Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: Batman, clownhunter, Comics, james ytynion IV, joker war, Punchline

Clownhunter Begins As He Memes To Go On (Batman #96 Spoilers)

Published Tue, 04 Aug 2020 11:00:10 -0500

This is what James Tynion IV said about the creation of Clownhunter, who makes his debut in Batman #96, published today. Just the one-page mind, but it's enough to make an impact. He wrote back in May,

I was looking at my plans for Joker War and noticed that I was missing something pretty big in the story. There wasn't a POV character on the ground in Gotham City, seeing the city go to hell around them. Joker War is meant to represent a shift in how Gotham sees itself, and be a catalyst for a bold new Gotham City that's building in its wake… I needed a character who represented that change. A character who takes things into his own hands because he sees the city needs it, but not by Batman or Joker's terms. A supporting cast member that wasn't part of the Arkham Rogues, or part of the Bat-Family. Something new and different…..

So it felt like I should weaponize that POV character that I saw Joker War needed, and take the cool name from the defunct project, and create a new Clownhunter character to introduce in the book. So I wrote a quick scene in issue 96, the second part of Joker War… And I realized I had something interesting. So with permission from my editor, I reached out to Jorge to help bring together all my crazy ideas for this new character and build something new from the ground up…

I desperately want a statue of him wailing on a Clown Gang member, so I hope you all like him as much as I do, and we can will that statue into existence. I deeply, deeply love the design Jorge gave him, and how unlike any other Bat-character he looks. He's exactly the kind of crazy element I want to introduce into the Gotham books to dial up the possibilities of stories we can tell in their pages.

CLOWNHUNTER is a quiet, weird kid who lives in the Narrows. He mumbles jokes to himself under his breath, but doesn't speak up in class or while he's gaming late at night. When he was a kid, he saw his parents killed by the Joker, and his life was saved by Batman. He idolized Batman for years. But when Joker War starts, and Batman can't stop it out the gate, he picks up a baseball bat, hammers in the Batarang Batman gave him as a kid, and goes out to start killing the Clown gang members terrorizing his neighborhood.

He's a different sort of vigilante. Vigilantes in Gotham normally come with high tech costumes and gadgets. He's more lo-fi, and more willing to cross the lines that the usual vigilantes don't. There's a dark, young city brewing underneath Batman's feet in Gotham… On one hand we have Punchline, who represents a new kind of villain, a kind of young person radicalized into believing something deeply dangerous… On the other hand, we have Clownhunter, who sees himself as a hero, but has tossed out the entire moral playbook of Batman, and doesn't respect his old ways of looking at the world.

As Joker and Batman go head to head as Gotham turns into a War Zone, we'll see that Clowns are terrified to go to the narrows, all because of this kid who isn't afraid to kill them. There's a Clownhunter story in a one-shot coming out in September with an artist that I am flipping out I get to work with, and he'll continue to play a key role in the book after Joker War. That's the big thing I want to hammer in with both Punchline and Clownhunter, I have real plans for these characters, and we want to see if you'll fall for them, too. These are not meant to be flash in the pan sales points, these are new characters that open up stories to tell that we couldn't tell with other characters in the Batman Mythos. And I've got plans to tell those stories.

I keep saying he's one part Kaneda's Gang from Akira, one part Casey Jones from TMNT, and one part Deadpool (in terms of a kind of amused detachment from reality). His first appearance is in Batman #96 (and that is his ACTUAL, 100% first appearance, no minor appearances in the background of a previous issue – He shows up for the first time from whole cloth in #96).

He and Punchline are the first children of a new Gotham City Jorge and I are building in the pages of Batman. So far it seems like you're along for the ride, but I hope you stick with us. I have lots of even bigger, even crazier plans to come, and I can't wait for them to come to light.

More to come of course… and yes that typo is intentional. Which one? The one in the headline of course, not all the others.

BATMAN #96 JOKER WAR (RES)
DC COMICS
JUN200445
(W) James TynionIV (A) Guillem March (CA) Tony S. Daniel
Reeling from the effects of the worst Joker toxin attack ever, Batman is on the run through Gotham City, pursued by the dark shadows and voices that haunt his past and present! As The Joker's plan materializes, the only person who can save Batman from the brink of true madness…is Harley Quinn?! Plus, who is the mysterious new figure known as Clownhunter?In Shops: Aug 05, 2020 SRP: $3.99

I bought mine from Piranha Comics in Kingston-Upon-Thames. Piranha Comics is a small south London comic store chain with a small south-east store in Kingston-Upon Thames's market centre, which runs Magic The Gathering nights on Fridays, and a larger south-west store in Bromley, which also runs Magic nights and has an extensive back issue collection and online store. If you are in the neighbourhood, check them out.