Punchline Special #1

[cyberghostface]

"This is the story of Punchline going from being another Joker Gang member to being a real celebrity and icon in Gotham City. A character who understands the power of her voice and how to wield it to build power.

This is the first step in a big new frightening conspiracy that's going to run through the background of Gotham City through 2021. The Joker may have left Gotham City, but his dangerous presence is being felt, in a huge huge way. The Joker Gang has always been a bit of a disorganized, chaotic mess (reflecting the whims of its boss)... Punchline is going to take that mess and organize it into something that is dangerous in a whole new way. We're going to see that there are people loyal to her hiding in every corner of Gotham City. The Clown Prince of Crime never really wanted to be the kingpin of Gotham, he just wanted to take down Batman… The Clown Princess on the other hand..." -- James Tynion IV

Comments

[cricharddavies]

Wow, a power-hungry murderous psychopath. How novel and refreshing.

[chalicother]

Maybe she will get another writer or media that can make her more of her own character, ala Mr.Freeze

I think the design is okay , but this is just doesn't feel that original.

Harley worked as his sidekick due to the fact despite being a criminal, she had the effect of also being a victim, being light-hearted, showing the way the Joker can corrupt, and giving the Joker more dimensions.

It gave the Joker more depth.

Harley herself acts differently enough that she could have stories that while mentioning the Joker, she could still be her own character.

Punchline doesn't really give the Joker from what I see her a different dimension and her character being someone who just worships him and is trying to see his.."art"...just isn't enough.

It makes her good foil to Harley , but it just doesn't fit.

Doesn't help that her character doesn't even seem that old(Yes, I know comics and most media don't like to show elderly women) , but still her being younger also makes it seem that she is just a kid with some underlying issues.

Then again, her dynamic with the Joker seems to hint at some level of having more equality. Maybe she will get a writer who can get her own niche.

[ap0cryphal]

I keep thinking of Gail Simone's Secret Six runs and how she could write various stripes of murderer, mass murderer, genocide enthusiasts, and slavers with character depth and personality.

All without spending entire interviews telling us how COOL and ICONIC they were.

Maybe there's a disconnect here, but this level of hype for a character who hasn't even had room to grow in the universe they're in is - kind of wasteful.

[cyberghostface]

Punchline is no different than any other new character or title in terms of the creator giving interviews to stoke interest. At the same time you can't manufacture hype. If that was the case the Inhumans wouldn't have fizzled the way they did.

The reality is people like her. It's gotten to the point that Harley Quinn's 75th issue had a backup story with Punchline appearing for one page and that alone was the main selling point to the point where there were over twenty variants with her on the cover.

[alicemacher]

I like Punchline.

What I find most intriguing about her is that Joker seems to accept her as a peer from the start, at least once she teasingly slashes at him, holds him at knifepoint and says "I think we can help each other," then pulls him into a kiss. (Not gonna lie, that scene turned me on a bit.) Since then, as we've already seen in The Joker War, he's shown encouragement and even delight regarding Puchline's initiative in their campaign against Batman and the Batfamily.

This is something new as a (thus far) consistent thing about the Joker. (Yes, there have been stories in which Joker treated Harley with respect and as something like a true partner but the "abusive relationship" tales were more often referenced, and more influential, even pre-Flashpoint. And now only those are still canon.)

How long this dynamic between Joker and Punchline will last is, of course, unknown at this early stage. It's possible even the editors and writers haven't yet decided what the long game will be with them. But so far, what I see is something new and, in a twisted way, fun.

[ap0cryphal]

I'm assuming you mean the inhumans tv series, in which case, yeah, hype's not enough when the actual product is lackluster.

In Punchline's case, the art / writing / character design seem alright enough (I'm just going by what I've seen posted here on S-D).

Haven't been following DC or the bat titles for awhile now, so outside of the mandated hype I guess I'm surprised that she's gotten so popular.

[cyberghostface]

“ I'm assuming you mean the inhumans tv series, in which case, yeah, hype's not enough when the actual product is lackluster.”

That and when Marvel was trying to push them as the next big thing to replace X-Men.

[alicemacher]

While I agree that those Gotham residents supporting Punchline are foolish... I feel that comments such as this one, and your comment on Mike Maxwell in my recent Animal Man post, would come across much better, be taken more seriously, without the violent, "kill 'em all" hyperbole. Such distressingly violent language is inappropriate for a community like scans_daily.

[themajesticmoose]

I have deleted my comment and I did not intend to cause distress, merely to voice both how much I hate the character of Punchline and the extremely gross and vile morons that are her followers in this story

[lucean]

I do actually find the way the Punchline character has been built up here somewhat interesting as it is clear that this is someone who considers themselves equal with the Joker and the big bads. Which is usually a story given to a 'Pride goes before the fall' storylines as the sense this gives is that she's going to be in for such a rude awakening when the Joker arrives.

[leahandillyana]

It's official, Gothamites are dumbed than Marvel 616 citizens.

[deh_tommy]

You say that, but are either peoples (Gothamites and 616ers) all that different from what you see in real life?

[chalicother]

You say that, but are either peoples (Gothamites and 616ers) all that different from what you see in real life?

As of 2020, I just realized that comics have had models of people in crowds in real life, but most comic fans don't want to believe it.

