History YMMV / BatmanWhiteKnight

* RootingForTheEmpire: Interestingly played straight and inverted at the same time. As the audience can see that Jack is trying hard to reform and really does seem to genuinely want to make Gotham better, it makes the GCPD and Batman come off as jerkasses for treating him like garbage and Jack's constant one-upping of the establishment seem like sweet retribution. Many readers are enjoying how Jack is making the mayor, GCPD, and even Batman look like witless stooges that he constantly stays one step ahead of. On the other hand, he was still the Joker and caused a lot of chaos before he reformed so everyone else's reaction to him is justified if you take his past into account.

* UnexpectedCharacter: ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' had a lot of one-time characters in its run, some of whom were more popular than others and there were a few of them like Lock-Up who even managed to achieve CanonImmigrant status. However, it's highly unlikely that anyone was expecting or was even clamoring for Pierce Chapman, Veronica Vreeland's fellow socialite, to make an appearance. Especially considering in his singular episodic appearance, Pierce was an extremely one-dimensional character, had very little notable (or even likable) qualities other than being a male RichBitch, and really only existed as a minor character to show just how threatening Penguin could be if he was severely angered. Additionally, from the way Pierce is drawn with his hair color and style, he doesn't totally resemble his previous ''DCAU'' incarnation so it could take the reader a while to figure out Pierce was an obscure, one-shot character from ''B:TAS'' who's been taken out of the cupboard and dusted off for a new series.

* UnexpectedCharacter: ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' had a lot of one-time characters in its run, some of whom were more popular than others and there were a few of them like Lock-Up who even managed to achieve CanonImmigrant status. However, it's highly unlikely that anyone was expecting or was even clamoring for Pierce Chapman, Veronica Vreeland's fellow socialite, to make an appearance. Especially considering in his singular episodic appearance, Pierce was an extremely one-dimensional character, had very little notable (or even likable) qualities other than being a male RichBitch, and really only existed as a minor character to show just how threatening Penguin could be if he was severely angered.

* SoOkayItsAverage: While the artwork is universally praised, the writing is seen as something of a mixed bag at best, with many readers finding the premise to be shaky, the political commentary to be unsubtle and hamfisted, and the attempts at metacommentary to fall flat.

* FoeYay: As per the norm, Joker and Batman have this dynamic going on strong, even more so when we see that Joker not only has a ''shrine'' to Batman, but ran off from Harley during sex to seek comfort in it. When he reverts back to Jack Napier, their relationship comes across as an abuse victim finally standing up to his ex-partner and working to bring him down a peg.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Depsite Murphy's claims that the book's political themes would be "subtle", White Knight can be considered by many to be an AscendedFanfic of every Twitter hot take that suggests Batman is a villainous billionaire that beats up the mentally ill and does damage to Gotham. It doesn't help that Joker in this universe is little more than a prankster whose insanity is instantly cured with a handful of MacGuffin pills. The fact that Murphy claimed that this would be a "non-SJW" Batman caused many eyes to roll.

** Readers are mixed on whether or not the attempts at deconstruction are effective or not. Some like the inversion of good and bad, while others find that the characters bear such little resemblance to the comic counterparts that any attempts to deconstruct them fall short and wind up shallow. The fact that Murphy admitted to never having read a Batman comic lends credence to the theory that anything that can be viewed as deconstruction is purely due to CriticalResearchFailure, rather than intended metacommentary.

* MemeticMutation: "Better than ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns''." [[labelnote:Explanation]]Despite DC's aggressive marketing and Murphy's own boasts that White Knight would be the next ''The Dark Knight Returns'', many comic readers who gave it a shot found it to be disappointingly shallow, and have taken to mocking Murphy's pre-mature boasts.[[/labelnote]]

* {{Narm}}: Many of Murphy's attempts to insert modern-day talking points come off this way, including the use of a talking head using "SJW" as a pejorative.
* OvershadowedByControversy: Murphy was infamous for getting involved in social media controversies on a regular basis, to the point where his friends advised that he leave Twitter when DC granted him his own imprint. Such controversies involved defending a friend's homophobic views (until other friends warned him that doing so would hurt his career), subsequently lying about knowing that said friend was homophobic), falsely accusing a Marvel editor of being uneducated, and scolding comic artists for wanting to be credited (to which he backed off after some fans pointed out that Murphy himself was the beneficiary of his friendship with Creator/ScottSnyder).

