It's safe to say that Jared Leto's performance as Joker in 2016's Suicide Squad was... divisive. Stuck in a critically derided film with very little to actually do, this incarnation of the Clown Prince of Crime was swiftly shot down by the majority of fans, with many arguing that Leto failed to live up to the lofty standards of predecessors like Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, and Heath Ledger.
It didn't help that just a few years later, Joaquin Phoenix would win widespread acclaim for his version of the character in Joker, a drastically different flick than Suicide Squad in every single way. Having only seen Suicide Squad one (and that was more than enough), I honestly can't say how much blame Leto deserves for his dodgy take on the iconic villain. I would hope at the very least that he didn't have much input on the character's god-awful design in that film.
Refresh your memory on this nu-metal douchebag Joker below. While no version of Joker has ever been big on subtlety, I can't imagine there's a single incarnation of the character in any other Batman adventure that would have thought getting the word "damaged" tattooed across their forehead would be a good idea. What were they thinking?
The good news - at least for those of you who still care, I guess - is that Jared Leto will be getting another crack at the role in the upcoming Zack Snyder cut of Justice League. He's also getting a completely new look for the occasion, so we can finally find out once and for all if Leto's performance was bogged down by a crappy costume... or if he was just genuinely shite in the role.
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Snyder revealed a first look at his new version of Joker on social media. While Leto's face is blurred and a classic Joker calling card is prominent in the foreground, we can kind of see that Snyder has opted to go back to a more traditional look for the character. Note the slightly longer hair, and a hint of face makeup (or scarring) that's more reminiscent of the Heath Ledger Joker from The Dark Knight.
"I wanted to of course honor what had been created with him because I thought it was really cool," Snyder told Beyond the Trailer in regards to changing up Joker after Suicide Squad. "But also in [Justice League], I'm not going to tell you what happens in the little scene, but some water has gone under the proverbial bridge between when last we saw Joker and this appearance. So he's made some...he's a road-weary Joker, I guess that's a way of saying it."
As long as he's had "damaged" removed from his forehead between the two movies, I don't really care what else has happened to him.