silly thought that i’ve been rotating at might write someday (although knowing me…)
anyways!
someone gets mad and pranks the justice league by releasing clips of their embarrassing moments on tower (nothing that could reveal identities but still embarrassing)
it’s stuff like marvel failing at cooking
batman being sleep deprived and trying to parent different league members (namely marvel)
flash running into walls and things (a lot)
superman being afraid of a shoe and litterally leaping into the air to get away from it. (it was green)
anyways everyone find this hillarious and the members are a lil mortified. But fawcett takes it into their own hands to give marvel food (litterally he has too much food to know what to do with) to the point he ends up like going around sharing it with the homeless kids and stuff
not only that but the league decide to take it into their own hands to teach marvel. cut to videos being released of marvel learning to cook with different leaguers
superman: marv can you pass me a rolling pin? so what you’ve got to do is-
marvel looking at a pot of utensils questioning…. before tentatively holding out a masher: ?
superman: (blinks)
supes probably teaches him how to make apple pie and talk about how if you don’t use the sugar you can use the pie crust to make savoury pies too and blah blah life hack. his parents probably mean he’s the worst offender for trying to shove food or recipes onto marvel
hal and barry prolly teach him how to make like single guy with a shitty job type grind shit that’s like carb loaded and you can just bulk make and store ands got everything you need (cuz they always busy as hell and ain’t rich or anything so don’t got the time or stuff to make tons of food) (it kinda looks like struggle food but yk it gets them through)
hal: so yeah you just dump everything in and if it starts to look radioactive then you know it’s cooked-
billy ‘orphan street rat will eat anything’ batson: damn bitch you live like this? /silly
diana teaches him a greek dish from her childhood that she thinks marvel would feel nostalgic for (i mean billy doesn’t but he remembers eating it in past lives and the thought diana put into it really comforts him)
bruce either a) refuses to teach marvel anything as he himself cannot cook and won’t let the work know that (as all of these cooking videos have been being leaked to the internet who are EATING IT UP like it’s not just fawcett anymore everyone loves cap now becuase you can tell he’s just that authentic cuz his ass does not know these are being filmed) b) cannot cook so it ends up just being a hot mess c) they learn to make a new recipe together d) he has alfred teach him how to make something so he doesn’t embarrass himself e) he teaches marvel how to make struggle food that’s worse than hal and barry’s
marvel: aren’t you funded by a billionaire?
batman: hm
marvel: batman….damn bitch you live like this???????????
everyone just dogs on batman online for like banging bruce wayne (no one believes that the butts match :/ ) and yet still being ass at cooking, like bro is at nuclear levels of damn you live like this with his struggle food
anyways cap finds out about the cooking with cap vids and immediately gets all embarrassed that people know he sucks at cooking, fawcett lay off a little on giving him food now they know that the JL are helping him, but he regularly receives copies of old cook books and someone’s nans favourite recipe and stuff and he’s taking home enough food from the JL to actually eat well and is therefore a lot happier and so the JL are like wow marv really likes cooking, and so at least like once a week (usually more) someone (or sometimes just he will) will cook with him and he’ll take home the left overs (if people eat any otherwise he just takes it all himself (despite him frantically offering the food out to people cuz he feels bad for taking so much))
years later when the identity reveal happens they’re like wow??? this makes so much sense???? i’m so glad we’ve been inadvertently feeding the homeless child??? yippee for him not starving and being more healthy that he would’ve been????
but yeah it’s so silly and i think billy would actually love having the chance to eat foods he’s never had before, especially where he spent so long on the streets that he kinda was forced to like ration and buy cheap food, so like he’s being treated by trying new foods and risking not liking it and stuff
but yeah i just think cap cooking and baking is neat teehee
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I Read Nearly Every Appearance of the Lazarus Pit Before Flashpoint and All I Got Was A Headache: A Meta Commentary
So! The Lazarus Pit!
The Lazarus Pit is obviously an iconic part of the Batman Franchise. We encounter it everywhere, from the Under the Red Hood movie, to the Lazarus Planet event which just ended.
But has the Lazarus Pit always been this way?
It's comics. Of course not.
Very long comic rant with citations below!
The Nu52 and following reboots obviously overhauled Lazarus Lore so completely they're functionally a different thing, so I'm not talking about them. Today, instead, we're talking about post-crisis/pre-Flashpoint Lazarus Pits, their contradictions, and what we can make of them.
The Lazarus Pits have been around nearly as long as Ra's and Talia have been, and even before they appeared, it was clear that Ra's had some method of extending his life.
