Every good hero needs an even better villain: although it’s perhaps a little cliché, it’s been a golden rule of storytelling for almost as long as we’ve been telling stories. Beowulf needs Grendel, the Fellowship of the Ring needs the insurmountable forces of Sauron, the Rebel Alliance needs the oppressive threat of the Galactic Empire. Aside from simply providing great conflict, a villain is also a funhouse mirror reflecting a hero’s convictions and morals back at them: freedom vs oppression, lawfulness vs corruption, order vs chaos.Is there any pairing that fits the last one better than Batman and The Joker? Introduced a mere year after the Dark Knight’s first appearance in 1939, the Clown Prince of Crime debuted in the pages of 1940’s Batman #1 – he’s been there from nearly the very beginning, inextricably linked to the emergence of his archnemesis both in-universe and in the real world. Batman and the Joker’s rivalry has transcended the medium that gave birth to it; they’ve been at each other’s throats in television shows, feature films, animated series, video games; they’ve even done battle in LEGO form. For being so oversaturated and overexposed, it’s almost unfathomable to think of a Batman adaptation without a corresponding version of the Joker, because his relationship to perhaps his greatest nemesis is a key part of how the character is defined in different interpretations.And in some interpretations the Joker is more hands-on than in others. | DC ComicsBut of course, as with any piece of media that has earned an outsized role in pop culture, there’s the source material and how fans choose to interpret the source material, which can sometimes be in remarkable opposition to each other. While Batman and the Joker’s relationship is one built atop fundamental ideological differences and over eight decades of violent, escalating personal vendettas, there are some fans out there who see their relationship as something far closer to a volatile, toxic romance. While Bruce Wayne has had countless lovers on-screen and in the pages of comics, in the world of fan-fiction, oftentimes his greatest villain is also his lover.“Batman. Darling.”Much like Batman himself, the Joker is a character who is extremely malleable and has been presented in numerous forms throughout his comic book history. He was initially introduced as a calculated serial killer and criminal mastermind with a flair for the theatrical, but the 50s marked the transition into the Silver Age of comic books: an era that existed in the shadow of the Comics Code Authority, a regulatory response to criticisms that comic books promoted degeneracy in youth (an idea made popular by psychiatrist Frederic Wertham and his incredibly damaging book Seduction of the Innocent). The Silver Age Joker was thus portrayed as a mostly harmless, defanged prankster, a portrayal that would be directly adapted by 1966’s Batman TV show.However, when Batman sales began to decline throughout the late 60s and 70s, DC Comics (under editorial director Carmine Infantino) shifted away from exclusively child-friendly stories, and The Joker slowly began to regain his erratic homicidal tendencies while also, for the very first time, developing a characterization as criminally insane. What started during the Bronze Age coalesced in the Modern Age of the 80s, where the Joker truly became a force of nature and an inescapable figure in Batman comics – he was both the architect of Bruce’s greatest failures (the murder of Jason Todd and the assault and paralysis of Barbara Gordon) and also increasingly a dark thematic mirror to the Batman, two people diametrically opposed but also inextricably linked by their understanding of the world and each other. Frank Miller’s legendary 1986 storyline The Dark Knight Returns sees a 55-year-old Bruce Wayne return to the cape and cowl to liberate a dystopian Gotham City, and his presence almost immediately awakens the Joker from a ten-year-long catatonic state; conversely, Batman: The Killing Joke retells the Joker’s origins as a failed comedian who takes part in a heist to support his wife and newborn child, only to end up permanently disfigured the night of the robbery after his fateful run-in with Batman at the Ace Chemical Plant.Moments like this from the 1980s are a far cry from the character’s crime boss origins or his court jester era. | DC ComicsThe 80s defined Batman and the Joker’s relationship in comics as a vicious, inescapable bond forged through trauma and twisted kinship – Batman birthed his archnemesis, but the Joker fundamentally understands Batman in a way no one else does, as both of them are extreme reactions to the world around them. Grant Morrison’s surreal 1989 graphic novel Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth took the Joker’s flamboyancy to new, queer-coded heights and heavily suggested a homoerotic lynchpin to their dynamic. The entire era would heavily influence adaptations like Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman: The Animated Series, and it’s in this period that the first inklings of “BatJokes” would emerge – a niche underground crack ship that would explode with the advent of superhero adaptations and the internet.“You Complete Me.”Fan-fiction revolving around Batman/Joker pairings could theoretically be traced as far back as the late 80s and early 90s, as the psychological dimensions of their relationship began shifting, but it was almost entirely confined to physical fan zines that circulated on convention floors and on private mailing lists like most small fan-made print media at the time. It wasn’t until the dawn of internet blogs and collective writing platforms like LiveJournal and FanFiction.net that BatJokes began peeking out from behind the curtain, mostly revolving around Batman: The Animated Series. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill’s committed voice performances were a touchstone for a generation of comic book fans who were also some of the first people posting online, and their never-ending violent game of tag has carved out its own niche slice of DC Comics fan-fiction.Batman: The Animated Series was an early touchstone for internet BatJokes fiction, undoubtedly due in large part to Conroy and Hamill’s chemistry. | Isaiah Trickey/FilmMagic/Getty ImagesIt wasn’t really until 2008 that BatJokes surged into popularity, of course fueled by the cultural phenomenon that was The Dark Knight. Nolan’s second Batman film was probably the most intense depiction of the psychological conflict between Batman and the Joker, and the angst and codependency of Christian Bale and Heath Ledger’s performances left their mark on the internet, particularly romance and slash writers on Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.net. Ledger’s Joker is undeniably, immediately transfixed by Batman, understands their mutual role as outsiders, and this blasphemous kinship has inspired many an illicit slash fic.Despite the fact that they barely shared the screen, even Jared Leto and Ben Affleck’s depictions of the characters have received their own ship fiction, mostly due to Leto’s unpredictably flamboyant performance and hints at their bloody shared history. Unsurprisingly, 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie is also another popular foundation for BatJokes works – that movie very pointedly and comedically underlines their inseparable dynamic, and writers across the internet took notice.Perhaps no piece of Batman media has leaned into the homoerotic undertones of his relationship with the Joker to as great of effect as The Lego Batman Movie. | Warner Bros. PicturesBatJokes fics come in all shapes and sizes – sometimes the Joker kidnaps Batman, sometimes the Joker’s under strict house arrest in the Batcave, occasionally Batman succeeds in reforming his archnemesis only to realize his feelings for him. Sometimes the violence is clever subtext for unconsummated lust; most times that lust is just raw text. Fan pairings of Batman and the Joker have been around in some form or fashion for over 30 years now, and even though it most assuredly will never become DC Comics canon, it doesn’t really need to be – it’s another dimension to the constant evolution of one of the comic industry’s most intense and everlasting conflicts, and it’s one that, regardless of how implausible, is rooted in the very real, magnetic tether between characters.