[williamssl]

[glow=red,2,300]THIS POLL IS NOT YET OPEN - IT WILL OPEN THE AFTERNOON OF SUN, DEC 24. USE THIS THREAD NOW TO CONVINCE YOUR FELLOW PUNSTERS WHO THEY SHOULD VOTE FOR. [/glow]

With the the Christmas-to-NewYears holiday week ahead of us, gonna slow this down a little bit since people may be away or have limited access to the internet. I'm gonna post one Round 2 challenge at a time for now.

Our first Round 2 challenge features DC's top guy, and odds-on favorite to win this Showdown, the Joker going up against Deathstroke. Now ordinarily I'd say "blowout", but Deathstroke seems to have a rather vocal following. Will they be vocal here and sway people? Are their numbers so large that they will outvote the more casual fan? That's what we're gonna find out.

Their wiki's:

Joker

Deathstroke


A few things:

• You're voting for who you think is the greatest supervillain, or the greater of the two. It's not about who could beat the other up.
  
• You can only vote once.
  
• The poll will open Sun, Dec 24 and close at 3 pm Eastern on Wed, Dec 27, so have your vote in by then for it to count.
  

[Chris Eco]

Not even a contest.

Joker: Greatest enemy of Batman

Deathstroke: Great...top three enemy of Team Titans. (I'm going to take smited for that, aren't I?)

Joker: #1 Wizard Greatest Villain

Deathstroke: I don't know, like #502? I'm not looking it up.

Joker: Killed Jason Todd and Alexander Luthor Jr.

Deathstroke: Killed, who, his butler Wintergreen?

Joker: Harley Quinn. (Yes, she started in the animated series. So did other people. Deal.)

Deathstroke: Wintergreen. Who he killed.

[Batman]

Give me a break.

Deathstroke: Terra (as Lucky pointed out, he fucked her evil.)

Joker: Batman (unrequited (I think))

Harley = beard.


I'm not going to try to say that Deathstroke deserves to take this one, but it is close. And if you're going to try to make the whole "which gets the best tail?" argument, this guy...

...isn't even playing on the right team for that.

[Lucky]

ecosystem said:

Not even a contest.

Joker: Greatest enemy of Batman

Deathstroke: Great...top three enemy of Team Titans. (I'm going to take smited for that, aren't I?)

Yep. What are you putting him under Trigon? He hasn't clearly become Nightwing's #1? And Nightwing's got something in common with Batman.

Joker: #1 Wizard Greatest Villain

Deathstroke: I don't know, like #502? I'm not looking it up.

84. But lets remember this is not Comic villains. Deathstroke is under Satan, Freddy Krueger, and the hillbillies from Deliverance. And some of the gay loser shit on that list above Deathstroke is silly.

Besides, fuck Wizard. This is our list.

Joker: Killed Jason Todd and Alexander Luthor Jr.

Deathstroke: Killed, who, his butler Wintergreen?

He DID nuke Bludhaven killing thousands. And murder his son Jericho. Still, Joker might have a bigger body count but NOT being a raving lunatic has its plusses and minuses.

Joker: Harley Quinn. (Yes, she started in the animated series. So did other people. Deal.)

Deathstroke: Wintergreen. Who he killed.

Slade DID have his wife (the HIVE mistress), the chick Vigilante, and Terra. Not the most impressive list, but then again Joker didn't even want to do Harley. He just tried to impregnate her because he thought he was dying. If I remember correctly rather than sleep with her he tried to kill her. Hmmm... And you want to make Wintergreen jokes?

I actually have NO idea who I'm voting for. I'm totally 50/50 here. REALLY stuck.

Later when I return to my computer I'll find the picture of Joker beaten to a pulp by the fucking Red Hood and Deathstroke standing over the broken bodies of the Justice League.

[Batman]

Hey, even if the way they brought him back was lame, if anybody should be getting the best of Joker, it's Jason Todd.

[Lucky]

Its fucking Jason Todd! He sucked! Joker gets Robin points and all but the comic readers of the world actually voted that worthless turd dead! THEY VOTED HIM DEAD! Jason was shitty, worthless, crappy character. He was an AWESOME plot device to make Joker a bigger villain and Batman further haunted. Todd never did anything good until he died. And now that he ain't dead I'm not all that impressed.