Batman (1940-2011) #235
The first Lazarus Pit itself seems to be in a chalet in Switzerland, and it's very different than what we will later associate it as. It is instead, a mortuary slab that lowers itself into a pit of "bubbling liquid"
Batman (1940-2011) #243
In these early versions, the Lazarus Pit is portrayed as a medical invention that Ra's has used to extend his life.
It is shown to have consequences, which fandom has, of course, latched onto.
Batman (1940-2011) #244
Here, we see the Lazarus Madness described as including "the strength of ten men", and he is able to be able to resist nearly all attacks from Batman and Lo Ling.
In addition, Ra's claims that he has used the pit too often, which is shown to be the driving force behind his interest in Bruce and his legacy.
Batman (1940-2011) #244
Later appearances of Ra's and the pit throughout this era add a few more interesting tidbits.
He claims that only he can use the Lazarus Pit... but puts Talia in it in that same issue, claiming that it's okay if it's just a quick dip.
Batman (1940-2011) #335
Is Ra's lying about no one else being able to use the pit? Almost certainly. He will start putting anyone he wants into the pit soon enough.
Those with a keen eye might notice that the Lazarus Pit is already going through some aesthetic changes: we're still seeing a slab being lowered into a small pit, but now the liquid within is orange! This will come up a lot!
Next up we have the storyline Grant Morrison refused to read: Son of the Demon.
In Son of the Demon, Ra's claims that there was an earlier version of the Pit, before the final version Bruce has already encountered. In this version, he claims that Mellisande, Talia's mother, was pushed into this proto-pit, and it killed her.
Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)
Denny O'Neil will later retcon this in 1993, claiming that Talia's mother died of a drug overdose, and Ra's refused to bring her back.
But it is consistent in early versions of the story that Lazarus Pits, if not entered with proper care and with the right preparations, can be dangerous.
Bride of the Demon is the next storyline, and Ra's BRINGS the Lazarus Pits in this one. Ra's finds himself a hot MILF girlfriend and puts her in the Pit to make her younger so she can give him kids.
Batman: Bride of the Demon (1990)
This Lazarus Pit is shown to be more experimental than past versions, with Ra's and Dr. Weltmann attempting to prevent the Lazarus Madness factor.
Ra's later puts a child in the pit as a bribe to his father, but the kid had possibly been dead too long, and it was hinted there were going to be long-term consequences for the actions... which were dropped. As was the wife, who was supposedly pregnant at the end of this story. Comics!
This is the first time that limits on the Lazarus Pit are presented, but it is certainly not the last. This idea that there's an upper limit on how long someone can be dead for before a Lazarus Pit doesn't do anything will come back again.
Batman: Birth of the Demon finally brings in a more mystical aspect to the Lazarus Pits, which so far have been vaguely scientific. In this story, we are introduced to the fact that Lazarus Pits are located on the convergence points of leylines (which in-universe have something to do with the electro-magnetic field). Ra's's approximate age is revealed, and it is shown that Bruce and Ra's have been fighting a real-estate battle over sites where Lazarus Pits can be built.
Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)
In flashbacks, we learn that Ra's figured out how to build a Lazarus Pit, and was not actually the first person to use it. Instead, it was for the son of the Sultan Ra's worked for as a physician.
After the Sultan's son went mad, killed Sora, and blamed Ra's for it, Ra's had his vengeance... by putting the son in a false Lazarus Pit.
This pit was sabotaged by not being built on a Leyline. So uh... be careful with those, I guess!
So in short: by the end of this era of Denny O'Neil/Mike Barr Lazarus Lore, we know that anyone can use a Lazarus Pit, but Ra's controls them with his knowledge of how to create them. Bruce can find where they should be by tracking leylines, and will pass this knowledge on to others over time.
We then enter a new era! The Chuck Dixon era, to be specific.
Chuck Dixon has surprisingly few retcons for us. We first really encounter his take on Lazarus Lore in his mini series Bane of the Demon, where Bane works with Ra's and co.
We get a brief recap of the lore here:
Batman: Bane of the Demon #3 (1998)
We are now introduced to an interesting new layer: the Lazarus Pits can be predicted, not just detected. Ra's has headquarters set up all over the world, in places where Lazarus Pits not only are, but will be. Some pit locations appear to remain the same throughout the years (Ra's has built numerous pits on the location of the first site: at least three that we know of), but generally, Lazarus Pits seem to be a one-time deal.
