Along the road, Batman has encountered some formidable foes. Nobody, however, posed a greater threat to the caped crusader than the Joker! This supervillain was only scheduled to make a one-time appearance, but due to his popularity, he quickly became Batman’s arch-nemesis.
He’s usually shown as a psychopath with a cruel bent of mind, and he’s been bothering Batman and his gang of thugs on a regular basis. Various origin myths for the Joker have been created along the way. One notion was that he was exposed to toxic waste, which converted him into a madman. Other theories indicated that he just exploited his chemical engineering expertise to manufacture weapons and pretended to be insane to get away with his work style.
However, the narrative of the Batman: Arkham video game series took an unexpected turn when it came to the state of the Joker. Titan, an experimental chemical based on Venom, was discovered to be the source of his odd behavior and appearance.
There might be more to his murderous tendencies and fits of unrestrained laughing than meets the eye. In this video, we’ll look at the Titan sickness, which is said to have caused the unusual condition in one of pop culture’s most famous figures!
Real-Life Medical Condition Of The Joker – Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease (CJD)
Fans have long speculated that the Joker’s sociopathic character should have a psychological explanation. Did you know that the game linked Joker’s illness to a mutant version of a real-life disease? It’s known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD, and it’s a deadly illness. This disease is extremely rare and affects less than one in a million people every year, but this brain disease is a genuine threat and somewhat similar to Alzheimer’s.
The condition is fatal and there is no cure for the disease yet. Just to give you a small hint about the deadliness of the CJD, almost 70% of the patients die in the first year of their diagnosis. It starts off with memory loss, and behavioral changes, and slowly, it leads to dementia, blindness, and coma.
The parallels between the diseases become all too obvious if you pay close attention to the symptoms. A progressive change in the affected person’s attitude and mannerisms will be visible. He’d be paranoid as a result of strange hallucinations, and you can surely connect to the Joker!
The symptoms of CJD can be disguised enough to skip your attention. By the time people notice the anxiety attacks, signs of dementia, and paranoia, it is already too late. The brain’s nerve cells start dying rapidly, and this disease is caused by prions – misfolded proteins in the neurons of the central nervous system. Anyone carrying a mutation of the gene that codes for the prion protein can end up with this condition. This is basically like a human version of the mad cow disease. In the case of Joker, the Titan in his blood caused the prions to mutate, and they start re-writing the brain tissue with Joker’s data.
This results in the mutation of the body, and even the Batman’s mind starts to become like the Joker’s after he is infected. The way the developers related this disease to the Joker’s condition is understandable because he displays all the subtle signs of the ailment and the Titan in his blood brings in the mutation part as well. It certainly is an interesting addition to the extensive lore surrounding the Joker.
Joker Infection
The prospects of Joker being cured of the Titan sickness were small after he was stricken. Blood transfusions only prolonged his life, but not indefinitely. When it appeared that there was no chance, Joker blackmailed Hugo Strange and forced him to distribute the diseased blood to all of Gotham City’s hospitals. He even poisoned Batman with the blood, and the Dark Knight had to look for a cure himself.
The Joker Infection is where Joker’s mutated blood infected others and turned them into copies of him. Batman found a cure and distributed it among the infected. The infected blood samples from the hospitals were collected, but four people still ended up with blood transfusion from the infected ones. Batman got them confined and learned more about the disease.
The infection was far worse than the medical history showed, which is why we keep referring to it as a mutant variant of CJD. There were also parallels, as the Joker virus attacked the brain in the same way that CJD does. It also caused nerve damage and made the person affected unstable and temperamental.
However, unlike CJD, the Joker infection made the infected person slowly inherit the personality and other traits of the Joker. To make matters worse, the victim would also have flashbacks of some of the horrible things done by Joker.
