#its ok alfred made him a real cake

[bi-whale-whisperer]

Jason: I stopped by the bakery to pick up a birthday cake for our lovely brother!

Dick: it says ‘Happy 20th Birthday Toby’.

Jason: oh shit, he’s turning 16 isn’t he

Steph: no, he’s turning 17

Dick: and his name is Tim

[cakesnothere]

Cake’s Super Sons: The Polarsheild Project Rant

Starting off, context... Polarshield Project focuses on Jon and Damian (read: ‘Ian’) during the Polar ice caps melting, Global warming, in the “Near future.” <(Exact quote from book). Scientist figure they can stop this by using special dust to coat the Earth “like an umbrella” to cool it down. This ‘dust’ can be found on an asteroid floating near Mars. Superman has to go to said asteroid.. and well y’all don’t care about logistics, let’s get into it...

(I edited the little info boxes in the back of the book so they could all fit. Read these to be a little caught up if you so desire.)

Anyways, as you can just see from a glance Damian, Jon, and Candace seem to be the main three in this story considering their bios are the longest. And you’d be right but this new girl ‘ Tilly” is part of the main squad and does practically nothing to keep her place. I guess this is more me nit-picking, but I can’t help but wonder if they just shoehorned some random female side character just to fill the quota for ‘important female characters’. Candace is fine, I don’t really have any issues with her since she’s practically has the personality of a cardboard box and is really only here to drive the plot forward. Again, maybe I’m nit-picking, but I couldn’t tell you much about her aside from she can predict the future (???) and is an “African Princess” (???). 

Tilly and Patience’s presence tick me off the most because they A- Didn’t need to be here or either B- Could’ve been replaced. Patience takes place of Alfred, whom of which is fucking dead. Or at least I heavily speculate with the sus sounding sentence from Patience herself that said “We all wish he (Alfred) was here.” Like y’all really fuckin killed off Alfred.... Y’all have no shame.

Ok so, let’s do a compliment sandwich. Some parts of this story actually made me laugh or smile. Like what the absolute hell is a “door knocker”? Well I’ll tell you, an idiot, the same kinda idiot that felt a thirteen year old knows what the fuck a ‘door knocker’ is and would physically use it in their vocabulary. I can’t tell if it was intentional to make Jon have that ‘I’m a county boy’ kinda speech, of the writers really felt someone at that age would just... speak like this. That being said, 98% of the things that made me laugh ultimately made me question if it was all intentional or if they really threw shit at the wall and it stuck. 

Now that that’s out of the way.... They completely ruined these characters. The first actual page of the book shows Jon leaning on Damian and Damian looking rather pissed as he tends to be. This gave me some glimmer of hope because that shows the the artist (or crew) went out of their way to demonstrate on a surface level what the two’s dynamic is. Its rather comical how backwards both Jon and Damian act that if you switched their dialogue and actions I’d almost let this entire book slid.

Jon is an aggressive war machine. He tosses people in board-fucking-daylight (no costume or nothing) over his head like they weigh nothing. During one part in particular he practically doesn’t trust the entire ‘team’ and thinks they’re all ‘un-loyal’. He almost beats the shit out of Damian more times then I can count, and back talks nearly everyone... including that girl Tilly, whom he kissed on the forehead after like five hours of meeting her.

Damian is just as bad, if not worse. Again, I can’t tell if they were aiming for Damian being his typical bratty self. He’s less of a know-it-all and more I-have-more-money-than-you kinda guy. During the teams one big infiltration scene, Jon was the first to figure out the hidden switch location. He was the first to collect any real evidence on the tainted food supply. He found out Damian was lying to him practically immediately. Jon also out smarted Damian’s attacks. Both mentally and physically. Jon had Damian pinned to a wall in seconds flat when they fought which... ok??? Superman is over-powered. Fine. I can handle little baby Damian Wayne not being able to beat the Son of Superman in a wrestling match, but he should at least be able to outsmart the man of steel’s son?! If Damian is one thing, he’s smart... too smart. Damian hasn’t been very hush-hush on the fact that he’s Batman’s son. Like “Batkid”, really?! He’s not even dressed like Batman. If he at least had a cape maybe I’d be a little less offended. 

Moving on... This comic is an absolute shit storm. It’s called Super Son’s but it mainly focuses on Candace’s past, and who she is supposed to be, and also Jon and how smart and strong he is. "Ian” is this weak annoying little shit that at times has something akin to the original Damian’s look and appeal, but it inevitably falls flat because his personality is so watered down and his appearance only really resembles Damian’s if you squint in the dark. 

This book gave me whiplash on all the clashing colors they tried to paint Damian’s skin. Some times he was almost as pale as Jon (only when Jon also wasn’t on the page) and other time’s he seemed just the right shade (the cover). I’m going to assume they made his hair brown so that you could easily differentiate Jon and Damian at just a glance... but this book is for tween’s, not fucking babies.

And Damian not having green eyes? I’m really not sure on that one. Maybe Jon’s blue eyes would be too close to Damian’s emerald ones? Regardless, its stupid as hell.

I just can’t help feel that Damian really got the short end on this one. His character comes second to Jon’s which is painfully obvious by the change in character design only to Damian, and the lack of defining characteristics that made Damian... Damian. 

Oh, and this? I have no idea why he want’s to be called ‘Ian’. It’s never touched upon ever again after this. He get’s called Ian the rest of the story and there is really no context to explain why he wants to? He practically idolizes his father in this book so I can’t see it being because he wants to separate himself for the man as much as possible. It’s just another thing that the writers added in that holds no weight in this story. It’s just kinda there to be there.

All in all this story was kinda hard to follow since there were so many opposing story lines and new characters, and just things that my brain couldn’t possibly follow all at once. As someone with a reading disability, reading the regular Super Sons comics were easier to follow and grasp then whatever this ‘childrens’ book was trying to do.

Not only did they kill off Alfred, but they killed my sons and I am upset :(