Ra's clearly has dedicated most of his life to these pits; to acquiring their locations, to predicting where they will be, experimenting with how to make them better... so obviously, he guards the formula for how to make them extremely closely, right?
Well. Not according to Chuck.
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (1989-2007) #145
And if you've noticed that head of green hair on the ground there, that's right folks! BRUCE WAYNE PUT A DEAD JOKER IN A LAZARUS PIT HE MADE HIMSELF.
Bruce justifies it by telling Alfred that if he does this, it means Ra's can't use it later. However, it does not change the fact that Bruce put the Joker in a Lazarus Pit. No I'm not going to be over this ever. Jason might have a point, actually.
Ra's decides, after this, that he wants another wife. And he picks Dinah Lance! But whoops, as it happens, Dinah was tortured and can't have kids (also lost her Canary Cry), way back in Green Arrow, before Ollie died! So Ra's decides to throw her in a Lazarus Pit. It... doesn't go well. Lazarus Madness + Restored Canary Cry = one destroyed building.
Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #33
Oh look! We've got locations! And of course every other Lazarus Pit we've seen or will see except Birth of the Demon is nowhere near any of these convergence points!
So! To recap the current state of the lore: Lazarus Pits are a combination of science and magic. They are an alchemical creation, built on leyline nodes. Generally, they are one-use only, or at least they require centuries to be re-usable. They can resurrect the newly-dead, but but Ra's is very cautious about letting other people use them, probably because he's a control freak, and he doesn't have too many of them left.
We depart the Dixon era and enter... the Nyssa Raatko era.
Nyssa is introduced in Death and the Maidens, with Greg Rucka, who is a huge fan of Denny O'Neil, still sticking pretty close to the original lore.
Here, we see that Bruce has still been on his kick of preventing Ra's from building more Lazarus Pits by buying up real estate where they could be. This forced Ra's to try to reconcile with his daughter Nyssa, who he gave a Lazarus Pit to sometime in the 1700s.
Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003-2004) #1
"But hey!" I can hear you say. "Isn't part of the thing that you mentioned earlier is that they're one-use?"
Well they are! For Ra's.
Nyssa, however, is a smart lady.
Nyssa, at some point in her life, figured out how to make a Lazarus Pit reusable. So she's been getting a lot of mileage out of this baby, and has been since the 1700s.
This story also presents an explanation for why the Lazarus Pit is sometimes green and sometimes orange: Nyssa's is orange and Ra's has green ones. I guess maybe the earlier orange pits that Ra's had were him trying to make them reusable like Nyssa? Hmm.
Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003-2004) #4
When questioned about it, Nyssa tells Talia that there used to be more pits, so he was less protective of them when he gave her this one.
Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003-2004) #6
At the end of this storyline, Ra's is dead, Nyssa is the new Ra's al Ghul, and according to Bruce, she has the only Lazarus Pit left.
Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003-2004) #9
Nyssa pops up again in Batgirl, facing off against Cass, and brags about her special pit again. Cass and Shiva both get dips in it. Fun times!
Batgirl (2000-2006) #69
Yes, the torture hooks are a reoccurring feature of Nyssa's pit. I don't know why.
But wait! A brief interlude!
Jason Todd came back to comics in a storyline: Under the Hood, in 2005, which wrapped up in 2006. We weren't told how Jason came back in the story itself, but a few months after Under the Hood ended, we get Batman Annual #25, which shows Talia shoving Jason into a Lazarus Pit while Ra's was using it.
Batman Annual #25 (2006)
There's no discussion about if this is a weird dip. He's got brain activity again though!
This is revisited again in Red Hood: The Lost Days, but it doesn't really add anything from the point of Lazarus Lore, except that Ra's posits that Jason, having already been resurrected, could have suffered some long-term consequences, unlike literally anyone else who had a dip.
Red Hood: The Lost Days (2010-2011) #2
Anyways, enough Jason! Nyssa gets killed off-page in OYL, so she's gone now, Talia's running the show and oh fuck it's Morrison-era. And Morrison never bothered to read any other Ra's or Talia story because it wasn't Silver Age or something. So... retcon time!
The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul attempts to retell Birth of the Demon, but with a few retcons. The pits were discovered, not made, being the official point in which the Lazarus Pits become purely magical phenomena, rather than a work of alchemy.
Batman Annual #26 (2007)
Bruce also mentions that the Pits are connected to actual waterways, which is a massive difference from the shallow pits from earlier eras.
