Gotham’s Creepy Joker Could Be Penguin’s First Real Threat

The Joker is coming to Gotham, that’s only a matter of time. The question is what his grand entrance will do to the city’s criminal underground, which over the past season has been steadily consolidated under the reign of the Penguin and the Riddler. The duo of oddfellow kingpins has steadily taken over the streets of Gotham, but one can only imagine what a Joker on the loose will do to wreck such careful plans.

Jerome is pretty much confirmed to return from the dead, and he’s probably going to come back even more mentally unhinged than he was when he died, and he’ll certainly look a whole lot creepier. And while this would enliven Gotham’s “Mad City” season, it would spell bad tidings for the city’s current criminal champions who have, over the past season, amassed a pretty comfortable lead against their Gotham crime rivals like the Sirens, Theo Galavan, and Fish Mooney.

However, Joker — or Jerome rather — is not like the other criminals in Gotham City. After his death, his persona formed a sort of cult-following, with people imitating Jerome’s laugh and anarchic tendencies. When a series of copycat murders begin cropping around Gotham City, even Penguin warns that Jerome’s legacy is a threat to his organization, and still causes fear in some people.

Imagine then, what resurrecting from the dead would do for Jerome’s reputation among his followers, especially if he comes back looking like a true monster.

Unlike the other criminals around Gotham who are mostly interested in taking control of the huge financial rewards that comes with becoming the city’s strongest crime lord, Jerome probably wouldn’t care about such trivial things. A recent trailer that teased his returns fully affirms that Jerome’s priorities are strictly about making sure as many people go insane in the city as possible. And with Bruce Wayne still a child, it would be interesting to see the battle against Jerome being fought by the Penguin.

As Gotham’s current kingpin, the Penguin has a lot more to lose at the hands of Jerome than anyone else. Since he controls prestige and power of Gotham’s underground, it would be disastrous for his business if Jerome comes back with an army of crazies who are only interested in destroying the city. In a weird way, Penguin represents a kind of corrupt order, and might be the only thing standing against Jerome’s version of anarchy, which would threaten not only innocent lives, but Penguin’s criminal operation as well.