#Batman: Cataclysm

[rootbeerrex]

When I was younger, there was a lot of push for people to recognize that graphic novels "aren't like comic books, they're real books!" and as completely valid as graphic novels are as books, that statement doesn't sit right with me anymore. obviously this isn't exclusive to the storylines mentioned here, they're just the ones I've been thinking about, but I've been reading through cataclysm and no man's land, and they are just these absolutely incredible and heart wrenching studies of the different reactions of humanity in crisis. these storylines consistently tear me apart and make me think deeply about my place in the world, but they often aren't considered "serious literature." I don't know. I just feel like the more I read comics, the less I understand the whole "yes! you can read graphic novels, they're just as valuable as real books! make sure you don't call them comics though, because those are just silly stories about superheroes, they aren't serious stories like these!" because like. you're gonna read Blackgate - Isle of Men and tell me that graphic novels should be respected just because they're not comics???

idk, did I just have weird librarians and english teachers when I was younger??? did y'all hear this too??? am I making this up???

[junimo-hexed]

Lonnie Machin in No Man's Land

Chapter 1 is here. I'm very much going with the flow right now as I wrote chapter 1 without even the slightest bit of an outline. I'm planning on having Lonnie head to Robinson Park next, but I'd love to hear everyone's ideas.

[pyroreadscomics]

Got give Batman: Cataclysm it's due, it's been a while since a comic made me spit take

Unfortunately, it due to how baffling it's characterization of Selina is.

Catwoman, famed thief, doing an "Anti-Looter Patrol"? Just No. Sure, Selina being faced with Armageddon and becoming a hero for the during of the crisis, that's in character, that's precedented in this run. Even with 90s Selina being... honestly the most amoral I've read her as post crisis, this works. However the idea that the way Selina is helping in this crisis is by patrolling for looter? Selina? Catwoman? 90s Catwoman? Miss "fuck you got mine"? Selina who had to turn to theft to survive a life on the streets? I had to double check that Huntress hadn't shown up this was so out of character. It would more in character for Selina to help looters looking for food and provisions, or for her to knock over a pharmacy and backpack the supplies over to that field hospital Barbara got set up. She would not decide that now, when some people might have lost everything that had including a roof to sleep under, a second pair of clothes, and food for tommorrow, is the moment to start enforcing the property laws she'd been laughing in the face of her entire teenage and adult life.

[magenta-somethings]

90s batman crossover events are great because you'll get at least one issue (usually more) which is just a random civilian having the Worst Time Ever

[thesulkycroissant]

Not without my permission. Not until I'm ready.

[lucky-katebishop]

I read Batman: Cataclysm (1998) and I have screenshots! Let's go!

Tim's entire arc during this series is wild, man. He gets drugged by a girl he very briefly trained with, he kills Lady Shiva while he's drugged up, and then he ends up saving Lady Shiva by basically getting the drugs into her system which then leads her to kill the people they were trying to incapacitate. This is all during a time when Tim's trying to figure out if he wants to continue being Robin or not, by the way. And during a time when Gotham is literally split in half and destroyed by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake. Comics are crazy, man.

Batman is such a freak. I love when they draw him to be depicted as such.

MY BOY! He was only in a couple of panels but my love! My boy! He's so cool. I'm bummed he didn't get to interact with Tim.

Some Alfred appreciation panels :D

D.A.R.E.!Tim going strong (the 90s were really something, huh)

Some animal appreciation panels

Stephanie and Helena teamup! I went on a rant on goodreads like a few hours ago saying how I really wished that Steph would be mentored or even team up with Helena because their philosophies are very similar and LITTLE DID I KNOW IT WAS CREATED!!! They're just so similar but Steph is still figuring out her morals whereas Helena has already become adamant on hers. I really hope they team up some more, I love their dynamic so, so much.

<3 <3 <3 (this is spoken by Bruce btw - he's talking about his identity versus Alfred's safety)

Tim is SO little brother whenever he's in Nightwing's run.

