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bat-bleed · 6 days ago

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Hello! Hope you’re doing well. Okay, might be much to ask & someone may have asked before. But JPV sounds so cool but pretty underrated. I know of him & some facts but not a lot! I’d be so intrigued to learn more if you’d like to talk about it!

What comics of his would you recommend?

Your fave things about him (though I’d be hard, I’m sure).

Also I remember him & Leslie Thompkins having a unique + sorta interesting relationship. She was kinda motherly to him (but also a lot. Not to ramble bout her but I think she’s complex & interesting but dc sometimes does portray her off. Adore her)

Hmm, what do you wish people knew about him more? Misconceptions you hate?

His relationship with the other bats?

I hope these aren’t too many questions! Thanks

Hello, Anon! These aren’t too many questions at all, I love talking about JPV 🙏 this might be broken into multiple posts so check the reblogs

So for his core reading I recommend:

-Batman: Sword of Azrael. His first appearance and one of my favorite comics ever. It’s a 4 issue mini series, so it’s not incredibly long, but it helps you understand the fundamentals of Jean Paul and Azrael as characters (there is a distinction between the two). It also explains things like “the system” and “the Order of St. Dumas” which are incredibly important to his lore.

-Batman Prelude to Knightfall/Knightfall/Knightquest/Knightsend: The Knightfall saga is absolutely fantastic and holds a great significance in the Batman mythos. It’s the story of Bane “breaking the Bat” and having Jean Paul step in to take over as Batman while he heals. It’s an excellent deconstruction of what Batman is, the failings of antiheroes, how Bruce’s particular mindset allows him to be Batman, and the importance of fathers and legacies (or lack thereof). It is also very important to Dick Grayson and Tim Drake as characters as it marks the start of Tim’s Robin run and leads into Batman Prodigal where Dick becomes Batman.

-Showcase ‘94 #10: Not exactly a required read, but I personally recommend it. It is a short intermittent story about the aftermath of Jean Paul’s tenure as Batman and exactly what happens to him when he leaves the Batcave. Adds some context for Azrael #1 as well.

-Azrael (1995)/Azrael Agent of the Bat: His 100 issue solo series! It starts off as Azrael then later is renamed Azrael Agent of the Bat about halfway through. It can technically be read without the prior knowledge of Knightfall, but I would strongly recommend reading the Knightfall saga first even if it’s long because it is a very big moment for JPV/AZ. His solo explores a lot, it continues to sort of pick apart antiheroes and explore things like redemption and pacifism, nurture vs nature, self identity, the corruption that comes with absolute power, etc. It crosses over into a lot of bigger arcs (Contagion, No Man’s Land, Bruce Wayne Murderer, etc etc) and it wouldn’t hurt to read them in their entirety separate of Azrael but ultimately isn’t really needed. Just adds some context for the things Azrael doesn’t explain. His solo series at times can be a little frustrating and the writing is somewhat inconsistent but if you are interested enough in JPV you sit through it.. it’s slop but it’s our slop. It also has three annuals and two one shots! They aren’t very important other than Azrael annual #1 because it talks about his father but they’re all pretty fun stories. His one shots and annuals are:

-Azrael Year one (very important imo)

-Azrael Annual #2 (very fantastical and campy but there’s definitely some meat to it if you really pick it apart)

-Azrael Annual #3 (silly oneshot mission with him and Catwoman)

-Azrael/Ash (team up)

-Azrael + The Question (team up)

-Azrael #1000000000 (a part of the one million series, no real importance or significance it’s just a kind of silly futuristic story)

After Agent of the Bat he isn’t really relevant until Blackest Night where they bring him back. I won’t lie to you, most of his comics after the big reboot for the New 52 and everything are completely out of character and very disappointing reads. There are some that are pretty good though and are my personal favorite modern JPV/Azrael stories:

-Azrael Dark Knight of the Soul: This sort of sets the standard for all modern Jean Paul stories. It’s short, just a miniseries from Batman Urban Legends but definitely a worthwhile read.

-Arkham City Order of the World: This explores Azrael himself more than Jean Paul, it weaponizes his righteous fury and just sort of points him like a loaded gun. It is a verrryy interesting read even outside of Azrael, the art and the “villains” are so cool.

-Saved by the Belle Reve: An anthology of a few stories but the one with Jean Paul is called “How Angels are Made.” It talks a bit about his more modernized backstory and what shaped him as a child.

