>>94796217I'm not sure I buy that there would be anyone (other than Batman) interested in heavily investigating the death of the Joker in front of however-many law enforcement witnesses all claiming it was self-defense.
I mean, cops get away with shooting people who *aren't* maniacal mass-murdering supervillains all the time. What group of people would possibly be outraged at this death? Who honestly would even suspect foul play? It's perfectly believable that the Joker tried to kill a car full of cops--it's not like he hasn't done similar shit before.
Even if some of the cops came out saying it wasn't self defense, do you think a judge would throw the book at the guy? It's the fucking Joker. I would predict a fairly lenient sentence and negative public outcry to be almost nonexistent. I imagine that the primary response from the non-supervillainous community would be relief.
And this is all assuming it gets investigated at all--which I imagine it wouldn't. If you were sitting in that car and your buddy plugged The Joker, wouldn't you back up his story? I must reiterate: it's the fucking Joker. Chances are you're pissing yourself being in the same car as him. If you're Gotham P.D. this guy is scarily high on your "fatalities caused by" list. You really want to get the guy who finally ended that shit-show in trouble?
I imagine any real backlash would come from one of two places: Batman (in which case he throws you to the authorities, many of which will likely be outright thankful of what you did), or other supervillains. Assuming that it *does* eventually come out that there's a Gotham Police Officer out there willing to just shoot supervillains, they might get scared and lash out. Again, I'd honestly consider the chances of that as being pretty low (I ask again: who is going to seriously investigate The Joker's death?), and considering the number of time the Joker's been apprehended over the years I'm just surprised nobody's just up and done it already.