How Will the Joker Fit Into 'Gotham's Storyline?

From comedians auditioning for a spot at the club to a broker who manages an underground pawn shop, fans of Gotham have been on the lookout for any character who could possibly become the Joker. But will so many different characters and plot threads already, how will Gotham add the Joker? Is there even enough room for Batman's biggest foe on the small screen? While Fox's drama series is already packed to gills with embryonic super villains, there are a few places where they could squeeze Joker into the storyline.

Joker's origins differ greatly from comic to comic. He's meant to be a complete and utter foil to Bruce Wayne, which changes depending on the tone of the story. For example, opposite the hyper-serious, eternally grieving Batman of The Dark Knight, Joker is an anarchist who lies about emotional turmoil in order to manipulate his audience, while he was remarkably lighter and more of a cackling bad guy in the Adam West TV show. Given that Gotham's Batman is a very precocious middle schooler at the moment, Joker could be anything from a punk rock high school dropout to an anti-intellectual thug working for the mob to Fish Mooney (I still haven't ruled that one out!).

He Could Be a Low-Level Mob Goon

Since Gotham has spent so long setting up the mob and incorporating villains like Penguin and Harvey Dent, whose origins have strong ties to organized crime, one easy place we could find a young Joker is among the ranks of Falcone or Maroni. In my opinion, we'll be seeing at least one of these mob bosses kicking the bucket by the end of Season 1. And Tim Burton's Batman made Joker a mob boss' right hand man, so it's been done before.

He Could Be A Mistreated Street Kid

Another theme Gotham has been playing with is kids without their parents who go through some sort of emotional turmoil that will turn them into their villainous future selves. We already saw Ivy Pepper developing some serious rage problems now that she's an orphan. We could see a young Joker going through the same journey, but reaching an even more evil conclusion.

He Could Be a Crook-of-the-Week

In many of the Joker's origins, he starts out not as Joker but with an alias called "The Red Hood." That sounds remarkably like one of the case-of-the-week bad guys that we've seen so far this season, so it would be easy for the writers to pencil in "introduce Joker" in just a regular episode.

He Could Be a New Act at Fish's Club

While we've already been faked out once before with "the Comedian" in the premiere, the show has introduced a few characters, like Liza and a woman who may have been Fish Mooney's mother (though it depends how you interpret the scene). Joker did start out as a stand up in The Killing Joke , a widely cited origin story for the Joker and an influential comic. And Gotham has played with so many red herrings and fakeouts that I wouldn't be surprised if in the end, they return to a familiar setting and introduce Joker as Fish's (or Fish's replacement's) latest act and newest mentee.

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