“There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.” -John Dryden

The Joker, DC’s Clown Prince of Crime and arch-nemesis to Batman.

Green Goblin, Marvel’s Emerald Elf and arch-nemesis to Spider-Man.

It has been said that a hero is only as good as their villain, and no heroes throughout all of comic history have more iconic, frightful, and impactful foes than Batman and Spider-Man. These two maniacal madmen have made life hell for the Dark Knight and Wall-Crawler, but only one will be able to walk away from this mad-laugh riot in the making!

Before We Start…

To start, this analysis will be focusing primarily on both characters’ comic counterparts. While looking through the various cartoons, movies, video games, novels and more that they’ve found themselves in would be fun, and many of these interpretations are extremely iconic… Joker and Goblin actually have very radically different interpretations across many of these adaptions, making them difficult to reconcile. It would introduce a lot of varying elements that would be difficult to rationalize or make sense of, and go beyond the traditional scope of the match, and for the sake of this blog, the content focus was simplified to just the core comics, guidebooks and encyclopedias for both.

We will also similarly be discluding the Absolute Universe’s interpretation of Joker from this coverage, seeing as Absolute Joker is functionally not only a very different character, but also capable of turning into an unholy abomination out of one’s tweaked out nightmares. He’s beyond the scope of iconography recognizable as “The Joker”, originates from a completely alternate universe, and has vastly different resources to the regular Joker, he’s just not applicable here. You can similarly expect obvious power outliers like Emperor Joker to be absent from this analysis.

As for Norman Osborn, he has gone through many different identities and passed through drastically different phases in his history. Some of these pieces of Norman’s history are so far removed from the “Green Goblin” persona that a distinction between them is necessary. Beyond the titular emerald elf everyone knows and loves, Norman Osborn has played drastically different roles as the following:

Iron Patriot – During the Dark Reign story arc, Norman ditched the goblin mask for a repurposed Iron Man armor. The tools and resources available to Norman during this period of time are attributed to his circumstantial position as the director of SHIELD, and are not a part of the Green Goblin’s standard arsenal. However, Norman did keep some things from this period of time afterward, which will be noted accordingly. As for the Patriot itself, we would essentially turn this match into Joker VS Iron Man by including it, which isn’t really what anyone came here for, so it will not be involved.
Red Goblin – A temporary partnership with the Carnage symbiote resulted in the first Red Goblin, a drastically more powerful form for Norman than usual. This form is fairly obviously non-standard, given it required bonding with an entirely separate character for a very brief period of time, so we also will not be covering it here.
Adaptoid Osborn – Even more short lived than the Red Goblin, Norman once allowed AIM to augment his physicality, turning him into a living Adaptoid. After being defeated in this form, he lost the ability to access it again, and has never regained it. No brainer for disqualification here.
Spider-Man – Yeah, as of the time of this writing in early 2026, Norman is – for a time – the man donning the mask in Peter Parker’s absence. While the feats demonstrated in this arc are usable, as Norman is unaltered in performing them, we won’t be giving focus to any specific Spider-Man specific tools, like the suit or webbing he uses, as that’s obviously quite contrary to the Green Goblin’s usual grab bag of items.

As these forms are decidedly non-standard or otherwise not representative of the Green Goblin’s capabilities, they will not be included in this blog.

Background

The Joker

“It’d be funny if it weren’t so pathetic… oh, what the heck, I’ll laugh anyway. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

Full name: Unknown
Height: 6’5” / Weight: 192 lbs
Affiliations: Legion of Doom, Joker Incorporated, League of Villainy, Joker League of Anarchy
Likes: Batman, peanut butter and jelly, Halloween, jewels
Dislikes: Batman, Batman Who Laughs, Jason Todd, tapioca pudding, the IRS
Once forced Daffy Duck to be his henchman
Has told so many fake backstories together that they start to blend together

If you took a look at Jack Oswald White, you wouldn’t think he’d end up becoming the most dangerous criminal to ever live. Though that’s assuming you’d be able to get a good look at him at all. His origins are a mess, to where “Jack Oswald White” is probably not his actual name in the first place. But what can be known for certain were his early escapades as the criminal supervillain, the Red Hood. Master thief with an iconic head piece, who one day would be involved in a confrontation with Batman. Whether it be a good man being with the wrong crowd or just your everyday thief hitting a mad dash doesn’t matter. Jackie here had just now been caught up in what was the worst place for him to possibly be: a vat of chemicals because he fell off a rail? Well, maybe something like the middle of a Sun or Apokolips would’ve been worse for him. But for everyone else? Worst place to be at the worst time conceivable.

From the ooze, whoever he used to be had been burned away like his life should’ve been. Out came a new prince of crime, the Joker. And he had big goals considering his sudden complete loss of sanity meant abandonment of self-preservation. But there was one problem, or maybe an opportunity? He couldn’t be sure due to just how much of an enigma the Batman was. After Joker had fallen from the rail, he couldn’t get him out of his head, especially every time he saw the caped crusader put down a common crook. He was fixated, but why? Fear? Interest? Challenge? All of the above? Sure, he’ll go with that. He needed to be able to contend with the Bat for anything he wanted to have work, work.

Eventually, time readied the Joker. Would it be training from the mysterious Dr. Captio (who he stabbed), or maybe a run in with a criminal or two who thought he was easy pickings (who he also stabbed), Joker took his circus act of crime to the main stage. It didn’t take long for him to first enter battle with Batman and Robin, where after a plethora of twists and turns, the Joker would accidentally stab himself! And, then, come back to the story of the next issue. Over, and over, and over again. No matter how many times he got put behind bars, Joker just came right back. It stopped being just about Batman eventually. Sometimes he messed with other heroes, or just went off to do something completely random when no one was looking. He loved the thrill of crime, murder, murder, murder, it was the funniest thing in the world for Joker. As well as everybody else’s tragedy.

No matter what happened across all of DC Comics history, a universal truth that’d always be everybody’s gnawing nightmare in the back of the head was the Joker’s cruelty. No, not its existence, how it spread to everyone and everything forever. A death in the family, a killing joke, even his supposed lover Harley, the Joker’s closest quote on quote ally EVER, bored him and ended up inside a rocket being sent through the sky. All this death and carnage and suffering, and yet, the Batman’s morals never would let him kill the Joker. Thus causing an endless cycle between the crusader and the clown, a cycle which Joker adores. It’s why Batman interests him so much: he’s the perfect rival, the only hero who can go even with him.

And maybe, the only hero who can save him? Deep down, beneath the insanity and the blood it coated itself in, Jack is still there. He knows all of this is wrong, and that the Joker is an open wound on Gotham City. But no, it’s far too late for that. He fell off the light far too long ago, and has been buried in too many laughs. Joker and his ways will never go away unless he dies, and that’s something Batman will never commit to. Perhaps the sick joke at the end of this story is that we’ll never get to hear it.

Green Goblin

“To be honest, while this tragedy will forever shape your life… there’s a chance I won’t even remember it. It was that inconsequential.”

Full name: Norman Virgil Osborn
Height: 5’11” / Weight: 185 lbs
Age: 59 years old
Affiliations: U.S. Government, Avengers, H.A.M.M.E.R., Thunderbolts, Order of the Goblin, Ravencroft, the Cabal
Also known as: Green Goblin, Red Goblin, Gold Goblin, Iron Patriot, “Misinformin’ Norman”, TIME’s Man of the Year 2008
Likes: The color green, Boston Cream Doughnuts, bridges, Five Guys burgers, his hair
Dislikes: Spider-Man, Clint Barton, Spider-Man, Nick Fury, Spider-Man, Tony Stark, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, women, Spider-Man, his hair
Almost named himself “Mister Coffee”
Canonically uses too much tongue (freaky ahh)
Much like the root of most terrible things in America, exists because of Ronald Reagan

Raised by an abusive father who squandered the family’s wealth, young Norman Osborn quickly developed severe antisocial tendencies and an obsession with control, success, and legacy. He clawed his way up from nothing, growing into a brilliant biochemist and business mogul. Still, true happiness remained ever out of reach; especially when his wife Emily died giving birth to their son Harry, an event that shattered Norman and left Harry to be raised by a father incapable of real love. Though Norman tried to mold Harry into a strong Osborn, his methods – emotional neglect and abuse – only drove a deeper wedge between them.

Norman was such a terrible dad, he made a literal deal with the devil: in exchange for his son’s soul, he gained even more power, influence, and usurped his business rival, Stromm. Despite everything, Harry still tried to earn his father’s respect, leading the young Osborn to tamper with an experimental serum Norman had been working on. This unintentional sabotage backfired on his father catastrophically, creating the bipolar, dissociative persona known as the Green Goblin.

The newly-dubbed Goblin Formula gave Norman superhuman strength, durability, and intellect, but at the dire cost of his sanity. This terrified Norman; a man who had fought for control all his life was now robbed of the sanctity of his own mind. In the only way he knew how, Norman cried for help by antagonizing the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, hoping that the web-slinger would give him the professional medical help he needed. However, Norman’s fractured psyche cracked completely after one fateful encounter with Spider-Man wherein Harry’s name was uttered. Norman relapsed into an amnesiac state, one that the adolescent Spider-Man was grateful to take advantage of. Rather than bear the responsibility of addressing Norman’s mental unwellness, Peter simply turned a blind eye, allowing the Osborn cycle of tragedy to deepen with Harry’s own downward spiral into drug abuse.

Norman’s obsession with Spider-Man escalated faster than anyone could anticipate, culminating in the untimely demise of Gwen Stacy. This unthinkable murder devastated Mary Jane, sent Peter into a blind rage, and thrust Harry even deeper into self-destruction and isolation. In the ensuing battle between Spider and Goblin, Norman was impaled by his own glider; so do the proud men die, crucified not on a cross of gold, but on a stake of humble tin.

Thanks to the Goblin Formula’s healing factor and Harry’s intervention, however, Norman survived and vanished to Europe. There, he concocted the most deranged revenge schemes imaginable, escalating his vendetta after Harry’s death in battle against Spider-Man. He kidnapped Peter’s newborn, faked Aunt May’s death, and killed Ben Reilly, all in a twisted bid to break Peter and mold him into a “true” Osborn heir. No matter how hard he tried, even after months of continuous physical and mental torture, Norman could not bring Peter down to his level.

During the Superhuman Civil War, Norman was forced by Tony Stark to aid the Pro-Registration cause by means of operating the Thunderbolts, a team of psychopaths killing to serve government interests. His subsequent public execution of the Skrull Queen during Secret Invasion catapulted him into national prominence, leading to his appointment as director of H.A.M.M.E.R. and leader of the Dark Avengers. Under the guise of reformation, Norman pretended to be the world’s savior, all the while manipulated by the very villains he shook hands with. As everyone expected, he was inevitably undone by his own instability. The Goblin’s true face was exposed before the world to see after a failed attempt at enacting a Siege against Asgard. Once a would-be presidential favorite, Norman fell back into the shadows from when he came.

After Norman’s fall from ‘grace’, he struggled with his identity. Who is Norman Osborn, really? Is he a wayward arms dealer, a guinea pig for A.I.M.’s whims? Is he a convenient vessel for a bloodthirsty alien symbiote? Is he the Kingpin’s underling, tucked away from the public as an institutional administrator? Is Norman Osborn truly nothing more than a pawn for greater men to use in their grander ambitions? It took a while, but Norman finally realized he was never meant to hunt Avengers or shake hands with Doctor Doom. No, he was the Green Goblin, and the one thing he had once defined himself by was the thing he had lost sight of for years; breaking Spider-Man down, shattering his heroic pretenses and molding him into a true successor of the Osborn name.

That’s what Norman’s entire life was all about, wasn’t it? His mad gamble for power began out of necessity, a need to be better than his failure of a father. Power was a means to an end for Norman, and the end, as it was in the beginning, was about creating a legacy for himself, whether through Harry… or Peter. No matter how insane the circumstances get for Norman and Peter, the Green Goblin will always be ingrained in history as the deadliest, most sinister foe of Marvel’s greatest superhero.

…Or maybe not, depending on how his current redemption arc shakes out. Can never tell which of these are gonna stick and which aren’t.

Experience & Skill

The Joker

Fair warning, this one is going to be longer than usual.

Even in his earlier years of causing chaos throughout Gotham City, Joker was still an extremely devious and clever prince of crime. He’s killed people with delayed poisons to cause a huge misdirection game, had a guy get killed through a poison dart released via phone call, hidden sleeping gas releasers in a flower pot, rigged the Batmobile to ruin it when Batman shifted gears, and even got a guy killed by dropping a banana peel and making him trip unironically. Lacing cards with poison, positioning murders carefully to lure his enemies into walking towards vulnerable low ground, putting Jim Gordon’s finger prints on a murder scene despite him being in a different city, heck his identical copy (long story) was able to outsmart Clayface’s trap by turning his cage trap into a burning building trap.

Apart from just crime set ups though, it’s been stated by people like Robin that Joker plans his escapes as carefully as he does his crimes. He’s able to casually get away from cops mid-couple dispute, and it helps that he’s able to put on disguises casually and to a point of success where he calls it one of his greatest accomplishments. He’s also good at breaking in just like escaping, such as when he broke into Blackgate to steal a specific prisoner. He even enjoys a bit of stealth now and again, as he once disguised himself as a police officer, even when surrounded by Commissioner Gordon, Bruce Wayne, and several other officers, and remained completely undetected.

He’s also weirdly brilliant from an engineering perspective. Sure he can outsmart people, ranging from morons like Killer Croc to geniuses like Lex and Batman, but what good is people smarts if your plans don’t have the technical smarts needed for action? He’s used miscellaneous prison cell tools to set up an explosive keyhole trap, turned a prop rocket into an actual aircraft, took advantage of a pendulum’s accelerating force to eventually trigger an explosive, made explosives out of a chemistry set, turned a TV remote into a stun gun, used basic cleaning agents to make his signature Joker Venom, and somehow messed with security wiring at Arkham with… sausages? Sure man. He also makes most of his own weapons from hand, learning from random “science books”.

Of course with so many big feats on his criminal record, it makes sense that Joker would get a lot of… “praise”. Batman used to consider Joker as one of his two greatest foes in their earlier days (Joker was in his washed era at the time), and has also called him “the most elusive criminal on Earth”. Harley Quinn considers Joker “one of the most manipulative people on the planet”. Narration has called him a “master criminal”, a “masterfiend and evil genius”, the “cleverest and most dangerous criminal”, “Batman’s most brilliant opponent”, and uh, the most “dangerous killer in the world”? “The most dangerous madman and mass murderer in existence”?

A jump up from big scale city crime, and pretty absurd. Let’s slow down a little, to more “reasonable” stuff. Going a little more grounded, Joker’s crimes have made him known across the continent, with him racking up numerous murders. He committed 114 murders in 6 years with several different methods, and Barbara Gordon states Joker has killed enough people to fill ten graveyards. That being said his full potential goes way higher. Gil Castro from the Gotham Crime Institute for example thinks that if they wanted to, Joker, Batman and Riddler could kill all of Gotham. Better yet, Bruce and Joker are considered the most dangerous men on the planet, and that the only reason everyone is alive is because the two of them haven’t decided to kill everyone yet… excuse me?

Let’s just cut to the chase already: the Joker’s prowess is inconceivable. To be clear, it’s not like that statement comes from some nobody. It comes from Dr. Captio, a hyper-intelligent man who calls himself the smartest man in the world, and is someone who extensively trained Batman. He then went on to also train Joker, and, fucked around and found out. With this out of the way, we can get to Joker’s more insane, brutal, and cruel exploits. He’s the only person to ever beat Ra’s al Ghul at chess besides Bane. He found out the identities, locations, and key details of the entire Bat-Family in spite of their extremely efficient secret keeping.

But let’s move up to big leagues, because due to the Justice League all showing up together one time at a Gotham hospital a month, Joker was able to track all of them from there, and then individually infect every Justice League member with specialized Joker Toxins. But let’s move back down, and talk about how Joker manipulated events perfectly to get Jason Todd to become the new Robin, from having his father arrested to making his mother have a fake overdose, just so he could later orchestrate all the events leading to his death, JUST BECAUSE.

But let’s keep messing with Robins as we go back to the big leagues, because when Joker wanted some alone time away from the rest of the Teen Titans, he set up a trap for Kid Flash involving kicking up toxic Joker dust across the city due to moving too fast. He then laid out easy to obtain cures, meaning the Titans would have to focus on the new toxic mess instead of his direct antics. Would it be calling out exact thoughts of Robin, setting up for people to be falling off a building while fighting Batman, or making a virus the Dark Knight knew no way to solve, the Joker is simply insane. And obviously, not just when it comes to how absurdly intelligent he is. The Joker is one of fiction’s most iconic mad men, to the point Batman has failed multiple times to understand his mind, and stated that “maybe only a truly mad person can know what goes on in there.”

This insanity may seem like a weakness, but Joker has molded it into a horrifying strength. He’s unpredictable, lacking a true personality and “creates himself and how he will act every day.” This extends to his manipulation of others, and just how horrifyingly effective it can be. He convinced someone into kidnapping a little girl through just morse code, learned enough about a psychiatrist to know her daughter’s name and age without ever leaving Arkham, tracked a psychology yapping reporter despite said reporter changing his name and addresses multiple times, and in the infamous case of Harleen Quinzel? He spun her like a thread and made it feel like he’d known her her whole life. Ten minutes alone with the Joker is enough to give most people nightmares for life. With trained doctors pissing themselves, fainting, and throwing up. The Designer had plans for multiple villains to rule Gotham, but one conversation with Joker convinced him that Joker needed to be killed to prevent the ruin of everything. Oh, and of course, Joker’s insanity let him read a manuscript that turns readers insane. Because how are you going to get worse than him?

