The Joker’s ruined mug was the face at the end of it all, the makeup melting on the funeral mask of Von Aschenbach in Visconti’s Death in Venice, the grinning skull caked under troweled layers of cosmetics. Corrupt and unhealthy, protopunk, proto-Goth, he was skinny, pale, hunched, and psychopathic. He was Johnny Rotten, Steerpike, Bowie strung out in Berlin, or Joel Grey in Cabaret. The Joker was the perfect dissolute European response to Batman’s essentially can-do New World determination, toned physique, and outrageous wealth.