Throughout its history, DC Comics has introduced a slew of strange and mad characters, frequently employing insanity as a crutch for the characters’ wicked tendencies. Duela Dent, also known as the Joker’s Daughter, was presented as one of these completely insane characters.
Her alias has more to do with her delusions than with her parentage. As you might have guessed from her name, she has a dual personality. She is frequently seen opposing various nice guys, despite her desire to be one of the good ones herself. Her motives may remain a mystery, but one thing we can be certain of is that she is a serial liar.
It is difficult to figure out her truth because she constantly comes up with fresh, twisted facts about herself. There have been a few surprises here and there. In the New 52 universe, she became a legitimate member of Batman’s rogue gallery, ultimately embracing her dark side rather than delighting in her duality.
Duela Dent’s reality appears to be buried beneath her insanity. However, in this video, we will attempt to simplify everything.
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Joker’s Daughter: Origin in the Classic Comics
Duela Dent is notably a villain and a part of Batman’s rogue gallery. But, she has also served as a member of the Teen Titans as well as the Titans East. She has used multiple aliases, the most renowned one being Joker’s Daughter. She has also adopted other monikers such as Catgirl, Harlequin, Card Quin, Riddler’s Daughter, Scarecrow, and Penguin’s Daughter. These titles are a form of wordplay with reference to other Batman villains.
In the Pre-Crisis continuity, Duela Dent made her first appearance in the Batman Family comic book series as Joker’s Daughter. Robin took notice of her, and she later went on to claim that she is the daughter of other Batman villains such as the Riddler, the Penguin, Catwoman, and Scarecrow. She ended up discovering Robin’s identity and finally revealed to him that she was Duela Dent, the daughter of former District Attorney Harvey Dent or Two-Face, and his wife Gilda Dent.
Creator Bob Rozakis chose Two-Face to be her father instead of the other villains because he is the only villain who was married. Apparently, Harvey, who loves duality, was unhappy with her being a single child and not a twin. He even named her Duela to play on the words ‘dual’ or ‘duality’.
She wanted to atone for the crimes committed by her father, which is why she wished to be a part of the Teen Titans. Naturally, the idea was not favored by everyone but it still took off. Sometime during Teen Titans #48, she changed her alias to Harlequin. With this, her fighting style also changed as she switched to weapons such as bullet-firing lipsticks and smoke-inducing powder puffs.
The Teen Titan comic books eventually got canceled but Duela Dent was too interesting of a character for the writers to write off. She was subsequently made to appear in the Batman titles, this time under a new name – Card Queen. Here, she was infiltrating a criminal organization known as MAZE.
Her last appearance in the pre-Crisis continuity was in Tales of The Teen Titans #50. She appeared as a guest at Donna Troy’s or Wonder Girl’s wedding. Here, she was a middle-aged matron. Around this time, Robin realized that Duela, who looked middle-aged, was too old to be Harvey Dent’s daughter. She agreed to his deduction but before he could actually get to the bottom of it all, she disappeared.
In the Post-Crisis continuity, she appears for the very first time as a delusional schizophrenic. Her moniker is Harlequin from the get-go and she has been in and out of numerous mental institutions over the years. Here, Duela Dent is an acrobat. She possesses several clown-motif gadgets as well. However, her true identity is not revealed.
She appeared as a patient in a mental hospital in the Team Titans comic book. In this arc, the writers wanted to present her as a time-traveling member of the Teen Titans group who went insane after experiencing time warping. As cool as this may sound, the writers could not venture in this direction, mainly because of this the series got canceled.
A final issue for Team Titans was released and it solicited a story that commented on why the series got canceled. In this story, Duela Dent stole a reality-altering device. She then shifted to New York City in the late 1970s.
Her real identity is finally revealed. It is a bit complicated though. Her father is The Jokester, the Joker from Earth-3. Meanwhile, her mother is Evelyn Dent, also known as Three-Face. The Riddler from Earth-3 happens to be her stepfather.