But surely, despite all of his intelligence, the Joker would be poor in a direct fight right? Have that as an achilles heel? Sure, he’s been stated not to be much of a skilled fighter and only an average hand-to-hand combatant. Though he has been stated to have the strength of a madman to compensate for this. Is he really reliant on his insanity for physical proficiency though? Unfortunately no. Joker is rather agile, being able to parkour over speeding vehicles, break falls with “cunning agility”, dance (literally) between moving lasers, and can somehow ride a horse through a flaming hoop while being both tied up and sitting backwards? He’s been complimented by Batman in a sword fight, beat the crap out of Lex Luthor and Psimon, low diffed a guy twice his size while butt naked, and murdered a dozen members of the League of Assassins by himself. He’s excellent with ranged weaponry, being able to shoot balloons out of the air, a glass on Batman’s head from 50 steps away, and a rope holding up a hostage by a nearby building.

It doesn’t help that he’s so hard to put down, as his pain tolerance is through the roof. He can do crazy but less painful things like hold his breath for 3 minutes, but for the absurd stuff? Stabbed with an iron pole through the shoulder and just doesn’t care. Burned by sizzling sauce and just doesn’t care. Shot multiple times while trying to stab a guy and just doesn’t care. Bleeding out and jumping out of a three story window, and just doesn’t care as he proceeds to hit the dash anyways. His identical copy had brain surgery without anesthesia, WHILE CONSCIOUS, and I want you to take a guess at what I’m going to say next. The problematic nature of this is not helped by just how far he’ll take his unpredictability into direct combat. Red Hood considers Joker’s unpredictability and “abandon” in hand to hand as things that make him a nightmare for even Batman to deal with, with him fighting like a caged animal. This can be seen with cases like Joker’s identical copy turning a 1V3 where he’s at gunpoint on its head in an instant, or when Midnighter stated he was unable to figure out how to fight Joker despite his MILLIONS OF SCENARIOS ANALYZING BATTLE PRECOGNITION THAT GOES OFF BEFORE HE FIGHTS SOMEONE.

Simply put, he is not the monster under the bed. Nor is he the devil in the closet. Not the homework due in five minutes, or the meteor in the sky. He’s not the agile sharpshooter, or the calculating serial killer, or the hand to hand assassin. He’s too unique to be any of those, considering his blend of it all in conjunction with his distinct insanity and resourcefulness. He’s the Joker, and that idea is far more terrifying than any possibility that was just listed.

Green Goblin

Norman isn’t especially known for his martial arts skill; the Queen Goblin had access to all of Norman’s skills and moves, yet could not lay a finger on Spider-Man in CQC. Rather, it is his unpredictability that makes him truly dangerous, and an understanding of unpredictability that makes him so adept at adapting to anything.

Beyond being generally competent enough at throwing hands, Norman is more than a devil-may-care explosives enthusiast, despite what his iconic weaponry may imply. He’s much more of a patient schemer than a master fighter, so he tends to rely more on things like deception (feigning defeat or betrayal) and underhanded tactics (Gwen) to gain an upper hand.

It is this understanding of his opponents and a tendency to think steps ahead that has allowed Norman to apply a ‘cause and effect’ style of efficiency, both in grander scheming and smaller, moment-to-moment combat. He also will not hesitate to go for a kill when in advantageous positions, unlike other villains who tend to yap excessively. This extends to when he’s mounted on his glider; he pretty regularly opts to swoop in close to finish a fight, even if he could just as easily yeet a bomb from afar. This has been to his detriment in the past, like when he opted to try and choke Spider-Man, accidentally setting himself up for nanobot infestation.

Equipment

The Joker

Joker Venom

Strap in, cause, again, this is gonna be a long one. Joker Venom (also known as “Joker Toxin”, “Joker Gas”, “Laughing Death”, it’s had a lot of names over the years) is Joker’s crown jewel. His most common, and most dangerous typical weapon. While there’s much variation in its application, a few traits are universally consistent. It’s an extremely lethal, usually fast acting toxin that targets the bloodstream (as well as the nervous system) and drives a person mad and causes them to laugh uncontrollably until they die, with their faces contorted into a smile just like the Joker’s. It can be delivered through a variety of means, gas, liquid sprays, injections, as well as through food and even poisoned mail. However, across the years, Joker has made not just 50 different formulas of Joker Venom, but well over 100, many having varying effects, so let’s run through the legion of different forms of venom and the way they kill.

A regular dose of Joker Venom contains hydrogen cyanide, which is its most lethal component. Also contains strychnoside which is what causes the muscle convulsions that produce the grin. Combined with methamphetamine, MDMA and nitrous oxide, the effects are euphoria, mild hallucinations, increased energy levels, uncontrolled hilarity, and muscular spasms, and is psychologically addictive after a single dose. It also contains a trace amount of a radioactive isotope identified as element 105: Dubnium (Db), which is also known as Hahnium (Ha).

Joker Toxin is not only able to be activated and spread via skin contact, but it’s also able to penetrate and enter the body through pores in the skin, but is also potent enough to make Batman dizzy in seconds, begins to make his muscles cramp, and sends shockwaves of pain through his body. It’s able to completely “rip apart” the minds of those affected, leaving individuals frothing, violent individuals after exposure even when cured. It’s also, somehow, able to pass through any force-field that you can breathe through, including ones created by Lex Luthor. It’s also able to kill within seconds, if not outright instantly with stronger doses. Even attempting to cure someone can be difficult, as removing the Joker Toxin from a person’s body too quickly can send them into shock.

With versions of Joker Venom that are intended to be less lethal, and instead to drive people mad and make them act violently, being juiced up on Joker Venom allows a bunch of imposter Jokers to ignore wounds that would incapacitate a normal person. He’s even “Joker-ized” allies of the Bat-Family before, turning Raya, one of Nightwing’s friends into a deadly fighter, becoming violent and aggressive until her body began to break down, rejecting the toxin. It was strong enough that even after she was injected with an anti-toxin and her face lost the Joker-ized look, she still died from its effects.

Most notably, Joker has toxins designed for each member of the Justice League (Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg at the least), each with more viscous versions with pathogens specialized for each member, with magnetized filaments for Barry, and rubberized microbes for Cyborg to neutralize them broadly and specifically, able to even affect Superman and Wonder Woman. He’s even made doses powerful enough to affect individuals like Sinestro and Gorilla Grodd.

Joker’s also quite clever when it comes to his application of Joker Venom. He once used a binary version of the 34th variation of Joker Venom, an epidermal solution and dabbed it on the uniforms of all workers in a building, and an activating half on the floor cleaner used in the building, which activated the toxin long after it had infected the victim, resulting in them all dying frowning. He’s infected rainclouds on more than one occasion to cause wide-scale rainstorms in which every droplet of rain is toxic, with one being able to knock out every member of the Suicide Squad except Harley. He’s sprayed a bunch of defense hyenas in a “mild mixture” of his Joker Toxin, which caused Damian to pass out after a single bite and contact with the Hyenas, and once hid a bomb of “particularly potent” Joker Venom within a (mutated) cat so nobody would expect it’s detonation. He’s also infected people with “delayed” doses of Joker Venom, set to activate after set timeframes, such as a Doctor who suddenly died the second the clock struck 12, when he poisoned Deathstroke so he’d die shortly after a fight, or when he secretly dosed Henry Claridge with a delayed Joker Venom that would kill him 24 hours later.

Sometimes his Joker Venom traps border on Saw Trap tier bullshit, like the time he rigged a phone so the Chief of Police would answer, so when Joker blasted a word into the phone, the vibrations of the phone would shoot a dart dosed with Joker Venom into the Chief’s ear, killing him instantly. Or how about the time he laced a solitaire card with Joker Venom on their sharp edges, before planting them in advance for his victim to play them and accidentally kill himself? Or the time he tainted a vinyl with Joker Venom that releases gas as soon as it’s played, dissipating rapidly after a single playing? Or when he used a toxin that made his own sweat deadly to the touch, mixed with a refined alcohol to facilitate excretion through his pores? For the lovesick, he’s even laced the thorns of a rose with Joker Venom to kill a victim with a single poke.

Across the years, Joker’s been able to get his hands on the material to create truly absurd quantities of Joker Venom. He’s been able to dump enough Venom at once to wipe an entire museum, had several boxes, of which a singular box can gas up a 4 acres stretch of land, used giant air balloons to disperse a batch of Joker Toxin so potent that it can be released from hundreds of feet in the air down to the ground, and it was so potent it burned through multiple balloons prior. It’s implied this variant is strong enough that even Joker needs to wear a gas mask to protect himself. He’s also had gas bombs set up that release a poison cloud the size of a building’s top in order to poison the city, and was completely unaffected in the center of it. Copy Joker has had a full train’s worth of Joker Venom to nuke Gotham, which implies Real Joker has access to a similar amount.

In the Batman/Deadpool crossover, he not only threatened to drop 30 tons of Joker Venom on Gotham City, not only threatened to pump enough Venom through the utility pipes of Gotham to infect every person that lived within, but also obtained enough materials to make enough Joker Venom to infect a small country! In an alternate universe created by the Heart of Apokolips, Joker even released so much of such a powerful irradiated variant of Joker Venom that it became known as his “biggest joke of all”, that it infected all of Gotham City to the point it had to be contained to prevent the spread of the gas (though Joker died to this variant).

Over the years, Joker has also made a few variants of Joker Venom that aren’t necessarily lethal, but still have strong effects, these include…

Despite how truly lethal and extreme Joker Venom is, it has been countered and resisted a few times in the past, and had a handful of low showings as well. Ignoring specific countermeasures like the cures, immunizations and anti-bodies that Batman has created for the toxin, these showings would include:

Deathstroke’s healing factor lets him endure the Joker Toxin for an extended time period, and eventually survive outright.
The Batfamily, seemingly through a combination of their strong wills and strong bonds, were able to fight against the Joker Toxin’s urge to kill one another and huddle together. While still physically affected by the Toxin, their faces contorted into smiles in pain, they endured the mental effect after a brief fight.
- This was from a “particularly potent” variation of Joker Venom
Bane, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Clayface, and Mr. Freeze were immune to a variation of Joker Venom due to the chemicals in their bloodstream
Superman is able to burn the Joker Toxin out of Lois’ bloodstream by creating Microwaves using his heat and xray vision in conjunction to burn the virus out of her bloodstream, saving her and leaving no lasting effects
In the Batman/Deadpool crossover, Deadpool’s healing factor is able to counteract the Joker Venom, and apparently also makes his mind “more clear” than it’s ever been

It should be noted however that many of these lower showings often aren’t the Toxin at its absolute strongest variants, and instead a lower level variant.

Joker Venom Tools

Seeing as Joker Toxin is his most frequent weapon, Joker has a large variety of tools and means over his long villainous career that allows him to spread or otherwise infect his opponents with his signature venom. A few other weapons may release Joker Venom that aren’t included here, likely because they have their own sections or were already mentioned!

His Own Teeth: Yes, we’re very serious. Joker has laced his own teeth with Joker Toxin so he can infect a victim with it with a single bite, such as when he bit a chunk of Harley’s ear off and poisoned her that way, or when Batman punched him in the face with his bare fist, Joker’s teeth cutting his knuckles just enough to infect him with the toxin.
Rocket Launcher: He’s got a rocket launcher that fires “Grinning Missiles” that release Joker Venom.
Guns: Joker has used a gun to deliver a dose of non-lethal Joker Venom that simply renders its victim unconscious. He has a “Venom Gun” that fires Joker Venom at his victims. Squirt guns have been used to disseminate a variant of the toxin. He also has a revolver that can shoot darts filled with Joker Toxin fatal enough to kill instantly.
Mini-Bombs: Joker has little orbs that release Joker Venom upon being tossed, but in this instance it’s a less potent variant that takes a couple of minutes to become fatal. He also has regular gas bombs that are the usual dose of fast acting venom though!
Wrist Mounted Gas Pumps: Joker has pumps nestled under his sleeves capable of releasing massive amounts of Joker gas into the air, which he calls “just good old death in a can!”. Works excellent for up close surprises.
Injection Pin: In the Batman/Deadpool crossover, Joker has a pin on his hand that gives an injection of Joker Venom directly into the bloodstream he can cause through handshakes
Carousel: In the Batman/Deadpool crossover, Joker set up a Carousel that would pump enough Joker Venom to poison every man, woman and child in Gotham through every utility pipe in the city
Umbrella: Joker has an umbrella that can release Joker Toxin through its tip, enough to fill a train car in seconds.
Cigarettes & Cigars: Joker has cigarettes he can release noxious puffs of Joker gas from, rapidly killing those who inhale the smoke. He also has cigars laced with ammonium nitrate that, when heated, turns into laughing gas, laced with Joker Venom.
Flowers: Joker’s equipped his goons with flowers to put on their vests, which can be detonated to release Joker Gas
Chainsaw: Joker has, of course, laced his chainsaws with Joker Venom.
ACME DEATH GAS Canister: What it says on the tin, a canister set to release a massive blast of Joker Toxin on some sort of detonation timer.
Body Double: Joker set up a body double dummy that when shot, would release a room filling quantity of Joker Gas.
Kill Switches: Joker’s rigged some of his venom-infected goons with Kill Switches in the past, which can be triggered to explode and kill the victim, while simultaneously releasing a massive amount of Joker Gas at once.
Blow Darts: Joker has used darts to inject Joker Venom on several occasions, such as one that was capable of killing on contact, a dart gun capable of shooting through windows and instantaneous poisoning, a blow gun to shoot venom covered darts, and even keeping venom darts in his sleeves for surprise attacks!
Spray Bottle: For if he ever wants to use just a little spritz of it.
Toy Tank: A silver, toy tank with a Jester on top of it that fires needles with Joker Toxin. Semi-inconspicious!

Joker Juice

Joker took advantage of a formula from puke gas and the metagene wacker to make a chemical that turns people into obedient Joker soldiers due to DNA mixing, even creating enough of it to fill a chemical tank. All those afflicted by the Joker Juice are eventually killed by it, but most notably, is that Joker gains a mental connection to those infected with the concoction.

Other Poisons, Drugs,
& Gasses

While Joker Venom is his typical favorite, Joker has applied several different types of poisons, drugs, and gasses over the decades.

Paralyzing: Joker can shoot paralyzing gas through a spray gun, enough to cover a whole room, even a building, and only wear off after a couple hours. It’s potent enough that the victim is unable to focus their vision and their hearing is dulled like being underwater. He also has access to a rigor mortis paint that causes people to go stiff and requires an antidote to be cured
Sleeping: Joker has a sleeping potion and sleeping guns that knock people out for a few hours. He can also hide sleeping gas inside a book or combine it with laughing gas. Speaking of…
Laughing: Fitting for a clown, Joker loves to make a crowd laugh their face off, typically through laughing gas. He can shoot this out through his trick flower, a flower bouquet, grenades, knight armors, or through the corks on balloons. While usually used to incapacitate enemies, some versions of Joker’s laughing drugs can cause death. Though at that point, they may just be Joker Venom with a different name.
Death Needle: Joker has a needle’ that would reduce the insides of a person to nothingness in 5 minutes
Poison: Why go mention other poisons without tackling proper OG poison? Joker loves to fill trap rooms with poison gas, but he also has poison darts, a poison squirt gun, poisoned porcupine quills, and bullets laced in them. Joker himself even ingested a poison that started secreting from his pores, making himself poisonous in the process
Crying: Joker has a gas that forces those who ingest it to cry
Knockout: Joker has access to knockout gas, and can even spray it from his flower
Transformation: Joker once forced Batman to be exposed to some sort of mutation gas that turned him into a Bat-Hulk, a large muscle bound creature whose touch melts anything. The gas created residual embolisms inside Bruce’s blood and suppressed an anti-body reaction. However, he was unable to control the monster and it bit him in the ass later on
Explosion: He drugged Alfred with a chemical that somehow would make him explode after some time. What the hell?
Nerve: Joker has bombs that release nerve gas, or he can spit it out of his flower
Truth: Joker has a truth serum he can inject with his foe to make even Batman spew out potential secrets
Illusions: Joker has toxic air that makes the victim see any terrifying illusions. Joker can modify the chemicals so that he chooses what the enemy perceives
Weakening: Can emit a toxic gas that physically weakens the victim or their mental resistances
Sea-sickness: Joker has a special gas that can induce a state similar to sea-sickness
Red-pepper: Joker can shoot out red-pepper gas to really sting some eyes
Blood-loss: Joker injected Gordon with a blood thinner that was a derivative of heparin that caused him to rapidly bleed out
Anti-Plant: Has access to abscisic acid + ether mixture to combat Poison Ivy’s plants
Sneeze Powder: What it says on the tin, a powder that can cause excessive sneezing that he can throw around

Dionesium

Joker’s spine contains Dionesium, a super potent healing liquid-metal with incredible regenerative capabilities! It only expresses from his spine in cases of catastrophic, fatal damage, making it otherwise invisible, to the point that even Batman’s tech across dozens of tests could not detect it. Dionesium is directly noted to be vastly superior to the Lazarus Pit and it’s healing capabilities, as the Lazarus Pit itself is just a corrupted version of Dionesium, with even an inverted strain of Dionesium is even more potent than Lazarus. It’s even more potent than the Electrum that the Court of Owls uses to bring its Talons back to life. Joker has even expressly tainted the Dionesium in his spine so it’s unable to be extracted from him, immediately drying up as soon as it is.

With the Dionesium, Joker is able to heal from fatal injuries, such as being shot in his chest through critical arteries, and get back up just seconds to escape later, despite Batman noting that he shouldn’t have been able to come back from such an arterial spray pattern. A pool of Dionesium was also what healed and regenerated Joker’s face after he had cut it off, and healed his broken bones. Compared to the potency of the Lazarus and Electrum, he could likely even bring himself back to life from grievous fatal wounds, though likely requiring a longer time. However, he obviously needs his spine and some part of his body to heal from.

Dionesium also directly amps his physical capabilities, with Joker’s speed, reactions, and agility having been drastically boosted with the Dionesium in his body. Batman notes that while the Joker has always been fast, now he seems even quicker, too quick for him to properly react to, with Joker literally jumping and leaping around him, dodging all his attacks until he lets Batman tackle him.

