Trivia / Batman (James Tynion IV)

• Adored by the Network: The run has a habit of hyping the crap out of any new character introduced — even more than usual for superhero comics — partly due to the accidental success of Punchline.
  • Punchline wasn't really hyped up by DC themselves — it was more of a thing that speculators decided, which caused her first appearances to go up in price. However, DC immediately capitalized on the artificial hype and gave her focus and a backup feature in Joker.
  • Clownhunter was actually hyped up by DC and went on to receive solo stories while other, established Bat-characters languished in comic book limbo.
  • Ghost-Maker was introduced as being Batman's equal, a former fellow student with Bruce when he was training across the world. Not long after his introduction, he was immediately added to the Bat-Family and then given his own backup in Batman, co-starred in most of Batman: The Knight and then later made the lead of Batman, Incorporated.
  • Miracle Molly is already receiving this treatment being hyped up on covers and solicitations when nothing is known about her other than her design.
• Post-Script Season: Tynion wasn't intended to be on Batman for as long as he was. He was put on the series to fill some issues after DC prematurely ended Tom King's Batman run (which was explicitly meant to go up to issue 100) and while they sorted out their Generation Five initiative. That initiative would've seen their heroes aged up and Batman replaced by a black successor (it was apparently meant to be Luke Fox, rather than Jace) with a series by John Ridley. However, Generation Five was scrapped and reworked into DC Future State, then later replaced by DC Infinite Frontier, and the positive reception to Tynion's run meant that he was kept on as the main Batman writer, while the idea of a black Batman was reworked into overhauling long-forgotten character Jace Fox, with Ridley still on writing duties but Jace's titles not being the main Batman title.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to Tynion IV, The Joker War was originally going to end with Mr. J's explicit death, which in turn would pave the way for the eventual rise of a younger successor similar to Ridley's plans to introduce a black Batman. This new Joker would have been a student based in New York who became radicalized by their growing obsession with the Clown Prince of Crime's twisted ideology. But when the plans for Generation Five ended up being scraped, Tynion decided to reshape the core elements of what would've been the Joker's successor into creating the villain that would eventually be known as Punchline.
  • According to Tynion, the post-Fear State Arc Villain was going to be the Mad Hatter. Tynion has not revealed any further details, saying he hopes to come back to DC and tell that story someday.