The Joker was a master at toying with people's hearts. He was especially skilled at grasping others' dark sides, drawing out the darkness within them, and then showing it to Batman.
But what if someone had no dark side at all?
Now the Joker knew.
The Joker was like a mosquito about to be roasted to death by a light bulb, while Spider-Man squatted outside his door, droning on and on, conducting more than twenty rounds of ideological and political education every hour with efficiency rivaling psychic invasion.
Whenever the Joker went out to work, Spider-Man followed behind him, inspecting Gotham City for every unsafe, substandard, or illegal place, then notifying Bruce Wayne to improve them. With Spider-Man's moral standards paired with Bruce Wayne's efficiency, Gotham's cityscape had been completely transformed over the past few days.
Whenever the Joker stayed home and refused to go out, Spider-Man began helping people upstairs and downstairs—fixing one person's door today, rebuilding another's stove tomorrow, carrying heavy things for this person today and hauling goods for that person tomorrow.
And Spider-Man could do everything. He had Superhuman Strength, good looks, an excellent temperament, a sweet tongue that made him lovable, and endless energy without needing rest. He was more of a Conch Girl than the Conch Girl herself. The standard of living for everyone in the Joker's apartment building had abruptly risen, making the reclusive Joker seem utterly out of place.
But letting Spider-Man inside was simply inviting a wolf into his home. Ever since Spider-Man had forced his way through the crack in the Joker's door, he had repainted the old furniture in the tiny apartment of less than twenty square meters, thoroughly cleaned every scrap of fabric, retiled the kitchen and bathroom, and even handled mosquito control and pest extermination.
The Joker