The Joker has been an iconic character in comic books for decades. The personality, the murders, the malicious laughter, and his smiling face. The Joker and his face have been through a lot over the years, but in the past three years his face alone has been through more than ever. I’d like to talk about some of the recent events involving the Joker in DC’s New 52, but mostly his comically durable yet nightmarish face.

Forewarning, if you’re planning on reading Batman: Death of the Family, or want to avoid any spoilers to the stories the Joker (and/or his face) have appeared in around the time of it was released in 2012, stop reading here, and maybe just skim over the first few pictures. I also feel the need to warn everyone that the pictures themselves depict gross, bloody illustrations of the Joker’s face.

When DC re-launched all of their titles from #1 in 2011, kicking off the “New 52,” many writers took this chance to change minor or major aspects of the characters they would be writing, such as making a younger/older version of a character, or changing the outfit of a character or two.

Tony S. Daniel, writer of Detective Comics #1 of the New 52, decided it was time for the Joker to be revamped. At the end of the first issue, the Joker finds himself in a room in Arkham Asylum, where he arranged to meet fellow Batman villain, the Dollmaker. The Dollmaker is a master surgeon who enjoys cutting people apart and sewing them back together in strange, twisted ways. Being good friends, he agrees to do a favor for the Joker. The Dollmaker uses his surgical skills to cut the skin cleanly off of the Joker’s face, as some form of “rebirth.” The Joker leaves his face pinned to the wall and escapes.

So, there it is. The Joker and his face departed for the first time. The Joker goes into hiding, to plan, and presumably recover. The face itself is taken by the Gotham City Police Department for evidence. What evidence, who knows, but it’s not like anyone else was going to take it. They put it in a little freezer, preserving it and lock it away.

Maybe they’ll need to take more DNA evidence sometime. The GCPD just keep it around. They make their new recruits work near it overnight and play pranks on them with recorded laughter, it’s all in good fun, totally not weird.

Going a little off topic, I’d like to bring attention to the Joker’s obsessive love interest, Harley Quinn. After the Joker went missing, Harley got herself arrested and enlisted in the “Suicide Squad,” a shady task force run out of Belle Reeve prison and comprised of the supervillians there. The criminals are offered time off their sentences in exchange for going on high-risk missions for the government. After hearing rumors about the Joker’s face, Harley ran away back to Gotham to steal the face of the Joker. Her “coworkers” were sent to bring her back into the program, but not before Harley knocked out the Batman villain Deadshot and reaching the Joker’s face.

Harley is less emotionally and mentally stable than ever, and does what any unstable co-dependent girlfriend would do with the face of the person they love. Take it out of the freezer box and put it over the face of Deadshot. But merely talking to Deadshot and pretending he was the Joker wasn’t enough for her.

The traumatized Deadshot frees an arm and shoots Harley after the disturbing kiss.

Nobody wins.

The Suicide Squad takes them both back to Belle Reeve, and the GCPD takes the face and puts it back in the box. Hey, it’s not like it’s going to get stolen again, right?

Next time we see the Joker’s face is in Batman #13, written by Scott Snyder, the first issue in the Death of the Family. The Joker returns to Gotham, kills a handful of GCPD officers and steals back his favorite face. Now, and for the rest of the arc, he is wearing his old skin over his face. Strapped with a belt and wiring, he stretches it into a smile.

He explains to Batman that he left because he was sick of seeing how Batman has changed, saying he’s grown to rely on his allies, and now he’s returned to help him by killing them for Batman. They fight, Joker escapes, and the Joker appears in a handful of separate titles, torturing Batman’s allies and family in various ways. His face is just along for the ride.

The face itself was in better care in the ice box, as Joker uses it as a prop to torment his victims. For example, in an attempt to scare Robin, he drops him in a room full of worms, maggots and flies and wears his face upside down.

By the end of the Death of the Family, the Joker’s face can be seen literally rotting while strapped to the Joker, complete with flies hovering around and eating it as he speaks.

There are numerous panels where the Joker is hit so hard his face falls off. Rough stuff, even back when it was attached to the rest of his head.

When Batman breaks free, he chases the Joker through tunnels in the cave system under Wayne Manor, to an underground waterfall that fades into nothingness below. The Joker falls, his face falls off, and that is the last the Joker has been seen in the comics since.

While the story of the Joker has come to a pause, his face lives on. In 2013 a character was introduced in Batman: The Dark Knight #23.4(Ann Nocenti) called “The Joker’s Daughter.” She seems to be a young homeless woman living in the sewers under Gotham City. By chance, she finds the Joker’s face floating in the water, and thinks herself chosen, declaring herself the Joker’s heir. (to her dismay, she has no actual blood relation to the Joker). She appears again in a one-shot called “Batman: Joker’s Daughter” (Marguerite Bennett) which follows her in her attempts to get Batman and the Joker’s attention.

In case it wasn’t clear, she just tore a piece of flesh of the face off and swallowed it. What did the Joker’s face do to deserve this?

The next thing this girl does is decide to wear the rotting, torn and soaked face over her face. She appears to have stapled it to her face.

She flees, kills a janitor at Arkham Asylum and goes through an existential crisis about the whole thing, trying to find her true self. Now would have been a good time for her to stop, but the Joker’s face hasn’t been through enough. The Joker’s Daughter goes to the Dollmaker, the man who cut off the Joker’s face years prior. The happy reunion is cut short with the Joker’s Daughter threatening to kill the Dollmaker’s “children,” which I imagine as miniature Frankensteins, or he sews the Joker’s face onto her face permanently. The Dollmaker agrees, and even lets her take some of the Joker’s blood, which she injects into her veins and has a little psycho-trip off of.

Now you’re up to date on the latest happenings of the Joker’s face, 2011 to present. Beaten, eaten, rotten, drenched, and sewn to an obsessive teenager’s face.

Who knows what the future holds for this unfortunate piece of skin? What we do know is that the Joker’s Daughter will be joining the Suicide Squad when the series is re-launched next July, which also includes Harley Quinn on the roster. That, as well as upcoming issues of Batman Eternal, will show their interactions for the first time. We’ll have to wait and see how the Joker’s face effects their relationship.