The DC, but across the entire comic books medium, a position where he will assuredly remain for decades to come–though if he saw what would become of his legacy, he would just give up now.
In the neo-tech future of Batman Beyond, there exists a gang that idolizes the Joker so much that they have taken it upon themselves to preserve his legacy with every anarchistic or otherwise criminal act they commit. At this point in the DC Universe, the Joker has long been dead, but the Jokerz gang are ensuring that he isn’t forgotten. Since Terry McGinnis became Neo-Gotham’s new Batman, the Jokerz haven’t really posed a major threat aside from being a consistent thorn in Terry’s side. Occasionally one of the Joker mooks will get a Bane upgrade, but that's about the extent of their threat. However, after another team of superheroes travel to Batman Beyond’s future, the Jokerz prove to be even less than a forgettable nuisance, but an embarrassment to everything the Joker once stood for.
In Justice League vs The Legion of Super-Heroes #3 by Brian Michael Bendis and Scott Godlewski, the Justice League and the Legion of Super-Heroes have been thrown through the timestream. A faction of the Legion of Super-Heroes find themselves trapped in Batman Beyond’s time period where they immediately witness a member of Jokerz gang attempting to rob an innocent couple at gunpoint. The ‘Joker’ in question points a gun at his intended targets and in an effort to sound intimidating, says, “Ya ever dance with the something something in the something something?!” which is an absolutely butchered quote from the Joker in Tim Burton’s first Batman film. With little to no effort, that gang member is thwarted and the heroes get back to the issues at hand.
The Joker has always seen himself as an epic expression of evil and chaos in the world, the perfect anarchistic answer to Batman’s efforts to bring order to Gotham City. However, it seems as though everything he stood for has died with him as not only is Neo-Gotham a borderline fascist state, but those who have risen up to carry on in his name are an absolute joke. The ‘Joker’ in this issue is the perfect example of how far the Joker name has fallen–complete with a cheap plastic Joker mask and shamelessly mangling a once haunting line from one of the Joker’s most iconic iterations. The Jokerz have turned their hero into a parody, something so laughably non-threatening that Batman barely pays them any mind at all.
The idea for the Jokerz is actually a really cool one as it suggests the Joker’s impact on Gotham City was so ingrained in its criminal underworld that his image and message of chaos continued even after his death. Unfortunately, the follow-through just wasn't there as shown in this issue–proving that if the Joker saw his legacy in DC’s future, he’d just give up now out of pure shame and embarrassment.
