This is a true thing. There is a petition for this to happen over at www.change.org/p/make-the-joker-gay-again. I am always the first fanboy to want a character’s sexuality to be explored in anything other than heterosexuality. But the Joker?!
I admit I never believed that Joker and Harley were a real thing. Some writers would go back and forth as to his level of love tolerance for her, so I can see some fans leaning towards him being a heterosexual. However, he’s a psychotic mass murdering lunatic and I honestly never even thought of him as being even slightly sexual in any way. I always envisioned him being asexual. He may have a slight leaning towards homosexuality with his infatuation with Batman. Even that however, I never really thought of him ever as being full on wanting to be with Batman. More like a heterosexual sports fan that has a strange obsessive crush on an athlete.
There are a lot instances of the Joker’s obsession with Batman that could borderline love. One of my favorite was Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns story. Joker went into a catatonic state when Batman retired. Hearing the return of the Dark Knight, snapped the Joker out of it. That was a minor component of the story, but still worth nothing. If you are interested in seeing the petition or if you are inclined to even sign it, here’s the link: www.change.org/p/make-the-joker-gay-again
