Marvel's Ultimate Green Goblin Redesign Beat DC's Absolute Joker By 25 Years
Nicolas Ayala is a Senior Writer for the Comics team at ScreenRant, with over five years of experience writing about Superhero media, action movies, and TV shows.
As shocking as DC's Absolute Joker redesign may be, it's far from a unique reinvention of a classic comic book villain. The Absolute Universe is one of the best additions to DC lore in recent years. Every major DC character is unapologetically taken to the extreme. Heroes like Batman and Wonder Woman tower over their regular counterparts, and villains like Bane and Brainiac look twice as scary as they do in DC's main continuity. Absolute Joker is undeniably the most drastic and terrifying addition to DC's Absolute Universe. The Absolute Universe's shapeshifting Joker is known as a man who doesn't laugh, secretly pulling the strings of Gotham's dark underworld. Underneath his intimidatingly serious businessman facade, "Jack Grimm" hides a hulking clown monster who feeds off embryos and can turn Batman into mush with his claws and fangs.
Marvel's Ultimate Universe Beat DC's Absolute Universe To Its Joker Redesign
Ultimate Green Goblin Precedes Absolute Joker By Over Two Decades
Ultimate Green Goblin chokes Spider-Man in Marvel Comics
While Absolute Joker is a genius redesign of the Clown Prince of Crime, he isn't the first of his kind. Twenty-five years before Absolute Joker's debut, Ultimate Spider-Man #1 revealed a huge, demonic-looking, musclebound version of the Green Goblin. Most commonly known as a lanky, cackling man wearing a goblin mask and piloting a glider, Ultimate Green Goblin is presented as a silent, Hulk-like monster who exudes fire from his skin. Both villains are horned, and they can transform back and forth. Both Absolute Joker and Ultimate Green Goblin add a fresh twist to their respective characters. The most dramatic way to update a character is to transform them into their complete opposite. Ultimate Spider-Man and Absolute Batman are no longer physically superior to their archnemeses, and they have to both overpower and outsmart the villains to have a chance at stopping them.
Ultimate Spider-Man's Ending Also Suits Absolute Batman
Absolute Batman Might Get The Same Sense Of Finality As Ultimate Spider-Man
Mary Jane cradles a dead Peter Parker in Ultimate Spider-Man
One of the most memorable deaths in Marvel Comics history takes place in the Ultimate Universe, where Earth-1610's Spider-Man dies fighting Ultimate Green Goblin. Batman's inevitable encounter with the Joker in DC's Absolute Universe needs to raise the stakes after the Dark Knight's brutal fight with Bane. Since this Batman is willing to break every boundary, it wouldn't be out of character for him to die fighting Absolute Joker.
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