Dionesium is directly compared to The Healing Stitch, a medical thread coated in a cellular matrix that causes cells in contact with it to become omnipotent, to revert to an embryonic, undifferentiated state, functionally erasing the cell’s past, making it able to become anything, allowing the cell to be reborn with a new life, allowing for one to age backwards when it desires, existing outside of the natural life cycle. Dekker, the creator of this Stitch, said that the life stitch’s regeneration process is comparable to Joker’s regeneration via Dionesium. This same doctor also implies that various mythical stories talking about magical healing sources from nature were referring to Dionesium, such as the waters of Gilgamesh’s time that granted renewed life, and the River Styx bestowing epidermal invincibility, or Herodotus writing of a spring that offered eternal health, which ultimately led to him naming the compound Dionesium, after Dionysus, the Greek God associated with rebirth.
Joker’s Dionesium isn’t immutable, however, it does have some weaknesses. It will not activate immediately to heal his injuries in the event he takes serious, but non-fatal damage, such as when Alfred shot at him with a shotgun and the bullet skimmed his face, and the wound stayed, as it takes longer to act for minor injuries. Seeing as Joker doesn’t have the original, primordial form of Dionesium in his spine, Batman was able to expressly counteract and nullify the Dionesium within him by using an immune-response blocker in a Batarang built off a sample of Dionesium. Should his Dionesium be nullified in this manner, it would force him to re-dose on Dionesium to regain its capabilities.

The Endgame Virus

A super powered version of the Joker Virus, The Endgame Virus was Joker’s magnum opus up to the point. It’s virulent, fast acting, and seemingly unkillable, intended to be spread airborne every time the infected one laughs, coughs or spits, with the virus inducing laughter in those affected, perpetuating its spread. The virus itself is coated in resistant mucus, which allows it to fight back against anti-toxins. It was tested against all of Bruce’s near hundred cures for Joker toxins, and not a single one of them was able to kill or cure the virus. The virus’ resistance / regeneration is noted to be even more potent than that of the Lazarus Pit, due to the presence of an inverse strain of Dionesium within the virus.

Due to having an inverse strain of Dionesium however, rather than the virus constantly regenerating the infected cells of the victim, it instead induces cellular rot, slowly killing the victim within 24 hours of infection. The virus affects people mentally, turning the afflicted against those unaffected, growing violent and hostile towards them. Some will be more “aware”, such as Joe Chill, who was cognizant of what was going on, and begging against his body to not try to kill others, but still moved along to try to kill regardless. It even changes their neurology, making them go after anyone they have an affection for.

The Endgame Virus was essentially the ultimate combination of all of Joker Toxin’s worst traits, massively viral and easily spread, turning all infected into wild murderers to the uninfected, and fatal to the victim within a short timeframe. The name is rather fitting.

Utility Belt

If Batman can have one, why can’t Jonk? Joker made his own utility belt, and outfitted it with all sorts of stupid ass dood-dads, such as an explosive cigar, and a pair of small pills that free realistic looking snakes. The belt also contains his hand buzzer, snake pellets, sneezing powder capsules, itching powder capsules, water-squirting police badge with bulb and hose attached, false cigarette pack with false jumping-jack mechanism inside, explosive cigarettes, eyepiece that leaves viewer with black eye, mexican jumping beans, flower pellets that burst into bloom, playing cards, and a small cork. The living definition of “Random Bullshit Go!”

Alternate Costumes

Joker has a large variety of alternate costumes and suits he’s worn across the years, which all give him various unique advantages and effects.

Rubber Laughing Gas Suit: Joker has a large rubber suit that makes him look like a fatass that’s filled to the brim with laughing gas that it constantly expels.
Floating Helium Suit: This embarrassing suit is able to fill itself with helium gas, allowing him to float into the air and escape from Batman, seemingly able to reach up to the clouds. Looks like a P-Balloon honestly.
Human Hedgehog Suit: Joker’s “Human Hedgehog” suit is able to, with the press of a button, extend the suit’s quills outwards, with them being dangerously sharp enough to cut Batman’s Bat-Rope on contact. With a second press of the button, he can fire the quills out as a projectile.
Dragonfly Wing Suit: Joker has a wing suit reminiscent of a dragonfly’s wings, capable of letting him rapidly fly around.
Doctor’s Suit: Joker has a doctor’s suit that he dressed up in alongside his goons, and they’re equipped with special reflectors able to cast a blinding light at whoever he looks at.
Red Hood Helmet / Outfit: Joker’s classic Red Hood outfit, always in style. The helmet is durable enough that Robin broke a finger just punching it, has a two-way mirror inside allowing him to see through the hood, doubles as a gas mask capable of defending from poison gas, and can act as a diving helmet. Though it has a glaring weakness in that red beams of light can completely blind the wearer.
Wingpack Suit: Joker has a wing pack with wings that can be retracted and opened at will, that lets him glide through the air, allowing him to intercept a blimp above Gotham City.
Jokerized Next Gen Batsuit: Joker has his own advanced, futuristic next gen Batsuit, which he obtained from his time owning the entire Bruce Wayne fortune. The Batsuit was specifically the suit Bruce had made for him to wear after he had finally saved Gotham City once and for all. The suit has explosive Joker-rang’s, devices capable of blocking out Batman’s comms system, night vision, and tools capable of deactivating bombs.

Joker Projectiles

Joker regularly throws out razor sharp Joker Cards as weapons, with them being sharp enough to embed into someone’s body, take out their eye, and even cut through Batman’s suit. He’s even laced his cards with Joker Toxin in the past. Also, because he loves stealing Batman’s bits, he has his own sharp, smiling Joker-rangs!

Body Doubles

Joker absolutely loves using body doubles of all kinds, but mostly as traps that’ll kill you as punishment for daring to commit the crime of trying to kill him. He’s set up body doubles that will release enough Joker Gas to rapidly fill a room when it was shot, a dummy that was electrically charged and released a close ranged shock that knocked out Batman and Robin for a few minutes, and a Joker dummy trap with a net which was set to catch Batman. He also has more gimmicky ones, such as one intended for Superman, which was filled with Kryptonite Dust.

Outside of dummy traps, he’s also rigged his living physical body doubles with bombs as well, with his Copy Joker double exploding in a street sized blaze of glory.

Normal Vehicles

Joker has a large variety of different vehicles to use for getaways or battle. Cars, planes, navy planes, sleds, choppers, some standard stuff. Though over the years he’s also had plenty of augmentations to more traditional vehicles that really makes you question if you should even be calling them traditional to begin with. He has an ambulance that’s actually an armored car, a truck with sound tech to cause massive misdirection, a helicopter with an extendable boxing glove, a cement truck with glue-like cement to leave around, a self-destructing blimp that can rain down glass shards upon destruction, and a helicopter that can carry Gotham City Hall. In just cars alone he can shoot out an extra set of wheels, eject from his seat, have thick smoke shooting exhaust pipes, and getaway with balloon tires. His Batty-Mobile especially stands out, being built like a battering ram while having jet power for propulsion, and being able to fly thanks to an anti-gravity belt installed by Lex Luthor.

Joker Vehicles

Of course, why would the Joker ever bind himself to “normal” vehicles? He’s had plenty of different Joker-themed vehicles over the years to spice things up, with a lot of variety in his picks. He has Jokermobiles that can shoot out steel track to cross gaps, endure gunfire with bulletproof casing, endure heat from Superman’s heat vision, release a springloaded boxing glove from its rear, and shoot out energy blasts? Sure why not.

He has other good picks too. Joker-coptors can shoot out multiple strands of cable with silken packs, parachutes, and release pressurized water with laughing gas and automatic fire. There’s a Joker sky-sled that can shoot fireballs, a truck that can crush cars and honk a clown horn, a train filled with Joker Venom, and so on. From there he has standard combat planes, hot air balloons, limos, motorcycles, monster trucks, and blimbs that resemble him. Oh, and a remote controlled Joker tank because why not.

Joker Mechs

Joker had a mech one time that was bigger than buildings, though its exact weaponry wasn’t shown off. However, Joker, for some reason, also has a large mech which is made of Nth Metal casing, lined with lead so Superman cannot see through it, and with Kryptonite Mist Spray, designed for combat with Superman. Superman does effortlessly tear it apart and burn through it however. Joker, of course, only uses a mech like this once. While he doesn’t use it himself directly, he instead puts a Joker-ized Lois Lane in it to keep Superman distracted, showing he’s more than willing to utilize it or weaponize his goons with it.

Guns

Joker has, obviously, collected a wide variety of different guns to blast people with all sorts of effects over the years. Most of the firearms he’s carried are pretty basic, some shooting out flags for either fake shots or surprise ones, while others have silencers. We’ll be listing the less notable ones here.

Pistols: Your basic gun, he really likes these things and tends to carry multiple for both extra supply as well as duel wielding.
Sniper Rifle: A gun meant for locating and picking off enemies from a distance.
Machine Gun: A gun for rapid fire bullets.
Smoke Gun: Joker has guns for making smoke for both distraction and escape. Some fire smoke directly while others fire smoke bombs.
Punch Gun: A gun which fires an extendable fist, capable of knocking out someone in one blow.
Pulse Gun: A gun he stole from the GCPD that can disable cars and electric generators through a strong electric pulse.
Shotgun: A gun meant for destructive close range bursts, though Joker has shown to be able to shoot targets from afar with it regardless. Though a stronger double barrel will definitely focus more on that close quarters idea.
Laser Gun: Joker can duel wield laser guns for dangerously fast shots.
Oil Gun: A gun that shoots oil to blind foes.
Flare Gun: A tool for shooting a fiery signal into the air.
Binding Gun: A tool used by Joker and his goons that shoots out a binding substance, tightening with force but weakening q if left alone for a while.
Hot Lead Gun: A gun that shoots hot lead. Good for blinding Superman, better for burning normal people.
Assault Rifle: A gun that works well for medium range, which Joker uh, has quite a few bullets for.
Itching Gun: A non-lethal gun that instead shoots out infuriating itching powder to disable foes.

In addition to these different varieties of guns, Joker has also had a couple that stand out. There’s a teleporter gun, capable of completely transporting a target to another place, which he used to send Batman from Gotham to… Korea. For more instant fatalities, he has an air gun which’s barbed bullets will instantly reduce the target’s blood pressure to zero for instant death, or acid bullets which burn away insides due to a special chemical mixture. To contradict more lethal gun usage, Joker has a mind control gun to place anyone under his bidding. For the biggest stuff, Joker also has a bazooka that shoots a spike with a “BANG” flag attached, that was capable of piercing the Justice Buster Two (Batman’s upgraded version of the Justice Buster, AKA the thing meant for fighting the Justice League), killing Batman in the process.

Blades & Knives

Joker’s had a variety of bladed weapons and knives over his career. He’s had dozens of plain regular knives to the point we’re not even going to bother listing all the instances out, be happy with those three examples dawg. Outside of knives, he’s also carried meat cleavers (which he used to lop off Alfred’s hand!), used razor-blade Baratrangs to fight off the Batman Who Laughs, and even has razor blades hidden in his jacket cuffs that he can pop out from his wrists, Assassin’s Creed style. He’s even got a gimmicky blade that can extend huge distances and be used to rappel up building walls, as well as a spiked gauntlet that’s sharp and strong enough to puncture through blade resistant kevlar.

Explosives

The Joker has a long, LONG history of explosive weapons. As you do. He has standard explosives, attachable bombs, fire grenades, exploding cake, exploding cigars, car bombs, cruise missiles, firebombs, exploding ice cream, heat-seeking missiles, exploding robots, letter bombs (literally), explosive tossable dolls, explosive radios, rockets, molotov cocktails, explosive guns (again, literal), nail bombs, grenades, dynamite, explosive balloons, and to top it all off, actual nuclear weapons.
His explosive arsenal’s threat level is magnified by his quantity of bombs. He has enough TNT to blast a hole in a dike or cause a mini-earthquake that was picked up by the Bat-Cave’s seismograph. Destroying multi-story buildings, carnivals, orphans, gas stations, large chunks of LA, large chunks of Gotham, his bombs are both numerous as they are powerful. And you know, actual nukes. It helps that he has absurdly unorthodox explosives alongside the typical booms. He had a bomb with an anti-gravity field generator to defend its explosive intent, as well as an implosive bomb that made a pseudo black hole that consumed an entire island.

Body Bender Gizmo

Joker has a device that, upon turning its dial, activates a sound wave that automatically mutates those in its vicinity, horribly disfiguring them, and making them grow larger, with the radical sound waves penetrating their cochlear nerves and scrambling their brain patterns. While the device was supposed to make them aggro on one another, it didn’t seem to work as intended, resulting in them instead going berserk and just attacking Joker, meaning they lose mental faculties (considering they all leaped out a window to their death) but not intent to kill him.

Memory Crystal

Joker has a “memory crystal” which he uses to hypnotize Nightwing and implant him with false memories that Joker had raised him as his own son.

Miscellaneous Weapons

The Joker has had a lot of miscellaneous kinds of weapons of the years, with many being far more simplistic in their function. Thus rather than give them their own singular sections, they will be listed here for the sake of cohesiveness.

Chainsaw: Joker carries a chainsaw in his back pocket, as one does. He even brought it to his and Barbara’s wedding, as seen above, as well as a parade he held! He’s even laced his chainsaws with Joker Toxins before.
Motion Projector: A device that projects Joker’s face, it comes with a microphone that amplifies Joker’s laugh to eardrum hurting levels.
Chest of Greasy Rags: A collection of flammable rags to toss around.
Sulphur Box: A box of flammable sulfur that’ll burn with just a match, whose fumes will torture whoever is exposed to them..
Explosive Pennies: Hollowed out pennies filled with chemicals that’ll make them explode in a few hours.
Javelin: A javelin that can blow apart and fire fishhooks at enemies to trap them.
Extending Sword: A blade that can extend to catch objects.
Electrified Poker: A poker for zapping hit enemies.
Oil Shooter: An oil device for making foes slip up.
Kaleidoscope: A tool for blinding foes with extreme light.
Steel Cards: A series of large steel cards that can crush whoever they fall onto.
Recording Amplifier: A sound based device that can play at a pitch to shatter glass.
Rubber Bubbles: Joker can make bubble traps that will solidify and catch unsuspecting foes.
Metallic Paint Spray: Joker’s hideout has a trap to spray people in paint that will then turn to metal around them.
Vacuum Cleaners: Joker has giant vacuum cleaners to suck up stolen goods and enemies alike.
Drill: Joker has a special drill that can dent any metal.
Marionette: A completely normal marionette that Joker can puppet to kick people.
Pie Cannon: A miniature cannon that shoots pie at people.
Bubble Cane: A cane that shoots out sticky bubbles to suspend foes.
Confetti Trap: A confetti releasing attack which binds the foes in strings of confetti.
Exploding Button: Very literal, a button shot out from his shirt that explodes on contact.
Plastic Wire: A plastic that can be shot out to trap foes.
Directional Beam Transmitter: A device that can confuse foes on directions.
Fake Gumballs: Fake balls that are actually able to release onion juice onto people.
Freeze Juice Spray: A spray that can make ice on people.
Sledgehammer: A sledgehammer for cracking skulls.
Dissolving Fluid Tool: A weapon for shooting foes with dissolving fluid that can even melt their facial features off.
Combat Ring: A ring with a bard coated in lethal laughing toxin.
Crossbow: A standard crossbow with stainless steel sedative arrows that worked on Batman.
Snake: Literally a snake.
Boxing Glove Spring: A bouncy punching weapon that moved a giant 8-ball.
Flash Bang Camera: A special camera Harley used which flash banged some civilians and burned off their hair.
Blow Gun: A blow gun to hit people with darts.
Electric Cane: A cane charged with electricity to shock people.
Spiked Gauntlet: A spiked gauntlet which can cut through kevlar.
Flamethrower: Joker has a flamethrower pack, which he also likes to pretend is his cock, and he also has a more traditional flamethrower gun. Also has another flamethrower for shooting fire at people.
Darts: Darts that can be released from his hands.
Scythe: A scythe.
Bladed Cane: A cane with a blade on the end.
Small Hammer: What it says on the tin, really.
Wooden Hammer: A giant wooden hammer.
Hatchet: Perfect for breaking down doors and making The Shining references.
Garotte: Joker has a Garotte, which he used to strangle Batman in the Batman/Shadow crossover.
Death Umbrella: Joker has an umbrella that fires out blades capable of piercing straight through one’s body, similar to the Penguin’s umbrellas
Vat of Insects: Disgustingly, Joker has accumulated a vat full of insects, ranging from beetles, grubs, earthworms, fruits, berries, caterpillars and grasshoppers, enough insects to drown a person with them if they were dumped on top of them. Gross.
Decibel Blast: Joker has a seemingly remote activated audio device that can release a hundred and forty decibel sound waves, which are strong enough to cause immense pain and even shatter gas masks.

Miscellaneous Tools

Along with all the more violent items Joker has used over the years, he’s also made use of more practical items for general activities like tracking, escape, or theft.

Decoy Duck: Joker made a decoy duck to disguise a snorkeler and escape prison unnoticed.
Blow Torch: Joker has a blow torch.
Frequency Apparatus: A special apparatus used to play a tune that when passed through gold causes a special chemical frequency and signal to help him locate treasure.
Television Telescope: Joker has a telescope that can show anything through night, smoke, fog, or rain on his television.
Magic Ear: Joker has a ‘magic ear’ device that can pick up the slightest sound. It did so with the Batplane engines and allowed Joker to follow Batman to West Virginia.
Extension Tongues: Joker has long extension tongues.
Flower Pellets: Fake gas pellets that explode into flowers instead of gas.
Inflated Rubber Whale: A large fake whale Joker can hide inside of.
Chicken Animatronic: A large chicken animatronic Joker can ride on.
Joker Skates: Jet-propelled Joker skates that allowed him to evade a strike from Batman.
Anti-Gravity Box: An anti-gravity box to, well, alter gravity on foes as well as flip it back to normal to surprise them.
Spring Sleeves: Springs in his sleeves that give the illusion of his arms stretching to surprise foes.
Peanut Brittle Jar: A normal peanut brittle jar- why does it have another random snake in it!?
Leg Muscle Pills: Pills that give him super strong leg muscles for 30 seconds, allowing him to leap high enough to catch up to Lex’s rocket boots.
Bejeweled Circlet: A bejeweled circlet that radiates heat, creating antipodal layers of air to bend light rays, producing refraction, distortion, and mirage.
Boxing Glove Flowers: A bouquet of flowers that hides a spring launched boxing glove.
Rope: Joker has access to rope… for when you need to tie someone up very elaborately, of course.
Flash Grenade: A grenade for blinding foes with intense sudden light.
Micro-Surveillance Bugs: A miniature device Joker can stick onto people to listen in on their conversations.
Portable Zipline: A device that shoots out a zipline for Joker to use for getaways.
Jetpack: A jetpack for flying around the place.
Parachute: Joker has an emergency parachute built into his suit, which comes in handy since he likes to fall from large distances often.
Grappling Hooks: Joker has wrist mounted grappling hooks that he can use to grapple across buildings.
Hologram Machine: Joker has a device capable of creating multiple perfect holographic projections of him, though it has to be set up within a specific location.
RC ABM Flux Disruptor: A remote control device that’s capable of disabling and directly controlling implants on the same frequency, which he uses to control Batgirl’s spinal implant.
Weather Console: A device Joker can use to connect to weather satellites to alter weather at different spots over the world. However, Joker and his goons couldn’t really figure out how to make it work,causing the wrong disasters in the wrong places. Making the console unreliable.

