Batman Secret Files: Clownhunter #1

[cyberghostface]

Comments

[dcbanacek]

Don't see any mimes, he should be okay.

[super_fly]

Silent but deadly

[scorntx]

Not many mimes in Gotham since the Great Mime Purge.

They should've learned the words.

[lucean]

I think this is starting to hit at a fundamental problem with Clownhuner in that at a certain point he's got to die. Either that or he walks away from the darkness to a regular life.

Probably not here, although I'm already rolling my eyes at how he survives this, but I mean it's not like he can just hang around hunting clowns when the Joker makes his inevitable return. Additionally, it kind of always makes it awkward in establishing that Batman has to have done all that training to survive what he does, but then this random guy with a bat doesn't really have any problems either.

[beyondthefringe]

Worse--the ending makes it clear just how foolish, stubborn, and short-sighted he really is.

I mean, he gets rescued by the one member of the Batfamily willing and able to train him in the way he needs, and says no thanks. Because clearly, it's better to be a solo warrior who should have died horribly here, than to actually accept help that could actually make his mission significantly less fatal.

[lucean]

Haven't read the issue yet, but based on the description I'm guessing it was Jason?

The more I think on it, and I know the character his fans here, the more I feel Clownhunter has to die at the end of this. Not just because the implications, but also because the thematics. One of the core things with Batman and Gordon, and why his code is so important, is that the best writers hit that theme that if you give an inch to Gotham, if you at any points start playing by its rules, you will ultimately lose. The city will claim you. So having Clownhunter do all this and then just walk away whistling would be... I don't know, somehow unfitting for the larger story.

[janegray]

The larger story stopped meaning anything when it gave him a fitting well-thought out ending, and then immediately took it back and brought him back for no reason.

I'm so mad. I really thought that FOR ONCE a character would be allowed to leave peacefully. Wtf do writers have against buses???

[lucean]

But that's not true, is it? You can have multiple well-thought out endings. The Clownkiller walking away with the surrounding people managing to save him from his own self-destructive path? That's a great ending for the character. Him not being able to let go of that rage consuming him, thinking that he is the solution, before Gotham consumes him like so many others before? It is a more tragic ending, but it still well thought out and fitting end for the character.

That's rather my point as Clownkiller needs to have a resolution as a character in this arc as just having him be another character bouncing around because the Bat-writers cannot let go of any single character would just make this a waste.

[janegray]

Agree to strongly disagree.

[lego_joker]

Seconded.

Honestly, on a meta level the reason I could never respect Batman's (or any superhero's) no-kill code all that much is because it's so transparently a means to keep the more popular villains in circulation. Some of the more skilled writers can squeeze some "d'awww" value out of it in this day and age, depending on how sympathetic an individual villain is, but otherwise it has no real storytelling value.