#same with dinah and shiva

[franollie]

Stephanie to the Batfam is like a longtime family friend that's so intertwined with each of their lives for so long she's not NOT family.Y'know?She met them through dating a male Batkid but ended marrying a female Batkid after years of best friendship with her and she's basically the youngest Batkid's reluctant babysitter that got stuck with him but after some light tustles he sees her as a big sister and she sees him as a little brother and she knows the eldest Batkid well enough to be on good positive terms with them and call eachother friends even if they don't talk nearly as much due to the massive generational difference and she's buds with the middle child on common ground(Duke)and i know you don't like Jason and Stephanie much less like i do so i'll put him in 'weird older Batkid she finds annoying but tolerates because this ain't her relatives' and she's even close to the other big Batfam family friend(Babs)and bonded with the baby of the bunch's middle schooler romance ahh girlfriend(Maps).Bruce ain't Stephanie's dad but she's not NOT Batfam,y'know?????Idk i'm just spitting since it resonates with me as somebody with multiple non-blood family members i grew up with and i am that too others too and a Stephie kinnie so i wanted to share

im at the point where im so far removed from batfanon batfam that i forget that this isn't the generally accepted/agreed upon batfam

it all revolves around cass to me so yeah. steph's 100% part of the batfam

[aingeal98]

Shiva and Talia hooking up would be so fun for so many reasons but the one I'm thinking of right now is how it would be the second flame of one of Cass's adopted parents that she hooked up with. First Dinah now Talia. Shiva is going to end up on Cass's family Christmas card one way or the other.

[zahri-melitor]

Watching people feel like they need to set Batgirl against Black Canary right now is exhausting. It’s not actually a zero-sum competition.

Because to my mind we are getting two different aspects of Shiva in the two titles. Which makes sense to me; Shiva’s always had a somewhat different relationship to Dinah than she does to Cass (and both of them different to the relationship she has to Tim, to Richard and Ben, and to Vic)

Narratively, Shiva’s relationship with Cass is struggling with her feelings over what Cass’s existence means to her as her heir: whether she wants to be a parent, whether she is a parent, how she feels towards training and fighting the one person Shiva is convinced has the skill to defeat her. Shiva’s relationship to Cass is very much tied up in her feelings about Carolyn, and Carolyn’s symbolic position in her life.

That’s an interesting narrative, but not one she has with anyone else, though she flirts with it in terms of both Sin Lance and Bethany Thorne. Shiva’s relationship to Sin is of another creation where people are trying to replicate the conditions that made Shiva who she is (and obviously getting it badly wrong) and then in terms of Sin’s importance to Dinah. Her relationship with Bethany Thorne, what little we see of it, is of Shiva seeing loss she recognised in Bethany and wondering what would happen if she harnessed it and trained it. It’s all about potential legacy, rather than the far clearly extant one she has with Cass.

While Shiva’s relationship to Dinah has always been about fighting endurance. Dinah is about the only adult woman we see Shiva show any respect to, with regards to her fighting skill. While Shiva’s dabbled with the ideas of heirs, and clearly sees her potential heirs as being female (Cass, Sin, Bethany), she doesn’t treat them as her equals. Her behaviour around Talia and Nyssa tends to be combative, where she sees them as the heads of rival organisations; she might let them employ her, but she doesn’t buy into their whole deal. (Shiva’s standards over who she will work for are notoriously low; she gets bored so easily she’s happy to go into situations she thinks are going to go badly wrong, as long as it’s potentially entertaining for her)

And that respect between Shiva and Dinah is founded on their shared mentors, and on beating the crap out of each other in the pursuit of being better. Even before Dinah got her skill upgrade and was still just scrappy in the Grell Green Arrow run, in their first encounter, it was still about both of them coming out of a friendly fight together having enjoyed the challenge. Shiva and Dinah both see the other as someone who they want to understand, to see what she has to teach, from where her skill comes from. It’s different to Cass; Shiva approaches Dinah to discover new training ideas, while Shiva approaches Cass to be defeated/killed.

I think Shiva sees Dinah as Carolyn, but in terms of their childhood; the sister who she competed with to become better, and her regrets about not having anyone else to share that relationship with later on. Shiva sees Cass as Carolyn in terms of her loss of Carolyn and what she gave up by it.  

And personally? That’s why I’m enjoying both Batgirl AND Black Canary right now. Yes, Tom King’s not that invested in the emotional side of Shiva as a character, but that’s not her purpose in the story; her purpose is as the challenge Shiva exists as for Dinah (and Dinah exists as for Shiva). They are going to beat the crap out of each other and push each other’s buttons, because putting the other into discomfort in the pursuit of becoming better, both physically and emotionally, has always been part of their narrative together.

[autisticrosewilson]

"Oh Steph wouldn't like Jason just because they have similar backgrounds because he kills people/is a criminal/fights the bats!!"

This is in the 90's BEFORE he even tortured her. She doesn't go through with it, but she sees the evil he's capable of and its enough for her to justify it. She only doesn't because it "goes against what Batman taught her" but well.