And Joker got his ass handed to him by this fucking tool. While Slade was running roughshod over the entire DCU.

[Loki]

But (and not to argue for against Joker here) the new Jason Todd/Red Hood character is pretty neat. I know I'd rather see what evil coniving stuff he's up to than read about Batman vs. Black Mask.

[Lucky]

I gotta say, I find nothing compelling about Red Hood. He was just as annoying and whiny a shithead as he ever was as Robin. They've offered no idea of an origin that I've seen. He's a good fighter who blows up shit. Yay. And then he whines about everyone not loving him and caring enough about his death and all that crap. To each his own, and I haven't read the OYL Batman stuff yet but he really did nothing for me. I think he actually profitted off of being introduced next to Hush. Because Hood may have been annoying or bad but at least he wasn't Hush.

I like Black Mask but that's another pretty basic villain that if you don't like it probably helped Hood. Mask, Hood, or Hush. That was basically Batman's fight for a year (when not inadvertently hunting down heroes). Its a pretty poor showing of options.

The only appeal I see to Red Hood? I think its about time that one of Batman's trained people went bad. It seem natural to have one of these guys either go full blown vigilante or turn to the darkness. Batman and his crew having to deal with a former friend/partner/protege who learned his deadly skills from them seems like a good story. And I like Dick and Tim so its better that its the guy who I rather see dead. Of course, didn't they just turn Batgirl too? So now it just strikes me as a repetitive and I much prefer Cassandra to Jason as a character.

Which isn't to argue for or against Joker. I'm just saying, he got his ass kicked by a fucking tool. Not just kicked, but destroyed. But physical superiority was never Joker's tool. But that's the thing. Deathstroke and Joker are basically two different kinds of completely awesome villains.

[Loki]

Did you read Under the Hood, V1 and 2? That sort of answers the how Jason came back from the dead.

I didn't care for Jason as Robin. And I was initially annoyed when they brought him back. But I've come around, mainly because of the appearences he's had and the way he's gone after Tim.

Hush? I'm with you. The original story was great. Everything after has been crap. How did he go from being an ordinary guy wrapped in bandages to a superstrong person who can be thrown through walls and has super strength? How he went from being an interesting character to just another baddie? Yeah, that sucked.

[OpTard]

loki said:

How [did] he [go] from being an interesting character to just another baddie?

that's easy. he went from being written by jeph loeb to not being written by jeph loeb.

[Lucky]

I guess I didn't read Under the Hood because I don't recall an origin story. I recall the story of Joker as Red Hood. And I recall Batman and Zatana checking out a Lazarus Pit in the wake of Identity Crisis. But I got nothing beyond that. I'll have to track them down.

See, I hate how he went after Tim. Not THAT he went after Tim. That worked for me. But its such a whiny and stupid result.

Jason: I hate you! I wanted to be a Titan! I was Robin! Everyone forgot me and Batman just replaced me.
Tim: Dude, buy a clue. You haunt him and I had to strongarm him into making me Robin.
Jason: Nuh uh... you couldn't find out Batman's identity! I'm better!
Tim: Ok, whatever.
Jason: I want a statue!
Tim: Jesus...
Jason: I'll kill you and become Robin and join the Titans!
Tim: Huh?

Or at least that's how I interpreted it. The one moment I liked Hood was when he has Joker and he's about to kill him. And he tells Bats it ain't about revenge or jealousy or any of that shit. Its simple. What the fuck does Joker have to do to get got? If killing your teenage sidekick ain't the line, what is? And that works because its a story they've been doing for years. James Gordon was on the brink of killing him after Joker killed his wife, crippled his daughter, and tortured him. Nightwing DID kill Joker! Its a good story that someone really should do something to end Joker's run and noone is willing to compromise their morals. Jason is. Fuck that, he should die. I like that turn.

I just hate the whiny, petty shit. And the Titans story with Tim was all that.

Wait, who's in this poll?

