10 Best New Comic Book Characters Of The Decade
5. The Batman Who Laughs
The first big event to come out of DC Rebirth was Dark Knights: Metal, an event penned by Scott Snyder, which introduced the Dark Multiverse. Simply put, this is a multiverse of universes that literally have no future. Sh*t's gone so thoroughly sideways that there's no way for it to come back and every universe there eventually collapses in on itself.
And it's from this idea that we have the big breakout villain for DC this decade: The Batman Who Laughs.
The Batman Who Laughs is the perfect criticism of dark and gritty versions of Batman that completely miss the point of the character. Coming from a universe where Batman broke the Joker's neck, the clown prince of crime got the last laugh by spraying joker toxin right into Bruce's face. This turned him into essentially the Joker but with Batman's intellect. In other words: we're in big trouble.
A dark, bloody and gritty Batman, coming from a universe that is expressly stated to be a dead end that's just as bloody and dark as him, is about as perfect a satire you can make a character without expressly stating him to be satire.