That's the same man who would let her dad's friends infest her house for MONTHS until BLACK CANARY came to Gotham and handled it

A grown man who would go on to verbally degrade her, withhold the tools he gave everyone else, keep her intentionally isolated and then use her lack of resources against her.

So yeah. I'm sure Steph's faith in Batman and his teachings have wavered plenty. Just because DC casually discarded the way she was treated so she could play happy family with the boys, but she has NO REASON TO. Before she was aged down there was definite tension between her and Tim, and while Babs worked to get that relationship back, Bruce did no such thing. "Oh I'm just as proud of you as I was with the boys" when he thought she was dying doesn't fucking change how he treated her.

And of course, there's her own forray into betraying the family and being a criminal in The Next Batman series.

That's without getting into how she was compared to Jason, the way she watched a murdered east end kid be toted as another violent, reckless, idiot who didn't think and got himself killed.

"Oh but he tried to kill Tim!" First of all, you didn't read that comic. Jason was TESTING him, they were 2 years apart MAXIMUM, and Tim FOUGHT BACK. Jason gave him a little cut and a nose bleed that he slapped a bandage on and was fine. Damian also started his first meeting with Tim antagonistically and even though he was actively hostile to her, Steph still formed a close sibling bond. Her first meeting with Tim she threw a brick at him. He spent a not significant amount of time belittling her and telling her she wasn't cut out for hero work when she came back. This is the same guy who hallucinated Jason just so Jason could be like "Oh I got myself killed don't be like me!" Can we be real she doesn't give a shit. I guess you could count Hush but. I know they retconned it so that was Jason but when the fuck would he have had the time to do that between death, catanoia, the All-caste, and his murder tour.

Stephanie understands better than anyone that desperate circumstances lead to desperate people who do bad things. Stephanie understands being belittled and compared to a rich white boy who never had to fight to survive like you did. She understands being isolated from the hero community. She understands the evil that exists and the ways the system is corrupt, and that the bad guy never STAYS caught. And it's not like she has any big problem with people who kill, Babs said in 90's she would fucking LOVE Joker to drop dead and Dinah has killed multiple times. She literally switched places with Lady Shiva? These are both women Steph looks up to. You don't think Steph would feel any admiration at all for someone who gave Bruce a taste of what it feels like to be shown up? Someone who made Roman's life hell? Someone who made Tim put action behind his shit talking? An alley kid who came back and refused to be another statistic, who showed everyone who spent the last decade calling him stupid and reckless EXACTLY how cunning he can be? None? At all?

I just find it a little hard to believe.

[novelistwriter]

The Family of Halfa's

DP x DC Prompt (With other Fandoms, this prompt was inspired by "Wished Away Series")

Danny and Wes had been together for a while. Wes was, at first, not considered part of his friend group, but as time went on, Wes integrated himself as part of Team Phantom.

Now that Wes was a full ghost, and the Consort to Danny, as he is the Ghost King, Clockwork had decided that the Halfa and his Consort are the perfect option to raise the souls of those the Time Ghost takes pity on as new Halfa's with a new start, meaning these souls don't have the memories of their past lives, but powers and such related to their previous lives.

The oldest of the reborn souls they got was a boy named Adrian Agreste, but not any Adrian, the Cat Blanc Adrian, who was plucked from his timeline before it was erased and offered a second chance at life. His power is still destruction, but only when he is feeling intense negative emotions.

The second oldest, who came a few years after Adrian, was named Callum, a boy who died at the hands of the Sunfire Elves before help had arrived. He doesn't have any unique powers but is adept at the Arcane Arts than any (fully) living person.

A few months later, another soul was given to them. His name was Eli Shane, and he perished in the Eastern Caverns during the battle with the Emperor. Eli's powers allow him to access 5 elements, with him limited to one until he switches to another, Fire, Air, Earth, Water, and Energy. And because of Junjie, Eli's other Ghost Power allows him to learn any martial arts much quicker than any being.

After a year, another soul was given to them, one of a courageous young man named Link who stopped a Demon King but suffered too many injuries to be saved. His power is time related, but not too powerful. If he dodges an attack at the last second, he is able to move faster than anyone to attack his opponent for a short duration.

2 more years later, two souls were given to Danny and Wes, Keith and Lance, who perished at the hands of a mysterious foe while giving their team time to escape. Their powers are similar yet different at the same time. They both can summon spectral lions, but Keith's is red and has fire powers, while Lance's are blue and have water related powers.

Finally, 3 years later, Danny and Wes are given 5 souls of kids, kids who died participating in a war to stop a bad guy. Aang died fighting Ozai. Zuko and Katara died in the Agni kai against Azula. Toph and Sokka died when the Airship they were on crashed in the sea before Suki could arrive on time. Aang has air and animal related powers, Katara has water and ice powers, Zuko has fire and electricity powers, and Toph has earth and metal powers, Sokka doesn't have any unique powers, but is a natural leader and adept at learning how to use any type of weapon.

After the Quintuplets were reborn from Danny, the rest of the souls were as well, as Danny needed to host their cores to have them reborn as Halfa's, Danny and Wes thought that they needed to live in a dimension, and not the Keep Danny inherited, as Danny and the reborn Halfa's need to eat regular food as well ad needing Ectoplasm, and so the kids could interact with other living people and not just the Ghosts in the Infinite Realms. So they chose a random dimension with a lot of Heroes to live in, with Clockwork giving Wes a new body to be a Halfa himself.