-Sword of Azrael (2022): 100% his best post-reboot storyline. It hits just about every mark I’d want from an Azrael storyline and introduces some new lore for the modern origins of Azrael and the Order of St. Dumas. It does slightly twist some of the older 90s lore but it is good enough that I could look past that.. It introduces some really interesting characters and Jean Paul’s newest supporting cast which are very well suited to him. I’d maybe recommend reading Catwoman’s 2021 annual before this, just for a bit more context, but that annual doesn’t touch on Jean Paul himself as much as it explains the connection between him and a new ally and gives some background information for the Order of St. Dumas itself. Sword of Azrael 2022 goes back to themes we’re familiar with, forgiveness and redemption, self identity, but it ultimately ends in acceptance and catharsis which is something very new for Jean Paul and Azrael as characters and was so narratively satisfying.

-He’s briefly in Gotham Nocturne as well, mainly Detective Comics #1076-#1089. Nocturne revisits some of my favorite Jean Paul/Azrael batfamily dynamics and sort of establishes which characters are really fit to succeed Batman (in my totally unbiased opinion….).

Overall, I prefer his 90-early 2000s characterization but once he’s reintroduced in modern comics, anything written by or in association with Dan Watters is very good. I think out of all the writers who have taken a stab at bringing Jean Paul and Azrael back into relevance, he has done it the best. By FAR.

As far as my favorite things about him go… I really love that he is someone who isn’t perfect. Which, every character has flaws, obviously, but there isn’t a single Batfamily member that I think is as deeply lost and struggling with their morality as Jean Paul is. He’s stuck between violence and pacifism, sometimes he relishes in fighting, other times he feels extremely guilty and considers abandoning heroism altogether. He’s a very unique character and brings a lot to the “Batfam” table that I don’t think anyone else really does! He is terrible at his job, he is lame, he is confused, he is difficult to trust but he’s sometimes the most competent and reliable person you know. He has a sort of gentleness as Jean Paul that is so sweet and you can’t help but feel awful for him when you see him go through all these terrible things and struggle to balance being Azrael with being Jean Paul. He is a narrative parallel to Dick Grayson but where Dick excels, Jean Paul falls flat 90% of the time. He’s volatile as Azrael, he’s pitiful as Jean Paul, he’s desperate and lonely and searching for direction. He struggles and suffers in ways that are not pretty. He is someone so very sympathetic while also being so frustrating. He does things, both as Jean Paul and Azrael, that make you want to beat him into the ground, but you can’t help but feel for him and want to see him succeed even though he never will. It’s like betting on a horse who will lose every race just because the horse has a good nature to it. He is very selfish at times and even his acts of good are only done because they somehow appeal to his emotions or he gets spending out of it. But other ones he’s so very compassionate and would give you the clothes off his back. He is soo complex and there’s so many layers to him and Azrael.. he has such a unique story and relationships with everyone and it just immediately sucked me in. I literally never had an interest in reading Azrael but once I had read Batman Sword of Azrael I was like.. genuinely enchanted. He is so very compelling while also just being some guy. He is capable of destroying everything around him or being the best hero in Gotham.. but ultimately is very middle of the road because of internal struggles and it is just so.. shaking him around. He’s so compelling. He is very fun to analyze and pick apart. Probably one of the most interesting Gotham vigilantes (⬅️ completely objective and not founded upon my own clear interest in him).

Now his dynamics with other characters.. ohh there’s a lot to say here. Especially touching on Leslie and Bruce but we’ll start with Leslie.

Leslie meets him in the No Man’s Land, which if you’re unfamiliar, is a somewhat post-apocalyptic Gotham suffering from the aftermath of an earthquake which they dubbed the cataclysm. As Jean Paul, he is very eager to help Leslie and she is very caring towards him. There is absolutely a mother-son bond here, she says she loves Jean Paul. Personally, I’ve always viewed her relationship with him as a sort of way to make up for not being able to steer Bruce away from violence. Jean Paul is someone who is a bit distressed by the hurt he causes (less because he had done it and more because he doesn’t feel bad about it but that’s another thing entirely) and she tries to steer him towards pacifism and medicine so that he can help in ways other than fighting. Jean Paul and Azrael are ultimately two sides of the same coin and he can never just.. stop being Azrael, since it is quite literally part of him, but he tries. He tries for Leslie, and Leslie sees Jean Paul in this very caring and understanding light that I don’t think any other character really does. She defends him to Bruce, tells Bruce he is to blame for Jean Paul’s struggles, she tries to steer Jean Paul towards the path to pacifism, she celebrates his “first” birthday with him. She is his rock, probably the most important person to him. She is dependable when no one else is, he trusts her completely. She does have some clear judgements of Jean Paul, more accurately Azrael, but is mostly supportive in her approach to helping and working with him. Especially when you consider the lack of kindness Jean Paul has come to expect from “authority figures,” Leslie is a breath of fresh air which was absolutely needed for Jean Paul.

