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After watching The Killing Joke over the weekend, it dawned on me I have no idea what chemicals The Joker fell into.
Do we know what chemicals were in that vat?
And for bonus points, has anyone in the DC universe ever attempted to recreate that accident, and produce another Joker?
Update: Batman: Funny Bones gives the exact chemical make-up.
Batman: I know its components by heart. The whole list.
Eleven percent sodium hydroxide. Thirty-four percent sulfuric acid. Five percent chromium solution. Zinc sulfide, doped with copper, which gives it its green glow.
Batman also states that he is unable to find anything else in the mixture.
We don't know
The specific chemical(s) have not been given. Here's what the chemicals have been referred to over the years.
This origin is shown in Detective Comics #168, Batman and Robin: The Man Behind the Red Hood? and The Untold Legends of Batman, as well as the Who's Who in DC Universe character guide.
Alan Moore, the writer of The Killing Joke, stated that he specifically set out not to contradict that origin.
And the Joker’s origin? Had he had one before that?
Moore: He’d got a kind of muddy kind of origin. They’d said that he’d been the leader of a criminal gang called the Red Hood Mob and that while trying to escape from Batman he’d swum across this river of chemicals.
And that was about it?
Moore: That was about it and this was from a story from, like, the late ’50s or something and so I thought “Okay, I won’t contradict that,” because I kind of believe in working by the rules of the material as it already exists but I can put a lot of spin on that.
Batman #451 brings The Killing Joke's origin into the mainstream canon.
Legends of the Dark Knight #50 changes it to "an acid bath at the chemical refinery."
Batman: Confidential #9 further changes his origin by having the Joker doused in chemicals used for antiseptic drugs. Examples of which can be seen here.
The Origin of the Joker goes back to the unspecified chemical waste, but states that it's only a possible origin.
To answer your other question, yes, the same process can be used on other characters.
For example, Harley Quinn.
I don't think we ever find out the names of the chemicals specifically. As for your second question, no one to my knowledge has tried to create a "second Joker," but the Joker himself (albeit in different universes) has created Harley Quinn and The Creeper by exposing them to the same chemicals.
chlorine bleach. The bleach or acid made his skin white. But it isnt the chlorine that turns hair green. Oxidized metals in the water bind to the protein in the hair shaft and deposit their color. The metal that produces the green tint is copper, which is most commonly found in algicides, though it naturally occurs in some water. Other metals may be present in water that can color your hair, including manganese and iron. Algicides kill algae.