Joker Signal

Doesn’t really do anything besides steal Batman’s bit, but if you think about it, that is pretty funny. He was able to plant little objects in every store in Gotham that flash the signal.

Warm Milk &
Cat Toys

To advance negotiations with more feline criminals… or try at least.

Green Goblin

Goblin Formula

Before we even get into the Green Goblin’s bag of tricks, we first need to talk about the serum that empowered Norman in the first place. The Goblin Formula is a genetic-altering chemical substance that alters the subject’s physiology, increasing their overall dexterity and physical capabilities. The earliest Goblin Formula responsible for creating the Green Goblin did not carry aesthetic side-effects, but instead, altered Norman’s mental state permanently. Later attempts at recreating the serum have resulted in permanent bodily mutations, causing the victims of the chemicals to undergo a monster-like metamorphosis.

In large enough doses, the Goblin Formula can be toxic and potentially fatal, though increased exposure is also proportional to the degree in which an individual’s physical stats are heightened; relevant, as Norman has taken so much Goblin Formula over the years, it permeates through every cell in his body. He’s so dosed on Goblin Formula, he completely shrugged off Otto Octavius injecting him with “enough serum to turn an elephant”, as Norman already had DOUBLE that in his veins.

He eventually carried capsules of synthesized Goblin Formula around, which he has used to actively transform unwitting victims into goblins like him. Moreover, the specific formula Norman carries has the added effect of bending the victim’s mind to his will, effectively turning them into a super-enhanced slave. (Initially, his first attempt at a serum for this purpose expressly did not afford him control over his victims’ minds, but he later rectified that mistake.)

Undoing the genetic alterations caused by the serum is technically possible, but often comes at the cost of the victim’s life; it took a genius on the level of Otto Octavius ample time to study and develop a safe reversible antidote.

Green Goblin Suit

Norman’s iconic Goblin costume is outfitted with chainmail and a nifty little man-purse to carry his doo-dads. While it it mainly just Aesthetic™, it does at least bolster Norman’s existing resistance to bullets.

Pumpkin Bombs

The Green Goblin’s trademark iconic weaponry, the pumpkin bombs are more versatile than you expect. On top of consistently exploding stuff good, Norman has also developed several off-shoot variants, such as bombs that emit a knockout gas potent enough to drop Dr. Strange in seconds, a hallucinogenic gas, or bombs that generate blinding sparks. He’s also developed glue bombs, stun bombs, anti-Spidey bombs, power-nullifying gas bombs, and bombs that emit his trusty Goblin Formula as a gas for widespread Goblification. Even before Norman developed Pumpkin Bombs, he already had chemical sprays that could wipe specific memories from his victims’ minds. A standard explosive bomb releases enough heat to melt through a 3-inch thick sheet of steel, if not just obliterate it with raw force.

As the Green Goblin, he typically carries a hefty amount of pumpkin bombs, enough to fill a sack of them at least. Even out of costume, Norman regularly equips himself with at least one or two, just for good measure.

Goblin Glider

You can’t have a Green Goblin without his Goblin Glider! These mechanical marvels can fly up to 90 miles per hour for about an hour of continuous use, fire ‘rocket blasts’ and lasers from its tail end, and emit such a thick, dense smoke exhaust that even Human Torch nearly suffocated from brief exposure to it. He can set his gliders to self-destruct, remote-control one or dozens of them from afar, acting like combat drones.

Norman famously upgraded the glider with a big ‘ol hurty spike, perfect for impaling superhumans like Ben Reilly or, uh, himself, to death.

Shock Gloves

The Green Goblin’s gloves are interwoven with microcircuitry with the capacity to discharge up to 10,000 volts of electricity; naturally, they are insulated to protect him from zapping himself, too. Throughout the Goblin’s history, these ‘finger zaps’ have varied in appearance and usage, sometimes taking the form of a thin, unified beam, while other times taking a more unwieldy lightning-like pattern, and sometimes being called a “sparkler spray” for the purpose of blinding unsuspecting foes, as opposed to zapping them. Curiously enough, Norman might wear skin-colored gloves in public, or at least keep the circuitry hidden under his sleeves even while outside the Goblin costume, as he has used his zappy blasts several times without using the Goblin gloves specifically.

Batarangs

Norman originally designed a set of quirky throwable weapons in addition to his trademark trio of equipment. The first of which are his legally-distinct jet-propelled batarangs. Weirdly enough, while the next two items were pretty much dropped after their one use, Norman did actually keep some Batarangs on him well into the Dark Avengers era, where he used one to slash apart a metal oxygen tank.

Frog & Bat Toys

The next bit of the Goblin’s wackier debut arsenal are these mechanical, electrically charged frog toys. They are designed to detonate as a result of their charge, and are potent enough to sever Spider-Man’s web lines, albeit this is a very juvenile-era Spider-Man. In the same vein, Norman used mechanical bats to emit a thick, blinding smoke.

Ghouls

These hand-thrown ghoulish… things round out the Green Goblin’s earliest arsenal. Despite looking absolutely ridiculous, they have an uncharacteristically powerful effect in that they form air-tight seals around their targets. Despite their limited use holistically, they’ve threatened to deprive both the Human Torch and Ice Man of oxygen, and rendered Peter Parker unconscious in seconds. Against a less distinctly superhuman opponent, Norman posited these asphyxiation grenades could possibly even kill someone with long enough exposure.

Tranquilizer Gun

Norman has not directly used this tranquilizer gun, but he did supply a Green Goblin imposter on his dime to incapacitate Spider-Man with it, so there’s no reason he can’t use his own weapon if he wanted.

Kingslayer Mark I

The Kingslayer Mark I tank comes in both piloted and self-driving models, which is pretty useful as Norman is not dependent on a human army to utilize these legally distinct Metal Gears. They come with front-facing mounted artillery, potent enough to threaten the likes of Spider-Man with his own state-of-the-art Parker Industries tech.

Gold Goblin Suit

Technically not a Green Goblin suit, very much the opposite in fact, but its capabilities and design are clearly meant to invoke the same capabilities as the OG. Designed by Norman freed from his psychosis and in cooperation with Spider-Man, the Gold Goblin allows Norman to take to the air as a hero in his own right.

In place of Pumpkin Bombs, Norman equips this suit with hand lasers, explosives, concussive blasts, adhesive blasts stronger than Spidey’s web fluid, and mini pod missiles for more precise ranged combat, less collateral damage. To that end, he also carries bombs that emit a knockout gas, potent enough to neutralize Spider-Man even while wearing a high-tech suit. His gauntlets are equipped with nanobots that can hack and siphon data from tech, like Jack-O-Lantern’s glider, and sonic grenades potent enough to disrupt a Symbiote’s bond with its host.

Speaking of gliders, the Gold Goblin retains that little bit of branding. Just like the Goblin Glider, this one is voice-and-button activated, ensuring he can take to the skies at any time while grounded. On top of being a glider however, Norman innovated a bit, allowing the glider to also function as a jetpack by attaching to the Gold Goblin’s back. Neat!
In addition to streamlined combat gear, the Gold Goblin suit has scanning functions to identify weaknesses. Norman can also mentally materialize the suit mimicking nanotech, removing the need to physically, manually suit up. Unlike the Green Goblin armor, the Gold Goblin actually has some degree of confirmed defensive utility, as it can resist extreme heats up to 1,948 degrees fahrenheit.

Miscellaneous Equipment

While Norman only used these items during his tenure as the head of SHIELD (and later HAMMER), it has been shown that he kept a weapon cache of his equipment of the time, even after returning to the Green Goblin persona. Therefore, we’ll be affording him access to the following gear he used during the Dark Reign years:

Psionic Shielding

Pretty crazy thing to drop, we know. Apparently Norman was packing psychic-dampening shields potent enough to completely insulate him from the likes of Emma Frost’s telepathy, one of Marvel’s strongest psychics.

Nano-Camera Business Cards

Even the most innocuous of Norman’s arsenal serves multiple functions, like his nano-camera spreading business cards. Simply having one in one’s possession opens them up to a bonafide infestation, letting Norman spy on their every move from afar.

Life-Model Decoy

In his reduced weapon cache, it’s unlikely Norman has a deep supply of Life-Model Decoys to use, but he did once have access to the same kind of synthetic body doubles made famous by the likes of Nick Fury.

Force-Shield

Similar to the decoys, it’s unclear how reliable Norman’s access to this tech would be even with his weapons cache, given its intrinsic tie to Nick Fury and the office of SHIELD’s director. Still, Norman did demonstrate the use of a personal force shield in his confrontation with Hawktuah, warding off bullets with ease. It is implied, however, the shield would fail to save Norman from a great enough concussive force, like a fall out of a building.

Time Bomb

Fool! You fell for his time bomb! Unlike the kind used by Norman’s pal Doom, these bombs slow down time for the space within by a factor of a thousandth, effectively freezing people in place. While Norman didn’t directly show the use of this tech, there’s no reason he wouldn’t have had access to the same gear his subordinates used.

Abilities

The Joker

“Clown” Physiology

While not massively physiologically different from normal humans, Joker’s chemical mutations have indeed affected his biology in a few interesting ways. Joker’s chemically stained body makes proper cloning of him impossible, resulting in warped, mutated disasters. He also has almost-superhuman strength in the heat of battle madness, making him more than a match for the physically superior Batman.

Alternate Personalities

Joker has three different personalities, three different people, within himself. The comical clown Joker, the sadistic evil Joker, and the calm serial killer Joker.

Beyond that, he’s also taken on the personality of “Eric Border” in order to act while in hiding for a while, posing as a worker at Arkham Asylum, being a trustworthy, dependable member of staff. Though he abandoned the role after it had served his purpose in allowing him to set up his plan. Fun fact, Joker got a bit clever with the name.”Eric” comes from “EI’ which is Proto-Norse, meaning “Eternal”, and “Reiks” which is Gotchi, meaning “Prince”, with “Border” being a homophone for “Bourder”, which is an obsolete word for “Jester”, meaning the name Eric Border translated to “Eternal Prince Jester” (or Eternal Jester Prince ig). What a funny guy.

Laughter Virus

Perhaps Joker’s most dangerous discovery, and something that almost ended the world. It’s unclear how it was discovered, but Joker at some point figured out how to Jokerize anyone by simply having them hear him laugh. To be clear, everyone is already infected with the virus. Laughter from Joker and his army act as a signal for a part of the brain, triggering the change from sanity to clown-themed insanity. It is also important to put emphasis on that army point, as Joker is capable of commanding this Jokerized zombie horde to follow his every whim, as implied by the fact he could send them a command to have them all kill themselves. This virus is especially dangerous considering the near instant conversion following infection, and the absurdly limited counterplay. Batman had canceled out specific sound decibels, whereas Catwoman covered her ears entirely. Additionally the sole cure to the virus is the sound frequency of bat echolocation, which is absurdly specific and disconnected to the point that Batman couldn’t figure it out by himself.

Resistances

Joker Toxin: Cmon.
Poisons: Being serious though, Joker is directly stated to have immunity to poisons, and was even in the center of a giant toxic bomb meant to poison a city without a care in the world
Paralyzing Gas: Joker injected himself with an antidote that leaves him immune to the effects of paralyzing gas
Sedation: Joker was able to sing and fidget around even while sedated.
Nerve Gas: Joker is immune to nerve gas bombs he planted and detonated
Limited Mutation Resistance: Joker gets shot with a compound that’s a replica of the chemicals that made him, but amplified a thousand times over, which begins rapidly mutating him, however, he survives the process (or rather, long enough) for Jason falling into the acid that originally made him to kill Jason first (HOLY BUM HOOD).
Insanity Inducement: Joker once read a document that can turn anybody who reads it insane, and was completely fine… because he’s also insane!
Mental Invasion: The Specter once went inside Joker’s mind, and Joker used this to be able to take over the Spectre’s body.
Divine Judgement: Yes, we’re serious. Joker is immune to God’s Wrath because he doesn’t understand right from wrong; Spectre himself went into his mind to pass judgement, with his powers not being based on conventional morality, but the truth. In spite of this, Joker was able to hijack and steal Spectre’s body after this, being completely exempt from his powers, with Spectre even saying Joker is beyond the scope of his judgement.
Mental Assimilation: The Harvester of Sorrows, an entity that “harvests sorrow, speaks the language of the mad, plants seeds of hate and brings misery to entire solar systems” in order to feed from the minds and bodies of all sentient life. The Harvester had even released a plague of madness that drove the inhabitants of twelve million star systems insane, and then assimilated all of them in a single feeding. Despite all of that, when the Harvester tried to assimilate and consume Harley Quinn’s mind, her brain waves contained a mental contagion / virus from the Joker’s mental impact on her, which corrupted the Harvester into accidentally releasing her inner Joker, which completely dominated and overpowered the Harvester, resulting in it going mad before it’s mind “ran out of room” and then it exploded. The very imprint of Joker on another’s mind did all of that. Yep.
Mind / Sense Overwhelming: Joker is unaffected entering Superman’s body and having to handle his super-senses, which even Superman has to focus to tune out all the voices he can hear from his super-hearing, with Batman stating that “Joker’s head is full of voices… Super-hearing probably wasn’t that different for him.” Being subjected to his memories can drive someone insane, and just seeing something in his mind can cause brain hemorrhages
Limited Possession Resistance: Deadman originally could not possess for long Joker due to his insanity being too overwhelming, though later on was able to do so with less issues. He can even sense other people trying to enter his mind and just laugh at them, like how he did to an alternate universe version of himself
Fear Manipulation: Apart from outright taking Scarecrow’s Fear Toxin without issues, Joker was trained to “eradicate fear” entirely.
Pain Manipulation: Apart from the ludicrous amount of disgusting wounds Joker has just, not cared about, he was also trained to be able to turn off his ability to experience pain.
Mind Control: Gorilla Grodd said he could not control the Joker’s mind due to how twisted it was. In addition, the likes of Martian Manhunter have difficulty keeping him under control, and he’s immune to the Lasso of Truth forcing him to confess secrets
Empathetic Manipulation: Raven attempted to use her empathetic powers on Joker to make him feel terror, but instead he found it funny because he’s just so crazy
Mind Erasure: Was able to resist a mind wipe because, you guessed it, insanity

Green Goblin

Superhuman Physicality

The Goblin formula amplified Norman Osborn’s strength, speed, stamina and durability to superhuman levels, enabling him the physical capacity to lift 9 tons and move at speeds up to 700 miles per hour. Moreover, Norman’s body is incredibly tough, with an increased muscle mass and bone density; he possesses bulletproof skin akin to Luke Cage, albeit not quite as impressive. He can still be harmed by sufficiently powerful firearms, but most standard issue weapons are decidedly non-lethal. Similarly, he has an express resistance to piercings, requiring metals like carbonadium to hold up under the pressure needed to break his skin.

Genius Intellect

Engineering

As a result of the Goblin Formula, Norman’s already sharp mind was heightened to new levels. In his very first appearance, he was able to design and manufacture his own armored costume, shock gloves, and flying gear. He would later go on to design and manufacture upgraded suits for others, like Scorpion and even Spider-Man. Then there was the time when, after reviewing camera footage of Spider-Man in battle, he was able to deduce the Spidey suit uses a locator chip, allowing him to reverse engineer the suit’s frequencies to track it anywhere, anytime. As a weapons contractor and manufacturer, Norman has also designed firearms fit for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, as well as reverse engineered Otto Octavius’ spider-gadgets, turning them against the Superior Spider-Man.

Interpersonal Manipulation

However, while he is a skilled engineer, one of Norman’s greatest strengths lies in his ability to manipulate others. Even when he’s out of his element against Skrulls or the godlike entity Sentry, he was able to manipulate them completely, bending them to his will. On the flip side, he’s quick at recognizing when others are playing him, though whether or not he responds appropriately is dependent on his mental state at the time. He was able to see right through Daken’s deception towards him, as well as recognize an inquisitive reporter’s manipulative leading questions. On the other hand, he was explicitly manipulated by his temporary ally Loki, without ever being wise to his deceptions.

In other instances of foresight, he outplayed the original Hobgoblin in their initial meeting, having already seized Hobby’s entire financial assets before a single punch was even thrown. Norman has also managed to completely outsmart and manipulate other geniuses like the Jackal, Peter Parker, and Tony Stark, primarily thanks to his constant skepticism and analysis of every single person he meets.

Biochemical Knowledge

Beyond interpersonal interactions, Norman has performed scientific marvels worth recognition; no surprise, as he is “one of the world’s most pioneering and respected biochemists”. He restored the Molten Man’s powers after they were removed, and created a toothpaste with specially designed RNA compounds for the sole purpose of nerfing Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense. He’s developed multiple other anti-Spider-Man weapons, and even created a cure to Anti-Venom.

With a single glance at a photo of a woman, he was able to discern the specific ailments plaguing her, something multiple doctors couldn’t do even after running numerous tests. And then, just because he could, he concocted a home-brew treatment that actually ended up causing that same woman’s organs and neurological functions to break down. What a dick.

