DC Question: If Joker became the president of America by forcing the president and congress to give him the position and the power to run the country, what would Batman and Robin's reactions be to the Clown Prince being the new prez if they and every American found out what happened? Note: This scenario would happen during Jason's time as Robin and could happen in any DC universe.
God, I am so sorry for how long this is. I also apologize if it’s not what you wanted. It was a tricky concept because I had a lot of feelings and ideas and analyses bouncing around in my brain, so it was hard to accurately convey them. There was too much trying to come out at once, and I feel like I didn’t piece together the right ones.
I hope you enjoy it anyway. Thank you for the ask!
The Joker being president would be the beginning of the end. Complete and total anarchy would plague America. Death. Destruction. Murder for the sake of murder. Who would dare stop the Joker? Especially now that he runs America? The American people would know that he killed and manipulated and poisoned his way to presidency because far be it for the Joker to take over a nation and not make sure everyone knew it was him. His ego is too large. It would be the perfect spectacle. The perfect plan. He would make sure everyone knew. Including Batman. The American people would be shocked, scared. The Joker has taken over the government, but what’s more terrifying? The way he took over or the fact that he wanted everyone to know? He’s insane and unstable, but he owns America. Presidency would make him untouchable. And he wouldn’t be alone. The other villains would easily throw their chips in with the Joker. A villainous president who wants to destroy the world in one horrifying joke? That’s exactly what they’d want. They’d push his agenda to reap fear and total submission from the people afraid for their lives and their families as reward. Underground rebellions would rise as they always do in times of unjust ruling/government, but without any clear way to take out the Joker, they would be unorganized. How do you fight an enemy who lacks conviction for anything? He’s got an army of the scariest villains at his side. He’s makes elaborate schemes that inflict the highest possible number of casualties. He puts on a show–makes sure the whole world knows that the chaos is his doing. He plays a dangerous game with life, and waits for Batman to join him. He waits for Batman to play his part–to try to stop him. To dance with the clown. The Joker would create his own world with the American people as the pawns and himself and Batman as the players. He’d have a kingdom at his fingertips. He’d sit and smile at the chaos he’d wrought, waiting for Batman to try and stop him.
This would be an incredibly dangerous situation. Anything involving the Joker is dangerous–especially to Bruce because of the complete disregard the Joker has for killing people. It’s massacres instead of murders. Every Joker scheme is followed by Batman, adamant that stopping him take all precedence and priority. He knows the Joker is dangerous. He’s probably the most dangerous Gotham villain purely because he’s absolutely insane. His order is madness. His goal is chaos. Bruce knows this, and he knows there’s no end to what the Joker is capable of in his insanity–especially as the leader of an already crumbling country. He knows a lot of people will die if the Joker goes on uninterrupted. He knows he must be stopped.
Leading the Justice League and all those desiring of justice for the nation as the one person closest to understanding the Joker, Batman would be capable of only thinking about how to take the Joker down. He knew he had to. America was suffering. He’d see crime rise. People die. Cities crumble. He’d watch the world falling at the hands of a madman, and he be swallowed by how devastating it looked. He’d even blame himself.
How could he let it come to this? How could he let the Joker get this far?
This was his fight, and now the Joker had taken it across a nation. He’d killed thousands instead of hundreds, and Batman put that blood on his own hands. America was in danger because he’d played along with the Joker’s sick game. He’d failed his country. His city. His friends. His family.
But he wouldn’t let the Joker win.
If it was a game the Joker wanted, then Batman would play. But he would win, and he would save America. He would make sure he died before he let the Joker or any other villain kill anymore innocent people. Batman would fight with everything in him. Never sleeping. Never ceasing. Always fighting. He wouldn’t rest until the Joker was stopped–and maybe death would be the only way this time. Maybe it was time for the game to end. For this dark and dangerous dance to finally be over. Maybe it was selfish of him to fear what he would become if he killed the Joker. People were dying all around him. His country was dying, and it was all because he wouldn’t allow himself to cross that line. To kill. But damn the line. It was too late for that. He didn’t see any other choice.
Maybe it was time for the Clown to die.
As for Jason, he wouldn’t have the same rage for the Joker that he gained after being murdered seeing as he’s Robin, but he’s no idiot. He knows the Joker is dangerous. He spends all his time with Bruce. He’s gone on missions with Bruce involving the Joker. He knows how the Joker works. He sees how determined Bruce gets when the Joker is on the loose again. He sees how much Bruce fears for the people of Gotham. He sees how obsessive and destructive and parasitic this relationship between Batman and the Joker is. He sees how Bruce is taunted by the Joker. How the Joker wraps him up in all his jokes. How he makes the jokes all about the punchline–Batman. Jason would tune into whatever Bruce was feeling and act from there. Jason may or may not have have killed as Robin (Felipe incident???) like he has as Red Hood, but the ominous reply he gave Batman when he asked about Felipe leads me to believe that he always had rage inside of him. It was contained when he was Robin and released when he became Red Hood, but it was always there. Rage strong enough to kill. He sees what the Joker does to Bruce–his mentor, his partner, his father–and that rage is ignited. He sees the way the darkness that clouds Gotham has spread to the rest of the nation. He may have grown up hating the world as he slept on its streets and fell victim to it’s violence, but he never hated it enough to see it destroyed by a psycho like the Joker. He could never hate strong enough to want death for a nation. He may have grown up without a proper family or a proper sense of love or love at all, but he’s human. And he wants to see the world survive. He wants to see Bruce survive. Jason knows Arkham is not the justice the Joker deserves for all that he’s done. He doesn’t have to have the clown kill him to know that. He saw the scum that slithered through the streets at night. He saw the horrors the night brought to life in the people hiding in the shadows. Those lowlifes weren’t half as dangerous as the Joker, and they received far worse punishments. Jason knows what justice Gotham–and America–needs for the Joker. Jason grew up knowing a dark world. A harsh world. A scary world.The skyscrapers of the city closed in on him. He couldn’t see past Gotham. This was the only world he knew. This was the entire world to him. But he knows better now. He knows he’s only seen one small, dirty part of it. There’s an enormous world out there, and it deserves to be fought for. So he channels his rage. He joins Bruce in saving his country. He’ll do whatever it takes to see justice and redemption for all the darkness he’s seen.
If Bruce says the Joker must die, Jason is at his side, ready to take him out.
