The Joker’s Laughing Gas is pop culture’s most iconic biological weapon. While the Clown Prince of Crime is also known for flowers that squirt acid, decks of cards that look like blades, and buttons that shock his glove, the venom is by far the most lethal and known “surprise” of the Batman villain.
The Joker’s toxic gas has a devastating effect on his victims, who turn pale and parched with a terrible smile on their faces after laughing themselves to death. Since its creation, the poison has become more potent every day, as the villain is always “optimizing” his creation. Incidentally, the Clown Prince of Crime’s own recipe — something that no one has the slightest idea where he got it — has a composition that can be as lethal as the toxin itself.
Em Joker: Last Laugh Secret Files #1, there is a short story that talks about the recipe for the Laughing Gas toxin. In the story, a scientist named Dan uncovers the few popular ingredients needed to create a portion of the bioweapon. Although the exact names and quantities of the ingredients are censored, Dan brings several common items, such as household cleaner and a bag of frozen vegetables.
According to Dan, more specialized items, such as pharmaceuticals, can be easily substituted for over-the-counter drugs — and, of course, the scientist ends up demonstrating how dangerous his experiment was when he accidentally exposes himself to the harmful mixture.
The easy-to-make recipe is as lethal as the toxin
Despite being called Laughing Gas, the Joker’s toxins are considered to be on the same level of danger as ricin or the bubonic plague. And what the story of Joker: Last Laugh Secret Files #1 confirmed in 2001 is something already shown in the film Batmanby Tim Burton, from 1989: that the fact that his recipe can be easily replicated with just a few items purchased at a local market can be as dangerous as the bioweapon itself.
The Joker loves to cause mass mayhem, and as everyone has seen in theaters lately, he’s even more dangerous when he stops being a man and becomes an idea: think about how he might spread copies of his simple Laughing Gas recipe. turns any more aggressive citizen or on a bad day into a possible ally.
We still haven’t seen him exploit this Laughing Gas recipe facility many times or to its full potential. But you can well imagine the damage he could cause if the Joker decided to leak his shopping list around.
