy in general, have long been a favorite for Mondo's artists. There have been more than a dozen different prints featuring the Nolan-helmed features since Batman Begins arrived a decade ago. While you might think there aren't many new things to do with a poster for The Dark Knight, that's not the case, and these new pieces by Laurent Durieux and Mike Mitchell show there's still plenty of creative territory to be mined.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from our years on the Internet, it’s that there’s no aspect of comics that can’t be broken down and quantified in a single definitive list, preferably in amounts of five or ten. And since there’s no more definitive authority than ComicsAlliance, we’re taking it upon ourselves to compile Top Five lists of everything you could ever want to know about comics. Nobody’s perfect, and just because DC is home to some of the world's greatest superheroes and some of the most memorable villains in comic history, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t had its fair share of awful moments as well. This week, we point our all-seeing eye of judgment at five of the worst events in DC's history.

Batman isn’t the only one sporting new wheels in the DC movie universe — as briefly glimpsed in the official Suicide Squad footage, the Joker also has a pretty sweet new ride. If you want a closer look at the custom vehicle and would like to know more about how it was made, a new featurette has arrived from an unlikely source to give you the low-down on the Joker’s low-riding car.

Everyone loves comic book trivia, but with 75 years of superhero comics behind us right now, there’s always some new obscure fact to learn. That’s why ComicsAlliance is going deep into the minutiae of your favorite characters in our continuing video series. You think you know comics? Well, here’s a few things you might not know! Do you know how I got these scars? It was from writing up this series of twelve pieces of factual information about the Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker! Watch in rapt amazement and terror as we disclose the Joker's inspiration and creation, his ups and downs across the decades, and the strange history of his various associates, as well as several other equally fascinating facts.

If you know anything at all about DC Comics' and Warner Brothers' licenses, you know that with the rare exception of DC Collectibles, it's almost impossible to find any action figures of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman or the rest of the laundry list of characters without it coming from Mattel. There are some allowances however with large-scale figures, such as those Hot Toys, Sideshow and even NECA have produced in the past. If you're looking for 1/12 scale though (6-7"), your pickings are slim. There are some instances, by the grace of the toy gods, where a company like NECA can put out its much-requested 1/4 scale figures at a more affordable and space-permitting scale. Previously, NECA teamed with Warner Bros. and Toys 'R Us to offer its Michael Keaton Batman (1989) figure at standard figure size as part of a bundle with the anniversary release of the film on Blu-ray. At the time, many fans begged for that same treatment to be given to the likes of NECA's 1/4 scale Christopher Reeve Superman and Heath Ledger Joker. It seemed like an opportunity like that would never happen again. Until it did. Today.

Suicide Squad is still a good 10 months away, but it’s apparently never too early to start getting people excited about the upcoming introduction of the new Joker. Jared Leto is on the cover of the new issue of Empire magazine in full Joker mode, and inside the pages, opens up for the first time about playing the character, admitting to his Method acting, saying, “I took a pretty deep dive.”

We may have finally reached the peak of Joker merchandise. Everyone else can pack it up and go home. Nothing you do will be more terrifying than this upcoming Good Smile Joker Nendoroid. There's something extra sinister about a the way this chibi-style figure turns the Joker into a childlike anarchist. It also doesn't help that with the flat facepaint, instead of looking like madman who paints his face for battle, this Joker looks like a kindergarten student attending his first Gathering of the Juggalos. Try getting the image of an anime Insane Clown Posse out of your head now. To a degree, just about every single Dark Knight Joker figure that's been released to this point has been decidedly adult. It's not that they're all adult-focused toys, but they each respect the fact the Joker is a mature character, and one that isn't to be mistaken for an Imaginext villain in a child's Fisher-Price collection. The whole point of Nendoroids is to put this cutesy spin on familiar faces, and what Good Smile has done here certainly hits that mark. It's been a lot more successful with other franchises, and even other DC characters, like the Nendoroid Batman that's already out. I just can't get past how straight evil this Joker looks.