And now the family made of all Halfa's is living in a place called Gotham, a Gothic City with enough ambient ectoplasm as Amity, but they had caught the attention of the Vigilantes of the City, as the entire family are Alternates to the people of the dimension.

Danny is an alternate younger Jason Todd, but not as Buff. Wes is an alternate younger Roy Harper, also not as buff. Adrian is an alternate Dinah Lance. Callum is an alternate and younger Hal Jordan. Eli is an alternate Lady Shiva. Link is an alternate and younger Barry Allen. Keith is an alternate Jon Kent. Lance is an alternate Damian Wayne. Aang is an alternate and younger Bruce Wayne. Katara and Sokka are alternates to Dick Grayson. Toph is an alternate and younger Cassandra Cain. Finally, Zuko is an alternate and younger Tim Drake.

[fantastic-nonsense]

okay, I think I've cracked the code. I think I understand what Tate Brombal is doing with Shiva's new backstory.

Brombal has said that he loves Denny O'Neil's work, has read Richard Dragon and The Question, and "could write the Kung-Fu Fighter trio forever." He's also very notably a Cass lore geek, as evidenced by the opening "Mother" arc, and has also clearly read several of Shiva's newer appearances as well. So like all of his nods to Cass's existing history while introducing new elements, he's not just inventing stuff out of thin air for Shiva's backstory. He's picking and choosing the elements that have already been introduced for Shiva and using that to create something new.

I think Brombal's goals with Shiva's new backstory are threefold: dealing with all of the contradictions in Shiva's history that have popped up over the years, properly tying Shiva and Cass's stories together (in a better way than Gabrych's frankly sloppy execution), and creating an actual relationship between Sandra and Carolyn that showcases why her murder created Shiva. He also clearly has as secondary priorities making Carolyn a real, breathing character (rather than a living MacGuffin with no personality) and explaining all of the odd stuff that Shiva's been able to do over the years, particularly her rather supernatural healing abilities.

So! Predictions for how this is all going to shake out once we finish the Shiva backstory arc and start moving into the Jade Tiger arc:

Ming-Yue and Mei-Xing's parents were a Romeo and Juliet forbidden romance from rival clans, the Blood and if not the Unburied themselves, whatever larger clan the Unburied are from. They had the girls and lived as nomads in China, including time in a village named Duoyishu (as seen in Outsiders 2019 and Urban Legends), until they were killed by Wu Feng, the leader of The Blood and their father's brother, in the Tibetan Himalayas (as shown in Batgirl #7).

I think Akhu (the monk who knew Mei and Yue's parents, took them in and raised them for a decade, and called them "daughters") will be revealed to be O-Sensei (notably a title and not a name), finally connecting Shiva back with the original lore drop way back in Richard Dragon #2 that Carolyn was O-Sensei's goddaughter.

Sin Lance is canon again as of BOP 2023, so the Dinah-Shiva "life experience swap" arc is also canon again. Theory 1: the Himalayan village Shiva lived in for that decade with Akhu is the same "southeast Asian village" from Simone's BOP run where Dinah "relives Shiva's hidden, early life." After the Blood attacked, Akhu fled to Japan to become O-Sensei and Mother took over as the village's primary protector. Theory 2: the "southeast Asian village" is Duoyishu, and Mother was always the person in charge there.

Either way, Akhu goes to Japan and we have coin flip odds on whether or not Mother will be revealed as the person who actually trained Sandra to be Shiva post-Detroit. Additionally, regardless of outcome she will not be Shiva's literal mother.

After leaving the village post-Blood attack, Mei and Yue travel the world for a bit and land in Detroit, where they take the American names Carolyn and Sandra. We then get the Batgirl-era backstory of them continuing to dance, fight, and perform for crowds (which Brombal already had them doing in the Himalayan village) and being seen by Cain.

IF Brombal brings Shiruto (the girls' weapons developer uncle, killed in Richard Dragon) back, he'll probably be revamped as an ex-Unburied member and their mother's brother trying protect them from the Blood. That might actually explain why they end up living in Detroit's Chinatown of all places? We'll see.

The Batgirl #8 teaser indicates Brombal is doing some timeline mix-and-matching, making Sandra and Carolyn crimefighters prior to meeting Richard Dragon, adding Carolyn to the Kung-Fu Fighter team, and moving Richard and Ben's Kung-Fu Fighter era martial arts school to Detroit (rather than NYC).

That's cool. I'm a huge fan of this Kung Fu Fighters era reinvention, actually. It solves a lot of timeline issues, fixes Richard and Ben's histories in the process, and also means that Carolyn's 'I could have loved you' statement to Richard (who, pre-Crisis, she'd literally known for ONE DAY) before she died will make actual sense.

Anyway, Cain enters the picture and kills Carolyn to 'inspire Shiva' to stop holding herself back at some point. Exactly how this happens and how it ties into the Kung Fu Fighters reinvention, I don't know.

