2024 saw the Joker undergo a shocking transformation, as Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime went from hated supervillain to true hero. Joker’s surprise redemption turned him into “the most sane man on the face of the Earth,” answering a longtime fan debate at the same time.

Joker Officially Became Superman’s Most Vital Ally

Joker Became His Own Opposite Thanks to Bizarro

In Jason Aaron, John Timms, Rex Lokus and Dave Sharpe’s Actions Comics #1062, Bizarro’s influence spreads across the planet. Enhanced by magic, the twisted opposite of Superman turns his friends and loved-ones into Bizarro people, transforming their love and respect for Superman into pure hatred. As the Earth is infused with Bizarro energy, the planet turns into a cube, and even Superman begins to break down, becoming his opposite self. Of course, in a world turned upside down, there’s no bigger hero than the Joker.

Realizing he couldn’t beat Bizarro alone, Superman sought out the Joker, who had been turned into Bizarro Joker, aka “the most sane man on the face of the Earth.” This Joker was a charming, heroic person who helped Superman get back on his feet and defeat Bizarro, despite the horrifying cost.

Bizarro Inverted Joker’s Personality

The Gotham Villain Officially Became ‘Bizarro Joker’

While Superman is weak to magical energies, Action Comics revealed they make Bizarro stronger than ever, turning his twisted philosophy into a planet-wide virus. However, because of his madness, this process awakened Joker’s heroic potential. Not only did he help advise Superman on escaping Bizarro’s influence, but he actively kept him from harm against a planet that wanted to kill him. Indeed, Superman only wins the day because Joker keeps Bizarro talking, giving Superman the chance he needs to reclaim control of his mind and reverse the spell.

This Joker is a true force for good, who “speaks in truths so stark and pure that Bizarro is left trembling from the mere act of hearing them so bravely and boldly uttered aloud.” Indeed, Joker is essential to preventing Bizarro transforming the entire planet, justifying all the times Batman and Superman have refused to kill the villain. Tragically, reverting Bizarro’s spell means that the Joker’s madness reawakens – something the Bizarro Joker knew all along, sacrificing himself for the greater good.

No-one thought that 2024 would see a Superman/Joker team-up, let alone one that revealed the levels of decency and self-sacrifice that Joker is capable of when his natural mindset and philosophy are inverted. DC has hinted before that Joker has hidden depths, but this story showed them more clearly than ever – settling a major fan debate in the process.

Bizarro Joker Settled a Major Fan Debate

DC Answered Whether Joke Is Truly “Insane”

One of the biggest fan debates regarding Joker is whether or not he’s actually ‘insane.’ While several stories have seemingly confirmed this, showing the Joker has a different personality when his mental state is stabilized by an outside force, many others have suggested the opposite, suggesting that Joker is totally in control of his actions, and is simply a purely evil person. The iconic Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (from Grant Morrison and Dave McKean) went further, suggesting that Joker has a form of “super sanity,” seeing the world and his decisions more clearly than anyone else on Earth.

However, “the most sane man on the face of the Earth” settles that Joker is actually mentally ill. In past instances where Joker has been telepathically manipulated, there’s been significant wiggle-room as to whether the ‘sane’ result is Joker’s true self, or an unnatural identity he’s been forced into.

However, with Bizarro’s spell specifically flipping the personalities of its victims, and the declaration that Bizarro Joker is ‘sane’ coming from the objective narrator rather than another character, it’s essentially settled that as his usual self, the Joker is ‘insane.’

This Isn’t the First Time Joker Has ‘Gone Sane’

As Unlikely as It Seems, He’s Capable of Redemption

Bizarro Joker isn’t the first time that Joker has undergone a heroic redemption. Superman: Distant Fires and Batman: Last Knight On Earth both depict post-apocalyptic futures where the Joker ends up joining the heroes. Likewise, alt-universe versions of the villain – like Earth-3’s Jester and the Tangent Universe’s Joker – have used the same harlequin theme to fight crime. Stories like Batman: I, Joker and the recent Outsiders volume 5 have even explored other worlds in the multiverse where Joker became the new Batman.

Even the mainstream Joker is seemingly capable of healing, as shown in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #65 (J.M. DeMatteis, Joe Station), where Joker returns to sanity after Batman’s death, or Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #145 (Chuck Dixon, Jim Aparo), where a Lazarus Pit heals both Joker’s mind and body.

The new “most sane man on the face of the Earth” is just the latest expression of an idea many creators have explored, but it’s also unique in how absolute the transformation is, how definitively the story is set in DC’s mainstream canon, and how explicitly it addresses the nature of Joker’s madness. Good ideas are seldom gone forever in superhero comics, and it’s likely that having introduced the Bizarro Joker, DC will find a way to bring the character back again in the future, resurrecting the one person who was there for Superman in his darkest moment.