Spinning out of “Joker War,” Punchline, Joker’s newest sidekick/associate/disciple, gets the spotlight in this one-shot, where the forgotten member of the Bat family, Harper Row, her brother, Cullen, and Leslie Thompkins each find something about Batman’s newest rogue to fear or aspire to. It’s “Punchline” #1 from James Tynion IV, Sam Johns, Mirka Andolfo, Romulo Fajardo Jr. and Gabriela Downie.
Matt Lazorwitz: I’ve been pretty hard on Punchline — and all of James Tynion IV’s new creations, for that matter — in our biweekly Bat Chat columns. Generally, I’ve felt the character is flat, a mashup of Harley Quinn and Mercy Graves. And while this one-shot doesn’t completely change my opinion, there’s at least some life in the character here. Some background and establishing a logical nemesis helps, and there are some eerie mirrors of the real world that make the book worth reading.
Dan McMahon: I am a huge Tynion fan, I REALLY am. But once the “Joker War” news came out, I fell off of the Batman boat hard because I hate the Joker. I looked at the book because I love clown girls. I did not come back till #100 though, which actually surprised me. I am going to go back and read the run so far because I didn’t give it a fair shot. Punchline solidified that for me.
Online Radicalization, Clown Style
ML: If you’ve been anywhere near a computer, television, radio or carrier pigeon the past year, but even more so the past week, the idea of online misinformation and radicalization has been front and center. It’s a very big topic, and it’s one this issue takes head-on. Punchline, before she became the Joker’s sidekick, hosted a podcast about her hunt for the Joker. Large swaths of the issues are narrated by the podcast.
DM: When I saw she was a podcaster, I let out a deep sigh and was like, “She is 100% just a Joker Stan Podcast,” and that was true, but it was much more inventive than that. It was almost a tool for her to recruit all the other weirdos and baddies out there who were obsessed with the Clown Prince of Crime.
ML: The podcast is fairly disturbing. Not because it’s graphic, but because it’s so calmly rational. It’s the kind of thing you could easily see being put out by a fan of last year’s inexplicable hit, Todd Phillips “Joker” film, talking about how the Joker is trying to make a point, and society needs to see it.
DM: Full disagree on the inexplicable part of “Joker” being the hit that it was. As much as I hate it, people idolize him. I think that’s the point of this story, in my opinion. There are so many people who see Joker as this sort of icon of what they want to be. It’s extremely scary, especially in the real world. Punchline builds an army of these people who think that way. Her podcast call to arms is like that flare for these people who believe society fails them so they idolize the clown and in turn her. It’s an interesting narrative choice to see it weaponized.
ML: Oh, that “inexplicable” was more my feelings about the movie. You absolutely hit the nail on the head as to why it was popular.
The plot of the book follows Harper Row, the semi-retired Bat family member Bluebird, and her brother, Cullen, as they take on dueling opinions on Punchline. Harper is dedicated to finding out what Punchline is up to, while Cullen begins to slowly slide down the rabbithole. He listens to the podcast and finds himself empathizing with Punchline. He doesn’t see what’s wrong: She made mistakes, sure, but it’s not like she killed anyone!
These are the reasonings that allow online radicalization to happen: Shades of gray appear in situations that, from a rational distance, are black and white. Tynion and Sam Johns do a good job on a surface read of the issue. But this is a 48-page comic that is trying to tackle something that we’re grappling with in the real world, and it’s smart but still fairly surface-level.
Row’s Home
ML: Boy howdy, it’s been a while since we saw Harper Row. Aside from a brief appearance during the “Victim Syndicate” storyline in Tynion’s “Detective Comics” run and maybe a group shot or two of the Bat Fam, this is her first substantive appearance since Rebirth.
DM: I love seeing Harper suit up as Bluebird again. Gotham is a big city with just a ton of problems. Seeing a more ground-level vigilante without the toys, vehicles and the backup that Batman has could be something interesting to see more of. Characters like Clownhunter and Punchline were created in the fallout of the Joker’s schemes. Would love to see Bluebird as the one combating them.
ML: Cullen’s response to all of this is well handled. Since the revelation that Cassandra Cain was responsible for the death of the Row’s mother in “Batman and Robin Eternal,” we haven’t seen Cullen, and to see that he’s angry, not just about the fact that his mother’s killer is free but that his sister is still friends with her, makes sense. It lends credence to why he falls under Punchline’s sway: If the Cullen from the early issues of “Batman” suddenly went dark, it would have made little sense.
A Punchline without a Joke
ML: So we’ve talked a lot about the Rows, and about how Punchline affects other characters, but not a lot about Punchline herself. I still am not sure how I feel about this character. Do we believe anything she says in this book? Is her whole obsession with Joker in the podcast genuine? Do you feel any investment in her as a character?
DM: I don’t have a strong investment like I have built with Harley in the past few years. I do think there is a lot of potential in making her Harley’s villain and removing them both from Joker because they’re both just better without him. He was the joke, but she’s the punchline. Kick him to the curb and bump her up into the big bad slot instead of making Joker date a girl who fawned over him in high school where he almost killed her. What would you like to see for the road ahead with her?
ML: I’m not sure. I still feel like she’s a story engine more than a character. I think there would be something in telling a Punchline story, rather than a Joker story featuring Punchline, which will be the real test of whether she’s got legs.
Bat-miscellany
- The online comment section calling her “Big Tiddy Goth GF” missed the “Big Tiddy Clown GF” comment it should’ve had.
- Gotham is canonically in New Jersey. Apparently, DCU New Jersey never repealed the death penalty like its real world counterpart. Good to know.
- So it seems like Leslie Thompkins is back to being a social worker, rather than a physician. That’s what she’s been presented as in most of her post-”Flashpoint” appearances, but it’s been kind of vague, as her age and occupation have fluctuated.
- I’m super psyched that Harper is back, and she is the logical opposite number to Punchline, as they’re both fans of their respective hero. But, as he has a personal stake in Joker, wouldn’t it have been nice to bring out Scott Snyder’s other creation, Duke Thomas, who is in limbo after the end of “Batman and the Outsiders”?
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.
Dan McMahon is a life long hunk. Most of his time is spent writing about things he loves, tweeting about Willem Dafoe, and his podcast GateCrashers.