Continuing with his biochemical understanding, Norman was able to eventually neutralize the Goblin formula that once empowered him, solely to ensure he was the only Goblin running around. His brilliance isn’t even contained to just Goblin and Spider shenanigans, seeing as how he’s also synthesized his own version of Captain America’s Super Soldier Serum.

Information Technology

In addition to engineering, interpersonal manipulation, and biological knowledge, Norman is also pretty good with technology, to say the least. He himself boasted that hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s computers were easier to break into than the IRS, and after revamping those same computers with Oscorp firewalls, even super geniuses like Amadeus “infinite computational speed” Cho struggled to reverse engineer them. That’s not too far removed from the time Norman hacked into Otto Octavius’ own personal network, compromising his technology with ease. Otto wasn’t even really able to refute Norman when he claimed superiority when it comes to hacking.

Norman’s technological prowess is so great, he was even able to hack tech straight from the year 2099, thanks to Miguel O’Hara’s entanglement in the timeline. Cutting-edge tech is consistently vulnerable against Norman, as seen in his fight with War Machine, when he figured out how to counter Rhodes’ technopathy, blocking the pulse range of his magno locks… whatever that means. On another occasion, Norman confidently worked “very precise calculations in a very narrow window of time” to redirect the force of a city-wide EMP. An EMP that Norman himself built, for good measure. There was also the time Norman figured out how to counter a suit made of unstable regenerating particles by connecting the Iron Patriot’s capabilities to the mechanics of Reed Richards’ creation, proving he can operate competently well above his intellect level.

Planning & Strategizing

Last but certainly not least, Norman always anticipates some degree of unpredictability in battle, always cognizant of unexpected variables that could threaten his equations at the worst moments. To combat this, he consistently plans in layers, with failsafe after failsafe to ensure he always stays on top of unpredictable outcomes, to the degree of having “hundreds of plans and counterplans” and plans within plans. One such instance of this concerned the Scorpion, who Norman hired immediately after he figured out Spider-Man’s secret identity, and for the sole purpose of activating a kidnapping scheme years later just in case Peter ever had Norman arrested. When he confronted Peter another time, he strategically deployed his goons across the entire country to threaten MJ and Aunt May, forcing Peter to play into his imposed rules.

Regeneration

The last of the Goblin serum’s gifts includes an accelerated healing factor, capable of reversing cellular death. To that end, his healing factor is potentially quite potent, but recovering from life-threatening wounds required a considerable amount of time, even though his body began healing almost immediately after his heart was damaged. It also won’t be patching Norman up from things like complete cremation. That being said, lesser wounds, such as having his chest gashed open, can heal in under a day.

Resistances

Piercing – Due to his bulletproof skin, conventional firearms are incapable of inflicting lethal damage to Norman. Similarly, most metals lack the dexterity to pierce his skin, requiring the likes of carbonadium to do the job.
Anesthetic gasses – Norman immunized himself against his own Pumpkin Bomb’s knockout gasses, which can render even superhumans like Spider-Man unconscious in a matter of seconds.
Mind Manipulation – Somefuckinghow Norman put up a fight against Nate Grey in a war of the mind, and while he ultimately defeated Grey through extraneous circumstances, he still resisted the mutant’s attempts at control all on his own for a period of time. We should note that Norman was in possession of psychic shields at the time, and he was enthralled by much weaker psychics in the past without such protection.

Armies

The Joker

Goons

Joker has an army of minions that each carry around a variety of different weapons. From a normal legion of thugs who wear clown masks with various different guns and melee weapons, to men with canes that shoot bullets, to dancing crickets that use a special radio frequency to make you see things that aren’t there (William Afton reference???), to radio controlled dummies he can use to suicide bomb places, and even minions whohave guns that shoot a binding substance! And even minions that have a paralyzing dart and tasers! Of course, even with these outliers, Joker still has some more normal ones. Ones with just Joker themed rockets, or guns, or just an army of soldiers to themselves, or just large muscular dudes, and finally even just some normal hyenas. Of course, these are just some of his more garden variety minions. Now, we’ll get into some of his… weirder ones.

Superman Robot

Joker…. SOMEHOW… made a lifelike Superman replica robot. The robot can have Joker gas come out of its ears, and it’s equipped with a 40 megaton thermo-nuclear bomb inside of it capable of completely destroying Metropolis (that explosion LOOKS more impressive than 40 megatons…).

Birds

The Joker once read a book on how to tame birds, and as a result, he tamed an entire group of birds until they became “an extension of him, another limb, another pair of eyes”. He can control them at a win to do whatever he wants that they can do, and even beat up Hush using them.

The Mighty Martian
Powee Rangers

Yes. This is real. The Joker made copies of the Power Rangers out of goo to distract Superman. Anyways, these things are made of goo, and as such stick to you, including being unaffected by Superman’s punches as a result and just sticking to him, making it impossible for him to do anything. However, extreme heat can get rid of them, as Clark demonstrated. They are still a massive inconvenience though.

Jackanapes

A young gorilla Joker kidnapped from the zoo after gassing and killing its mother, Joker aimed to raise the ape as his own, giving it the same childhood that he supposedly experienced to ensure it would turn out how he did. He trained him in the arts of killing, wielding firearms, general evildoing, and even some shockingly intelligent activities like hand-crafting devices of mass destruction. However, Jackanapes would end up dying in the line of battle (or alternatively choosing to let himself die)… but Joker just decides he’ll go take another ape from the zoo in the end.

Jo-Bots

Joker has “Jo-bots”, robots designed to destroy intruders who enter his lair, which are equipped with facial recognition technology.

Clown Dolls

A small army of clown dolls, they’re slow, small, and weak. On paper, completely useless, a distraction at best. That is until they get cracked open and release a gigantic amount of Joker Toxin, poisoning and dooming whoever attacked the horde. Outside of that, he’s also made a doll that explodes when its nose is touched, able to blow holes into walls. He’s also made more directly lethal toys that are able to pose a direct threat to Batman, and toys programmed to clamp down onto their victim.

Corpse Army

Joker outfitted an entire army of corpses with special Designer tech that he modified, which allows him to revive them and turn them into obedient soldiers. However, the army works through special nanobots, which can be disabled through the use of an EMP. A more notable case is the corpse of the Designer, a previous generation villain that could temporarily fight off Batman, and is remote controlled by a couple Joker goons.

Edwin

Edwin is functionally a Joker proxy. Through the influence, funding and advice of the real Joker, he trained to become “Joker” in body, mind and spirit, bleaching himself in the same chemical bath, undergoing rigorous diets and surgeries to look like the Joker, and practicing his speech built off of his recordings continuously. After all his training, he was able to briefly take the role of the Joker, going on a one man crime spree, even blowing up a building and killing 34 people in the process.

Although in the end he got his ass whooped and was then shot dead by Harley Quinn. However, this does show that Joker has the required resources and capability of grooming and developing people into Joker proxies for himself.

Joker Incorporated

To have some fun with the worldwide Batman Incorporated team, Joker made his own variation consisting of a team of five (would be six but Dai Laffyn left because of what can only be described as poor working conditions). Dusty Bronco is an expert marksman who can hit a car tire while on horseback, Corvus Cawl is a skilled duel wielding sword fighter, and then the rest are kind of boring frankly. Sure an acid flower or double assault rifle here or there, maybe a couple of extra goons they were kind enough to bring along, but the team is somewhat dull roster wise. Which is why, naturally, Joker decided to spice things up. Just copy Batman Incorporated’s shtick but with villains? Lame! So why not add detonatable explosives devices inside each of the members?

These are the poor working conditions we joked about before. Within each of the five members of Joker Incorporated is a deadly explosive, sometimes releasing Joker Toxin, sometimes just a standard fiery kaboom. In the context of the story, Joker had these bombs set to force Batman Incorporated members to have to kill the Joker Incorporated ones, but he can also just have the bombs go off whenever. This is dangerous as all the bombs have a minimum kill radius of a city block, and the most dangerous specific bombs have a one kilometer kill radius. This isn’t some exaggeration, the one kilometer reaching danger zone is highlighted after Joker’s statement (even if it’s inconsistent which bombs are actually this strong) and they’re still able to threaten people on the top of a building while on the street below. While it is unclear if it would be an explosive or Joker gas release that reaches this far, either outcome is still horrifying to consider. The bombs’ small size does make them susceptible to EMPs though.

Piranhas

A spin on his day 1 trick, now the fish are Jokers themselves!

Green Goblin

Order of the Goblin

While hiding away in Europe after his apparent death-by-glider, Norman discovered and usurped control of the Scrier Cabal, gaining access to a secret empire of devoted followers – rivalling the Hellfire Club in influence – overnight, reshaping it in his image..

Initially, the cult was composed of solely human followers. Despite their lack of powers, the cult has infiltrated and rescued Norman from imprisonment several times. They had the capacity to deploy “hundreds” of members to break Norman out of prison following his incarceration after the Dark Avengers era, actually succeeding in turning the entire Raft system under their leader’s thumb.

Oscorp Militia

Norman weaponized his Oscorp staff, situating them with top-of-the-line weapons and Goblin gear. With a single press of a button, goons on glide-cycles and giant ass Metal Gears line up to do Norman’s bidding, effectively acting as a functioning militia force.

Goblin Underground

Last but not least, there is the Goblin Underground, a collective of discarded, forgotten supervillains. Norman hand-picked these followers as a direct response to Otto Octavius’ stint as Spider-Man, deceptively forming an army from Otto’s successes in reducing crime. The rank and file of this army is made up of an extremely diverse batch of henchmen, ranging from disgraced Hand ninjas to Wilson Fisk’s former subordinates, former Hobgoblins, and everything in between.

It is worth mentioning their loyalty is to the Goblin, not necessarily Norman Osborn. After having his sins erased by the Sin Eater, Norman turned over a new leaf, but the cult persisted and found new leadership in the Hobgoblin, turning on their former head.

Feats

The Joker

Overall

Has nearly destroyed all of Gotham on several occasions
Stalemated the Riddler in a Gang War until Bruce Wayne intervened
Killed Jason Todd at least 3 times, as well as Sarah Essen-Gordon
Has defeated Nightwing, Barbara Gordon, Damian Wayne, Tim Drake, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and more!
Has fought Batman to the death
Paralyzed Barbara Gordon
Has outsmarted Batman on several occasions, as well as Superman and Lex Luthor
Nearly became rightful owner of North America (the deed expired one day early, shame)
In an alternate universe, destroyed Metropolis and killed millions of people
Helped Batman take down The Batman Who Laughs
Subjugated the entire Justice League (besides Batman) with specialized Joker Toxin
Tricked Mr. Mxyzptlk and temporarily gained his powers
DC K.O. Semi-Finalist (unless he somehow cheeses Wonder Woman next issue)
One-shot the Justice Buster Two
Became a DMV Employee

Power

Joker(DCAU/DCAM) vs Shogo Makishima - Battles - Comic Vine

Speed

Durability

Batman punches him through a roof window into a building, but Joker keeps fighting even after landing
Survives a close range explosion completely unharmed
Identical copy SURVIVED being shot through the side of the head and being buried alive
Tanks being slammed into a car window multiple times until it breaks
Just doesn’t care that he was stabbed with an iron pole
Powers through multiple gun shots
In general he endures getting his shit kicked in by Batman pretty regularly honestly

Green Goblin

Overall

Stated to be one of the world’s most pioneering and respected biochemists
Masterminded the entire Spider-Clone Saga, true supervillain shit
Took over the Scrier Cabal
Responsible for saving humanity from Jackal wiping out all life on Earth
Ended the Skrulls’ Secret Invasion of Earth
Became director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, & Thunderbolts
Brought together a Cabal of Doctor Doom, The Hood, Emma Frost, Namor, and Loki
Forced Otto Octavius to admit he was, in fact, not the Superior Spider-Man™
Beat an old lady with a stick to get these cranberries
Defeated Spider-Man, Human Torch, Hobgoblin, Wonder Man, Nate Grey, Otto Octavius, Jack ‘O Lantern, Shocker, Dr. Strange, Tombstone
Killed Gwen Stacy, Ben Reilly, Flash Thompson, Skrull Queen Veranke, Swordsman, Queen Goblin

Power

Physicals:

Can lift 9 tons
Shattered chain gauntlets
Had to be restrained with Omnium steel restraints (a metal stronger than titanium but weaker than Adamantium)
Traded hands with Songbird after the two endured each others’ concussive blasts
Oneshotted Mystique
Slashed open an oxygen tank with a batarang
Knocked a huge meatloaf of a man down with a single punch
Yeeted Jessica Jones
Bitch smacked Molten Man, stating his powers were nothing compared to Norman’s own
Superior to civilians Goblinized by the Goblin formula, who can bend restraints made for the likes of Venom
Lifted a bunch of rubble trapping Spider-Man
Cracked Whirlwind’s leg
Knocked a young Hank McCoy away with a punch, claiming to be his equal in strength
Beat the shit out of a weakened Ned Leeds Hobgoblin
Traded blows with Queen Goblin
Humiliated Shocker in a one-sided beatdown more than once
Fought off at least 6 Goblin cultists at once with more surrounding him
Even with “more blood on him than in him”, knocked away Urich Hobgoblin empowered by the Goblin Formula with a punch
Beat the dog piss out of Deadpool with his bare hands
Traded blows with Kraven’s son, Kraven
Gave Tombstone the hands

Weapons:

Pumpkin Bombs
- Can melt through a 3 inch thick sheet of steel
- Destroy stalactites in a cave
- Created an explosion that overturned police vehicles
- Destroyed a large building with 3 bombs
- Carpet bombed several buildings, though notably doesn’t actually destroy any
- A single bomb blew out the Daily Bugle’s foundations
- Created a large explosion out the side of an Oscorp building
- KO’d Wonder Man & killed a bunch of Atlanteans
- Blasted Swordsman through a sealed corridor door
- Hurt Songbird
- Blew off an arm belonging to Sin Eater’s followers
Shock Gloves
- Can output 10k volts of electricity
- Knocked out Ben Reilly with a single blast
- Broke apart a ceiling
- Knocked the wind out of Peter Parker
- Implied to be able to burn a Hobgoblin to ashes
- Blasted Hobgoblin away out of a grapple
Goblin Glider
- Killed himself via impalement on accident whoopsie
- Killed Ben Reilly via impalement through the back
- Hurt Jessica Jones enough for Norman to break her grip
Gadgets
- In Disney Jr.’s acclaimed “Marvel’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends”, Gobby was able to conjure absurdly specific nimbostratus snow storm clouds across the entire city of New York(1.44 Megatons of TNT)
  - While we are excluding non-comic media from the blog, this feat is really fucking funny and we wanted to bring it up

Speed

Goblin Glider can fly up to 90 mph for up to an hour straight
Spider-Man stated very early in his career that Norman was “too fast for him”
Flew from Hollywood to New York in a matter of hours
Norman claimed very early on to be Spider-Man’s equal in speed
Seemed confident he could dodge or at least evade lightning from a chamber emulating weather effects, then dodged & evaded lasers alongside Spider-Man in that same chamber
Dodged the Hobgoblin’s finger blast
Outpaced Spider-Man on-foot
Dodged an energy blast from Swordsman’s, uh, sword
Was unable to react to a sniper rifle shot from 4 miles away
Dodged an arrow from extremely close distance
Blitzed an armed soldier
While empowered by the Carnage symbiote, caught a rat. Wow!
Gold Goblin glider flew fast enough to save Norman from a fall off a building
Dodged Kamala Khan’s punches
Evaded blasts from Shocker gauntlets
Dodged Mephisto’s blast, herald scaling confirmed yep yep #true
Evaded Spider-Slayers’ lasers that deflect off of reflective surfaces

Durability

Survived being knocked out by livewires and chemicals
Withstood being blasted in the face by a sack of his own Pumpkin Bombs
- This sack contained the bombs Norman had intended to use to destroy the Daily Bugle, killing everyone inside
Shrugged off being shot by a heavy ballistic rifle that launched him into cars
Endured being choked by Hobgoblin
Took a hit from Jessica Jones smacking him with his own glider
Even without his Goblin armor, Norman’s skin is stated to be practically bulletproof on several different occasions
Survived being struck by lightning
Withstood being blasted by Songbird’s powers repeatedly
Laughed off being slashed open by Whirlwind
Took a beating from Menace
Shrugged off being shot by Deadpool
Took a right hook from Nick Fury
Tanked a kick from Mystique
Survived a beating from a bloodlusted Doc Ock, specifically targeting his chest wound
Took a hit from Man-Wolf
Survived hits from Sin Eater using Juggernaut’s powers
Survived his Gold Goblin gear blowing up in his face
Tanked being blasted by an individual Pumpkin Bomb with no armor
Took a beating from Queen Goblin
Shrugged off being impaled on his Gold Goblin glider
Was slammed into a wall hard enough to crater it by Venom
It is stated that carbonadium needles are required in order to pierce Norman’s skin
Took an ass whooping from Doc Ock’s tentacles several times
Traded blows with Kraven’s son, Kraven
Withstood a blast from Shocker gauntlets
Was tossed into a chimney hard enough to upend and split it in half
Was smacked by the Spider-Slayer
Tanked being blasted by his own Pumpkin Bomb
Withstood the pain of having cumulative damage done to others reflected into his body all at once
Broke Tombstone’s arm by simply blocking his punch

Scaling

The Joker

Bat-Family

This shouldn’t be much of a surprise. While not as skilled or commonly portrayed as physically impressive, he’s consistently shown to be able to throw back equal hits against Batman, Robin, Red Hood, Nightwing, and even his own beloved Harley Quinn. In particular, the heat of battle gives him near superhuman strength to match Batman. Joker is also, consistently, portrayed as surprisingly quick, and considered a shockingly fast fighter by the Bat-Family, giving very solid reasoning for speed scaling. As such, it is perfectly fine to scale Joker to various feats performed by the Caped Crusader and his peers.

