Review: Knight Terrors: Punchline #1

Overview: In Knight Terrors: Punchline #1, Punchline’s dream quickly becomes her nightmare as she is attacked by her dead adversary, Batgirl.

Synopsis: (Spoilers ahead): Punchline (Alexis Kaye), with her new Royal Flush Gang, attack Gotham City. To her dismay, the civilians in her way are all knocked out, and Punchline does not know what put these people to sleep. Punchline is looking to gain access to the Clock Tower, as she wants to gather evidence showing that the Bat-Family are composed of mindless authoritarians. Before she can achieve her goal, Punchline is interrupted. 

Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) has arrived on the scene, and she is looking to put Punchline out for the night. The two start to fight, but Punchline notices that something is not quite right, Batgirl is mostly silent in her attack and she has a grin on her face the entire time. She kicks Batgirl through a window, impaling her on several glass shards, which kills the hero. Excited, Punchline steals Batgirl’s bike and races off. She can finally break into the Clock Tower directly and will have control of the best surveillance system in the city.  Punchline is missing one thing though, an audience.

Punchline enters the Bat-lair and finds that it is a mixture of being abandoned and lived in. She finds weapons including recently modified tools. She finds cases housing the costumes of the Bat-Family, and as she walks by the one holding Barbara’s costume, it shatters with the Batgirl costume reaching for her.  Punchline does not notice this, when she turns around nothing is changed. She decides to focus on the lit computer displays. She notices an intruder alert and discovers that she is not the intruder.

A zombified Batgirl attacks Punchline. She surmises that this is connected to the sleeping city. In her mind, she muses about taking off headphones and suddenly being struck with everything she was missing while she was wearing them. All along Batgirl becomes more robotic as she appears to be absorbing the technology of the Clock Tower. None of this can be real. She can see and hear the high-pitched shrieking from the monitors and the squelching from the flesh. Punchline can smell the scorched, electrified flesh as the wires warp and weave through her adversary’s flesh. None of this is real, it has to be the effect of some drug.

Punchline tries to fight back with the weapons that are around her. She grabs a cape and smashes through a window, gliding to the street below.  This is unsuccessful as Batgirl extends her techno dead arm through the window and catches Punchline, yanking her back inside the Clock Tower. 

Analysis: Knight Terrors: Punchline #1 is a horror story with a twist. In this case, the horror monster is created by Punchline herself when she kills Batgirl. What follows is Punchline having to deal with the monster that she created. 

What I find interesting is that she is separated from the Joker in this story. Despite a one-off comment about Batgirl’s grin reminding her of Joker gas and a realization that she may have made a better joke than Joker just after Batgirl’s death, there is no other mention of Joker. She appears to have her own agenda and goals in this story. Does this mean that Punchline will become a central antagonist to Batgirl? Probably not, but I would look forward to those stories.  

Punchline’s goal is interesting, as she sees herself here as a hero in a way. She is looking at exposing the Bat-Family as authoritarian. That is an interesting choice here, especially as she sees it as doing good for Gotham City.

The art is a mixture of realism and the otherworldly. Punchline and the beginning is all about realism.  The Royal Flush Gang, the civilians, even the use of gas masks in the beginning. The only hint that something is off is the initial appearance of Batgirl. Her face is shaded in the top half; her eyes are not even visible. All that is visible is the bottom half, highlighting her weird, closed-mouth grin. The next time we see Batgirl “alive,” her visage is an open-mouth smile with red glowing eyes. There is nothing realistic or human about this being, and she transforms throughout the conflict, becoming a cyborg zombie which is used in the end when she is able to stretch her arm to snatch the escaping Punchline.

Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with a copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Comixology through Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.