Leslie and Bruce I’d say are like the Angel and Devil on his shoulder, but ultimately both have this very polarized view on helping people and are more so imposing their ideals onto Jean Paul than trying to help him with his own (100% Bruce is more guilty of this than Leslie, but I digress). They expect him to choose one or the other and don’t exactly understand that he can’t. He wants to, but it just isn’t possible for him. They have these pretty black and white views but Jean Paul is a very grey character so he’s torn between the two.

Batman…now there is a LOT to say about this one. It’s got so many layers to it and it’s founded upon distrust but also compassion, and a sense of necessity. They are almost father and son, but not quite. They are almost equal partners, but not really. He is both terribly important to Bruce, but also someone Bruce feels relatively little guilt about manipulating. They meet at a spectacularly low point for Jean Paul, he had just lost his father (literally died right in front of him. In Jean Paul’s bed), learned that he was brainwashed from childhood to be an assassin, and recently discovered an alter. He is pretty lost and without direction, which Bruce tries to give him. Bruce makes him a security guard at Wayne Enterprises, he has Tim train Jean Paul (Robin and his grown ass student), they give him a new suit. He starts to get Jean Paul “on the right track” but it doesn’t do much to help Jean Paul with all the trauma he’s endured, so he is still not the most mentally sound at the time. When Bruce is paralyzed by Bane, he gives the very lost, clearly unwell Jean Paul the cowl. His reasoning for this is that he can’t give it to Dick because “Nightwing is his own man” but he clearly has no qualms passing it to JPV.. if that tells you anything about his views of the two. Jean Paul revered Bruce as this sort of father figure because he was the one guiding Jean Paul after his own dad’s death. bruce shapes his morality, gives him purpose, and then gives him a sense of identity (Batman) which Jean Paul had previously lost. Being Batman is obviously not good for JPV. He starts gradually slipping and pushing away some of Bruce’s allies (Robin, Gordon, Catwoman) and isolating himself while he tries to fully immerse himself in the identity of Batman. I’d argue that Azbats is more Azrael adjacent, if not his own persona entirely, but that isn’t to say Jean Paul had no agency or is free of guilt. He quite literally starts hallucinating his dead dad referring to Bruce as a “false father” and saying JPV is shaping himself in his image. He cuts his hair to look like Bruce, mimics Bruce’s voice, wears a Bruce’s suit (until he makes his own), lives in the Batcave (and Wayne Manor, by extension), carries on Bruce’s legacy. He is Batman. And it all just festers until eventually he reaches this breaking point. He is nothing if not Batman and Bruce (understandably) attempts to take the mantle away from him once Bruce is healed. This creates a sort of identity crisis for Jean Paul, who had been basing his whole life around being Batman for the past year or so. They fight and their whole battle is such a rich and powerful thing.. you have to see it to really get it all but there’s so much to take from it. Bruce’s perspective on JPV, JPV’s views on fathers and on being Batman, etc. Bruce chooses to spare Jean Paul and let him go after their fight, acknowledging that Jean Paul was lost and needed to see the light. Jean Paul is then homeless for six months and Bruce does absolutely nothing about this. for six months. During his struggles with homelessness and coming down from being Batman, he is once again, at an all time low and given direction again by Batman. Given identity by Batman. Bruce comes back, out of a sense of guilt and responsibility, and gives Jean Paul a reconstructed Azrael suit, some money, and a mission to go find the Order of St. Dumas. After Jean Paul completes this task he continues to go to Bruce for help, Bruce usually says no but still helps in some roundabout way after completely shutting down Jean Paul. He keeps Jean Paul at an emotional distance and they never quite bridge this gap between the two of them. He goes to Bruce out of a need for guidance and approval, Bruce usually doesn’t really give him that. Bruce comes to him and gives him a task that always benefits Bruce, the cycle repeats. He admits to using Jean Paul, and Jean Paul allows himself to be used because he cares for Bruce (and Bruce, in his own special Batman way, does care about him. A lot, strangely).

#oomf ate and left no crumbs #I love you jpv fans #jpv

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