I should've clarified in my post that I already knew he had the congenital disease and all that.
The thing about that that keeps getting me is just the context of this whole design i.e. being written around 2017/2018-ish with a kneejerky reaction to Leto's version, hence the birth defect origin and overall grotesqueness.
I don't think the acid bath did all that. As our pal @C Prometheus puts it:
He didn't fall into a vat of chemicals, guys.
You can tell this Joker dyed his hair (somehow), because the roots of his hair and what faint traces we can see of his eyebrows seem to be some shade of dirty blonde or light brown hair. Just look at this spiffy new gif that @Kane52630 made for us!
Everything else can easily be chalked to being a part of whatever the heck Joker's congenital disease is. Reeves is focusing on the smile in his quotes, but between him repeatedly ruling out the "He fell in a vat of acid" origin and referring back to The Elephant Man multiple times, it's clear that deformity extended to the rest of his appearance (save for his green hair).
The overt visual inspiration of John Hurt's prosthetic work in The Elephant Man (and of course the real life Joseph Merrick and other individuals suffering from similar congenital diseases) is very apparent if you actually stop and look up what Reeves is namedropping.
On an unrelated note, go watch David Lynch's The Elephant Man if you've never seen it before. It's a beautiful film and I love that Reeves is a fan of Lynch's work.
P.S. If I had to guess, the reason his fingers are all mangled and bloodied is that he probably has some sort of chronic itching as part of the disease. Might even be why a huge chunk of the top of his head is balding.
We were several on the board trying to connect Reeves' visual references to old movies and expecting his Joker to evoke "The Man Who Laughs". While the director apparently kept the concept of a disease causing a permanent smile, it's pretty clear that he's going for something else for the overall look.
If a certain vision of Cobain served as a model for Batman, to stay in the sphere of musical artists, the more I think about this new Joker, the more I can see him having some of Keith Flint spirit.
The patched hair, dyed green in a "punk" way, the quite British face (yeah, I know how that sounds)... The artist has actually had a pretty flamboyant wardrobe in his career. I'm not saying it's accurate or perfectly suited to the comic character, but I could see Reeves taking some inspiration from it. Just like Nolan used a bit of Johnny Rotten for his Joker (which isn't a too distant reference actually).
I feel like Barry can still pull off that slightly androgynous vibe with his Joker, especially since there's not much hair on him at all lmfao, even less than I anticipated.
Considering the stated Elephant Man inspiration, it's bemusing to me that some fans are automatically dismissing the idea of this Joker wearing a sharp looking suit. A classic aspect of The Elephant Man is that surrealistically 'Lynchian' image of the horribly deformed Merrick still being dressed to the nines in informal wear. The juxtaposition of seeing this horribly deformed, vaguely animalistic looking man being decked out in a classy looking suit, a symbol of modern, 'civilised society', is common to both the David Lynch portrayal of Joseph Merrick, and the Joker. Having said all that, I don't see him wearing a suit.