DC Street Tiers

Joker has had some runups with Gotham’s underbelly, from Catwoman to Scarecrow. Similarly, being an equal to Batman, who’s fought plenty of these villains and other rogues before, would support Joker being a physical match for them. Many other street tier characters, while Joker has not personally fought, have shown to be matched by Batman and other members of his Rogues Gallery several times, including the likes of Black Canary and Deathstroke. As such, Joker should be comparable to feats performed by other characters within the same general weight class.

Deathstroke withstands a nuclear submarine getting dropped on him and then exploding (43.2 tons of TNT)
Alanna Strange reacted to and dodged a beam stated on the same page to be near-lightspeed (62% speed of light)
Dark Ranger barely survives an explosion that Joker previously said had kill radius extending from one block to one kilometer, though given the size it’s much more likely to be the former
Firefly survives an explosion that engulfs a large area and creates a crater
Philo Zeiss is enhanced to the point of seeing other street tiers in slow motion
Catwoman:

Green Goblin

Spider-Men

It would be a reasonable assumption that Spider-Man’s greatest nemesis would naturally be his equal in every regard, strength included. However, the truth is a fair bit more complicated. For much of Norman’s history, he consistently failed to match up to Peter Parker’s strength and speed, at least when the Spider-Man truly stopped pulling his punches. Just one particularly poignant example: starting in the pages of Spider-Man: Revenge of the Green Goblin #1, Norman once drugged and brainwashed Peter, kidnapping him and subjecting him to sensory deprivation, physical and mental torture for weeks on end. Despite Peter tripping balls, being inarguably exhausted and weakened, he STILL ultimately knocked Norman on his ass in a direct 1v1 confrontation, with no time to rest or prepare. Norman even flat out admits to being bested by Peter physically! This is a bit of a trend; obviously, there are way too many fights between the two to list out here, so you can peep this separate catalogue of the most significant fights Norman has had with a Spider-Man with this link. Either way, it’d be disingenuous to say Norman has always been Peter’s equal.

That being said, Norman hasn’t necessarily remained stagnant in power. Early on, it’s established that the Goblins that succeeded Norman – Harry Osborn, Kingsley!Hobgoblin – were explicitly stronger than the original. In the latter’s case, Kingsley’s body was exposed to a higher density of Goblin Formula than Norman, making him more powerful as a result. Over the years, Norman has taken more and more vials of formula at very intermittent and random instances. This recently culminated in Norman revealing his body contains twice the amount of Goblin Formula needed to affect a grown elephant… and that was before Otto Octavius injected him with yet another elephant-sized dose. By his own admission, Norman has long since adapted to and tamed the power granted to him by the formula. We know that strength granted by the formula is proportionate to exposure; therefore, Norman should logically be much stronger today than he once was.

Even more recently, Norman adopted the Spider-Man persona himself, and was able to fight a squad of Miles Morales, Silk, Spider-Gwen, and more miscellaneous Spider-folk all on his own. It’s worth noting they weren’t exactly bloodlusted, but Norman still harmed and posed a threat to their heavy hitters, with Miles admitting they lost fair and square to him.

All this being said, Norman is undoubtedly much more capable these days than he once was. It is somewhat generous to assume he’d be Peter’s equal even on a baseline, but he would no doubt far upscale average street tiers; to the point that, to some degree, Spider-scaling isn’t unreasonable to consider at a high end.

Spider-Man:
- Fought the Insomniac games’ Peter Parker, who is comparable to Miles Morales withstanding a blast that would have devastated Harlem (15.03 Megatons of TNT)
- Contended with the power of the Mayan god Wayeb, who could create a snowstorm covering Manhattan (650 Kilotons of TNT)
- Gained the upper hand against a weakened Dracula, who could effortlessly conjure a snowstorm over London (1.85 Megatons of TNT)
- Was stated to be faster than microwave ‘blasts’
- Managed to avoid and eventually dodge Lightmaster’s solid light beams, albeit inconsistently
  - Superior Spider-Man could similarly avoid Lightmaster’s beams, albeit he was eventually tagged
- Narrowly kept up with Dazzler, who can move at the speed of light (notably, a speed Spider-Man himself is stated to be incapable of reaching)
An inexperienced Venom once claimed that Spider-Man moved in slow motion to him

Marvel Street Tiers

Rather self-explanatory, no real surprises here. Norman has beat the piss out of several benchmark street tiers like Deadpool, and stonewalled the likes of Tombstone to a severe degree. The fact that he could potentially scale to Spider-Man should be justification enough for the following scaling:

Moon Knight avoided lasers from the Master of Illumination, & reacted fast enough to deflect one of them (44.2% Speed of Light)
Wolverine endured blasts from the Black Shadow, a mutant superpower that can annihilate entire city blocks (140.74 – 465.6 tons of TNT)
Wolverine avoided, dodged & intercepted Cyclop’s beams, which move at the speed of light (1.49x FTL)
Wolverine knocked down Domina, who claimed to be strong enough to move mountains (1.6 kilotons of TNT)
Deadpool withstood being punched so hard, the impact caused an island-sized explosion (182.1 – 849.6 tons of TNT)
The Punisher withstood being blasted by Shocker, whose gauntlets can create 10-mile long earthquakes (924.007 tons of TNT)

Weaknesses

The Joker

While the Joker has shown many, many strengths in the past, even villains such as he have their weaknesses. From electricity, as shown by him, dying to the electric chair or being electrified, or some sedatives, drugs designed to knock him out, and certain poisons. In addition to that, while his pain tolerance is very good, it’s not insurmountable by any means; he’s been knocked out by exposure to Kryptonite in Superman’s body due to the sheer agony it put on him, showing that while he can tank a lot of damage and push through intense degrees of pain, he isn’t invincible to any degree. But, more than any of these, perhaps the greatest weakness of the Joker is, ironically enough, his own sadism. He’s gotten caught up in torturing people to such an extent he get tunnel vision and doesn’t notice someone attempting to kill him, and this sort of sadism is perhaps the Joker’s greatest folly, as he’s so obsessed with making others miserable that he sabotages himself for it.

Green Goblin

Norman is a walking mess of a human being with a laundry list of issues. He is notoriously mentally unstable (ailed by psychosis, memory loss, and paranoia), and while he can strengthen his resolve to fight under literal cosmic scale pressure, he has his limits. Pushed far enough into a corner, he is prone to completely breaking down, losing all sense of self and turning into a wild, feral animal. Even just mentioning Spider-Man tends to get deep under his skin, a byproduct of his obsessive hyperfixation of the wall-crawler. This makes him a prime target for certain master manipulators, who can and have played Norman in the short term & over prolonged periods of time, influencing his actions through calculated provocation and suggestion.

Furthermore, Norman’s powers are impressive, but don’t overestimate them. His regeneration is rather slow-acting, and other Goblins with his same powers were unable to survive cremation, highlighting his healing’s limits. He was somehow able to fight back against Nate Grey’s mental powers, but Norman has also been completely enthralled by mind control from far weaker telepaths, had his mind read without his knowledge, and had his will completely broken by Carnage wresting control of their symbiosis. And as far as the Goblin Formula itself is concerned, it’s difficult to completely remove, but not impossible. Tony Stark also developed nanites to heel Norman from gobbing out completely.

Lastly, while his Gold Goblin armor is a marked improvement over his Green Goblin garbs, it also opens Norman to technological vulnerabilities. His suit was easily hacked by the likes of Doc Ock, leaving him completely incapacitated.

Verdict

Joker vs. Green Goblin is a fairly unique debate even in comparison to most others we’ve covered on this blog, so with this in mind, we’ll be using different major categories this time around. Namely, a close range fight, a long range fight, the mind games both would use on the other, and their more tertiary tools, to see who would win. Now, enjoy.

Stats

In terms of close range, the big thing to get out of the way first is obvious; who can hit harder and move faster?

Joker’s direct feats are impressive in terms of durability – able to survive explosions that blow up the roof of a chapel or even a mansion. Norman likewise has been able to survive his Pumpkin Bombs, which can melt through 3 inches thick worth of steel, and even withstood being struck by lightning, which usually pack around gigajoules of energy. These would be fairly comparable, but in terms of strength and speed, Goblin’s feats are generally better. Being strong enough to lift 9 tons and shatter metal stronger than titanium, as well as dodge point blank arrow fire, are more impressive than anything Joker has shown directly. Of course, given the amount of heroes both have fought and proved equal to, scaling will be what determines stats.

Joker is consistently a match for Batman, having dodged his attacks and damaging him at several points. Batman has withstood being hit with an earthquake gun that shook Gotham at a yield of 848 tons of TNT, and survived an explosion that left a massive crater in a city worth 6.7 kilotons of TNT. Joker, due to damaging Batman, should scale to these feats

That would pale in comparison to Goblin though. Due to his superhuman nature and feats of defeating various street tiers, he’d be above feats like Punisher surviving a hit from Shocker’s gauntlets, which were previously used to cause a 5 mile wide quake at 924 tons of TNT. However, Goblins that Norman has surpassed, like Kingsley!Hobgoblin, have matched Spider’s like Miles Morales before, and fairly recently, Norman has matched other Spider-Men and beat them fair and square. While perhaps not exactly 100% their match, even downscaling from the Spider’s would make him comparable to Wayeb creating a huge blizzard at 650 kilotons, Dracula’s snowstorm over London at 1.8 megatons, and, of course, Insomniac Miles Morales withstanding the explosion of a bomb that’d vaporize Harlem at 15 megatons. Even just scaling him to Wayeb’s feat would be nearly 100 times stronger than what Joker can scale to. In terms of strength, the Green Goblin takes it rather comfortably.

Speed is a bit more even, at least on the surface. Joker scaling to Batman means he’d also scale to Batman dodging fairly realistic lasers after they were fired, but fighting the Caped Crusader would also let him scale to other members of the Bat-Family. Most notably, Azrael was able to deflect several laser beams at once, requiring speeds up to 2.3 times FTL. Goblin is above multiple street tiers with light timing feats, most explicitly Moon Knight, but his comparability to Spider-Man would get slightly higher, as Peter Parker is described to move faster than microwave beams. While hard to put a number to it, that’d be somewhere around FTL.

So, Joker is numerically faster, but not to such a degree that it’d be notable, right? Well, at a base level, sure. But there’s a few things worth exploring to make who has the advantage more clear; upscaling, which requires looking into other characters.

A DC villain named Zeiss has enhancements that make him see people in slow-motion, and was able to do so and blitz Catwoman in their first fight. However, after some training, Selina was able to then turn the tables and defeat him one on one. Batman is able to keep up with Catwoman even after this, and Joker, of course, is able to keep up with him. More importantly, Joker, when amped by Dionesium, moved too fast for Batman to even land a hit on him, dodging all of his attacks, landing his own, and Batman even noting he’s moving much faster than normal.

Comparatively, Goblin doesn’t have as many chains of upscaling. Spider-Man was once able to blitz Daredevil and sees other street tiers in slow-motion, who’d scale to your baseline street tier speed feats, and Goblin is comparable to him in speed. However, he’s never shown superior speed to that of Peter throughout his history. At least, not to the extent of Venom, who’s able to view Peter in slow-motion in turn, or other characters like Silk or Black Cat who have demonstrably shown superior speed to the web-crawler. As such, Goblin wouldn’t be upscaling from Marvel street tier light timing feats to quite the same extent.

To think of it in a shorter term…

Street stat baseline / ‘Base’ Catwoman < Zeiss < Post-training Catwoman = Batman = Joker < Dionesium amped Joker

Street stat baseline < Spider-Man = Green Goblin < Venom

Granted, Spider-Man has likely gotten stronger and faster over time. Even if you afforded a layer of upscaling by virtue of him matching, say, Venom more recently, Joker would still be outpacing him with Dionesium. So, Joker would no doubt be more than fast enough to dance around the elder Osborn, although Norman’s strength advantage is technically much greater in terms of quantifiable numbers. Both are important for sure, but insofar as winning an up-close grapple goes, Norman’s strength is more important than Joker’s speed.

Combat Skill

This will be much shorter; while both aren’t exactly known for being masters of combat, Norman’s CQC skills are much more basic in comparison. He can throw hands for sure, but doesn’t have any actual proper training or skill feats to his name. Hell, someone who took his exact skills and H2H moves couldn’t land a single hit on the more experienced Spider-Man up close. Comparatively, Joker has been trained by the same man who trained Batman. This lines up, as while he’s not as skilled as the various martial arts experts in the Bat-Family, he’s able to continuously get the jump on them and match them in close ranged encounters – a lot better than most of Norman’s skill feats.

While both are noted for being unpredictable fighters and can catch more properly skilled enemies by surprise, Joker is much more impressive in this showcase. This is made clear by Midnighter saying he couldn’t get a read on Joker despite playing every possible fight against him in his head. You know, the guy who can analyze millions of possible scenarios a battle can take place before he even begins fighting and formulate a plan from that? It’s much more absurd and, well, unpredictable, than any of Norman’s other showcases of being unpredictable to other fighters. Even from a more relatively grounded comparison, Joker’s unpredictable nature makes him a struggle for Batman to match in hand to hand, a fighter with more proper training, skill, and experience than Spider-Man.

Overall, Joker should take the edge in combat skill, via better documented training and showcases.

Weaponry

To get the obvious advantage out of the way, Joker has a lot more options to throw at Goblin than vice-versa, between his utility belt, knives, crowbars, etc. Most notably, has several acid weapons he can use up-close like pies or buckets, and his trusty trick flower can shoot enough acid to melt someone’s face off. His joy buzzer is a strong close-range shock option and can extend a small distance with its blasts, and his various types of gasses and flash grenades can blind Norman if he gets too close. He can even bypass Norman’s protective barrier, as Joker Venom can pass through any forcefields that you have to breathe through, and his flower acid is potent enough to chew through any forcefield Lex Luthor could think up, extremely dangerous in a close up scenario.

Of course, there’s the iconic Joker Venom, which would be instantly fatal if Norman gets infected by it. Not only does he lack ways to defend against it, but high enough dosages infecting the Justice League would prove far too potent for Goblin to reliably resist. Joker has shown to implement it in close quarters combat, either by spraying it around or lacing numerous weapons and tools in it. He’s even poisonous to the touch, making direct contact with him dangerous.

By comparison, while Norman’s options are much less varied, they’re still quite useful. First off, the Goblin Glider can be used effectively as an impaling weapon, which he’s used to stab superhumans like Ben Reilly and even kill them in one hit. An obviously devilish blow for Joker should it land, even with his healing. Norman’s shock gloves also give him protection from Joker’s poisonous skin if he goes to punch him, and pack around 10 thousand volts of electricity with their zappy blasts. Norman can also use these gloves to fire electrical charged blasts to either momentarily disorient Joker for an opening, or just… kill him.

Of course, Goblin’s best option up-close would just be his good ‘ol fisticuffs. With a sizable strength gap in his court of at least a hundred times, that’s enough for him to get up close and just beat Joker to death. Goblin himself also goes for the kill quickly in-character, not usually the one to monologue or let his enemies get an opening before he does. If he just beats Joker to death, there’s only so much the clown prince of crime can do to retaliate.

Joker does have a lot of good options, but Goblin has his own advantages here that, combined with a strength advantage, prove just as reliable.

Endurance

Both of these two are incredibly persistent and can power through plenty of damage that would kill any normal person. In Joker’s case, he’s withstood iron poles stabbing his shoulder, being shot several times, cutting his own tongue, and taking a shit ton of beatings from Batman. He’s even trained to just outright not feel pain at all. Goblin actually matches up fairly well, being able to defeat someone while having most of his blood drained and withstanding having most of his bones broken. Doc Ock even pounded on his chest wound several times, and Norman got back up moments later. Still, while they are matched in this field, Joker’s resistance to such incredible pain would make dealing any significant damage he can’t recover from easier said than done.

Of course, there’s their healing factors to compare as well. With Dionesium, Joker was able to come back from being shot through critical arteries within seconds. Dionesium is even able to repair broken bones and was able to regrow Joker’s face… which he had cut off prior. More grievous injuries however, would have a more indeterminate timeframe attached, as it’s unclear how long it would take to come back from, say, having his chest blown wide open.

Goblin’s healing factor, while impressive enough to heal fatal wounds like a punctured heart, requires a hefty period of time to fully mend. Joker’s healing factor is a bit more immediate, when it comes to mending minor wounds, but ultimately, they should be somewhat roughly even here. Realistically, a strong enough hit will kill the Joker anyway, and Norman’s healing factor wouldn’t matter if he were incapacitated sufficiently by Joker Venom or any of Joker’s other win conditions. Even if Joker were to begin healing from having his face blown off, for instance, he’d still be downed and vulnerable to Norman finishing him off for good. Same way that Norman could theoretically heal from a fatal stab, but nothing would stop Joker from just finishing the job while he’s open. Both are useful healing factors to have, for sure, but not the most likely to make an active difference in the heat of combat. Neither side should have an overwhelming edge in this field overall.

In the end, this category ends up being much closer at first glance. Joker has plenty of key advantages in this field that makes it a close call, between superior speed, skill, unpredictability, arsenal, healing, and pain tolerance. All in all, it makes him a force to be reckoned with, but Norman’s strength advantage is a big hurdle for the murderous jester to reliably overcome. We’ve seen before how Joker fares against much more physically superior threats like Bane – which is to say, not very well. Against someone much stronger and more immediate to go for the kill like Goblin, that’s arguably the best advantage one can have here in an up close fight; hitting them really hard. And if Goblin either beats Joker down to submission with enough blows, tears out his spine, or just rips him in half, Dionesium wouldn’t be able to repair the damage done within an immediate timeframe. Overall, Green Goblin should hold the advantage in close range should it stay that way.

However, there is something important to note, in that Joker has various ways to escape a close-ranged encounter. Between options like a smoke gun, various suits to fly away, fake body parts to avoid capture, body doubles he can rig to explode, decibel blasts to rupture Norman’s eardrums, potions, the list goes on. Joker has utilized many of these options and more to escape physical encounters with Batman and other foes, even noted to plan his escapes as well as his crimes. He should pretty reasonably be able to get away from Norman with these options at his disposal, which would be much easier for him than trying to directly win an up close fight. So, while certainly an edge worth acknowledging for the CEO of Oscorp, the fight isn’t going to stay at close-range for long. What will be more beneficial in helping decide the fight is how these two compare in a more long-ranged encounter.