So Sandra goes after Cain for revenge, loses, Cain's proposal and the forced conception of Cass happens, and he trains her during that time. She leaves after Cass is born and continues to travel the world to perfect her skills, becoming a mercenary and eventually "Lady Shiva." This would neatly tie together Shiva's retconned history with Cain we got in Batgirl (2000) #73 with the reiterated justification Shiva gave for leaving Cass with Cain in Batgirl (2024) #4.

Another theory: the Blood's bloodbending magic and the Unburied's blue poppy magic will be used to at least partially explain Shiva's longstanding odd healing abilities, including her punch resurrection of Cass way back in Batgirl (2000) #25 and her healing of Katana in the much more recent Urban Legends #16.

I also think that Shiva went looking for the Unburied not because she "ran out of challenges above and started looking below," as she told Cass in Batgirl #6, but because she was trying to learn about her mother's heritage and seeking knowledge of who she might have been in a different life. The training and healing abilities were an unexpected bonus.

So that's Shiva's backstory predictions. What about the upcoming Batgirl arcs after Batgirl #8? Well, let's see:

I think Wu Lin, the guy Brombal introduced in Batgirl #4, will be a member of The Blood from "the bloodline of Wu," hence the upcoming 'shocking family revelations' teased for Batgirl #9 (he's possibly the son of Wu Feng, which would make him Shiva's nephew and Cass's cousin). This would also explain why he's scared enough about the Unburied coming after him to join Shiva.

And finally, Shiva told Cass in Batgirl #6 to find Ben Turner and ask him about "Jade Tiger." Jade Tiger, from the cover and teaser of Batgirl #10, is obviously connected to Ben in some way. He might also be connected to Richard, holder of the Jade Dragon Claw, as well.

My theory? Jade Tiger is either Ben Turner II (Ben's nephew, who hasn't been seen since the pre-Crisis era) or a new character that will be revealed to be Ben's son (probably with Jane Lewis, Ben's pre-Crisis girlfriend who was killed on the day Ben wanted to propose).

.....there's probably more I'm forgetting, tbh. But I'm really fascinated to see where Brombal goes with this, to put it lightly.

[shortbcofkoffee]

There's two of him. Sitting face to face in comfy cushioned armchairs. Tim doesn't know what he's doing here or how he got here. But he had an idea.

"We're awful people," he says to the... clone? Other? Whatever this was.

"Why? Just because we have a pension for procrastination?"

"Because we have more opportunities than others. And we squander them just so we can complain to ourselves later."

The other Tim tilted his head. "Is that what we're doing? I don't think it's just so we can complain. I don't know why we procrastinate but it can't be that."

"What else could it be? We’re the best at wallowing in self-pity."

The other Tim almost laughed. "Bruce is much better at that."

"What does that matter? My point stands, we're privileged and we never use that privilege for any good. We ignore it until it's too late."

"Well if you word it that way, we doing like the type of billionaire that hordes wealth. We help people. We want to help people. That's what we're using our privilege for."

"I dropped out of school and still became a CEO. Jason never got that choice."

"That's a stupid comparison and you know it."

"It still happened."

"Your circumstances are completely different. Jason never got a choice because he died. You dropped out because someone needed your help. That wasn't selfish. Becoming a CEO was also to help. Nothing stops us from helping people." He smiled gently.

"We're selfish in our motivations."

"Wanting Bruce not to kill himself or others is selfish? That why all this started."

"We were his stalker. We just wanted to keep our entertainment alive."

"Neither of us even almost believe that."

They were both silent. Tim's jaw tightened. Other Tim spoke again.

"Are we selfish for being with Steph during her pregnancy?"

"I almost missed the birth," Tim frowned.

"But we didn't. And we may not be dating anymore, but we still love her. She's one of the most important people in our life."

"We fight all the time."

"Everyone in our family fights all the time. That's a different problem and it doesn't effect how much we love each other," he waved a hand dismissively.

"I've killed people," Tim said through gritted teeth.

"So has Cass. Is she a bad person? Damian? Dick?"

"That's different. Cass and Damian were raised that way. Dick killed the Joker. I killed people who didn't deserve it."

"Who, Lady Shiva? We resuscitated her right away. And if you're talking about the LOA bases, they're assassins. They've killed plenty of people. They certainly didn't deserve to die but saying that they were innocent is simply untrue."

"That would make Damian and Cass bad people too." He finally caught his other in their argument.

"I never said they were innocent. I just said they weren't bad people. We can't judge them for the lives they took."

"There were definitely people our age, younger, in the League when we blew it up."

"Was that selfish, though? It is an international terrorist organization. Someone would have to do something eventually. And basically everyone made it out of the one at the cradle alive, who's to say no one made it out of the others?"

"Even if we believed in killing, those weren't our lives to take. The League hadn't wronged us, Ra's was even helping befo-"

"Don't. Even finish that thought. That's such fucking bull."

They glared at each other.

"Okay," Tim said. "You're right. But that doesn't change the root of the problem. We're a bad person."

"Only because you want us to be. We know way more, way worse people. And don't bring up selfishness again, even if we're being selfish, we're still helping people. We've saved enough lives to make up for whatever selfishness we may have."

"It'll never be enough."