[themajesticmoose]

I mean your right but that just makes me think that its a pointless waste of time for the heroes to be saving any of the morons lives

Making the citizens of this fictional universe be the same kind of worthless oxygen thief morons that we see on the news supporting nazi gutter scum like Donald Trump or screeching about how they think masks are a conspiracy against their freedom just makes me think that honestly Superman should go ahead and let Cyborg Superman or Doomsday do their thing because none of these people deserve to be saved

For a story to have stakes you need to care whether people in that story live or die. For a story to have stakes you need to WANT the heroes to save the day

A story where the Joker or Two Face or Mad Hatter or whoever takes a bunch of normal not deranged clown facist people hostage, Batman saves them and they are fine that has stakes because these people are normal people who are written as being sympathetic and understandable and we want them to be okay. The people are regular people, you feel for them, you want them to go home to their fictional lives glad that Batman saved them

A story where Gotham is infested with what's basically just the same kind of less than human slack jawed mouth breathers that are the "Alt Right" but wearing clown masks and worshipping some hateful edgelord cow in clown make up, why on earth should we want Batman to save any of them? Why should he waste his time protecting TRASH like this?

I want these "people" to be murdered in the story just like I want them to be murdered in real life because none of them deserve to go on living

I'm all for fiction including Superhero fiction being realistic up to a point but if it creates a world that's so bleak, repulsive and evil as this...a world where the people the hero saves are cheering for a bloodthirsty serial killer like Punchline and being a bunch of ungrateful dipshits towards the people who risk their lives protecting them from supervillains and the end of the world EVERY DAY...the question becomes why the hell would we WANT the hero to save these morons?

I mean

I hate Game of Thrones but I have to make the comparison...it's like Game of Thrones basically...by the final season everyone was so awful that it was just a dumb exercise in depression and violence where you just stopped giving a damn because everyone's awful

[alicemacher]

I understand where you're coming from better now. The massive, unthinking support for people like Trump makes me furious too, even though I don't myself wish actual death on his supporters... but neither do I have it in me to fault you for having those feelings, as you don't strike me as the sort who'd act on them.

Having said that, my response to "Why do DCU heroes save the lives of citizens who are ungrateful and support the villains?" is this: Because it doesn't matter to the heroes whether those they save say thank you. They aren't doing it for the thanks. It doesn't matter whether those they save even like them. They aren't doing it to be liked.

Heroes like Batman and Superman save lives, even the lives of ingrates and the easily-swayed by charismatic villains -- hell, even the lives of villains themselves -- because of one simple principle they hold:

All human life is intrinsically and non-negotiably sacred and worth preserving.

Now, you may not share that belief. You may believe that some people, real or fictional, forfeit their right to life by committing, or supporting, certain actions. That's your prerogative and so I'm not going to debate you on it.

It is, however, the belief that DCU heroes (and, indeed, non-"grimdark" heroes of any publisher) hold and indeed is the reason for everything they do. And I think that enjoying such superhero fiction entails recognizing that this is their core belief, whether you share it with them.

If recognizing that is something you don't feel comfortable doing... well, there's always the other sort of superhero fiction, like the Punisher and the leads of various 90s Image titles. I personally, however, prefer to label the protagonists of those stories "crimefighters," which is the most neutral term I feel comfortable assigning them. They are not, in my opinion, heroes.

[thanekos]

The creative team on this book read some Medium articles about the modern world, and they're gonna share 'em with you - through comics!

[donnblake]

Eh, that's fair. How often did Cap or Spider-man have to deal with vaguely rendered mobs of hippies or beatniks back in the day?

(The X-men didn't, but that was because the Beatniks were so in awe of Beast's feet that they made him their king).

[deh_tommy]

For someone you’d think would just be mindless America #~&% Yeah propaganda, Captain America’s surprisingly been historically critical of his Government and the kind of attitudes they promote.

[donnblake]

That's true- one of the things worth mentioning when people throw around the "Cap's from the forties so he probably holds X position," is that while Cap did grow up pre-World War 2, he grew up as a scrawny art student in New York City.

That didn't stop writers from occasionally pitting him against student protest movements or whatever other subculture the writers had recently read an article about. Although I can't find the story I thought I remembered which pitted him against the country's youth generically.

[deh_tommy]

There were one or two times I can recall where he got cross with some protestors, but that was more over their methods and less what they were protesting against.

[skinrash]

Leslie looks like she's 30 years old, they tried to age her with some grey hair, but it looks more like a lighting effect. Bags under the eyes and wrinkles would've probably worked better.

And why is Punchline allowed in court in full costume and makeup?

[lordultimus]

"And why is Punchline allowed in court in full costume and makeup?"

To be fair, that's old hat with superhero comics.

[kurenai_tenka]

Yeah, them de-aging Leslie is super disappointing (I think it's intentional rather than poor artistic choices). Like damn, let women age.

[lordultimus]

I have the feeling this is more of a general "old people" thing than "old women". Probably "We let Jim Gordon de-age, let's make sure everyone tops out at 45!"

[scorntx]

Jim and Leslie will just get younger with every reboot. Figuring about two or three reboots from now, they'll be younger than Bruce, and Jim will be Barbara's son.

[donnblake]

Jim Gordon as Commissioner Robin?

[scorntx]

Well, there's a disturbing image...

[donnblake]

The shortpants/mustache combo is optional.

[kurenai_tenka]

It's definitely both, and I'm not a fan of either, though I feel like Alfred gets to look a lot older than Leslie does.

[icon_uk]

And younger than that in his bizarre "Gordon as Batman" period a few years back.