| Butcher Joyce | |
|---|---|
| |
| Biographical Information | |
| Alias: |
|
| Race: |
Human |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Status: |
Alive |
| Character Information | |
| Affiliation: |
Jackie Estacado (Friend) |
| Occupation: |
Mob Cleaner |
| Real World Information | |
| First Appearance: | |
- "My name is Butcher Joyce. I know things. I know there are any number of reasons that blood gets spilled. I know at the end of the day we learn to deal with it. Learn to live with ourselves in spite of it. And I know the darkest secrets are the ones we keep buried."
- – Butcher Joyce. [src]
Zanipolo Joyce - better known as Butcher Joyce - is a mob cleaner and Jackie Estacado's best friend, appearing in The Darkness comic series.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Butcher Joyce's first job as a mob cleaner was taking care off Ricardo Amratto corpse, which Frankie Franchetti kills for sleeping with his wife Lauren. After that he cleans numerous sites for the mob and gains quite a reputation. At some point he befriends Jackie Estacado.
Coming of Age[]
After Jackie killed the Brotherhood of The Darkness members in his apartment, he calls Butcher Joyce to clean it. Later, as Jackie comes back with the Woman in Yellow, he hears noises in his bathroom. He finds Butcher Joyce cleaning up the corpses. Haven forgotten asking Vinnie to call Joyce, Jackie questions Butcher as to what he's doing here. Butcher answers that Vinnie called him in. Jackie then notices some inaccuracies with Vinnie's story of how Frankie Franchetti was wounded. He then asks him keep quite and goes back to the girl. Later as he hears noise in the apartment, Butcher comes to check out what's going on, but after seeing what is happening in the room, quickly goes back into the bathroom.
Later Encounters[]
As Frankie leaves after dealing with a group of punks, Butcher Joyce comes to clean the bodies and Jackie decides to have a talk about what happened to Frankie's wife, Lauren Franchetti. Butcher Joyce tells, that Frankie found Lauren to be sleeping with another man, Ricardo Amratto. In rage, Frankie kills the man in front of Lauren, which caused her mental disability.
After Jenny Romano gets stuck in Wyrmwood, Butcher Joyce gets a call from Jackie asking for help to locate it. He directs Jackie to Mandolin, who could help him with locating it. Butcher continues his cleaning job by finishing half dead mobster.
When Carla Denton gathered information on Jackie and people he cares, Butcher Joyce was one of the people of interest she investigates.
As Sonatine puts his former body with Wenders soul in it into a crate and sends it to Russia he meets with Butcher Joyce and together they go to bar. Sonatine then uses his mind control power on Butcher in order to find out everything about Jackie.
During Jackie's and Bearclaw's journey through ethereal plane, Butcher Joyce's apparition is seen.
After Frankie kills Jenny, Butcher brings Jackie the tape containing the video of her death. He expresses that Jackie did a bad thing by betraying Frankie and then leaves.
Jackie's Return[]
After Jackie returned from the dead, he met with Butcher at a restaurant. Jackie asks Butcher to help him takedown Paulie, but Butcher answers that he doesn't take sides. Eventually Jackie manages to convince Butcher to set up a meeting with old high ranking mobsters.
When Jackie is blackmailed into working for Paulie Franchetti, Butcher Joyce comes to the apartment to clean his hit. He expresses his anger, that Jackie betrayed them and sided with Paulie. Jackie reveals that Paulie hired a shooter, David Lizewski, which will kill Jenny's twin sister Megan if he tries to takedown Paulie. He then asks for Butcher's help, which responds that the former doesn't take sides. Jackie calls him a coward and asks again for help, but Butcher rejects to help.
Later Butcher meets Jackie in alleyway who decides to give him one chance to redeem himself. In the night, Butcher organizes a blackout near the Tiger Lounge, letting Jackie to search around by using The Darkness for the mystery shooter.
Mob War[]
During the funeral of Vincenze Xeni, Butcher met with Jackie. He reveals that Xeni was killed by Jake Nightly who wants to take over the mafia. Butcher says that Nightly wants to meet him in person.
Later, at a strip club Butcher Joyce and Joey talk about how Jackie needs to take care of Jake Nightly, otherwise the senior Chicago mafia bosses will need to step and that would mean their all death.
Blue Goldfish[]
During the meeting with the Franchetti mafia, Butcher Joyce informs Jackie that their shooter, Palanco failed to kill Jimmy The Grape and instead killed three of Mickey Floresca henchmen and demands restitution.
The next day Palanco is send by Jackie and Butcher to Municipal park public toilet to deal with child molesters. As he enters the toilet, Palanco sees a blue goldfish fly into one of the toilets. In joy, he quickly runs after it and dives his head into the water. As he does that a giant explosion goes off, destroying the entire toilet cabin. As Jackie lights up his cigarette, Palanco suddenly appears, asking what happened here. Butcher expresses that he can't even get himself killed while Jackie yells at Palanco for killing the wrong guys. Palanco reveals that Mickey was the one who gave him the street address.
