Batman Who Laughs

Creation

The Batman Who Laughs was created by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. He made his first (brief) appearance in Dark Days: The Casting.

Origin

Bruce Wayne is the Batman of Earth -22. One night, the Joker binds Batman’s hands and mouth, tells him that it is going to happen tonight. They are near an alley, where a little girl with her parents are walking down an alley. Batman tells him to stop, Joker ignores him and guns down her parents. Moreover, the girl is now “Jokerized”, which makes her laugh repeatedly. All this has caused Batman to cross the line and snap Joker’s neck. Indeed, Batman has killed the Joker, but by doing so, he has saved many people’s lives who’d die presumably.

On the contrary, when the Joker died, Bruce inhaled the nanotoxin that emitted from the joker. Bruce has alerted Clark, Dick, Jason and the others regarding the fact that he’s infected. They tell him that they’ll do whatever they can to save him. Unfortunately, it’s too late, Bruce turns his back and kills all the (former) Robins. From here on, it’s not Batman anymore, but it’s The Batman Who Laughs. Furthermore, he visits the Watchtower and kills the entire Justice League.

In Other Media

Video Games

• The Batman Who Laughs appears in the DC Universe Online MMORPG, where he is the main antagonist of Part 1 of the "Metal" event. Like in the comics, he attempts to drag Earth into the Dark Multiverse. He returns in Part 2 as well.
• The Batman Who Lives is featured in the Mortal Kombat 11 fighting game as a downloadable alternate skin for Noob Saibot. He was offered as part of a special DC Elseworlds DLC pack, which also featured skins based on Catwoman and Killer Croc.

Merchandise

• The Batman Who Laughs was featured in the HeroClix figure game.
• Prime 1 Studio produced a statue of The Batman Who Laughs.
• Sideshow Collectibles produced a statue of The Batman Who Laughs.
• Diamond Select produced a statue of The Batman Who Laughs.
• The Batman Who Laughs was featured in Diamond Select's Minimates line as a New York Comic-Con 2019 exclusive.
• The Batman Who Laughs was featured in the Batman Miniature Game by Knight Models.
• Quantum Mechanix produced a Q-Fig statue of The Batman Who Laughs and three of his Robins.
• DC Collectibles produced multiple statues featuring The Batman Who Laughs.
• Kotobukiya produced a statue of The Batman Who Laughs.
• The Batman Who Laughs was featured in Funko's Pop! line of bobbleheads.
• The Batman Who Laughs was featured in the DC Multiverse line from McFarlane Toys. A second, winged variant based on a variant cover from the "Sky Tyrant" storyline was also produced for the Merciless Collect-and-Connect wave.