For most of DC's long publishing history, the title of scariest Batman villain belonged to the Joker, but in 2017 writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo introduced a character so twisted and evil... he even makes the Clown Prince of Crime shudder. Though he's a relatively new villain in DC's pantheon, The Batman Who Laughs has already become the greatest force of evil in the entire Multiverse--a malevolent god powered by nightmares.
It isn't often that a Batman villain can make the whole Justice League squirm at the very mention of their name. Superman villains like Darkseid and Brainiac have conquered worlds for centuries. Wonder Woman villains are literally the stuff of myth. Green Lantern villains have entire space armies at their side. But most of Bruce Wayne's foes control a handful of henchmen solo. But the Batman Who Laughs is so powerful that not only can he kill gods, he can rewrite all of reality into a multiverse-threatening Hellscape.
Who is the Batman Who Laughs? First appearing in the final page of Dark Days: The Casting in 2017, the Batman Who Laughs is an envoy of DC's Dark Multiverse; a cluster of unstable worlds created by the nightmares of those living in the Prime Universe above. He represents Batman's ultimate worst case scenario--one where the Joker not only manages to push the Dark Knight into breaking his non-lethality code, but where he also lands a "last laugh" punchline that forces Bruce to take his place. Batman has always suspected that his arch nemesis secretly had a contingency plan that would release on the moment of his death, and in a dark reality known as Earth -22 the scenario actually plays out. Bruce Wayne becomes the Batman Who Laughs--a twisted amalgam of Batman and Joker decked out in leather and a spiked metal visor that allows him to see the worst versions of anyone he gazes upon.
On his broken homeworld within the Dark Multiverse, the Batman Who Laughs is born the moment Bruce loses control and snaps Joker's neck. Within three days of becoming infected he gunned down his own family inside the Batcave. Within a week he massacred the whole Justice League, going as far as infecting Superman and his son with a unique form of black kryptonite that causes them to murder Lois Lane before succumbing to death themselves. After conquering his false Earth, he was visited by an ancient bat-god named Barbatos, who promised to give Batman's nightmare-doppelgänger the ability to spread his power across worlds previously unknown.
To fully understand the motives behind the Batman Who Laughs, one needs to first understand Barbatos. Known as the Dragon of the World Forge, Barbatos was tasked eons ago with the burden of dragging unstable worlds (the ones made of pure nightmare fuel) down into the oblivion known as the Dark Multiverse, where they can be re-imagined into fresh new realities by a Titan-like being named Alpheus the World Forger. Described as a vast ocean of roiling possibility, the Dark Multiverse was where Alpheus brewed all the hopes and fears of Earth-Prime into new worlds that (if worthy) would ascend into the greater Multiverse. All was well in the cosmos until the Titan was murder at the hands of his minion Barbatos, who had become drunk with the euphoria of destruction. This caused the failed worlds already sunken below the Multiverse to rot and decay far beyond their intended lifespans--thus leading into DC's mega-crisis event series Dark Nights: Metal.
Not satisfied with killing his creator, Barbatos decided to destroy the positive-matter universes above as well. Using Batman as a portal to Earth Prime (the nexus of the Multiverse) the bat-god dispatched his sinister envoy, the Batman Who Laughs, to conquer all reality. Gifted with powers from the anti-matter universe and a League of twisted Dark Knights to serve at his command, the Batman Who Laughs went full Hellraiser on Earth-Prime, transforming villains such as Poison Ivy, Riddler, and Bane into sadistic demigods. Cities like Gotham, Metropolis, and Central City were re-imagined into terrifying landscapes worthy of Heavy Metal album covers. The wails of pain and suffering from Earth-Prime were like chorus music to the bat-god's ears, and the Batman Who Laughs was its devilish conductor.
Though the Batman Who Laughs is hardly the only DC villain to kickoff a universe-threatening crisis, he's one of the few Batman villains to do it on such an enormous scale. He struck Earth Prime with all the ferocity of Darkseid, but on the cosmic scale of the Anti-Monitor. And though he was eventually brought down by the unlikely team-up of Batman and the Joker, the Dark Knight of the Dark Multiverse was hardly down for the count. In fact, his defeat at the end of Dark Nights: Metal only made him stronger. To reverse the damage done by Barbatos and his minion, the Justice League armed themselves with a godlike metal known as Element X, which returned Earth to its former state, but also cracked a hole in the Source Wall, unknowingly releasing an even more ancient and powerful goddess of Chaos.
Not long after his defeat, the Batman Who Laughs hatched a new scheme--first attempting to turn all of Gotham's citizens into an army of Jokerized monsters, and later secretly infecting Commissioner Gordon and several backup members of the Justice League with batarangs corrupted with Dark Metal. And to further taunt Batman, his Jokerized clone left a trail of dead Bruce Waynes from worlds where the Caped Crusader hung up his costume to live a normal life. The ordeal forced the Dark Knight from Earth Prime to face his worst fear, becoming Jokerized himself. Through sheer force of will (and the love and support of his trusty butler) Bruce defeated his dark reflection without succumbing to the infection. But once again, the Batman Who Laughs returned with a vengeance.
Since the wild conclusion of Dark Nights: Metal, Scott Snyder has been building up to an event that DC has promised to be the crisis to end all crises--an "Anti-Crisis." And at the center of this maelstrom is Snyder's twisted creation, the Batman Who Laughs. Though the initial invasion of Nightmare Batmen failed, their attack on the Prime Universe inadvertently released Perpetua--a goddess that feeds off the power of crisis energy. Superman villain and former US president Lex Luthor attempted to harness the power of Perpetua for himself (as seen in DC's Year of the Villain tie-in event), but had his power usurped by none other than the Batman Who Laughs. To add insult to injury, Lex was very specifically warned by the Joker to not trust the villain from the Dark Multiverse, going so far as to rage-quit the Legion of Doom in the most Joker way possible.
With a new evil master to serve, the Batman Who Laughs doesn't just transform Earth Prime into the stuff of nightmares, he does it to the entire Multiverse. And not even getting chainsawed to death by Wonder Woman was enough to bring down the ultimate agent of chaos this round. Having his Alfred henchman implant his brain into the body of a Dr. Manhattan clone of Bruce Wayne (Batmanhattan), the Batman Who Laughs finally reached godhood, declaring himself The Darkest Knight. The Batman Who Laughs doesn't just surpass other DC villains on a sheer power level, he's a literal god of nightmares. When Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo were tasked by DC to create an apocalyptic "dark crisis" event, they took it as an opportunity to design a character so twisted, he makes all other crisis villains look tame. More importantly, he may be ushering in an end to DC's "crisis era" altogether. Snyder and Capullo's latest Batman Who Laughs event Dark Nights: Death Metal combines all of DC's prior crises into one giant storyline.
Both DC and its rival Marvel have been accused of overusing massive, universe-shattering plotlines to push expensive tie-in books and one-shots on its readers, but given how unstable the comic book market as been of late, it makes sense that publishers would continue to saturate the market with larger than life "can't miss" disasters. But whether or not the Batman Who Laughs heralds an end to DC's loop of infinite crises, it will be hard for future writers to top Snyder and Capullo's twisted creation.