Conflict with Yuen[]
Jackie meets with Butcher Joyce and talk about the Yuen trying to kill him. Joyce questions his action to declare a war with Yuen, while Jackie answers that they need to make a statement otherwise the Franchetti family will look weak. He then opens a fortune cookie, with "Danger awaits on the journey" written on it.
Later Jackie tells the story to Butcher Joyce of how he dealt with the Yuen. Butcher reveals that his plan to prove to other family's that he means business has worked and they will leave Franchetti family alone for a while. Butcher than leaves Jackie alone, but not before Jackie asking if he should hit the lights off on his way out, saying that these days he's pretty comfortable in the dark.
Return of the Angelus[]
Butchers was attacked by Angelus Warriors who knock him out and then lock him inside a closet. Angelus Warrior then changes itself to look like Butcher. After Jackie deals with the fake Butcher, he hears strange noise and Angelus Warriors attack him. The Darklings and Angelus Warriors begin to fight as Jackie locates the real Butcher locked in a closet. He checks if Butcher is all right and explains that the warriors were probably send by Frankie's Franchetti's wife.
Their chat is interrupted by an Angelus Warrior. Jackie tries to fight the warriors, but they manage to quickly overpower him. One of the Angelus Warrior declare that their queen has declare that his shall be Jackie's last night. Jackie then pulls out his guns and open fires them on the warriors. He manages to kill all the Angelus Warriors and sends a message to Angelus that she's gonna to suffer.
Expansion into Metropolis[]
Butcher accompanied Jackie during his criminal organizations expansion into Metropolis. Estacado and Butcher are sit in a cafe watching as Superman arrives and stops two trains from colliding. Estacado explains that he made a mistake before trying to take over Gotham's crime network and had no plans to ever cross Gotham and Batman ever again - instead he wants to cement himself as the best by taking root in Superman's town.
When Lois Lane is kidnapped by Roberto Grasso, Jr. and Metallo, Jackie goes to save her while Butcher watches from the sidelines. After he saves Lois Lane, Butcher goes and kills Grasso and his entire crew, wiping out organize crime in the metropolis. He later meets up with Jackie and together they leave Metropolis.
David Lizewski's Rifle[]
As Butcher cleans up another murder scene, he recalls his past work with Frankie Franchetti and Jackie Estacado. He stuffs up his van with dead bodies, failing to notice a man sneaking up on him. When the man gets close enough, he knocks out Butcher. Some time later, Butcher wakes up in a basement, tied to a chair. A man in a suit approaches him, introducing himself as Mr. Nolan. He then asks where is David Lizewski's rifle. Butcher recalls that Lizewski was an assassin hired by Paulie Franchetti to kill Jenny Romano's sister Megan in order to blackmail Jackie. Lizewski was eventually tracked down by Jackie who proceeded to kill him.
Mr. Nolan then tells Butcher to cooperate and injects him with derivative of atropine. Nolan tells Butcher that he and his employer want to know where is David Lizewski's rifle. Butcher answers that he's job isn't logging evidence, but making them disappear. He then sees Jackie in front of himself, asking the same question again. Butcher again tells him, that the rifle is long gone. Not believing him, Jackie turns of the lights and releases the Darkness on him. Moments later, Butcher snaps out from the hallucination and reveals to Nolan and his colleague, who looks just like Jackie, that the rifle is in a pawn shop called Time Out and he will personally take them to it. Having gained the information he wanted, Nolan orders his partner to get the car.
Inside the car, seeing that both of his captors are not paying attention to him, Butcher grabs the driver by the throat. He's quickly stopped by Mr. Nolan who pulls out a gun on him and then gives Butcher the keys to his handcuffs. Mr. Nolan then adds that next time he should just ask. Although having failed to run away from his captors, Butcher realizes two things. First that the driver is not Jackie, but an impostor that looks just like him. And second, that he knows nothing about this Mr. Nolan.
At the Time Out pawn shop, Butcher is greeted by its owner, Lou. Butcher tells him, that he need to talk about a rifle, probably in the reserve selection. Lou suggests, that they should talk in the back, but the Impostor Jackie protests this. Butcher tells him, that there are rules to this. He will go in the back, grab the gun and then they will leave. The Impostor Jackie decides to comply, but as Lou opens up the door to the back, the impostor shoots him dead. Furious, Butcher tackles the Impostor Jackie to the ground and grabs the first thing that comes into his hand, which turns out be a scoop. He then proceeds to beat him to death with it.
