Joker was feeling a bit tired at the moment.
Even though he was the top super-villain in Gotham, he wasn't one to spend 20 hours a day making bombs and four hours causing destruction; that was Batman's territory, not Joker's—Joker needed to eat and sleep.
Anyone jolted awake in the middle of a deep sleep by a faint green light shining from downstairs, and someone shouting slogans noisily enough to shatter the peace, would likely be in a bad mood.
Joker vaguely recognized the person below as Green Lantern, but because it was so dark he couldn't be sure, and the swath of green light was actually emitted by a lamp he had called.
Joker wasn't particularly interested in creatures that weren't Batman, but he also couldn't tolerate having his sweet dreams disturbed, so he casually grabbed a bomb from his drawer and tossed it out the window.
Bang!
This was actually just a hand grenade, not very powerful, but it seemed to seriously injure the other party, the lamp emitting the green light flew off and dimmed.
Joker watched as a bunch of green light suddenly burst and then disappeared into the air, thinking that the lamp must be a battery; his bomb must have caused it to leak electricity, electrocuting the Green Lantern quite badly in the process.
But Joker didn't care about the destruction he had caused, as he closed the curtains and prepared to go back to sleep, he suddenly heard someone from across the way shout, "Damn it!"
The shout was loud enough that Joker noticed many windows nearby lighting up; obviously, many people had been woken up.
With the windows lit, the street below was no longer shrouded in darkness. Joker lived on the third floor, not far from the street, and through a gap in the curtains, wow, there was Bruce Wayne in the flesh.
He didn't call him Batman because the guy wasn't wearing a mask, his features were plainly visible as if he wanted the whole world to know he was a rich man.
What puzzled Joker was the uniform the man wore; it had a bat emblem on the chest, though it looked like a modified bat, and on his hand shone a green ring. What was this, a hybrid creation from Green Lantern and Batman?
Joker immediately grew interested, but then noticed that the rifles were already being pointed out of the windows that had lit up, and he hurriedly threw on a coat and rushed downstairs to scoop up the Green Lantern Batman who was lying on the ground.
Dragging Green Lantern Batman up by his collar, he met no resistance from the other party. It wasn't until he turned on the living room light and threw the guy onto the sofa that Joker realized the other party had passed out.
Joker hesitated for a moment, about to take harsh measures to wake him up when the other suddenly jolted awake, swiping his fist at the approaching Joker.
Joker nimbly dodged. Usually, if Batman hit him, he wouldn't bother to dodge, but now he needed a clear view to see what the deal was with this wild Green Lantern Batman.
Before this, Joker had been quite idle. Batman seemed to have disappeared, and the city had been reduced to ruins. He had no interest in taking part in rebuilding the city, and was basically spending his days hiding at home, sleeping.
He had been annoyed about missing the welcome ceremony for Batman, but as luck would have it, those idiots just had to brag about obtaining some of Batman's parts by calling him ten times a day. And now he's got his hands on a live Batman—not giving him a thorough look would be out of the question.
"Who are you?" Green Lantern Batman asked, sounding a bit confused.
"You've never seen the Joker?"
"Joker? Who's that?"
Joker rubbed his hands together, grinning from ear to ear; he had encountered a newbie Batman, which was intriguing.
"A super-villain, a super evil criminal that's your adversary. You've never seen him?"
"In front of me, there's no such thing as an evil criminal, only good guys and dead men."
Joker was startled, eyeing Green Lantern Batman up and down. This Batman was younger than the one he knew but wasn't a child either—he would be considered a young adult. And the way this youth spoke sounded oddly familiar, didn't it?
"So how do you differentiate between good guys and dead men?" Joker probed.
"Those who listen are good guys; those who don't are dead men. It's that simple," Green Lantern Batman said. "Do you see my Lantern Furnace?"
His matter-of-fact questioning tone made Joker feel more and more familiar. The last one to talk to him with that tone was one of Batman's crazy little birds, euphemistically called the raging teenagers.
"You kill all those who don't listen to you?"
"You're not trying to give me a sermon, are you? Nutcase," Green Lantern Batman said impatiently. "So what if I do? They spout about justice, but they're too scared to kill criminals. They wail and whine when they die, constantly nagging in my ear, telling me not to do this, not to do that. It's quiet when they're dead."
Joker pursed his lips.
The so-called duality of Batman and Joker is exactly like this, when Batman acts like Batman, Joker is Joker, but when Batman starts to act like Joker, Joker has no choice but to act like Batman.
How do we even describe the current state of Green Lantern Batman? He's like the Joker and Ace of spades in a deck of cards, the busiest performer in the circus. Even the Joker feels like telling him, "Go back to Gotham, Batman promises not to hit you anymore."
Joker even managed to casually extract basic information about this Green Lantern Batman and understood what he'd done in his original universe—to put it in a nutshell, a classic Arrogant Dragon.