* {{Anvilicious}}:
** Depsite Murphy's claims that the book's political themes would be "subtle", White Knight can be considered by many to be an AscendedFanfic of every Twitter hot take that suggests Batman is a villainous billionaire that beats up the mentally ill and does damage to Gotham. It doesn't help that Joker in this universe is little more than a prankster whose insanity is instantly cured with a handful of MacGuffin pills. The fact that Murphy claimed that this would be a "non-SJW" Batman caused many eyes to roll.
** The book opens up with Joker muttering "I can't breathe" as Batman pummels to a bleeding pulp, a heavy-handed reference to the homicide of Eric Garner in 2014.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Depsite Murphy's claims that the book's political themes would be "subtle", White Knight can be considered by many to be an AscendedFanfic of every Twitter hot take that suggests Batman is a villainous billionaire that beats up the mentally ill and does damage to Gotham. It doesn't help that Joker in this universe is little more than a prankster whose insanity is instantly cured with a handful of MacGuffin pills. The fact that Murphy claimed that this would be a "non-SJW" Batman caused many eyes to roll.

* MemeticMutation: "Better than ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns". [[labelnote:Explanation]]Despite DC's aggressive marketing and Murphy's own boasts that White Knight would be the next ''The Dark Knight Returns'', many comic readers who gave it a shot found it to be disappointingly shallow, and have taken to mocking Murphy's pre-mature boasts.[[/labelnote]]

* WhatAnIdiot: Barbara gives her identity away when talking to Dr. Fries while forgetting that she's dressed as Batgirl. Luckily for her, Fries already knew that Bruce was Batman.

* {{Narm}}: Many of Murphy's attempts to insert modern-day talking points come off this way, including the use of a talking head using "SJW" as a pejorative.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Depsite Murphy's claims that the book's political themes would be "subtle", White Knight can be considered by many to be an AscendedFanfic of every Twitter hot take that suggests Batman is a villainous billionaire that beats up the mentally ill and does damage to Gotham. It doesn't help that Joker in this universe is little more than a prankster whose insanity is instantly cured with a handful of MacGuffin pills.

* OvershadowedByControversy: Sean Gordon Murphy got embroiled in a few social media spats while his book was being published. Once, he defended a friend's homophobic views, only to do a 180 and disavow that friendship. Another time, he wrongly accused a Star Wars comic editor of being uneducated, to which he did not respond when corrected. Since then, he's stayed off Twitter.

** Readers are mixed on whether or not the attempts at deconstruction are effective or not. Some like the inversion of good and bad, while others find that the characters bear such little resemblance to the comic counterparts that any attempts to deconstruct them fall short and wind up shallow.

* SoOkayItsAverage: While the artwork is universally praised, the writing is seen as something of a mixed bag, with many readers finding the premise to be shaky, the political commentary to be unsubtle and hamfisted, and the attempts at metacommentary to fall flat.

* Anvillicious: Depsite Murphy's claims that the book's political themes would be "subtle", White Knight can be considered by many to be an AscendedFanfic of every Twitter hot take that suggests Batman is a villainous billionaire that beats up the mentally ill and does damage to Gotham. It doesn't help that Joker in this universe is little more than a prankster whose insanity is instantly cured with a handful of MacGuffin pills.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: What both the original ''White Knight'' and ''Curse'' end up doing to Batman and his overall purpose as part of its deconstruction of him. In both stories, people are always telling him how awful he is and nearly everything about Bruce and the Waynes in general is treated as the reason everything is going badly.

* MoralEventHorizon: Batman goes over it with his brakes cut when his actions result in a tanker crashing into a bridge, sending it to the bottom of the harbor and allowing Neo Joker to get away. This is what makes Gordon finally put his foot down and issue an arrest warrant for Batman, saying he should have arrested the Dark Knight years ago.

** Neo Joker is either a fresh take on the Harley Quinn mythos and an original villain with a Joker-induced tragic backstory, or a CreatorsPet that derailed a more interesting conflict between Batman and Joker to force a predictable EnemyMine situation.

* SoAverageItsOkay: While the artwork is universally praised, the writing is seen as something of a mixed bag, with many readers finding the premise to be shaky, the political commentary to be unsubtle and hamfisted, and the attempts at metacommentary to fall flat.

* JerkassWoobie: [[spoiler: Marian Drews. Even after becoming the Neo Joker and committing unscrupulous acts, you've still got to pity the poor girl for having her LivingEmotionalCrutch torn out from underneath her.]]
** And then it's revealed in the last issue that [[spoiler: Harley engineered everything from the first issue]].

** That said, this Joker seems like he was never the Clown Prince of Crime, given that Harley left him when she thought he was going to kill someone.