Batman had troubling visions of what the Joker did to Jason Todd and Barbara Gordon. Batman soon discovered that Scarecrow’s strain of Fear Toxin could worsen the infection and cause hallucinations. He used the ability of the toxin to take control of the infection.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
This game was published for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows, and it was unique among Batman games in that it was based on a comic book mythology. After eventually finding the Joker, Batman escorts him to Arkham Asylum in the beginning of the game.
Meanwhile, many other members of Joker’s gang have been shifted to Arkham as well because of a strange fire at another prison. Joker manages to break free from the security personnel at the facility, and Harley Quinn helps him escape. He leaves the gang members behind to fight Batman, and leaves a trail of fallen security guards as he flees.
Harley Quinn takes the warden hostage, and Batman finds several personnel and inmates in a room that is rapidly filling with Joker Toxin. He quickly clears the room of toxins, but he is soon attacked by a mutated prisoner. At this time, the Joker warns Batman against following him because Gordon has been taken captive and he would be killed if Batman doesn’t obey.
In the midst of all this mayhem and turmoil, Batman must solve Riddler’s puzzles and combat Harley Quinn’s goons who are attempting to destroy his Batmobile. After recovering from some unpleasant hallucinations caused by fear gas, Batman discovers Bane chained up and linked to a pump that is draining his Venom. He understands that Bane is the mysterious Patient X referenced in the Titan project.
Joker uses the opportunity to replace Bane’s Venom with Titan, and this powers him to break free and attack Batman who barely manages to get away. Finally, he uses the Batmobile to knock Bane out into the waters of Gotham Bay. New discoveries come up and Batman finds out that the Titan project was to develop a drug more powerful than the one fueling Bane. Now that he has got his hands on the Titan formula, Joker clearly has some bigger plans with this project!
When Batman hears that Joker plans to raise an army of Titan-fueled monsters, he seeks an antidote from Poison Ivy. The treatment can be developed with some uncommon spores discovered exclusively in Killer Cros’ lairs, deep under the sewers. But Ivy will soon be corrupted, and Batman must find a way to prevent him from taking over Arkham Asylum.
He gets the necessary spores, and uses them to create an antidote in his Batcave. After a lot more of hardcore action, and Batman fighting some Titan mutants, he crashes into Joker’s party. He takes a bullet for Gordon when Joker tries to shoot him with a Titan dart, and Batman is infected. Joker himself is horribly mutated, but Batman uses the antidote just in time to heal himself. Eventually, the effects of Titan start wearing off from Joker and his thugs and they are treated at the medical facility.
Batman: Arkham City
Mayor Sharp has taken control of Gotham City and is attempting to turn it into a police state. Anyone with even a minor criminal past is imprisoned, and any kind of protest is met with the same outcome. Bruce Wayne is seized by the Mayor after voicing his opposition to the policies. Mayor Sharp is working on a major project dubbed Protocol 10. As a result, he would become the absolute ruler of Gotham.
Batman gets Alfred to airdrop his equipments and saves Catwoman from being tried before a Kangaroo Court. He suspects that Joker might know something about Protocol 10 and tracks him down to his hideout. We see that the Titan infection has worsened, and Joker also performs a blood transfusion on Batman, thus infecting him as well. Now, the Dark Knight has to find a cure for both of them.
As Batman desperately tries to find a cure and fights the likes of Ra’s al Ghul, the Penguin, and Solomon Grundy, we learn the actual implications of Protocol 10. It plans to eradicate all the inmates and free Gotham from the criminal elements. Eventually, Batman finds the antidote and heals himself, but Joker attacks him causing the other antidote to spill. He dies from his illness, and Batman carries out his arch-rival. The deadly infection seems to have got the better of the criminal mastermind after all.
Our Final Words
The Titan sickness, or a medical reason for Joker’s odd symptoms, has nearly never been addressed in the films, and it’s possible that the upcoming ones will. We always knew the Joker was a psychotic criminal genius, but explaining the biological issues that impact him gives the character so much more depth. It is only fitting that someone so demented would be something more than just evil, and the Titan disease offers a whole new outlook to how we see Joker!