It was always, "Those who follow me shall thrive, those who oppose me shall perish." He didn't care whether his victims were evil or not; none were more evil than him. It didn't matter if it was a lunatic from Arkham Asylum or the diligent Police Commissioner Gordon, if they didn't please him, he'd simply execute them with a gunshot.
By the end, even Joker was speechless, suspecting whether God was on Batman's side, always managing to torment him with such eccentrics?
Perhaps people still remember that Joker's first significant defeat in the Prime Universe was at the hands of Shiller. Of course, after the Prime Universe was rebooted, he naturally didn't remember it anymore.
But that wasn't the most catastrophic event in his life. After the reboot, he faced his first heavyweight opponent, Spider-Man.
The rivalry between him and Spider-Man can't be described as a confrontation between good and evil, but more like an "indirect and straightforward" affair. Joker's plan to show Spider-Man the true face of the city's evil was forcibly twisted by Spider-Man into a grand tour and investigation. It almost earned Joker a big red flower from Wayne Enterprises.
Moreover, this Spider-Man, whom Joker personally injected with an evil serum, turned out to be excessively evil. He even used Wayne's bank card to buy out all the discounted goods in the place where Joker lived, causing Joker to be unable to pay off his credit card for months and nearly ending up homeless on the streets.
Then his second heavyweight opponent was the Batman of Earth-One, and their confrontation couldn't be described as thrilling but rather slightly humorous. Yet, the one responsible for the humor was Batman, and Joker was beaten so bad he couldn't even laugh.
His third opponent can't really be called an opponent. Joker was reluctant to admit that the creature was Batman, which, of course, was Bruce from the Schiller Universe, along with Clark at the time.
The two couldn't be said to be impartial but rather like an office romance skit, performing a scene in front of Joker asking, "Who is your greatest opponent?", to which the answer was "Superman."
Finally getting a break from all these oddballs, Joker had time to rest. That's when Green Lantern Batman, this teen with a severe case of chuunibyou, dropped out of the sky, making Joker start to wonder if this might be another of Batman's schemes.
"I'm asking you a question," said Green Lantern Batman. "Did you see my Lantern Furnace? And did you see that damn guy who threw a grenade at me? Once I've recovered my strength, I'll make sure he pays for it."
Joker's gaze fell on the ring on his finger. He sighed, turned around, and went to grab a crowbar.
Green Lantern Batman shrank back into the sofa. He watched Joker and said, "What are you going to do? Don't come any closer, you lunatic, stay away from me..."
Bang!
The Joker knocked out Green Lantern Batman with a crowbar. When Green Lantern Batman awoke, he felt sticky fresh blood clinging to his face and realized that his limbs were completely immobilized.
Struggling, he found himself strapped to a chair and his previous attempt to recharge energy had been interrupted by a grenade that fell from the sky, causing the Green Lantern energy to explode. Already not very good at controlling Green Lantern energy, now he was completely incapacitated.
In the shadows of the room, the Joker seemed to be sharpening something. When he turned around, Green Lantern Batman saw a handsaw in his hand and his eyes widened instantly.
The Joker approached and grabbed the wrist of the hand where Green Lantern Batman wore his ring, yanked it forcefully, then pressed down on the back of the wrist, pinning the hand firmly to the armrest of the chair.
Green Lantern Batman knew what he was about to do and began desperately struggling. With a whoosh, an awl drove into the back of his hand and Green Lantern Batman let out a dreadful scream.
Not a trace of a smile appeared on the Joker's face. He exuded an office worker's ennui, as if he derived no joy from the task and was just doing it to fulfill a quota.
In fact, that was the case. Making Batman suffer or rejoice brought joy to the Joker, but the thing before him resembled Batman in no way at all. It was even less comparable to the bats in the Batcave; at least Jason would curse wildly when being tortured by him.
After letting out a cry of pain, the man's eyes widened in terror as he looked at his bleeding palm and the slowly approaching handsaw, starting to tremble and beg, "No... no... I beg you, stop!! Please, I beg you!!!"
"Shut up!" The Joker, like a laborer broken by life, slapped Green Lantern Batman impatiently.
Without any intention of tormenting him visually or psychologically, he simply raised the saw and swiftly amputated the finger.
Halfway through sawing, the Joker realized something was wrong. When piercing the palm, normal blood flowed, but sawing the finger released a black liquid. He picked up the severed finger and saw that the cross-section was not that of a normal human finger.
In the cross-section of Green Lantern Batman's finger were numerous dense black threads oozing thick fluid, clearly showing that his original bone, muscle, and vascular structure had been completely replaced.
And just after the Joker had sawn off the finger, Green Lantern Batman began to convulse like someone suffering an epileptic fit, rolling his eyes back, foaming at the mouth, kicking violently, even toppling the chair. If the room had no walls, he might have vibrated two miles out.
The Joker jumped back to dodge his thrashing, eyes wide as he looked at Green Lantern Batman in shock. What was this all about?
I only sawed off one of your fingers; it's not like I'm administering electrotherapy. What, are you trying to accuse me of Something?