At a distance, both Joker and Green Goblin have a fair few advantages over the other. First of all, in terms of mobility, Goblin’s glider far outstrips anything Joker generally has on his person to move around the battlefield, which should be rather obvious. Joker isn’t really the kind of person to have those kinds of things on him at all times. Still, this is far from the most relevant factor considering the amount of ranged options both have access too. For Joker, this consists of his various different explosives – heat seeking missiles from his rocket launcher, car bombs, his cruise missiles, multiple different nuclear warheads for some reason, and his general amount of explosives that can affect a wide range. These are useful at a distance in particular due to one of the major advantages they give Joker, and that Joker has in general when not right up close to Goblin – battlefield control.

In terms of controlling the battlefield, Norman does have a few things going for him – namely, his pumpkin bombs and superior mobility. However, these have their own problems that get in the way of doing that. First of all, Pumpkin Bombs have fairly… inconsistent AOE, to begin with. They can affect a decent range of places, but they can also barely cause a small explosion, too. One bomb can blow out the side of an Oscorp building, while several barely turn over a police cruiser. Even taking the bombs at their best showings aren’t anything crazy enough to nuke all of the Joker’s forces at once; at most they can cover roughly a large building-sized radius. Impressive, but hardly unavoidable.

As for his glider? Well, that runs into one of Joker’s counters – namely, the pulse gun, which would allow him to turn off Norman’s glider completely. In addition, if he shot this at Norman while he was wearing the Gold Goblin outfit, it would completely disable the suit and all the various abilities it provides Norman, trapping him inside a steel tomb… not an ideal situation, to be sure. Frankly, the pulse gun might be overkill given how thoroughly it’d screw Norman’s arsenal over. Joker has more than enough random bullshit to simply throw or drive into Norman from afar; he really does get knocked off that glider a lot easier and a lot more frequently than you expect. Not a terribly tall task for the Joker’s much greater skill and speed.

Further destroying Norman’s chances in this category is the black hole bomb. This implosive device has a massive range – covering an entire island and prison – and sends anything within its range to another dimension, which would level a huge area of the battlefield and make it unable to be gone near. If Norman gets caught in this, he loses, straight up. The bomb would be a hindrance to Joker as well, in fairness, but Norman’s flight options – while more iconic – would ironically be worse here for escape than the Joker’s. If Norman’s main glider goes down, he has spares, but not that many, and none faster than his tried-and-true. Joker on the other hand has a variety of vehicles and doodads at his disposal, by land or air, that he can use just as well.

In addition to all of that, Joker also has … illusion crickets. These might seem like a joke, but make no mistake, they’re deadly. Any one of these planted around causes radio signals in your head to make you see things that aren’t there, to look like you’re in a different place entirely, and more. Goblin’s scanners could somewhat counter this if he thought to anticipate them, but it’d add a layer of him having to figure out what’s even going on to be able to even hit Joker, giving Joker another sizable advantage in battlefield control.

Now, Norman himself does have a few oneshot options – the aforementioned Pumpkin Bombs, shock blasts from the Gold Goblin suit, projectiles from the Gold Goblin suit, his drones kamikezing Joker, etc. These do seem to give him a fair few ways around Joker’s battlefield control superiority… if Joker didn’t have another ace up his sleeve in any encounter not in close range: Decoys.

Joker loves these things and uses them fairly frequently to trick opponents, whether they be his various goons looking like him or just a rigged look-a-like with Joker Venom in it. Norman would essentially have to figure out at any time with his scanners constantly (and mind you, said scanner has been used one time ever for the sole purpose of analyzing a weakness in his target, nothing more specifically useful to this match) which Joker is the real one. Considering how crowded the battlefield would be, what with dozens of mechs, vehicles, armies of goons and explosions, would be a rather difficult task to do, making his seemingly simpler wincons much harder to pull off.

We should also note that Norman has employed a goon or two to dress as the Goblin for subterfuge as well, but his showings are much more inconsistent, never used for active combat or deterrents in the same way as Joker, and even if they were included, wouldn’t really change that Joker’s dramatically heighten his evasiveness and survivability. If anything, Norman’s doubles on the field would make things worse for him in the long run… more on that later.

Joker, even beyond explosives, also has a fair few ways to instantly kill Goblin – whether it be teleporting him across the world with his teleporter gun, using the Chinese binding ammo to suffocate him to death, the BANG Bazooka’s sheer power one-shotting him (it took out the Justice Buster Two, way above Norman’s pay grade), mutating his DNA screwing up his mental faculties even more, or his acid covered projectiles chemically eating through his organs and killing him. This isn’t even mentioning his actual greatest wincon in any long ranged encounter – namely, Joker Venom.

Joker has a frankly, absurd amount of ways to deploy this stuff. Rocket launchers that have missiles full of it, bombs full of the stuff with wide AOE, several guns full of it, air balloons dumping the stuff from above, boxes with enough to affect entire acres of land – and at any distance, he could get these off at any time and from there, easily win. Goblin has no resistance to Joker Venom in any regard, so he’d just die if he was ever exposed to any of it, and Joker’s many ways of administering it are far too overwhelming for Goblin to get around.

Here’s an additional problem: the Joker Venom’s trademark green gaseous form is nearly identical to the same kind used by Norman himself. It’d be a problem to keep track of all the ways Joker can deploy the Venom… now add in that Norman has no way of telling which ones are his (that he’s specifically immunized himself to the effects of) and which would basically instantly spell his doom. Joker, on the other hand, has no such concerns, as Goblin Formula mutating his body would ironically only help him. Even Norman’s upgraded doses with subservience built-in would be unlikely to work, as the Joker’s resisted having his mind bent by far greater sources in the past.

To recap: at a long range, Joker can outright shut down Goblin’s best options with his pulse gun, has much better battlefield control thanks to illusions, his wider AOE with explosives, and the black hole bomb, and has several ways of administering Joker Venom at a huge range, and has several decoys to make sure along with the illusions that Goblin would have great difficulty even finding him at a range, let alone killing him. Oh yeah, and remember the Joker’s edge in speed from earlier? While it might not help him if Goblin’s hands are on his neck already, it’d sure be mighty useful at a distance, allowing him to dodge Norman’s bombs and drones, expounding his superior battlefield control even more.

The Clown Prince of Crime takes a commanding edge for any long range battles.

With Joker taking a comfortable, if surprising lead in the long-range battle, we now move on to perhaps the category most familiar to these deranged schemers: their capacity for Mindgames in battle.

Both the Joker and Goblin are renowned for their downright terrifying schemes, their ability to break our heroes down not just physically, but mentally. It takes a lot to be able to routinely make fools out of geniuses like Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker, after all.

Long-Term Planning

It goes without saying that both the Joker and Green Goblin are capable of some ridiculous, long term scheming. Upon recovering from his impalement via glider, Norman orchestrated events in Peter’s life down to the finest details to methodically break him down. He moved to Europe, crafting an intelligence network across several continents, taking an entire 7 years to learn, adapt and plot his revenge. In doing so, Norman assimilated a cult to do his bidding, conspired with Miles Warren to accelerate his cloning process, and then sabotaged that very same cloning process to create the Clone Saga, waging an invisible war on Peter’s mind by making him question his very existence with the revelation of Ben Reilly. And when that ran its course, he re-instated himself in New York City, feigning reformation so he could make the world-weary Spider-Man look like a bad guy in hunting him down.

Similarly, the Joker has manipulated events years ahead of time, most infamously with his grooming of Jason Todd. He meticulously crafted the boy’s life; having his father arrested and mother overdosed, instilling a strong sense of justice and desire for vengeance in the boy at an early age. He then set up the exact circumstances for Batman to take the new Robin under his wing, all so he could make Jason into a “star” that he could snuff out at its brightest moment. Needless to say, both are long-term thinkers who can capitalize on the slightest thread presented before them, making them well-matched when it comes to big-picture plotting.

Manipulation

The most interesting dichotomy here comes in Joker’s complete insanity and lack of predictability, against Norman’s controlled precision-based thinking and expectation of the unexpected. Joker is essentially a new personality every day, whose goals vary from fucking with random people just because, to subjugating the Justice League; nearly entirely random, acting on a whim. Norman comparatively aims for control in all things. He anticipates random elements and unexpected variables in his equation-like plots, having hundreds of plans and counter-contingencies for a number of things that could go wrong. He set up a blackmail on Peter Parker’s loved ones the instant he discovered the web-slinger’s secret identity, forcing him to compromise his morals years later to save them.

We can look at Norman’s time as the head of the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. for further insight into this category. This was Norman at his most powerful, politically and resourcefully, and also when he demonstrated the greatest instances of control and manipulation… and also highlights his greatest vulnerabilities.

As Director of the free world, Norman routinely manipulated the incredibly unstable walking supernova known as the Sentry, using nothing but his words to bring Bob under his sway. It was Norman’s own fractured psyche with the Goblin persona that allowed him to reach Bob, suppressing his belief of the Sentry enough for long-term control. He even employed the same tactics on a Skrull warrior, convincing them to turn coat after a single interaction.

Unfortunately for Norman, manipulating… Well, anyone is what the Joker does on practically a daily basis. He convinced someone into kidnapping a girl through morse code, mentally broke the brilliant Dr. Harleen Quinzel, and is so insane he can make even the best professional doctors literally shit themselves trying to comprehend him in a direct conversation.

Norman’s time as Director also brought to the forefront an exact vulnerability to this type of manipulation; enter everyone’s favorite gender-fluid icon, Loki. The God of Mischief was able to play Norman like a fiddle throughout the entirety of the Dark Reign era with not a hint of magic, just his words; with Norman none the wiser at any point in time. Even the likes of Hank Pym and Moonstone were able to trip Norman up with their words and quick thinking. There’s no doubt the Joker’s far more consistent social manipulation and words of suggestion would get to Norman’s head. Conversely, while Norman has handled mentally unstable people before, the Joker has never really shown a vulnerability to suggestion like Sentry did, making it unlikely Norman could out-manipulate his adversary in turn. Joker is clearly the more skilled manipulator, and more resistant to manipulation in-turn.

Engineering

Probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of these characters, but both are quite brilliant in this field. The Joker was able to literally build a black hole bomb with a box of scraps, and routinely used random shit in prison to create explosives, vehicles, weapons, and chemicals. No doubt an absurdly resourceful man, more than capable of designing and manufacturing his own Saw-ass death traps.

By comparison, Norman’s engineering is much more synonymous with his Oscorp background, so it’s perhaps less surprising to learn he designed and manufactured all of his armor and weapons (including explosives, asphyxiation grenades, shock gloves, gliders, giant mechs, etc.) himself, even providing top-of-the-line suits for Scorpion and Spider-Man at various points in time. His years of experience in the field have allowed him to develop a keen eye for minute details, such as when he was able to deduce Spider-Man’s suit using a locator chip simply by studying footage for a minute; and then he went and reverse engineered the suit’s frequencies, tracking it anytime he liked.

In terms of absolute absurdity, the Joker is certainly more capable of weirder achievements than Norman. After all, Norman hasn’t really made a black hole bomb from scraps. Still, Norman does have more of a concrete history in the field, and what he lacks in absurdity, he makes up for in consistency. It might be more impactful that Joker could feasibly make some incredibly deadly bullshit on the fly, but Norman is just as keen, and would no doubt be able to dismantle or take appropriate precautions on-sight. It’s unlikely that either side would have a tangible enough edge to completely out-do the other in a fight to the death here.

Book Smarts

This is definitely Norman’s area to shine. Not that the Joker is dumb – anyone who can make a fool of Lex Luthor certainly isn’t – but Norman’s mind is simply sharper when it comes to conventional fields of science and technology.

For instance, the Joker has hacked some basic climate control technology, which is certainly not something just anyone could do. However, Norman’s hacking was so good, it straight up stressed Otto Octavius the fuck out, making one of the most egotistical men in Marvel admit he couldn’t win the day. Norman designed firewalls that Amadeus Cho couldn’t easily crack, and considered S.H.I.E.L.D.’s databases a light breeze to compromise. He can even hack tech from the year 2099, shit that literally doesn’t exist in his world. Whether it’s crunching precise calculations in seconds to redirect a city-wide EMP, countering the technology used by Tony Stark and Reed Richards, or flexing his bio-chemical skills to restore or take away superpowers, Norman Osborn is consistently on another level in this category.

To his credit, the Joker did create his own Joker Venom, a chemical compound so deadly, it’s taken Batman years to crack its composition. But the same could be said of Norman, whose Goblin Formula has similarly forced Marvel geniuses like Peter Parker, Tony Stark and Otto Octavius to think outside the box to figure out ways to chemically suppress its effects. All in all, Norman is clearly more intelligent when it comes to conventional intelligence.

Which means… The Joker and Green Goblin are actually shockingly even here, when viewed holistically. Both are capable long-term plotters and both are skilled engineers. The scales mainly tip when considering the Joker’s superior interpersonal manipulation of others VS the Goblin’s greater intellectual mind, both of which have applications in the heat of battle. The Joker could certainly toy with Norman’s unstable mind, throwing the Goblin off – as has happened very consistently, and is the reason behind Norman’s infamous crashout at the climax of the Siege event – while Norman could likewise employ his expertise in information technology to analyze Joker’s horde of bullshit, taking steps to counter them systemically. As such, when it comes to Mindgames, neither side has a clear definitive edge, making this a draw.

Seeing as Joker and Goblin both lead massive criminal enterprises, being some of the most dangerous criminals in their worlds, it stands to reason that not only are their bags of tricks deep, but also their access to loyal, devoted followers, and various vehicles to create complete chaos on the field.

Goons

Being the criminal legends that they are, both have access to large groups of goons at their disposal, willing to fight and die for their criminal exploits. Pound for pound, on a baseline, their average goons match up pretty well, being essentially armed militias with a variety of weapons and gadgets at their disposal. The Order of the Goblin is composed of largely regular people capable of mobilizing in large numbers, like Joker’s goons, and while The Oscorp Militia probably has a slight advantage in their typically more advanced gear, but they’re relatively close. Joker Incorporated also compares to the Goblin Underground well enough, seeing as they’re both discount supervillains with mildly impressive capabilities, and combine that with some of Joker’s Clown Dolls which were capable of restraining and threatening Batman, and their baseline forces match up relatively evenly!

… However, once we move past the baseline, that’s when things start to tip pretty severely in Joker’s favor. To be honest, we were a little bit dishonest when discussing the baseline goon comparison, in that we omitted a critical bit of information. While they do indeed match up closely in capabilities, Joker’s goons have one notable factor that Norman’s don’t… they’re suicide bombers.

Not only is Joker able to equip his basic grunts with kill switches, capable of exploding and releasing massive amounts of Joker Gas in the surrounding area, spelling instant death for any of Gobbie’s goons caught in the process, but the Joker Incorporated’s main 5 members were all outfitted with especially potent bombs. If any of the 5 supervillains were to die or otherwise have their explosives set off and go kamikaze, their explosives have a minimum kill radius of an entire city block, and a maximum of an entire kilometer. If it isn’t clear, a kilometer is an absolutely absurd radius, which would instantly wipe out a huge amount of troops at once, and could outright grievously wound Goblin as well in the process. And remember how we said Norman’s doubles would just make things worse? Yeah, if Norman’s running the risk of nuking himself as-is, that only becomes exponentially more likely with an extra Goblin on the field raising the odds of tagging the wrong Joker goon at the wrong time. Ultimately, while their basic troops do match up evenly on a base level, the fact they’re also suicide bombers with such ridiculously powerful bombs means that, when they go down, they’re likely to take down even more of Goblin’s troops alongside them.

From there, the comparison just gets worse for Goblin. Oddities like the Jo-Bots aren’t going to cause too much trouble beyond distraction, but Jackanapes can be equipped with some seriously deadly gear like the Body Bender Gizmo to cripple Goblin’s forces and their mental faculties, and is fully capable of wielding many of Joker’s deadly weapons, as Joker taught him how to develop them himself. His army of corpses would allow him to utilize more atypical soldiers that wouldn’t be susceptible to many normal kill methods… seeing as they’re already dead! He’s able to, for some reason, control an entire flock of birds capable of beating the shit out of Hush, which would allow for excellent diversions and distractions and overwhelming groups of goons, and when combined with the crickets capable of creating illusions, something Goblin and his army has no counteraction towards, he can completely control the pace of the battle and fuck with his opponents head. Making them see things that aren’t there and further increase his army’s utility, and his own personal subterfuge.

Then there’s his especially unique heavy hitters. The Mighty Martian Powee Rangers are entities made entirely of goo, and unable to be harmed by physical means, capable of trapping and restraining even Superman, allowing for them to hold key players in place and leave them wide open. It’d require something like extreme heat to be rid of, which would force Goblin and his troops to endanger themselves with explosions to be able to free themselves of them. Then, there’s the Superman Robot, a robot replica of Superman capable of firing Joker Gas from its ears… but most notably having a 40 megaton thermonuclear bomb inside of it! That would not only wipe out probably all of Norman’s army, but likely him as well. 40 megatons is honestly the low end, considering the explosion it created could be seen next to the planet’s curvature! That’s not even accounting for the dangerous nuclear radiation that would then be released, which would obviously also claim many victims.

The final factor sealing this, would be Joker and Goblin’s own proxies/doubles. Norman technically had access to a Life-Model Decoy, made infamous by Nick Fury’s regular usage of them. While useful, Norman has never utilized it in an active combat scenario. In his first encounter with the Hobgoblin, Norman equipped a goon with his Goblin gear to trick his rival into believing the two were separate entities, but that was also a non-combat scenario, and Norman has never again used body doubles past that point. Comparatively, Joker has access to many body dummies, including very life-like ones, created for the sole purpose of being attacked in his place. Such as when he swapped himself out with a body double right before he knew Red Hood would shoot at him, so the bullets would set off the dummy to release an absurd amount of Joker Gas, filling the room.

