10 Best Comic Book Moments Of 2017

5. The Joker Gets The Last Laugh (The War Of Jokes And Riddles)

Batman 32 Joker
DC Comics

While you could probably compile a list of the year's best moments from Tom King's Batman run and little else (Swamp-Thing drinking tea with Bruce in Wayne Manor is everything, to be honest), for the sake of fairness, it's probably a good idea to narrow it down to one or two.

For most of the year, King's Batman dealt largely with The War of Jokes and Riddles, a storyline situated in Batman's second year of crimefighting as the present day Bat retells the story to Catwoman. The tale does a lot more than just humanise Batman, though - it made us care about Kite-Man. Kite-Man!

That's the Riddler's big punchline too. As a means of 'winning' the war, Nygma orchestrates the meteoric rise of Kite-Man, killing his son in the hopes that it would amuse the opposing side in the conflict. The thing is, Joker doesn't really see what's so funny, and Batman - still in his early days remember - is enraged beyond all belief.

Picking up a nearby knife, the Dark Knight lunges for Riddler's face, only to be stopped in his tracks by the Joker who, having stopped the blade with his hand, laughs himself into a stupor. Batman had been bested, and the person who saved him was the Clown Prince of Crime himself.

The moment made for a remarkable addition to the Batman-Joker relationship, and while more character-defining events were to come of King's Batman, Bruce's biggest failure - at this point in his career at least - made for one of the hero's best.

Advertisement
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.