The other Tim just stared. "You're a pain. If you don't want to accept you're not a bad person, that's okay. But I don't want to talk to you anymore. Not about this."

.

Tim jolted awake in the same comfy chair from the dream. Dinah was across from him in the other chair.

"How was that? Did it work?" She smiled expectantly.

Tim grimaced. Yes, it worked. But it was awful. He didn't want to do this ever again, he never wanted to face himself ever again.

"It was a little too intense, maybe. I'd hold off on using it for now."

Dinah frowned. He was being selfish again. This could help people, he was just putting off using this as long as possible.

"Are you okay?"

Tim stood up. "I'm fine."

[judgeanon]

So How About That Batgirl #3

I didn't transplant my review of #2 here because there wasn't that much more to say, especially in regards to Lady Shiva (which is always the most important part of any comic with her in it for me) but #3, hooo boy, there's a lot to talk about for this one.

It introduces, or maybe just expands, a concept that kinda had me feeling a bit nervous but eventually won me over, and still has room for some fun narrative trickery. So I'm gonna go ahead and post my full review of the issue down here:

Picking off where #2 left off, #3 starts with Shiva and Cass on a train heading out of Gotham to meet some allies in their fight against the unburied. And Cass is noooot happy about it.

These opening pages follow the same character dynamic we've seen so far, with Cass openly rejecting her mother's remarks while inwardly rejecting her mother in general -- her inner monologue constantly reassuring herself that Shiva is a lonely manipulative monster while Cass is a good person, clearly to try to chase away the guilt of leaving everyone behind. The desperation in Cass' inner voice to paint Shiva as an unredeemable monster is very palpable and very good in the face of everything that's happened so far.

But the next pages made me a little concerned, with Shiva berating Cass while goading her about her relation with the batfamily. And while we've seen Shiva take jabs at that before, notably in Hill's Outsiders, back then it felt more pointed (and a little meta, what with the whole "He won't even let you be Batgirl" thing), while here Shiva's comments on languages, while true in a way, felt more openly cruel. Bordering on villainous.

Had the issue stayed this way, I would've been very worried about this whole arc turning into yet another milquetoast "Evil bio mom, good found family" yarn. But then the track switches.

The lion's share of the issue is dedicated to introducing the survivors of the Order of Shiva, who have dedicated thier lives not to just worship the deadliest hands on Earth, but to study, learn & better themselves through her example. Which is an idea that could've gone very wrong. Personally? I think this is kinnnnnda neat. Mostly.

The thing is, I've never been a fan of Shiva having any kind of cult or organization built around her. I think it's the kind of stuff that can weigh her down and, at worst, just be used to make her more of a pure villain, like in Dixon's RICHAR DRAGON run. But in this issue, the idea slowly won me over with how Brombal uses it to explore two overlooked aspects of Shiva:

The first is that Shiva, at her best, tends to inspire others. Just by entering a person's life, Shiva, tends to change their perceptions of reality, of what's possible. When Shiva entered Vic's life, she indirectly got him to question a lot of things about how he viewed reality. Same with Dinah and, yes, Cass herself. And this order seems to be entirely built on that idea of Shiva as someone who makes people rethink everything (albeit with way more altruism than Shiva herself).

The other thing this whole scene explores is Shiva's dualities and seeming contradictions, her nature as both destroyer and restorer. Which is something I'm always happy to see, especially nowadays. But this is also where my one big problem with this issue lies: it pays a lot of lip service to Shiva as a healer without actually showing it.

A mention is made of Cass rejecting Shiva's help, but an actual moment of Shiva using her healing skills, to me, would've really helped support High Priest's Jayesh gushing praise of that dual nature.

Just a couple of panels of her doing some funky pressure point head massage, it's all I'm asking.

Beyond that, I do have one nitpick that's just about the one thing that keeps me from fully embracing this idea, and that's Shiva's level of involvement with the order. Jayesh drops a hint of how he met Shiva, and she seems to care at least a little for him and for the Order, but there's not a lot said about how much she helped them build and maintain it.

If they're all people who ran into her, had their minds opened and built an order around their idea of her, that's one thing. If she helped them build it then that's another. Her small moments of caring do seem to indicate she's also warmed up to them, which would suggest some relatively high involvement, which I don't really like. I'd much prefer the order being something that Shiva is aware of but keeps at arm's length, a bunch of well-intentioned groupies that, like the issue says, follow her example rather than her orders. The bottom line is that I don't like anything that Shiva seems to be too attached to, but even if she was, I'm still mostly OK with this idea.

Anyway, the final leg of the issue is dedicated to a very entertaining chase and fight across the rest of the train that's a delight to see. And while my copy's all digital, I imagine it's way better in paper. Miyazawa and Spicer clearly have a lot of fun with these pages and it continues the run's interesting dynamic of Cass and Shiva never being fully in sync during a fight, always fighting each other as much as whoever's all around them.

But apart from the action, the thing that rang a lot of bells for me was Cass' narration as it insists again that Shiva is nothing but a monster and that Cass is nothing like her, eventually flowing towards a very heroic list of all her family members and their core traits that's very nice and heartwarming... and desperate.