Beyond dummies, Joker has also shown to be capable of creating “proxies” of himself, such as Edwin, grooming people into becoming him, in mind, body and soul. These false Jokers are so one-to-one with the real thing that it would take someone as intimately familiar with him as Harley Quinn to be able to pick out the discrepancies, and only after close observation. Edwin was capable of going on one man crime sprees and setting off building destroying bombs killing dozens of people, and while clearly not as physically capable as Joker himself, he’s still fully capable of causing chaos and acting as the Joker. Even worse for Norman, he’s been duped by very similar body doubles to Edwin in the past, like when Roderick Kingsley brainwashed random people into taking up the Hobgoblin mantle solely to dupe Norman… and it worked! This, ultimately, would mean that determining and pinning down the real Joker in the chaos of an army battle situation would be a task in itself, and if Goblin or his men were to get their hands on the wrong Joker… Well, considering Joker’s love of kamikaze soldiers, it’s likely the fake would blow up right in their faces.

Overall, Joker pretty easily takes the comparison between Goons. While well matched at a baseline, Joker’s suicide bombers, more absurd troops, and subterfuge capabilities with his proxies and dummies cleanly make his army superior.

The Infected

However, their baseline army isn’t everything. Beyond just their own troops going into the fight, both Joker and Goblin have methods to “infect” others into joining their cause by different means, those of which could be reasonably employed in an army battle situation in order to increase their numbers. Does Norman fare better in this category?

Well, to start, Goblin has access to capsules of Goblin Formula, capable of “Goblinizing” and mutating people to become superhuman, Goblin mutated individuals completely subservient to him. Joker’s also has a variety of Joker Venom variants capable of not killing its victims, and instead “Jokerizing” them, making them subservient to him and turn into crazed killers and maniacs. At a baseline, considering the superhuman strength enhancement the Goblin Formula provides, it’s likely a Goblinized individual would be decently stronger than a Jokerized individual. However, those juiced up on Joker Venom are absurdly resilient, able to completely ignore wounds that would incapacitate or kill a regular person like gunshots, or having their chests completely pierced. On average, a Jokerized individual and a Goblinized individual would even out, Goblinized strength allowing to more easily kill the Jokerized, while their absurd survivability gives them more opportunity to survive their onslaughts and kill in return with weapons or other means.

But from there, the ball once again rolls into Joker’s court. While Goblin’s only notable way to dispense Goblin Formula to infect others are through the canisters he carries and Pumpkin Bombs that emit gas with the same formula, Joker just has far, far more ways to dispense Joker Venom. I mean… just read through the Joker Venom and Joker Venom Tools section, it’s pretty absurd. Dozens of ways to dispense it in absurd quantities, whether it be through gas bombs, the vents under his sleeves, hot air balloons hundreds of feet in the air, kill switches setting off from his troops, one of his suicide bombers dying and releasing enough gas to fill a city block or an entire kilometer… the list goes on. There’s far more methods for Joker to spread this gas, and infect more people and build up his numbers.

The true bullet in this category though… is the Endgame Virus. A near unkillable form of Joker Virus that’s able to be spread airborne, through the maniacal laughing of those infected… which they will always be doing. Everytime someone infected with the Virus laughs, coughs, spits, or so much as breathes, they’ll be perpetuating and spreading the Virus, allowing it to infect others, and then spread from there in an endless domino effect further increasing Joker’s forces… until 24 hours later when the forces all drop dead. Anyone infected is toast, and until they’re burnt they’ll be a new crazed killer directly under Joker’s control, and in an army battle situation where hundreds to thousands of troops will be clashing potentially up close, the laughter will only spread and spread… until everything goes quiet.

We should also note that while many of Norman’s troops are loyal to the cause, one group in particular has notably turned on him in recent comics. The Goblin Underground has no qualms ditching Norman of their own accord if they feel someone would better suit their desire for chaos; a Hobgoblin became the new “Goblin King” after Norman turned over a new leaf, and the group went as far as to attack and kidnap Norman for revenge after. While it’s not a sure bet, it’s certainly in the realm of possibility that some of Norman’s troops could find the Joker’s cause to be more in-tune with their desires, skipping the need for Jokerification altogether! Although, like, they’d definitely still get Jokerized either way.

Ultimately, Joker also takes this category, due to his methods of infection being much easier, more widespread, and contagious, resulting in a snowball effect of his numbers constantly increasing as the battle goes on, while Norman’s will largely dwindle.

Vehicles

Despite typically being “street level”, both have accrued an impressive amount of vehicles and… “““vehicles””” by which they can wreak havoc.

Starting out small, Goblin of course has his classic glider, which remains a useful form of aerial mobility and attack, but Joker has a Joker sky-sled capable of firing fireballs, a Joker-copter with multiple forms of combat tools, as well as combat planes, meaning he does have methods of aerial combat of his own to keep up with Goblin, though in general Goblin’s glider has more individual utility and is more commonly deployed by him. Not to mention, Norman has dozens of gliders that he can deploy at once that can act as drones and fight autonomously for him, as well as the Gold Goblin suit, which can be materialized individually of his normal Green Goblin attire and also has a jetpack/glider two in one for additional aerial mobility. While Joker has the means to keep up, the air still remains Goblin’s home turf, and he’d likely get overwhelmed if he engaged in aerial combat for long enough.

However, Joker also has a wide variety of different cars, trucks of both the monster and armored variety, motorcycles for quick escapes, hot air balloons and blimps for dumping Joker Venom on large areas, a remote controlled Joker Tank… we could keep going, but you get the point, he just has more means of transport and vehicular combat than Norman. Even Joker’s most basic Jokermobile is shockingly impressive, being completely bulletproof, able to fire energy blasts, and even able to withstand Superman’s heat vision! It also, for some fucking reason, has a nuke in it’s trunk. Norman’s Goblin Glider drones can self-destruct, but they’re a far cry from goddamn nuclear weaponry… which is a reoccurring trend here, it seems.

That being said, Norman DOES have mechs, that being the Kingslayer Mark I’s, having a multitude of these Metal Gear knock off mechas at his disposal that he can let his army operate or just outright be self-controlled. They have front-facing mounted artillery, and are capable of harming Spider-Man and Parker Industries tech, meaning they’re more than likely powerful enough to wipe out a lot of Joker’s forces and could beat out a lot of his vehicles, requiring more of his “extreme” measures to take out. However, Joker DOES have a building-sized mech which could likely give them some trouble, but would likely lose out to multiple of these Kingslayers at once…

… Alright, yeah, It’s time to stop beating around the bush and address the elephant in the room, being that god damned Nth Metal Mech. Through means unknown, Joker has access to a large mech made of Nth Metal casing, which he put a Joker Toxin infected Lois Lane in and used to combat – or rather – distract Superman for a time. While Superman won the fight and tore it apart without much difficulty (I mean, come on, it’s Superman), that was part of Joker’s plan, just keeping the boy in blue occupied and sending a message while he executed his real plan. This means that Joker is more than willing to drop one of his goons in this mech and let them go wild on the field. Which means we need to talk about what Nth Metal is. Don’t worry, we’ll keep this brief.

Nth Metal is basically magic super Metal, originating from the Dark Multiverse, being an incomplete version of the 10th Metal, which is a Metal of pure creation. Nth Metal is often compared to Marvel’s Adamantium in terms of sheer absurdity, just to show the degrees we’re operating on here. While not super relevant here, Nth Metal has a large well of different abilities and properties that can be granted to its wielder, even things as absurd as reviving and regenerating it’s wielder. What IS especially notable however, would be Nth Metal’s physical showcases. Nth Metal is what much of Hawkman’s armor and weaponry is made of, the same weaponry he uses to help battle off plenty of threats far, far beyond regular street tier pay grade. With their Nth Metal mace, Hawkman has harmed Black Adam, and Hawkgirl has caved in Amazo’s skull and fought battered Zumbado (an Aquaman villain), and in general, Hawkman has had a lot of impressive feats across his long career of varying degrees of high scale showings.

We don’t really need to get into elaborate ““““““““Le Herald”””””””” scaling chains here, and especially don’t need to argue or find the exact degree of cosmic that Nth Metal operates on or anything. Just looking at the degree of scope that Nth Metal exists on presents an absolutely clear and massive gap of power, it’s obviously far above normal “street tier” capabilities. To cut to the chase, despite how it may seem on the surface, this mech would be absurdly durable, far beyond the paygrade of anything that Goblin has ever showcased. His own strength and his own tools would be incapable of damaging the mech, and his army and his own vehicles are similarly vastly outstripped by it. The Metal Gears? They might as well be shooting wet tissue paper at this thing. To put it simply, once it enters the field, it’s going to bulldoze anything in its way through a sheer strength and durability gap.

Not to mention, Goblin is certainly lacking in direct, good means of durability negation to bypass the mech and kill its occupant. Even if he did have such a means to do so, Nth Metal is capable of reviving its wielder, meaning it could theoretically just resurrect whoever Joker decided is controlling it. The only potential countermeasures Goblin really has against it would be utilizing his nanobots to try and hack the mech (said nanobots could likely be taken out by Joker’s Pulse Gun and it’s EMP effect), or trying to use a Time Bomb to keep the mech slowed down for as long as possible. Both of which are very specific and niche options to pull out that he would have needed to not use earlier in the fight, or not had disabled already… and this is also assuming the mech hasn’t already bulldozed him as is. The mech would just completely stonewall Goblin and his strategies, and it completely nullifies Norman’s solid aerial advantage when it comes to vehicles. Whether it be through Joker turtling in the thing, or him letting a Goon have the time of his life and go buckwild in it, Goblin has no solid countermeasure against something so strong getting dropped on the field. There’s no perfect game of Touhou that Goblin can play to properly outlast or handle it.

To be frank, the Nth Metal Mech is just a completely and utterly fucking ridiculous tool to have, it’s absolutely absurd that Joker even has access to this thing, and it helps firmly cement Joker’s overwhelming advantage in his army and vehicles, meaning that Joker… actually completely sweeps in tertiary tools.

Conclusion

the joker from the batman animated series is holding a joker card .

“Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it!”

Advantages:

Faster, oddly enough
Dionesium gives him regenerative abilities beyond Norman’s, and could let him survive many potential kill options…
Joker Venom, Joker Juice & Endgame Virus are instant win conditions Norman has no real counter for
Superior manipulation abilities
Nth Metal mech stonewalls Goblin completely
Black hole bomb would wreak havoc on the field
Generally superior vehicles across the board
Decoys help him get away and make killing him much harder then it’d seem
EMP and pulse gun can disable much of Goblin’s tech
Stuff like Chinese binding spray, forced BFR, acid spray, and the BANG Bazooka give him several long ranged wincons
Illusions via crickets give him good battlefield control
Army is far more versatile, practical, and immediately deadly
Now that’s funny

Disadvantages:

Physically inferior, could be easily overpowered and killed physically
… but Goblin does have kill options that would be too thorough for Dionesium regen, such as the Pumpkin Bombs
Some of his tech could theoretically be taken over or nullified via hacking
Goblin’s resistances and bullet-proof skin shut out some notable arsenal options
Never did get his electric car

“I’ve watched you from deep behind Norman’s cowardly eyes, struggling to have everything you want while the world tries to make you choose. Gods don’t have to choose. We take.”

Advantages:

Undoubtedly much stronger physically
Standard arsenal of bombs, shock gloves, gliders are enough to kill Joker with a clean shot
More conventionally intelligent and practical
Bulletproof skin helps resist a few of Joker’s specialized firearms, like the blood pressure gun
Resists electrocution, knockout gas, mind shenanigans
Hacking could theoretically give Norman control of some gadgets

Disadvantages:

Slower, weirdly enough
Pumpkin Bombs have inconsistent AOE
Would get oneshotted by the BANG Bazooka
Absolutely no defense against Joker Venom
Army is far less potent than Joker’s suicide bombers
Less vehicles to use in battle
Completely and utterly stonewalled by the Nth Metal mech
Cannot resist acid spray, forced BFR via teleportation, or illusions
No answer whatsoever to the black hole bomb
Decoys and goons make it harder for Norman to land a clean killing shot
EMP would critically disable the Gold Goblin suit along with much of Norman’s wider arsenal
May anticipate oddities, but has never fought someone with as much horseshit as the Joker
Would absolutely be manipulated by the Joker’s persuasive speech, as he was by the likes of Loki

This is likely a surprising outcome for a lot of you, and frankly, we were shocked too. It’s easy to think that the much more blatantly powerful character – with, to be clear, the much more ‘obvious’ wincons that are synonymous with their standard arsenal – should win this battle. It’s entirely true that a single good pumpkin bomb or glider stab would effectively end the fight… it’s just not that simple, unfortunately for the Green Goblin.

Joker’s evasiveness is remarkably consistent, and his speed allowing him to comfortably outpace Batman means he’d have no trouble doing the same to Norman. Body doubles and an absolutely massive array of weapons, robotics, and goons make it all the more unlikely that Norman could find that one shot he needs. Even Norman’s pumpkin bombs, though they are strong enough to hurt Spider-Man, lack the AOE of Joker’s better suicide bombers with their kilometer-wide blasts, and his Goblin Formula bombs are similarly eclipsed in delivery and spread by the Joker Venom in its many, many forms, such as entire blimps or giant robots filled with it at the seams. Making matters worse, carpet bombing the area would only heighten the risk of Norman nuking himself by activating one of the aforementioned suicide bombers; he’d have no way of anticipating or avoiding a stray nuke or Joker Venom blimp explosion, either.

We’re essentially putting a bull in a China shop, except that shop is filled with nuclear bombs, poisonous gas, and about 15 other things that can instantly kill the bull if it doesn’t perfectly single out the one dish in the shop that disables all the rest. Even if Norman does find his target, he has a consistent tendency to swoop in close for the kill with his bare hands, giving the Joker plenty of time to spray him with acid, Joker Venom, or simply stall him with his yapping long enough to turn the tides. And that’s assuming he doesn’t land on a guy who just happens to think he is the Joker, and assuming the real Joker isn’t sitting inside a completely impenetrable Nth metal mech. Norman’s wincons may be simpler on paper, but in practice, the Joker just has way too many options and lethal tools to dictate the flow of the fight. With the aforementioned Nth metal mech, the Joker frankly has a very miniscule chance of being in any real danger whatsoever, even with Norman’s more impressive inherent strength.

We should note that a lot of the Joker’s better tools aren’t exactly what some might consider his ‘standard’ arsenal. After all, if you think of the Joker, you probably think of a guy who uses, at most, a shock glove, or maybe an acid flower, a knife or a pistol. That’s the thing with how DEATH BATTLE analyzes combatants; we’re taking the Joker at his best, affording him the tools he’s shown throughout his entire history, and throwing him in a scenario where he will stop at nothing to use the options afforded to him to win a fight. Maybe he doesn’t haul the Nth metal mech with him everywhere, but it wouldn’t be fair to discount it simply because it’s less iconic than the rest of his arsenal. Anyone as smart as the Joker would logically use such a boon if they had it in a situation like this.

The same leniency is afforded to Norman here, whose Gold Goblin suit – a strict upgrade to the Green Goblin wares – is hardly more iconic or ‘standard’ for the character. Broadly speaking, this rings true for other characters, like Blade and his equally short-lived Adamantium odachi, a weapon rarely ever pushed back on as a viable win condition in his matchups. And of course, we should stress that Joker’s less familiar shenanigans, while certainly helpful, are hardly the only key advantages he has in this fight. The Joker Venom alone is frankly ridiculous and extremely consistently used by the Joker. It is completely unresisted by Norman, and more than capable of ending the fight if even a single whiff of it lands on him, whether administered up close or afar; both of which Joker can apply, given his greater speed and AOE of application.

All in all, while the Green Goblin is an absolute powerhouse and genius – far from a fraud, to be sure – with plenty of lethal weapons, the Joker simply has a much wider arsenal of bullshit, more lethal weapons per-pound, is just as tricky and calculating, and has an overwhelming edge in goonery and vehicular combat. Norman may be used to making a killing, but this time, his efforts all bombed… looks like the joke’s on him.

The winner is…

2 responses to “Death Battle Predictions: Joker VS Green Goblin”

Eric Sonic

January 31, 2026

I’m thinking about Fox McCloud VS Sonic the Hedgehog for the next battle.

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Mace Da Ace.

January 31, 2026

This was a fun blog with an unexpected but still reasonable outcome. I got Catwoman vs. Black Cat flashbacks when I saw both of their Experience pages. That’s always gonna be funny to me.

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Before We Start…

Background

The Joker

Green Goblin

Experience & Skill

The Joker

Green Goblin

Equipment

The Joker

Joker Venom

Joker Venom Tools

Joker Juice

Other Poisons, Drugs,& Gasses

Dionesium

The Endgame Virus

Utility Belt

Alternate Costumes

Fake Body Parts

Nostril Protectors& Gas Masks

Crowbars

Acid Flower

Other Acid Implements

Joy Buzzer

Chattering Teeth

Jack-in-the-Boxes

Joker Projectiles

Body Doubles

Normal Vehicles

Joker Vehicles

Joker Mechs

Guns

Blades & Knives

Explosives

Body Bender Gizmo

Memory Crystal

Miscellaneous Weapons

Miscellaneous Tools

Joker Signal

Warm Milk &Cat Toys

Green Goblin

Goblin Formula

Green Goblin Suit

Pumpkin Bombs

Goblin Glider

Shock Gloves

Batarangs

Frog & Bat Toys

Ghouls

Tranquilizer Gun

Kingslayer Mark I

Gold Goblin Suit

Miscellaneous Equipment

Psionic Shielding

Nano-Camera Business Cards

Life-Model Decoy

Force-Shield

Time Bomb

Abilities

The Joker

“Clown” Physiology

Alternate Personalities

Laughter Virus

Resistances

Green Goblin

Superhuman Physicality

Genius Intellect

Engineering

Interpersonal Manipulation

Biochemical Knowledge

Information Technology

Planning & Strategizing

Regeneration

Resistances

Armies

The Joker

Goons

Superman Robot

Birds

The Mighty MartianPowee Rangers

Jackanapes

Other Poisons, Drugs,
& Gasses

Nostril Protectors
& Gas Masks

Warm Milk &
Cat Toys

The Mighty Martian
Powee Rangers