THEY'RE JUST MEETING NOW?! SERIOUSLY?!

Again- SO little brother coded

... ? If Atlantis ever really existed ??? Was this a joke? Is this sarcasm? What? Aquaman's part of the Justice League, right? What is going on? (Also I could have sworn in a previous series Tim met Babs... this is all written by Chuck Dixon, right? What is going on????)

Bonus Zesti :D

'Aight, thanks for reading! I'll have another post about reading Aftershocks soon enough so if you like this, keep an eye out :)

[randomwritingdrabbles]

Just started rewatching futari wa precure (I had a huuuuuge precure phase when I was a kid and I watched like all the seasons available then) and I was reminded of just how similar miraculous ladybug is to precure. Like legit it is just a magical girl anime but with normal superhero outfits pasted over the top and it got me thinking about how we were fucking robbed of magical girl Adrien.

Like they should have based the outfits on what the user deemed a superhero outfit cus Adrien would be rocking up in frills and thigh high heels while Marinette would rock up in gotham hero grunge.

Like you cannot tell me that lonely baby adrien wasn't an avid consumer of precure and sailor moon but in the same vain, Marinette would have definitely been a western superhero fan with emphasis on the batfam.

Like just imagine:

Adrien: "I run off the power of love and will protect the people of paris with the help of my fairy plagg!"

Marinette, who's favourite show is batman and the only magical girl show she's seen is magi madoka: "w h a t???"

-

Adrien, going through cutesy choreography that is 100% unessesary for his attack: "with the power of light I dispell you!"

Adrien: ✨️disintegrates a man✨️

Marinette: "..."

Marinette: "I am both terrified and amazed..."

(Adrien is upset he doesn't get a beam attack but he will make do by just making his cataclysm as extra as humanly possible)

-

Marinette summons her lucky charm by rummaging through her utility belt, also she also has a gun because she was having a red hood phase when she got the miraculous. It shoots whatever bullets she's feeling like because creation magic bullshit.

They're mostly rubber but whenever hawkmoth shows up they become metal and also explode... Gabriel Agreste is terrified of the both of them and refuses to attend fights in person ever again, after the time that Ladybug almost blew off his leg because he was temporarily blinded by cat noir's petticoat.

[catgrandpa]

Somebody who is a better writer than me should write a fic of the Batfam recovering after Cataclysm (big ol earthquake, Gotham is practically gone) and Bruce does his headcount and gets everyone as settled as they can be after everything. And its now that he finally has a moment to decompress for himself that he finally comes to realize that his home is gone. Not only was that the home he grew up in with his parents, but everything he had of Jason's was still there. His room has gone untouched and perfectly preserved since his death, and now it's all buried in rubble and ash.

[bubblesxo]

OKAY GUYS

so. you know how a lot of people hc about the gotham accent in general dc media? well i always love this hc because accents are just so cool to me. so hear me out (this post is specific to the gotham tv show universe but can be generalized to any universe a cataclysm/No Man's Land event has occured)

earlier i was on tiktok and i found a video talking about the human tendency to create accents over time. (the video talked about how friend groups and families create accents/dialects which is?? so cool?? but i digress)

anyway, this led me to learn about a study about a group of scientists living in antarctica and how, over the period of just one winter, their vowel sounds had begun to merge together to create the beginnings of an accent. so now, i'll relate this to the cataclysm event.

to cause this event, during which gothamites are cut off in basically every way from the outside world, the bridges around gotham are bombed and destroyed (at least in the gotham tv universe). in this same universe, the time in which they are completely undisturbed (besides one guy communicating over a radio to one lady) is 97 days (over 3 months), at which time a military strike force (kinda. they're evil) is sent in to basically kill all of the criminals there. however, these people really only communicate limitedly with police, gang leaders, and like one time with bruce wayne. but that's about it. reunification with the outside world only began after day 391. that's over an entire year of near-complete separation from the outside world.

