The Joker is one of DC's most notorious villains, getting his amusement from torturing and murdering civilians and superheroes alike; especially his arch nemesis Batman. But Marvel has their own crazed clown who also gets a kick out of punishing and killing people and his name is Steven Harmon, a.k.a. Slapstick.
Unlike many other DC villains, Joker's origin story and previous life before becoming the Clown Prince of Crime has remained a mystery and only fragments of it have been revealed over the years. Though, there is one widely accepted aspect of his genesis and that is the fact he fell into a container filled with corrosive chemicals, causing his skin to turn white and his hair green - which also explains why he can't be identified. And while Joker sometimes seems nearly unkillable, compared to his Marvel clown counterpart, Joker is more average than he is super.
Similar to the Joker, Marvel's Slapstick has an insane origin story of his own regarding how he gained the title and his peculiar appearance. As a teenager, Steven decides to prank one of his classmates, Don Winston, and follows him into a carnival. To avoid detection, Steven decides to dress up as a clown. After seeing Winston and his date get kidnapped by a group of clowns hailing from another dimension, he follows them through a mystical portal and finds himself in a realm called Dimension X that is governed by a being called Julius T. Flakfyser, a.k.a. the Scientist Supreme. With the help of Scientist Supreme, Steven is able to understand his new strange, cartoon body - which has been altered due to his cross-dimensional travels. Thanks to this molecular modification, Steven has become a living clown cartoon that wields a massive mallet, which, as a result of also entering the portal, is invulnerable because of its unstable molecules.
Steven is given the name Slapstick. And while slapstick humor is usually identified as being just mildly violent, he's not afraid to get his hands dirty and bash a few brains in with his mallet. Specifically, when he's working with his pal Deadpool. While fighting alongside a group of mercenaries known as the Mercs for Money - which includes Deadpool, Foolkiller, Masacre, Stingray, and Terror - Slapstick is willing to whip out a chainsaw and annihilate any enemies in his path, cracking jokes all the way. In Slapstick's solo Infinite Comic series, he's hellbent on gaining back his former body and is willing to even team-up with supervillains to get it back, as seen in Reilly Brown, Frederick Jan Van Lente, David Nakayama, and Diego Olortegui's Slapstick Infinite Comic #1.
Although Marvel's Slapstick has an interesting backstory, bewildering abilities, and can even be quite comical, he's not nearly as popular as his DC clown counterpart -The Joker. Though, if enough fans want to see more of him, there may still be time for him to get the last laugh.