Carl Grissom was Gotham City's feared crime lord. He suspected that his right-hand man Jack Napier was having an affair with his girlfriend Alicia. Grissom then set Napier up by sending him to the local chemical plant to turn the place over. The police raid the plant after being tipped off by Grissom that Napier was there. Batman also turns up and after a confrontation, sends Napier plummeting into a vat of chemicals. Jack Napier then visits a plastic surgeon to get his chemically ravaged face corrected, but the surgeon couldnt do much with him and has to leave Napier looking like a clown with chalk-white skin, ruby red lips which are in the shape of a permanent smile and bright green hair. Napier's first port of call is Carl Grissom's appartment. He reveals to Grissom that he knows that it was him that tipped off the police and that he has now rechristned himself as The Joker. He then proceedes to shoot Grissom dead and take over his criminal empire.