Evelyn left the Jokester during her pregnancy, which is why he never knew of Duela, not until she became a teenager. She was raised by Evelyn herself, with no help from the Riddler. How she ended up in the mainstream universe remains a mystery but after meeting the Joker, she started referring to herself as the Joker’s Daughter.
Technically, she really is the Joker’s daughter but her Joker is not the one who inspired her.
Origin in the Current Comics
In the New 52 continuity, Duela Dent is a psychopath. She lives in the underground sewers of Gotham City as a tribal leader. She goes by the alias Joker’s Daughter and has a relatively strange goal. She wants to prove that the women of her tribe are better than and superior to men. She also has a twisted viewpoint when it comes to beauty standards. Ugly is the new beautiful for her.
Duela Dent was born in the suburban areas outside Gotham City. Her parents were a happy couple but her birth stirred things up. Her parents, particularly her father, grew uneasy right after Duela’s birth. Time went by and Duela grew to become more and more strange in the worst ways possible.
As a child, she would commit acts too sinister for a child, which reflected her cruelty in her. Once, she trapped a spider in a light bulb. On another day, she used barbed wire to create a corset. When she was twelve years old, she adopted an ugly dog. Her father did not approve of it and threw it out. In her defense, there’s nothing wrong with the dog being ugly so all points to Duela. She was also obsessed with knives and even made herself a mobile using knives. She would let it hang over her bead as it would lull her to sleep.
One day, she deformed her entire face with a box cutter. She wanted her appearance to match the ugliness in the world as she loved ugly for ugly’s sake. When her parents learned of this, they immediately took her to a hospital for surgery. She resisted the procedure of being fixed which botched the surgery.
Half of her face was now deformed, much to the horror of her parents. However, Duela loved her new, ‘ugly’ appearance. She began to think that she was flawless, which makes sense for her as ugly is beautiful in her eyes. Her parents were appalled by her personality in general and argued over it. Duela overheard their conversation and ran away from home.
She reached Gotham City, where she searched for an underground society called the Nethers. This society resided in tribes in the sewers of the city. While searching for them with her pet cat, she discovered the Joker’s face. His face had fallen off during the time the Joker presumably died in the ‘Death in the Family’ arc. Initially, Duela mistook the face for her own reflection.
She later took the face to the Dollmaker, a serial killer who created dolls using the limbs and skins of his victims. He attached the Joker’s face on top of Duela’s own face. She then injected vials of the Joker’s blood into herself to connect with him and refused to believe that he was dead.
She began to strut around while donning his face. She murdered people and destroyed property, hoping to catch his attention someday.
When Duela saw a nearby couple where she assumed that the man treated his partner unfairly, she asserted her power over them while wearing that mask. She did not hold back her anger against the man and the couple mistook her for the Joker, thanks to the mask. Terrified, they surrendered to her quickly.
Duela had a half-moon piece of metal. She asked the man for the location of the tribal leader and with the piece of metal, branded his face with a smile. Several women from the tribe then escorted her to their leader Charon. The leader referred to her as The Joker’s Daughter and welcomed her to the tribe.
Despite the welcome, Duela Dent retaliated by attacking him. He overpowered her with ease, making her realize how she had made a mistake by assaulting him. He then offered her to be a part of his tribe once again, but she did not want to be like the other women in the tribe. So, she refused to succumb to the men.
Charon was intrigued by her and asked her the reason for her scorn. To answer him, she fabricated a story and lied to him about having a happy childhood and how disgusted she was because of it.
Charon did not believe her story, and rightfully so. Eventually, Duela caught him off guard and branded him with a smile. The other men of the tribe then urged Charon to hand over his power to Duela, but Charon noted that she is trying to gain control of him the same way Joker had. However, Duela still came out on top as she won the tribe over. Charon was sent away and Duela’s plan of proving that the supremacy of ugly was finally put into motion.
Duela Dent has also served in the Suicide Squad, where she would constantly get into arguments with Harley Quinn. Her behavior eventually got her kicked out of the squad. She then returned to Gotham City and found a company in Arsenal and Red Hood.