Having dealt with the impostor, Butcher grabs Lizewski's rifle and brings it to Mr. Nolan, whose waiting outside inside the car. Butcher asks to take him to his van as Mr. Nolan opens up the stock of the rifle, failing to find a key. Seeing this, Butcher explains, that the key wouldn't do him any good at this point as authorities opened up the safe deposit box, which contained some kind of document. Mr. Nolan then tells Butcher, that the document contained names of everyone Lizewski ever worked for in any capacity. He points out that Butcher could easily moved up the ranks of Franchetti Crime Family, but decided to stay a garbage man, so he could feel like he can walk away clean from this. Nolan instead never chose one side and that's why he wanted the list.
Later that day, Butcher comes home and washes his face. He then sits down to eat as he gets a call from Jackie, asking him to come to Max Zito's place. Butcher quickly gets up and leaves, leaving behind Lizewski's ledger on his table.
War with The Darkness[]
After Jackie left the states and new mobsters came to rule the city, they didn't wanted Butcher's services any more as they were not interested in covering their murders anymore. Thus he started to take various random hits in order to cover his financial needs. Sometime later, he finds out that someone has put a hit on Jackie and decides to prevent the hitmen from carrying this hit.
When Jackie attends the funeral of Leonard Kim, Butcher kills a hitman who was hiding in the cemetery, preparing to shoot Estacado. He then saves Jackie again, when a hitman, Mike Demeo, disguises himself as a cop and tries to get a drop on him. Butcher comes to scene and after killing a hidden shooter, he aims at Demeo and shoots him in the head. Butcher reveals that the cop was actually a hitman sent after Jackie. They then decide to get off the street and hide in the sewers.
Two mercenaries follow them into the sewers were they're killed by Jackie. After explaining why he does hits now, Butcher reveals that someone ordered a hit on Jackie. They then go to Jackie's home. Jackie finds it suspicious that all the Darklings are missing. Tyne Darkling reveals that the Darklings upon ordered by the Darkness left.
Suddenly, Tyne is possessed by the Darkness and turns into a giant lion. The Darkness says that it has been looking for new hosts for itself and are planning to kill Jackie in order to be free of him. It then attacks him, but Jackie manages to bring Tyne back from the Darkness possession. Jackie then decides to let go Tyne and give him free will to do what he wants. Tyne then proceeds to walk outside and commits suicide by coming into the direct sunlight much to Jackie's astonishment.
In order to find out who ordered the hit, Butcher pretended to have killed Jackie and met with Rashad Arrington and his two henchmen who worked for the mysterious man who put the hit, sixty miles west of Chicago. As he brings the corpse, Joey, one of the henchmen, says that he thought that Jackie was taller. Butcher explains that the body always shrinks up after death.
Joey then proceeds on checking the bullet wounds, expressing how thorough as he can fit his whole fist in the exit wounds. As he puts his finger into one of the bullet holes, it closes up, cutting his finger off. Suddenly, Jackie wakes up and rips apart Joey and his colleague.
Rashad opens fire on him, but Jackie mocks him for using a gun when he has the power of the Darkness at his fingertips. After hearing this, Rashad proceeds to summon an army of Darklings. Jackie is quickly overwhelmed by the Darklings, but Butcher shoots phosphorous flare, which kills them. Rashad then himself attacks Jackie. The two fight and Jackie manages to kill Rashad by driving his arm through his chest and pulling out Arrington's heart. Jackie then proceeds to rip open Rashad's corpse and looks for clues where his employers could be. He finds out that Rashad came from Omaha and that's where they decide to go.
As Butcher goes to have a little bit of sleep, Jackie decides to not put Butcher in bigger danger then he's already is and leaves him behind with a bag full of money.
Personality[]
- "I've never taken sides, Jackie - you know that. It was nothing personal."
- – Butcher to Jackie. [src]
Butcher Joyce is wise, observant, perceptive and stubborn. He's shown to be quite laid back and friendly especially towards Jackie. Thus they quickly become best friends.
Butcher Joyce is an old fashioned man, that never chooses sides. This strict neutral stance eventually put friction between Butcher and Jackie after latter gives in Frankie Franchetti to the police and then kills him. In the end Butcher comes around his strict moral code and chooses to stand besides Jackie. Because of this, he becomes Jackie's right hand man and the most trusted advisor.
Abilities[]
- Skilled Combatant: Butcher has shown to be a skilled fighter in his own right. Combined with his big size, he can with ease pin to the ground grown men. He's also able to use ordinary items as unconventional weapons. During a fight with Jackie's impostor, Butcher use a scoop to smash his head to bits.
- Skilled Marksman: Butcher knows how to operate various guns.
Trivia[]
- Butcher Joyce is the only side character to appear in every comic volume.
- He's also the only The Darkness comics series side character to appear in a crossover.
Gallery[]
