As a whole bunch of victims and 1000’s of followers would let you know, it’s not a good suggestion to disregard Punchline. Alexis Kaye is greater than the Joker’s accomplice, she’s a rising star within the Gotham underworld. After memorable appearances in Bat-events like “The Joker Conflict” and “Worry State,” in addition to an everyday backup characteristic in The Joker, she’s graduated to her personal restricted collection. Punchline: The Gotham Recreation makes its wild debut subsequent week, and in the event you’re pondering of skipping it, ask your self this—how lengthy did it take the Joker and Harley Quinn to get their very own titles? Punchline could also be a brand new character, however she’s outpacing her clown-loving contemporaries in methods that may’t be ignored.
However don’t fear in the event you haven’t been following alongside. To arrange for her upcoming restricted collection, we bought our palms on her GCPD file. What we discovered was shocking, amusing and sickening. Listed here are 5 of the strangest, most hanging issues we realized.
She Had Her Personal Podcast
I suppose this shouldn’t come as an excessive amount of of a shock, since 90% of the world’s inhabitants appears to have a podcast. Nonetheless, it’s attention-grabbing to see a member of Batman’s rogues gallery strive their hand on the medium. I all the time thought if anybody from Arkham would begin a podcast, it might be the Riddler—that dude loves to listen to himself communicate. Punchline’s podcast was gentle on riddles, however was way more unsettling. In Punchline #1, we realized that years earlier than she turned the Joker’s accomplice, Alexis Kaye had her personal podcast devoted to the Clown Prince of Crime. Every episode had her exploring items of the Joker’s life, inspecting his previous crimes, and attempting to determine the way it all made sense. In different phrases, one other true crime podcast, besides this one ultimately drove the podcaster to turn out to be her topic’s accomplice. I ponder what number of subscribers it had?
She Had Her Personal TikTok Problem
Punchline is sort of a giant deal on social media. Alexis has an enormous following and for some motive they’re keen to miss the truth that she’s a murderous psychopath. In truth, 2021’s The Joker #2 revealed that there’s a whole TikTok problem dedicated to her. The TikTok pattern (referred to as TikTak within the story) entails customers importing movies the place they describe their very own private encounters with Punchline. A number of the movies have been created by individuals who have been horrified by Punchline’s actions, however others proved that loads of Gothamites admired and even drew inspiration from her actions. The ethical of the story is that even in Gotham, social media brings out the worst in individuals.
She Left a Nasty Shock in Her Roommate’s Mattress
Dwelling with roommates may be troublesome, however think about what it might have been wish to share a dorm room with Punchline. Throughout her days attending Snyder School, Alexis roomed with one other scholar named Sarah. When the Joker murdered three manufacturing unit employees, Sarah realized that the boys had as soon as met her brother and used the connection to realize sympathy, exaggerating her brother’s reference to the victims. This aggravated Alexis, who then had what some would name a disproportionate response.
In The Joker 80th Anniversary 100-Web page Tremendous Spectacular, Alexis drugged the school dean with Joker venom and left his corpse in Sarah’s mattress. Alexis stated that if Sarah was going to faux to be afraid of the Joker, then this could make worry actual, making certain that the dean’s smiling corpse would hang-out her nightmares for years. This wouldn’t be the primary time a university scholar left one thing problematic of their roommate’s mattress, however as ordinary, Punchline took issues to a disturbing new stage.
She Has an Inappropriate Approach of Attacking the Bat-Household
Conventional Gotham villains like Penguin and Killer Croc will assault the Bat-Household with their fists or weapons. Punchline has a way that is a little more unconventional. In the course of the “Trial of Alexis Kaye” storyline (operating in 2021’s The Joker #1-15) Punchline seen that Harper Row (aka Bluebird) was snooping round her previous, so she handled the issue.
Utilizing her connections to the Royal Flush Gang, Alexis despatched considered one of their members to seduce and corrupt Harper’s youthful brother Cullen. The gang member started chatting with Cullen on-line, getting him hooked on Punchline’s podcast. From there, he drew Cullen additional into the Punchline fandom, convincing him to indicate up on the courthouse with indicators supporting her.
Can we simply take a step again and have a look at this? Punchline struck again at Bluebird by having considered one of her henchmen sleep with the vigilante’s brother. That’s diabolical.
She Gaslit the Courtroom System into Letting Her Go
You know the way it really works with Batman’s villains. The Darkish Knight captures them, they’re despatched to Arkham, they escape, and the cycle begins once more. Nonetheless, whereas that system appears to work nice for the remainder of Gotham’s underworld, Punchline had a distinct thought—why escape of jail when you can simply gaslight a jury into letting you go? That’s primarily the authorized technique she used within the “Trial of Alexis Kaye” storyline.
Punchline’s protection was easy—the Joker was the man who killed everybody, she merely stood subsequent to him when he did it. If she was going to be punished for standing close by whereas the Joker dedicated crimes, then what’s to cease the judicial system from going after different residents? Alexis argued that she was simply as a lot of a sufferer as the opposite residents of Gotham. Positive, she was fascinated by the Joker, however she identified how that’s true of most Gothamites and being a fan isn’t against the law. This authorized protection ignored the numerous crimes she did commit, just like the beforehand talked about school dean, however the jury purchased it. Punchline was acquitted and is now a free lady.
That’s fairly a file and what’s much more chilling is that Alexis is simply getting began. And as everyone knows, the Punchline all the time comes on the finish…
Punchline: The Gotham Recreation #1 by Tini Howard, Blake Howard and Gleb Melnikov is accessible in print and as a digital comedian ebook on October 25, 2022.
Joshua Lapin-Bertone writes about TV, films and comics for DCComics.com, is an everyday contributor to the Sofa Membership and writes our month-to-month Batman column, “Gotham Gazette.” Comply with him on Twitter at @TBUJosh.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this column are solely these of Joshua Lapin-Bertone and don’t essentially mirror these of DC Leisure or Warner Bros.