Strange Facts About Duela Dent
Duela Dent is quite the oddball. Her story and origin lack definitive details about her age, heritage, and at times, intentions. The ambiguity is essentially a part of her character because a lack of solid facts allows her to manipulate the truth however she deems necessary. And it brings up several questions in the minds of the fans. But here’s what we know:
She Wants To Be A Superhero
Once, she had claimed to be the daughter of Doomsday. There’s no way that’s true. You would guess that for a person who likes to refer to herself as the daughter of supervillains, Duela Dent would be more into being a villain. But no. She wants to be one of the good guys in the Pre-Crisis continuity. This is why she had joined the Teen Titans!
Her father from Earth-3 is a nice guy!
The best part about alternate realities is the freedom that it allows the writers to venture into. Good guys become the bad guys, such as the Justice Lords which is an evil Justice League while the bad guys become good.
In the Post-Crisis continuity, Duela Dent is actually the daughter of the Joker. Surprisingly, the Joker (who is known as the Jokester in Earth-3) is a good guy. Even the Riddler Family is a team of superheroes.
Duela In the Killing Joke
In Batman: The Killing Joke, which is an animated movie, the Joker’s wife was pregnant. She died in the movie but the whereabouts of her baby with the Joker was not specified. As his wife was close to her due date, it is assumed that she died while she gave birth to a supposed Duela Dent.
She is the second one to use Harlequin as her alias
Before Duela Dent, this alias was used by a supervillain named Molly Catherine Mayne, who had an enemies-to-lovers moment with Alan Scott’s Green Lantern.
The problem with being the Joker’s daughter
Fans have often resented this character, especially the New 52 version of it. The reason is simple. She seems to have little to no personality of her own. Her arcs revolve around her being similar to the Joker and wanting to connect with him. Even her appearance is based on his. The biggest problem in this is that Joker claims to have no daughter. There’s no proof as to whether she is his daughter or not and it’s probably one of her delusions.
Even in other continuities, the aliases she develops are just her being the daughters of other supervillains. Take them away and there’s not much to her left, which is a shame as the whole concept of her finding ugly things beautiful and being insane and macabre since birth is very interesting and could be explored better.
Joker’s Daughter In The Arrowverse
Duela Dent, played by Alessandra Torressani, appears as the Joker’s Daughter in CW’s Batwoman. The show adds to the character’s complexity and develops her character beyond being a supervillain’s daughter.
She made her first small-screen appearance in the fourteenth episode of Batwoman in the episode ‘Grinning from Ear to Ear’. The inspiration from the New 52 continuity over the other continuities for this character can be seen clearly as she is introduced as a definitive villain.
The episode begins with a pretty girl who is being rushed by her mother to get ready. However, she cannot bear her own reflection. She aggressively applies makeup to her face but then, punches the mirror and shatters it. With a shard of glass, she butchers her entire face. When her mother finds her and her now mutilated face, the girl is seen smiling.
She then goes on a hunt, looking for professionals from the beauty industry and social media influencers who have undergone plastic surgery to become more beautiful as per the beauty standards. Unlike her character in the comics, neither is she seen bringing up her status as the daughter of famous villains nor does she express an overwhelming desire to meet the Joker.
Her story here revolves around her vendetta against society that dictates how people should look. Her mother had forced her into having plastic surgery and she hates her for it. She sees women on social media who look the way her mother wanted her to look and hates them for that very reason.
This is where she also becomes KINDA morally grey. Of course, her conduct is wrong. In fact, it is terrible and she is clearly mentally imbalanced. But her reason isn’t as crazy as ‘oh I want to be like my father’. The fact that the unrealistic standards of the beauty turn out to become a huge pressure on people stands true. This fuels her pre-existing insanity.
The series created her to be a character beyond her regular gimmick and gave her a real reason for her crimes. Even if the audience cannot relate to cutting their faces with shards of glass and hunting down influencers, they can relate to being pressurized by obnoxious standards.
With this arc, Duela Dant was finally able to stand on her own two legs as a character.
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