Because the narration in this scene all reads to me like Cass arguing with herself. It reads desperately like her trying to chase away the dual thoughts that her mother may not be a complete monster AND that she herself, Cass, really is a lot like her mother.

Hell, the scene is literally Cass running away from Shiva, punching through what she sees as undisputable proof of her mother's lies while checklisting the family she does want and love, physically and mentally fighting against even the possibility of Shiva being worthy of more than her disgust. It's not Cass rejecting Shiva for being evil, it's her trying to reject the evidence that she may have something resembling good in her.

So the whole thing takes a very heroic cliche, Cass naming all these loved one to give her strength, and turns into a flailing flurry of mental gymnastics from Cass to allow herself to keep rejecting Shiva, to maintain this inner image of her as a monster while refusing any connection with her. And it's all pretty compelling stuff.

The issue then ends with one final surprise as Cass runs into the rest of Shiva's allies: a resurrected Nyssa Al-Ghul, Angel Breaker and a brand new character we'll apparently learn more about next month. So yeah, this was an interesting issue. The pacing of the arc is still a bit slow, but with all the players (hopefully) at the table and three issues to go, I hope the rest of the arc will pick up steam and keep chugging along smoothly.

I wasn't expecting the Order of Shiva to get much more play after #1. I certainly wasn't expecting them to get expanded like this. And I definitely didn't expect it to win me over this much. Minor quibbles aside, I gotta give props to Brombal for the obvious thought he's put when laying down these tracks for Shiva, and I'm definitely in for the rest of the ride.

(then again, maybe I'm just being blinded by the intense relatability of my man Jayesh over here. I feel you, brother. Hope you survive this arc)

[dcrarepairtournament]

propaganda:

Tara Markov/Rose Wilson:

What if you were both traumatized by the same shitty man, and were bitter bitches as a result. And what if in order to cope you grew together, because although she’s kind of annoying, you will always understand each other in a way other people can’t. Etc, when they first saw each other again Tara asked if Rose was still a virgin which is both A) Funny. B) Sad. C) why do you care?? 📸🏳️‍🌈 I just like women supporting each other honestly. They’ve both been treated fucking despicably by canon (what do you MEAN you wanted to show that this teenage girl is irredeemable by making her what? Smoke cigarettes and sleep with older men? Fucking sexist assholes.) they probably kissed once. I think they need to be forced to work together on a mission together and be constantly fighting the urge to make out and beat the shit out of each other the entire time.

Lady Shiva/Dinah Lance:

no propaganda submitted

[but-a-humble-goon]

top 10 best hand-to-hand fighters in the DCU??

just wanna know ur opinions on this, it's really interesting to see the diff answers ppl give!

There's probably like hundreds and hundreds of characters I'm forgetting or are gaps in my knowledge because this is DC. Also not including Karate Kid because he's around centuries in the future and also that's basically cheating. -Cassandra Cain, (the only person alive who can somewhat consistently beat Shiva when they're both at their best. Name any martial artist in the DC universe and the odds are she's humiliated them. Like half of the shit she does in every single issue is flagrantly physically/biologically/logistically impossible) -Lady Shiva & Richard Dragon (it's established the two meet up to duel constantly and as of yet neither has definitively proven themselves superior so they share a spot) -White Canary (according to Dinah she's as good as if not better than Cass or Shiva but she does also back down from Shiva like a total wuss so that's probably a slight exaggeration, nonetheless she certainly proves herself to be in the same ballpark) -Strix (Shiva calls her one of the most impressive fighters she's ever seen and shall we say everything we see her do certainly backs up that assessment. Plus she has the same acrobat training as Nightwing) -Conner Hawke (He's basically only ever lost a fair fight to one of the above. He fought Shiva and gave almost as good as he got and even Cass concedes he's pretty good and if you know her she does not compliment lightly) -Bronze Tiger (can handily kick Batman's ass as well as basically everyone else in his league like Deathstroke, Black Canary, Catman etc, can at least hold his ground against the likes of the top 3) -Nightwing (he's usually held to be better than Bats and he's handled Deathstroke with relative ease a couple of times. Not to mention his absurd talent at acrobatics. I'd put him at the top of the A tier) -Deathstroke (we're really splitting hairs at this point but yeah, generally Slade's pretty much considered unstoppable by most people. There's a good reason the Bats' standard procedure when going up against him is to just pay him off) -Black Canary (really this spot could have gone to Batman or David Cain just as easily but in addition to being as good as those two Dinah has the best track record when it comes to being the underdog and winning through sheer grit and adaptability. I'd put my money on her scoring a surprise win against any of the heavy hitters on this list over those two)

[alicepooryorick]

Okay i got a question

When the debate of dc's best fighter comes around, names like connor hawke, cassandra cain, lady shiva, richard dragon, bronze tiger...etc are thrown around (sometimes even batman but i really don't see him breaking top 5)

But what about deathstroke? i mean it feels like he should be in the top 5, he's definitely better than batman and seems like a pretty good contender for the top spot (if not then one of the top spots, i don't even see him in most peoples top 5 lists)

This same thing applies to his kids, i mean rose has precog shouldn't she be in the convo too?

I'm just confused, are these other characters just that much better fighters than them?

