8 Biggest WTF Comic Book Moments Of 2020

Whoever had to pick up the Baton (eh?) on Batman after Tom King left was always going to have a bit of a difficult time. King's run on the Dark Knight was cut short in 2019 and the writer has since been left to finish his story on a separate maxi-series - Batman/Catwoman - instead, with James Tynion IV handling writing duties for the main Batman comic in his wake.

Tynion's run on Batman has sometimes - maybe unfairly - felt like a stopgap for DC, what with it being positioned in between King's premature departure and the arrival of Future State, and it has faced criticism for not being potentially as bold as some of the character's other runs in recent years.

And then there's Punchline.

Punchline was co-created by Tynion and artist Jorge Jimenez to effectively be Joker's new sidekick. In Tynion's own words she's meant to be the "anti-Harley Quinn", more violent and sadistic and actually cared for by the Clown Prince, but everything about the character just seems incredibly gimmicky. If Batman is Malibu Stacy in this instance, then Punchline is Stacy 'with NEW hat'.

Punchline drove up interest in the main Batman title and even got her own one-shot back in November, but so far, everything about the character feels remarkably surface-level.