The Joker's Change Of Body & Heart (DC) (Patreon)

“You’re going to have to run that one by me again,” Clark Kent huffed, his lips drawn into a frown as he attempted to process what his close friend Bruce Wayne had just informed him. Their dual identities as Superman and Batman respectively meant that both Clark and Bruce were pretty regularly exposed to weird situations, but there was perhaps nothing more bizarre than what Bruce had just told the co-leader of the Justice League. “Start at the beginning and this time try to make some sense. You’re telling me that that guy over there--” He pointed across the Hall of Justice to the pale-skinned muscular man in tight purple spandex. “--is the Joker? Yeah, I’m really going to need you to explain how that’s even possible and why you think we should trust him all of a sudden…”

Bruce chuckled as he followed Clark’s gaze and smirked at the unusual sight of his former adversary in his transformed state. “Let me start at the beginning…”

After several years of fighting the Joker, learning that the supervillain had escaped Arkham Asylum was hardly a surprise for Batman. Gotham’s infamous asylum had a pretty poor track record when it came to both curing its patients and keeping them within the boundaries of the sanitarium. Truthfully Batman had given up hope that any of his rogues gallery would find the help they needed in Arkham, so he had decided to take a different approach. Evidently this was a situation that Batman couldn’t fix with his fists, but perhaps it was one that Bruce Wayne could tackle with his fortune instead.

Employing a team of elite scientists that specialised in brain-altering chemicals, Bruce explained to them his bold vision for the future of Gotham and how he planned to fix the city’s supervillain problem. It wasn’t the most moral decision he had ever made, but investing money into creating a drug that would rewire the brain functions of the criminally insane or outright evil would do a lot of good for not just the city but the wider world. Batman lived by a code that meant he couldn’t kill any of his adversaries, no matter what despicable deeds they had committed, but this was a clear alternative that didn’t cross that unforgivable line.

His contacts in Arkham had informed him that Joker was promising to attack with a whole new strategy when he escaped, a strategy that “my good old buddy Bats will never see coming!” Batman knew better than to just accept the Joker’s threats as lunacy; he was perhaps the most dangerous individual in Gotham and needed to be treated as such. He wasn’t just dangerous though, he was smart too, although Bruce wagered that he might even have the edge there. Everybody thought that because he was some muscular rich bachelor that he was lacking in the brains department and in public he certainly liked the act that way as a cover for his late night activities, but that wasn’t the case in the slightest. If anyone was capable of outsmarting the Joker, it was Bruce Wayne.

His constant dealings with Gotham’s underworld meant that he was familiar with many of the drug dealers that the city’s villains got their supplies from, and a threat-filled visit from Batman had them promising to make sure the one-of-a-kind test drug made its way into the Joker’s hands under the false pretense that it would supply him with the needed physical strength to go blow-for-blow with a trained combatant like Batman and even hurt him through the kevlar armor of his specifically designed suit. That sort of promise was certain to get the Joker interested and he had such tunnel-vision when it came to his ongoing personal war with the Batman that he likely wouldn’t even know he’d been played until it was too late.

It was a mere twelve hours after Joker’s escape from Arkham that Batman was notified by his petrified accomplice that the crazed villain had purchased the drug from him. From then it was nothing but a waiting game, although Batman was certain that it wouldn’t take long; the Joker had never been the most patent of individuals when the promise of chaos lingered in the air. Sure enough just an hour later the Batcomputer alerted him to a disturbance in downtown Gotham and a quick trip in the Batmobile took him right to the scene of the crime.

The Joker was holding up a perfectly respectable restaurant in the heart of the wealthiest district in the whole city and the GCPD were at a loss for how to tackle the situation without the Joker harming the hostages he had taken or blowing the place sky high. Fortunately the city had Batman to step in when the GCPD wasn’t enough - which, if Bruce was allowed to have some ego, was more often than not. Thankfully this time wouldn’t be like any of the others because if all went well then the threat of the Joker would be neutralized for good.