Thing about Deathstroke is, last I checked, he can't even beat Bruce? I'm not entirely sure.

The tldr is that we're talking best fighter no modification. The best fighter in DC no restriction is Wonder Woman and it's probably not even close. Shiva, Cass, Richard? Nothing. It's Diana. Diana who Bruce canonically cannot imagine losing.

Reason Dinah's ever put on these lists is her power doesn't modify her fighting. She's a top fighter WITHOUT the scream.

That said, Deathstroke struggles with a bunch of actual teenagers, meanwhile Cassandra Cain was jumping squadrons of Amazonians. I don't consider Slade to be that tall of a threat in direct combat even with his powers as compared to

Cassandra "dodges bullets unless she feels like getting shot that day" Cain

Lady Shiva, famously referred explicitly by DC as THE best fighter

Richard, who best I know spars with Shiva

The short answer to your question is that these are pure fighters, no crutches, because otherwise it's JUST various Amazonians who we've seen Diana take on the full force of the US military, New God's, etc. I don't know enough about Barda but I'd imagine she's there too.

Anyway, if anyone wants to add on feel free! But that's always been my understanding of it all.

[aingeal98]

What do you think of an au where cass ends up in another city instead of gotham and idolizes their respective hero and symbol instead of the bat

Like she ends up in star city and in star city and idolizes green arrow and tries to mimic him instead and (eventually) become a member of the arrowfam?

Or she ends up in coast city and somehow a green lantern ring chooses her and grows up as a green arrow

I mean we've already seen this semi-done with "cassandra lane" and her growing up in metropolis and lois and clark instead

But what about other cities? just wanted to hear your thoughts

Ooh both of those options sound interesting! Star City would be fun because Connor was also created by Puckett, and it would be interesting to see how he writes and contrasts them. If we place Cass in Star City around the same time she appeared in Gotham, then Oliver is dead, Dinah is working with Babs, Roy is with the Titans and Connor is the main Green Arrow but his series has ended. As far as I'm aware if Cass went to Star City instead of Gotham in 1999, she would have found it pretty empty. Dinah and Roy were the only arrowfam members appearing in comics that month.

So if we were swapping her from batfam to arrowfam, I'd probably have her appear in BOP first. She saves Dinah's life on a mission, Dinah takes her back to Babs, Babs names her Cass and Cass stops David Cain from killing Jim. Only this time instead of Bruce it's Dinah who's watching over her the entire time, and Dinah who ends up being her primary mentor/parent. When GA 2001 kicks off, Cass features primarily as Dinah's kid, with Connor and Mia as Ollie's. I feel like Cass wouldn't really see them as siblings the way she does the batfam. They're friends first and kind of step siblings second. Found family that doesn't need to be clearly defined. Sin on the other hand? Her little sister 100%. Having Cass heavily involved in the Shiva and Sin arcs would be so fun.

Green Lantern Cass would be interesting because at the time the only Lantern was Kyle. Like Kyle was meant to be the last of the entire Corps but suddenly Cass shows up with a ring and she can't explain why any better than he can. So screw it, I guess he has a partner now. A partner who's convinced her purpose is to take all the risks and die for him, which Kyle would not be too happy about.

So what would these changes mean for Cass? I think with Dinah there'd be a lot more focus on addressing her death wish and refusing to let her fight Shiva alone, compared to Bruce who felt so upset about her being a killer that he couldn't cope and refused to think about it. There would be a full fledged acceptance for Cass as a member of the family, over and over again despite Cass's fears. No hoops to jump through no standards she has to live up to. If anything the conflict would be trying to find ways to stop Cass from holding herself to said impossible standards, with limited success.

As for GL, I'm not as familiar with them so I could be very wrong, but I think being chosen to be a Lantern is the kind of duty teen Cass would cling to like a lifeline. Kyle would be the most important person to her, but at the same time she wouldn't really care about his personal life, and would be confused why he does. The burden of being the only remaining Lantern would be shared, but their personality differences would bring a whole new range of conflicts and challenges into their individual character arcs.

Thanks for the ask!

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

Never going to get over how Dinah’s expression after getting beaten up by Shiva was the same giddiness of a new crush.

I know Dinah was making heart eyes when she got slammed on the mat.

[tbcanary]

this is in no way the biggest problem with the bc run (see previous reblogs for that) but the whole framing device is so. bad. I don’t want to hear wrestling commentators yelling the same phrases over and over. I want to hear dinah and shiva talking and interacting. shiva hasn’t said a goddamn word and dinah only does because she gets flashbacks. the book is allegedly about these two women and yet they get as little agency in how the entire thing is acted out and described as tom could physically manage.

[dalekofchaos]

Injustice 2 au:Batman's Regime continued

In May, I made an au where Batman loses Gotham, nearly all of the Batfamily and Selina and it lead to Batman going down a dark path and founding the Totalitarian Regime.

Now I will continue in the events of Injustice 2.

It's basically the same story. Only it's about Clark and the Justice League trying to restore the world after Batman's defeat.

After Lex Luthor was locked up for funding and supporting the regime, he was locked up. Lena Luthor took over Lexcorp and it became L-Corp and she promised to right her family wrongs and help Superman repair the damage done by the Regime.

