People are very rightfully still talking about The Batman. Not the least of which was because it was a good Batman movie (and some have stated that it’s not just great, but one of the best ever, if not THE best ever). Another reason was that it did a fantastic job of worldbuilding to the level of having multiple key Batman villains each have a say in the plot of the film. This also included a tease of The Joker where he chatted with the main villain in Riddler at the end of the movie.
Then, yesterday, a 5-minute deleted scene revealed a much deeper and darker look at the Joker played by Barry Keoghan. Though he’s never called by his villain name, anyone who knows the lore knows it’s the Clown Prince of Crime. Or at the very least, a version of him. Fans became obsessed with the clip that was shown and worked their “movie magic” in order to get a clear shot of what Barry Keoghan’s looked like (as the clip intentionally obscured him) and the results were quite terrifying.
Many noted that he resembles a form of the Joker used in The New 52 era of DC Comics where Joker had his face (willingly) cut off and thus he was a mutilated mess for quite a while (much to his delight).
Keoghan’s version is heavily scarred and has a wicked scar. Yet as Matt Reeves has noted, he’s not technically Joker, not yet, rather, he’s the “Proto-Joker”, one inspired by the true origins of Joker via the movie The Man Who Laughs.
As such, we still have a ways to go potentially before we see this “man who laughs” come into his own. But, the scene does tease the dynamic that he and Batman has, and that already has fans begging for more.
Source: ComicBook.com
