Batman: DC Reveals the Secret Origin of the Three Jokers

DC has finally given a canonized answer to the mystery of the Three Jokers. 

(MAJOR SPOILERS) The current Batman story arc "Joker: Year One" has writer Chip Zdarsky re-examining the Joker's formative days, following the infamous accident at Ace Chemicals (see: "The Killing Joke"). The first chapter of "Joker: Year One" revealed that following his physical transformation, the man who became Joker was approached by one of Bruce Wayne's most pivotal mentors, Daniel Captio.

Daniel was the man who taught Bruce to master his mind and use it to control his emotions and physical limits. Daniel was also the one who showed Bruce how to create and store alternate personas like the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh; as we learn in Joker: Year One, Chapter Two, Daniel applied that same mental conditioning and training to Joker. 

Batman's Three Jokers Origin Explained

The "Three Jokers" turn out to be three distinct personas Joker created while working with Daniel: 

1. "The Clown" – Laughter and devilishness bursting forth. An imp with a demon inside. 
2. "The Demon" – As Daniel describes, "I don't believe in heaven or hell, but if I did, I'd think this man has existed for millennia, tormenting humanity in service of something greater. 
3. The Killer – "Calm like a black ocean at night," Daniel writes. "And like that ocean, all that waits for you is cold death."

Those three personas pretty much encapsulate the three different versions of Joker we've seen running around DC Comics canon. It also syncs with the initial mystery of the Three Jokers as presented in the Justice League "Darkseid War" story arc. Batman's moment of godly knowledge while sitting in Metron's chair revealed to him that there are three Jokers – and by the current standards of Zdarsky's larger Batman story (where Bruce's second persona, Zur, has separated from Bruce and become an actual threat), Joker's personas count as three distinct "people." 

Zdarksy and collaborators like Matthew Rosenberg (Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing miniseries) have also left the door open enough to explain away actual physical copies of Joker being decoys or imposters created through self-styled means, tragic accident, brutal design – or some combination of the three. That means even non-canon stories like Geoff Johns' Batman: The Three Jokers now fit within a certain framework that feels more understandable and layered. 

This (hopefully) ends the lingering mystery of the Three Jokers – which is already going down as one DC's needlessly confounding (and, ultimately ineffective) twists yet. 

Batman #143 and the entire "Joker: Year One" story arc can be read at DC.