Punchline
Alexis Kaye, DC Comics’ new supervillain called Punchline, is the latest fashion icon for the current generation of comic book readers. After being conceptualized by writer James Tynion IV and artist Jorge Jiménez, she has become much more than the Joker’s new female companion. Her design is so gothic and fantastic, yet so contemporary and in vogue that it presents the perfect paragon of style as a storytelling device. Her striking new visual persona has transported Punchline from novelty to notoriety for the right reasons, preluding her backstory’s attractive quality, which has only been recently fully exposed. In other words, her fashion choices and overall image are so appealing that they have helped propel the further development of Punchline's character, even before her story was first told.
From her comic book origin, Kaye was once a normal high school senior who, in a field trip to a Gotham news channel, encountered the Joker hijacking the channel’s transmission, killing her teacher, and asking her to read one of his “manifestos” for the whole of Gotham to hear. From that traumatic experience, Kaye became obsessed with understanding the motivation behind many of the villain’s actions, producing a podcast that explored many of his past crimes. With time, she became enamored with Joker’s ideals—his provocations, motives, jokes—seeing them as expositions of truths about false justices promoted by masked heroes and those in power. Alexis tried to find the meaning behind Joker choosing her to read his message but ended up realizing that she was nobody to him; just another of his victims. However, she also understood that all his jokes were only setups to a grander vision, and therefore, she could become somebody to help him accomplish that vision: his Punchline. Her motivation ends up being to completely comprehend Joker’s master plan for Gotham and the world, and carry that plan into the future one way or another.
Canonically, Punchline’s costume was a way for her to differentiate herself as a villain in Gotham and define herself as a clown-adjacent criminal to attract Joker’s attention. But as designed by her creators, she was always supposed to be inspired by Harley Quinn, Joker’s previous love interest and henchwoman, and simultaneously be her antithesis. Harley’s original costume, the red and black Harlequin one-piece garment, was vivid, full of big pieces, details, and weird shapes, and contrasted highly with her white skin to form a trio of colors, highlighting her impetuous personality as the second-fiddle for the clown. On the contrary, Punchline’s look is much more threatening than Harley’s.
From her make-up and hair to her garments, Kaye appears much more nimble, logical, and down-to-business than Harley Quinn. Jorge Jimenez, the artist that first visually conceived her, explained that “I added freckles that give personality to her face, and I have noticed that it is fashionable in makeup to place a point just below the eye, and I thought it would be super cool to add this to her cold and tenebrous look.” Her facial design, combined with her ear piercings, red cheek circles, and red nose, differentiates her drastically from Harley’s white face, which is adorned with a black eye mask and a joker hat, because it is more detailed and thus more expressive than Quinn’s. While Harley has always expressed herself through her costume, voice, and body movements, Punchline seems to have a design that highlights her emotions through her countenance. Interestingly, the red cheeks and nose are the only aspects of her costume that make her resemble a clown, two subtitles details, while Harley Quinn’s entire original outfit screams clownish, informing both of their personalities.
Moreover, Punchline’s entire clothing appears silent, with only some details glowing in neon. Her main piece is a tight-fit leather-like short black sleeveless shift dress with neon red pockets and a neon blue belt, and blue X markings. Her boots are black, adorned with neon blue laces that go up to her knee, and a neon green circle and an X in the boot’s upper part. She also has black gloves marked by the same green patterns as her shoes and a short cape that attaches to her shoulders. Finally, her whole body is wrapped in a purple bodystocking, ripped in many places and highly detailed with arm and chest patterns. The color combo that defines her is black and purple (also found in her hair), but she has blue tones all over (including a bang streak), with reds and greens working as minor side tints. Unlike Harley, who has always been designed in comics with only three of four colors equally surrounding her in a splash of hues, matching her bubbly personality, Punchline is illustrated with two dark overarching colors slightly delineated by neon tinctures, a more quiet and sleek look, showing her more reserved personality, one that may have many tricks under her sleeves to surprise her enemies. For one thing, her knife is small and has a black handle that camouflages with her body, giving Kaye the air of an assassin.
So, as both Jiménez and Tynion intended, Punchline is a complete anti-Harley Quinn, dressing up as a more serious killer and Joker henchwoman, a silent striker interested in Joker’s ideology to fix the broken system, contrasting with Quinn’s all over the place look and demeanor, and her love (currently turned into hate) for the clown prince of crime’s heart. However, even before her overall character was first fully presented in Batman Vol 3 #92, comic book readers and fans were already making Punchline cosplays, a telltale sign that her costume design resonated with so many fans after being officially unveiled by DC and Jiménez. That speaks to the idea that comic books are both a visual medium as well as a literary one, meaning that the appearance of a character's costume and the novelty of their design propels a general enthusiasm from a dedicated fanbase to consume the comic book like never before. The aesthetic power of a superhero/supervillain costume is what many times unites a fan base because, at the end of the day, the comic book looks stunning with it, and fans can dress up like the hero/villain and feel amazing about it later.
Image (Via)
From the author’s perspective, James Tynion IV acknowledges how Punchline’s design, even before DC first released it and everyone saw it, was what brought life to the character in the first place. He wouldn’t have written her origin and given her a story if her costume was not unique. He once had a backbone for the character in his mind, but it would have been just another henchmen without the design. And then, after Punchline’s public release, he felt that the audience had an overwhelmingly positive response to it because “there is a huge excitement for new characters right now (...) seeing the response to her and that design was just like, oh wow, like people are really hungry for their own [singular] characters (...), and Punchline just connected really quickly.” In other words, readers are keen on getting to know new characters right from the beginning, and Kaye’s appearance sold everyone about her potential for being an engrossing persona people would be interested in keeping up with.
All things considered, Punchline is the most recent supervillain to leave a mark in the comic book audience in so little time. Her costume design by Jorge Jiménez is not only beautiful, sexy, and dangerous. It is a style powerhouse that has inspired readers to dress like Alexis Kaye and be genuinely interested in her story and personality, beyond being Joker’s new “girlfriend” and the mirror version of Harley Quinn. For my part, I see Punchline as a fashion icon with the potential to move beyond the comic book world to influence the stylist expression of many people today. And this article was a way to inform those that do not follow comics about this new phenomenon that took DC by storm called Punchline.
If you want to learn more about Kaye, read Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #3, Batman Vol 3 #89-#100, The Joker 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1, Batman: Secret Files #3, and Punchline #1.
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