[Loki]

When did Nightwing kill Joker?

See, I didn't take the Tim/Jason fight that way at all. I could have sworn that Jason said something along the lines of "Psyche! I was trying to get a rise out of you" at the end of that exchange. Which implied that there was something else going on there. I'll have to look at it again tonight.

[Lucky]

I just checked. WE're kind of both wrong. He says he doesn't want to be Robin but he stays true to the "nobody remembered me" line. At the end he just says "I wasn't good enough but I'm beating you, so what does that say about you?" He rips the R off his chest and bails. And he writes "Jason Todd was here" on the wall. So still seems whiny, but not to the "I wanna be Robin!" degree that I thought.

As for Nightwing/Joker its the end of Last Laugh. Joker kidnaps Robin/Tim and hauls him off to a church to kill him. Batman and all his people are all unable to get to the church except for Nightwing. The entire crossover Nightwing and Oracle/Babs had been debating Joker and the idea of killing him to end the madness. Oracle was revealed to be obsessed with Joker after he crippled her and had been watching him all the time. So emotions are high and I THINK Babs was telling Dick that they should kill him. When Nightwing gets to the church Robin appears to be dead and he goes into a rage. Joker decides that killing another Robin is a good high point to go out of life on and gets into a fist fight with Nightwing. Dick easily dominates and thinking about Babs, Jason, and Tim he makes the decision to kill Joker. That's when Batman and Co arrive and... wait for it...

Batman gives Joker CPR. Joker lives, everyone has to deal with the consequences of Nightwing making the choice that Batman has never been willing to. And Joker gets to laugh about it.

[salmonjunkie]

Man, fuck Batman for doing that! It's one thing not to kill him, it's another thing to save his life.

[Batman]

No, it's the same thing. I'm not saying I agree with him. I say shoot him in the fuckin' face. But he's being consistent. Turning his back on Joker and letting him die would not be significantly morally different from just killing him.

And I've got to see the panel where Bats and Joker "make out."

[salmonjunkie]

So are you saying his line in Batman Begins "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" to Ra's Al Ghul was out of character?

[Lucky]

I actually remember being struck by that as it being very much out of character. But it probably depends on your interpretation of Batman. There's plenty of versions and eras of Batman that probably would have done that. The current DCU Batman? He's hardcore about the preservation of life even for the evil guys. And at the very least this whole:

YOU SHOULD KILL JOKER!
But... don't kill.
HE'S KILLED AND CRIPPLED HUNDREDS!
But... don't kill.
HE'S DONE IT TO YOU AND YOURS!
But... don't kill.
IT'S ALL ON YOU NOW!
Gulp... Agonize

thing has been going for awhile. He saved Joker's life again when Red Hood/Jason Todd kidnapped him and sought out to kill him. Or more accurately to force Batman into making a choice about letting Joker die or fighting/killing Jason. I think there was even a moment where Batman turned his back on Nightwing/Bludhaven after the nuking in order to save Joker.

[Batman]

Haven't seen it yet. (I know, I know. Haven't seen Sin City, either.) But my understanding is that his code was a lot more flexible in his early days (which Begins depicts) and became more rigid as he learned from his mistakes.

[The Canadian Content]

Letting Ra's die in the movie might've been out of character for the character as he exists in the comics, but I thought it fit perfectly into the movie. I admit I was also struck by it and a little bothered by it, but if you look at the movie's character only, it works.

[williamssl]

Voting is open.

[williamssl]

I'm gonna let this one run a few extra days to give folks who may be away a chance to vote / make arguments. So this will close on Friday the 29th instead of Wed the 27th.

[The Canadian Content]

I'm amazed Deathstroke has 4 votes at this point. Kids, it's the Joker. Name me a more iconic villain. I dare you.

[Courtney]

Darth Vader. ;D

[The Canadian Content]

courtney said:

Darth Vader. ;D

SMITE

Name me a more iconic comic book villain.

[Deleted]

psychofish said:

I'm amazed Deathstroke has 4 votes at this point. Kids, it's the Joker. Name me a more iconic villain. I dare you.

Dr. Claw