User blog comment:MrPacheco101/Who's Got The Punchline: The Joker & Team Baskerville/@comment-143604-20121203021626

While the scenario is certainly interesting, and will lead to an excellent written simulation, I don't think it changes the basic results- Team Baskerville will kill the Joker. Now, while it's true that the Joker is going to be able to hide anywhere and will have a massive sandbox to work with here, there's a number of factors that limit him from reaching his full Gotham potential:


 * The City- The City of Gotham is a huge part of how the Joker is able to succeed, and while I don't mean to imply he can't adapt, Tokyo being a strange and unique new locale will undeniably throw his usual strategies for a loop here. The basic design of both cities are completely different, the atmosphere and culture are completely different, and above all else, Joker is a stranger here. He doesn't have dozens of warehouses, abandonded amusement parks or pieces of run down property where he's storing equipment, guns and hiding places- he's exposed and alien at all times. He'll be able to find places to hide, but Team Baskerville will have an easier time finding him than he will hiding from them.


 * The Support- Another thing that makes the Joker effective in Gotham is his back-up. He's used to having an army of clown goons to hide behind and to amuse himself with. He's used to near limitless resources, and an Asylum of batshit supervillains to play with. Even the basic mindset of the people of Gotham feed into his tactics and personality in an irreversable way- the fear, the confusion, the ease at which they break and the acceptance of criminals like him contribute to making the Joker such a powerhouse in Gotham. Add to that, a world where heroes almost universally refuse to kill and where apparently mass murdering, genocidal crimelords get to go to the same Asylum every week because there isn't a death penalty. In comparison, Team Baskerville is working as a team, and will be able to play into each other's strengths and weaknesses to support each other on the field, and will be actively aided by the people of Tokyo- whether they know it or not: news broadcasts, police reports/radio transmissions, tracking the Joker across Tokyo won't be nearly as hard when a group of five gifted people (with one being a fantastic detective on her own rights) when the whole city will be looking for him too, once he starts killing- and he most certainly will do so. Joker's neither a patient man nor a fan of ending his assaults quickly, so he'll make sure the whole city knows his name and face before the end of it.


 * The Modus Operandi- Joker's going to be leaving clues, hints and jokes around his crime scenes. He's going to be spraypainting his signature smiles and laughs all over the walls on top of the brains of whatever random victims he's put down. He's going to put up live videos of him hurting people, and for no other reason than because that's the game he plays. He wants someone to come find him- maybe not Baskerville in specific, but he wants the "Tokyo Batman" equivalent, and he wants to make them squirm. This very method will help pinpoint him, however. The Joker rarely surfaces for a long period of time before being caught again for good reason- he's really, really, really not subtle. One of these animus are a Sherlock Holmes tier detective- and Holmes was a far more inteligent and effective detective than Batman ever has been (come at me, bros), and while I don't want or like to use an arguement that can be summarized as "X can beat Y because Z = X and Z can Y", but ultimately I do feel that Aria is going to be able to track down the Joker in this city.


 * The Equipment- This one is a real mixed bag as far as an edge could be concerned- The Joker is obviously packing a larger amount of equipment, but a lot of his weaponry is non-traditional goofy weaponry- so he's suffering from an Exotic Weapon Penalty. A traditional firearm will almost always be superior to a wierd and jokey weapon, even if it doesn't have a fraction of the personality, and Baskerville's more to-the-point and effecient weaponry do provide a distinct advantage- they have great range, great teamwork/support through their weapon load-outs and are much easier to use. Granted, The Joker's weaponry is also going to be disturbing or confusing to them, as they've never met the Joker before. His Joker Gas in paticular is going to have a nasty first date against people who have never heard of it before, and his revolver combo has always been an effective strategy against serious opponents who drop their guard after that first one just shoots a "Bang!" flag. That being said, Baskerville's not exactly lacking in surprises themselves- outside of the surprise of small children holding firearms, something that the Joker hasn't really dealt with before, a lot of those firearms are a little weird in their own rights- it's not going to be shooting razor sharp bang flags, but who would expect a Desert Eagle to fire full auto, for example. Plus a lot of the team has super powers, greatly increasing their use in combat. All of these powers are pretty weird, but directly useful, whether it be hair allowing for quad-wielding weapons or pervert mode turning one of the weirdos into an unstoppable killing machine. Ultimately, I feel like The Joker's weaponry will probably do the most damage because Baskerville will have such a hard time predicting or countering it, but once it breaks into an actual fight? Well, Joker's not exactly got a defense against a bullet through the skull.


 * Mind Games- If there's one thing the Joker can do, it's screw with people's heads. If there's one thing that's certain when the Joker rolls into town it's this- people are going to die. Baskerville literally can't save everyone, it's not going to happen, it's not possible with this villain. That said, these kids don't exactly seem like the type that will be able to brush off the Joker's plans and tactics without feeling the mental strain, but will it be enough to stop them? I don't think so. It will certainly weaken them, it may even break one of them, but the whole team? I doubt that much. These animus do have experience dealing with some jacked up shit, and while the Joker is something they may not be prepared for, they do have a background that will ease the suffering at least a little. At the end, this will come down to attrition- The Joker could easily keep up his Tokyo wide assault long enough to break them, but Baskerville seems competent enough to find him before hitting that boiling point.


 * The Intel- Joker is one of the most heavily scrutinized, well known criminals on the planet. Figuring out his motivations, modus operandi and general tactics woule be a cakewalk in any universe. The Joker is going to be able to find out anything about his enemies, there's no doubt about that, but doing so will take time- lots of it. Just look at how long it took him to learn most of things he does about the Batfamily. And time is not something he necesarrily has on his side if he's juggling between multiple plans, traps, hostages, situations and set-ups while coordinating his possessions and keeping a low profile. I feel confident that Baskerville will be able to assemble enough information about how the Joker operates to put the squeeze on him before he can gather the information to do the same to them.


 * Overall- Team Baskerville is going to kill the Joker. It's going to be hard. It's going to mess a lot of people up- physically and mentally. People are going to die. But end of the day? The assembled skill of five effective team members with excellent detective work, the more direct equipment, the superior knowledge of the city and the Joker's crippling faults will snowball up, and the Clown will meet his end in the land of the Rising Sun. The only real question is at what cost.