now, they already started off most likely having some kind of accent, especially noticeable in the people who lived primarily in the city. (even if the accent isn't particularly strong/differentiated at the time.) however, now they've spent an entire year together, alone in a big city. this has the makings of a stronger accent (at least for those who were stranded in gotham when this event occurred).

one of the important things to keep in mind when considering accents/dialects is the use of specialized vocabulary words, and lemme tell ya, gotham 100% has that. even excluding all of the names they have for people and the general gang info these people have, they still have multiple different terms for parts of town (ex: the financial district = penguin's territory, etc. with the other gangs in power at the time). on top of even this, the amount of stuff that just casually goes on in gotham is seen to completely flabbergast outsiders all the time. they likely have slang that is used to refer to various things the rogues do, or things about violence, gang wars, rations, barracks, etc. there is SO MUCH opportunity for an accent to originate here??

of course, once the events of No Man's Land end and reunification happens, a ton of gothamites who weren't there during it move back in and the accent is dispersed among the population. it likely is in part shared and, over time, becomes part of common vernacular, and, in part, deteriorates, especially regarding things that are no longer as common in the distant future (ex. referring to the financial district as penguin's terf 10 years after this happens would be a bit odd). however, i do believe that this would create a lasting impact on the overall population of gotham, even if only minorly.

(to those of you who keep up with my de-aged!gotham bruce au, this is going to be featured in some of the up-and-coming chapters (slang that feels off to others, weird references, a stronger accent, if only slightly, etc.). if you have any ideas or thoughts on this topic feel free to chime in!!! i love chatting and some help brainstorming on this would be appreciated <33)

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

“I won’t let you cripple this man. No matter what he’s done.”

“Actually, I was planning to kill him.”

She is so casual about it.

[frogaroundandfindout]

Detective Comics #721

[annoyed-at-things]

I haven't seen anyone talk about how Batman: Cataclysm would affect Jason's story. The streets would be different, the buildings would be different, the people would be different. His room and things in the manor would be gone. The place he grew up in would be gone. Everything would be different - and I personally think that's why he was okay with burning it all down. Sure, a child not embraced by the village, but it wasn't his village. It wasn't his Gotham. It wasn't his Bruce Wayne - this Bruce actually managed to save his Robin. It wasn't his Dick Grayson. It wasn't his, and judging by the new kid flying in the suit he died in, it never was.

[bamboozled-distress]

reading Batman cataclysm and why is Tim such a jumpscare oh my GOD 😭

[thesulkycroissant]

You're getting included too, even if you don't meet the requirements.

Favorite story arc? Why?

This is such a sweet idea!! 🫶

I think rn my favorite arc is probably Cataclysm, which is an arc where Gotham has an earthquake. I like it bc of the way it explores Bruce's relationship with Gotham, and how he tries as Bruce Wayne to help the city prepare and to protect everyone (his buildings only are designed to withstand earthquakes, he has accessibility options in every one of his buildings, meanwhile his own house is not earthquake proof and collapses), and also how it depicts Dick's absolute desperation to know Bruce was alive and safe and how Bruce responds to Dick's fears. And as a bonus there are even some cute moments between Tim and Jack thrown in, and later someone did a one-shot for a Robin special where Dick (as Nightwing) saves a pregnant woman while she's giving birth, and she says she wants to name him after Dick, and Dick says to name him Robin. Ahh!! I'm a mess for it. Thanks for giving me a reason to rant about it. 😭💕

[notmoreflippingelves]

If any of the krisnix fans following me are already DCU fans, I would be very, very curious to pick some of your brains and mine your existing comics knowledge (as my own is very new and somewhat lacking) about a krisnix-centric, Batman-inspired AU.

[starrycomics]

Yes the whole ‘why would anyone willingly live in Gotham’ joke is a bit boring and overdone, but I’ve got to say, between the devastating plague and a 7.5 earthquake both happening in the same year? There’s truly not rent cheap enough in the world that would keep me from emigrating