As he dropped in through the skylight to the center of the room, just a few feet from his adversary, Batman could already see that his drug had begun changing the Joker’s physicality. His purple suit was stretched to its limits by a powerful frame that only seemed to expand with every heavy breath that the villain took. His neck was thicker too and those long slender fingers were more sausage-like as they wrapped around the detonation device he held in his hand. As their eyes met the Joker’s lips spread into a smile but being the master detective that he was, Batman easily identified that it was forced and there was an element of uncertainty to the other’s already unstable mindset.

“What’s up, Bats?!” the Joker croaked, twirling a knife in one hand while he continued waving the detonator around with the other. “I hope you like the new me! You know, I shoulda checked out Arkham’s gym before this, it’s no wonder Bane got so big! Forget barbells, soon I’m gonna be lifting BATbells! Hahahahaha!” Even as he spoke the seams of the Joker’s clothes began splitting as he grew more muscular and he grimaced, doubling over somewhat.

“Give me the detonator,” Batman commanded, taking several steps forward and holding out his hand. Much to the villain’s surprise, the Joker did exactly as he was told and placed the detonator carefully in his nemesis’ open palm. “Now drop the knife.” There was a clatter as the blade dropped to the floor, all while the Joker’s eyes grew wider with disbelief, confused by his own actions. He’d never given up so easily before! His hostages watched on, just as shocked but also relieved that Batman had defused the situation without anyone getting hurt.

“What did you do, Bats?” the Joker asked accusingly, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. A rare smile had spread across the hero’s face and for the first time the Joker actually appeared somewhat nervous and uncertain.

“That miracle drug you took to give you a fighting chance isn’t just rewriting your physical status but also all of the neurons in your brain. It’s a little something I’ve been working on to help clean up Gotham’s streets and I thought you’d make the perfect test subject,” Batman explained, reaching forward and grabbing the arch-enemy by his newly empowered bicep while aiming his grappling hook back up towards the skylight he had dropped through. “And if it went wrong, well you’d probably still think it was a great joke.” With that he activated the grappling hook, pulling the Joker out of the restaurant and allowing the hostages to rush towards the door and freedom.

Batman was glad that the Joker’s physical changes had stopped by the time they arrived back at the Batcave, lest he’d completely bust out of the passenger seat of the Batmobile. The Joker had ended up at an impressive six-foot-three and two-hundred-and-thirty pounds of solid muscle. There was a blank look on the villain’s face and he needed to be led by the hand from the vehicle until he was sat in front of the giant monitors of the Batcomputer. Once there Bruce activated the videos he had prepared with the help of Zatanna, videos that communicate hypnotic commands and began decorating the blank canvas that the Joker’s mind had been scrubbed clean to become. The videos showed the various victories of the Justice League as well as random acts of kindness to help create the Joker’s new identity as a do-gooder without any of his previous inclinations towards chaos and senseless violence.

After three hours in front of the screens to take in the looping videos, the Joker’s transformation was finally complete. Bruce then led the new hero to a room he’d prepared and allowed his newest ally to rest up, before tackling his first day as a force for good. He equipped the former villain with a new purple spandex uniform and armed him with various devices from Batman’s arsenal. The former Joker was surprisingly acrobatic and the drug had made him strong too so he became a solid replacement for the likes of Nightwing and Red Robin, even if he perhaps lacked their smarts. He was definitely more of a follower and sidekick than an individual hero who could think for himself, that was for sure.

Once he was certain that all traces of the Joker had been removed from the man - now renamed the Hyena after the laughing animal of the same name - Bruce decided to introduce him to the Justice League. They were dubious to say the least but Batman was confident that his new sidekick would win them over eventually. Besides, if he could trust that the Joker had truly reformed then they had every reason to trust him to be telling the truth. The Hyena was helping him clean up the streets of Gotham and soon enough more of Batman’s villains would be joining him in his new crusade too!