Punchline Special #1
Nov. 10th, 2020 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyberghostface posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
scans_daily
"We wanted the character to catch. But the fact that within two days of her design being out in the world, not even her appearing, we were getting fan art and cosplay of the character... that was an incredible feeling. And continues to be an incredible feeling. There feels like there is already a growing Punchline fandom online, even though the character has only appeared in a few comics so far. That is a really phenomenal experience, and something I do not take lightly." -- James Tynion IV
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Date: 2020-11-10 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 10:15 pm (UTC)Yeah, honestly what I'm getting from this story is that actually it turns out that Ra's Al Ghul was right in Batman Begins when he said that Gotham deserved to be burnt to the ground
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Date: 2020-11-11 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-14 09:08 am (UTC)Because I can tell them what will happen. What will happen is that the villains that only the Bat-family can stop (Because the GCPD is made up entirely of criminals and morons) will proceed to murder eat and wear every single man woman and child in the city and the best they'll be able to hope for is that they do it in that order
Who do they think is going to stop Zsasz the next time he goes on a killing spree? Or prevent the Scarecrow from driving the city insane with fear cas? The cops? They can't even stop KITE MAN for gods sake
And the entire thought process behind blaming the Bat-family for this is moronic. "People get hurt when heroes fight villains?" Well yes, villains hurt people. That's what makes them villains. But it's not the existence of heroes that's causing people to get hurt...it's the existence of heroes that's preventing more people from getting hurt.
Saying that the Bat-family is bad because of shit that the Joker and the other rogues did is like someone saying that doctors are bad because someone they know got a terminal illness. It's like having your house burn down and then saying that we should outlaw firefighters.
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Date: 2020-11-10 03:32 pm (UTC)Solid concept for a villain, even if the execution stumbles at times. Somehow this feels like a natural opponent for Batgirl. Also, it does make me chuckle, and I do think this is intentional, how clearly Punchline doesn't get the Joker no matter her speeches on him. It's not that he forgets the larger audience, he just doesn't care.
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Date: 2020-11-10 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 04:16 pm (UTC)The Ferguson activists have all died in ~mysterious~ circumstances,
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Date: 2020-11-11 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 07:08 pm (UTC)Like Punchline being a violent manpulative criminal who has people killed without a shred of remorse is something new to her, when Leslie is one of the people who would have seen those signs.
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Date: 2020-11-10 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-11 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-12 06:52 pm (UTC)If I didn't know better, I'd think Frank Miller created her as a strawman.
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Date: 2020-11-10 06:53 pm (UTC)I joke, but having been very skeptical of Punchline this does actually kind of work. It'll be dated before too long, which I know is likely to annoy some people, but I'd rather something be relevant and then become dated down the line than never having any kind of impact on readers. It gives her an angle that's both self-aware about DC's aims as a publisher and distinguishers her from Harley Quinn and even the Joker himself in a meaningful way. It seems like logically there's going to be an expiration date on this approach to the character, weaponizing people's rush to forgive attractive white women probably stops working after the third time you get arrested for trying to stab the mayor in front of an audience, but this could be good while it lasts.
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Date: 2020-11-10 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-11 08:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-11 01:13 am (UTC)The back and forth of the past and present of her character was alright.The idea of a radicalised character sounds interesting.
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Date: 2020-11-11 05:34 pm (UTC)If that were all there was to Punchline, she still wouldn't interest me, given we already have the consummate sociopathic villain in the Joker. But there's the other thing that distinguishes her from Harley: from the start, she insists on being his partner, not his servant. ("I can help you make [your toxin] better," he tells her in the flashback to their genuine first encounter. "No," she says, grabbing his knife, superficially slashing his hand and placing the knifepoint teasingly under his chin. "I think we can help each other." Then she kisses him.)
And we've already seen, in "The Joker War," how that dynamic between them plays out in the present. In contrast to Mad Love, where Joker scorns Harley's own ideas and initiative at best, and defenestrates her in a jealous rage at worst, he's visibly delighted when Punchline takes initiative. One might even say he respects her.
Granted, it's still early days for the Joker/Punchline relationship, so how deep his respect for her runs, and how much he truly sees her as a partner as opposed to yet another tool (and potential ego-threat), remains to be seen. But so far the writers seem to be on to something original with Alexis Kaye. (And I haven't even touched on the focus of this post, her gift for using media and social engineering to win followers and maintain a public image of innocent Joker-victim.)
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Date: 2020-11-11 10:45 pm (UTC)The relationship between Punchline and Joker seems to be a lot more stable across the various books right now, if only to keep promoting Punchline as an equal partner to the Joker, but with some incongruities popping up with regards to Punchline's character (or at least how she talks) across different writers, I'm somewhat skeptical of the relationship dynamics being any more set in stone as Joker/Harley was.
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Date: 2020-11-11 11:43 pm (UTC)