Supergirl lands on earth after the Brainiac destroying Krypton flashback and instead of being found by Black Adam, she's found by Clark.

The flashback instead of Batman trying to stop Clark and Diana from executing Arkham inmates. Bruce, Cassandra and Damian go to the underground of Arkham to find the escapees that managed to survive the bomb with Clark on their trail. Clark thinks Bruce is out to kill them. He's wrong. He's after something.

Instead of showing Damian's betrayal(which why the fuck would you when it's shown in the comics) we see Cassandra's first sign of reluctance and Clark believing she can be saved.

The New Titans. are the new heroes instead of just Firestorm and Blue Beetle.

Batman(Cassandra)

Supergirl

Donna Troy

Blue Beetle

Firestorm

Starfire

A lot of the events of Injustice 2 plays out similarly. Oliver and Dinah hunting Grod, Harley against Crane, Ivy and Swamp Thing and Brainiac's invasion.

The Regime loyalists lead by Lady Shiva, and Black Adam are planning a break out.

Bruce has been carefully planning behind bars in new Arkham. Able to send careful instructions to his followers who are still on the loose and those imprisoned with him. He has been carefully coordinating with Damian on what to do when they break free. "Does it have to do what we did when we found those Arkham escapees?" "Yes my son, the time has come to activate the Nightmare protocol."

As they come to New Arkham to stop the breakout. Superman realizes we can't do this alone and does something he truly hopes he doesn't come to regret. Batman is freed and the two former friends call a temporary truce.

Lot of the story beats remain the same, however instead of Wonder Woman stabbing Harley, it's Talia.

We'd get a chapter dedicated to Cassandra and Damian. Both of them hating each other, but still neither can kill the other. Damian resents her for becoming the Bat and Cassandra pities him for following father's corruption. They accomplish their mission, but Cassandra senses he did something else..

Cut to the ending.

Batman and Superman have defeated Brainiac and Superman begins the process of restoring all of the worlds imprisoned by Brainiac. However, Batman is noticeably missing for a brief period and returns.

Batman declares his plan to kill Brainiac, it's the only to save everyone.

This causes the clash. and we get the two paths. Absolute Justice or Absolute Vengeance.

Que to the fights we got in the game.

The Justice League chases Batman and Robin to the Batcave.

When they see Bruce...he's changed.

"Bruce, what have you done?"

Bruce comes out as the Nightmare Bat. Infused with Kirk Langstrom's Man-Bat formula, Crane's fear toxin, the blood of Waylon Jones, Bane's venom, and the lazarus pit's liquid injected into Bruce's veins. The Nightmare protocol has been activated.

He also has

Freeze's Ice gun

Mad Hatter's mind control tech

Joker venom

and of course Kryptonite

Bruce has found the formulas and arsenal of his old enemies, he has altered and perfected them and with Brainiac's technology he took from his ship, he has ensured that Bruce will keep his humanity.

I was inspired by the Batfeed's Batman analogue horror video.

If you chose Absolute Justice, it ends with Bruce's defeat. But the victory is not easily gained. It takes the combined might of Clark, Kara, Cassandra and a unforeseen redemption from Damian to finally stop the Nightmare Bat. and the only way to stop Bruce is to remove Brainiac's technology. Bruce screams like a demon out of hell. "CLARK, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? NO!' "If you want to become a monster so badly, then a monster is what you'll be"

Bruce has become a shell of his former self, nothing but a nightmare. He's locked away in the phantom zone.

The Justice League and the New Titans vow to stop him should he ever return.

Ends with Lex Luthor returning to attack his sister. We see Supergirl saving Lena and Clark stopping Lex and with a tease of Supercorp(shut up let me have this)

Absolute Vengeance.

Ends like Absolute Power. Bruce defeats Clark and his former allies rejoin him out of fear and those who do not stand with him? He gives them one chance. Join him willingly or he'll make them join him, just like Clark and then we see Mad Hatter's & Brainiac's tech twisting Superman into his thrall.

[apopcornkernel]

ive begun giving up tagging the subfandom for dc characters 😭😭😭 like for example jade is usually in ga stories (bc of roy) but she's also in tt ones?? but also she's in a deathstroke one?? or like helena has her solo series but she's also very entwined with batman ever since dixon but also she's not always under the batman subfandom i feel like?? or babs is classically batman but she's also birds of prey and it feels like she's def evolved past being just another of the batman cast bc she's oracle and she literally interfaces for SO MANY groups. or shiva like how do they even classify her?? i used to think she was mainly in batman stories but i was so wrong, she features everywhere from bop to the question—how am i supposed to classify her???? same for talia like she's typically a batman character but then what about her lexcorp era??? what about the whole LOA in recent events like lazarus planet or whatever the fuck????? hell what about all the 10 million teen titans iterations???? titans west???? titans east??? titans academy??? titans los angeles???? titans except its tim??? titans except its damian???? same with justice league especially with people who are BOTH jsa and jla like dinah??? and WHICH justice league, justice league dark??? justice league international???? extreme justice???? fucking JUSTICE LEAGUE DETROIT?????? LIKE