This era does however confirm the concept that older bodies, further along in the decay process, probably shouldn't be dipped in the Lazarus Pit. At least, Dick convinced Tim of this fact after a little while.
(Also White Ghost wants a perfectly healthy, alive Tim to bathe in the Lazarus Pit, and this is never explained. Maybe it was a distraction?)
Nightwing (1996-2009) #139
In this era, and the Batman: Reborn era following it, the Lazarus Pits are pretty absent, but the few references we do get from this point forward (including in Red Hood: The Lost Days, which are published in 2010-2011), tend to use the Morrison-era canon that the pits are natural. And also we're back to having a lot of them, instead of just Nyssa's singular one in the Balkans, and, since Ra's has a new young(er) body, there's no sense of urgency to buy up/prevent him from making new pits. Potentially, Dusan/White Ghost took advantage of the fact that the Bats thought Ra's was dead to buy back the real-estate and make new pits, but that's using the pre-Morrison lore. I guess in Morrison era, the Bats just... don't know where Pits are until they find one, and then they blow it up.
We also no longer see any one-time-use limitations. One could assume that Talia figured out the formula Nyssa used to keep the pits reusable and told Ra's, if we're trying to merge the canons.
And that's not even counting whatever is happening in the post-Flashpoint era. Lazarus Planet gives me a headache. Let's not talk about it just now.
Anyways, in short: I think the artificial, single-use Lazarus Pits are way more fun. But anyways, here's the citations to help you decide what YOU think Lazarus Lore should be!
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DP x DC Black Parade AU (inspired by... well... The Black Parade by MCR)
- - -
Constantine had mentioned an event known as The Black Parade, or The Spirits' Travel, something Batman had never heard of outside his own music habits (that he would never admit to).
[SOMETHING SOMETHING, BATCLAN MEMBERS PLUS J.C. END UP AT A CLIFF TO WATCH THE EVENT]
Dick watched the stars as he stood dangerously close to the edge, clearly awestruck. Damian was not as interested by them. The stars only brought back memories made bitter and painful by loss, memories of him and his brother when they were little.
"Uh, what's that noise?"
The Bats and Birds immediately snapped to attention at Duke's words, alert for any potential threats. A faint repetitive drumming could be heard, like what one would expect from the lead drummer in a marching band.
Constantine huffed in amusement as he flicked the excess ash off of his cigarette before making a vague remark about the parade approaching. As he brought the cigarette to his lips, toxic-green whisps began to curl up from the ground before dissipating, a slow wave of appearances starting from their lefts and spreading rightward as the drumming drew closer.
"What is this, Constantine?" Batman questioned, though it sounded more like a cross between a growl and a threat.
"Exactly what you signed up for, Bats. Now, I'd recommend that you all stand back for this; you wouldn't want to be taken them." He retorted, gesturing with his half-gone cigarette off towards where the drumming seemed to be coming from.
The vigilantes' heads snapped over to the left, internally startled by what they saw.
A massive, glowing green parade was coming towards them, moving through the air like an Asian dragon. It was populated with obviously non-human people, dancing, flying, twirling, laughing, and playing as they continued through the sky. Many were playing a wide variety of instruments or singing, but it all blended together into a happy, content, but somber melody. The green whisps twirled and drifted through the air around them like anti-gravity confetti, along with chittering blobs of the same color and red beady eyes. But one thing caught Damian's attention quickly.
"Why are they glowing Lazarus-green?" He snapped at the blonde.
"It's ectoplasm, kid. Lazarus is just corrupted ectoplasm." Constantine responded calmly.
Left with more questions than answers, Damian turned his attention back to the ghosts that were now flying directly past the group. Some waved as they flew past, including a few children that made Bruce and Dick's hearts clench.
Near the end of the precession, they heard a faint, young voice that caught their attentions, though not more than Damian's.
"Wait up, Cujo!"
As the end of the parade approached, so did a young, white-haired, bright green-eyed teenager flying after a Lazarus-green dog. He laughed as the dog suddenly turned around from the chase, jumping off of nothing and into his arms. The teen smiled widely as he drifted along, holding the puppy closely.
As the ghost got closer, Damian ran to the edge of the cliff, only held back by a startled Dick.
"DANYAL!!" He shouted, reaching out for the boy.
The ghost's head snapped up, looking directly at Damian with shock written across his features. The dog leapt from his arms, bounding away and into the crowd. As green eyes locked onto a domino mask, he spoke almost breathlessly.
"Dami?"
Tears threatened to escape Damian's eyes as he reached out desperately for the other boy, held back by his brother along with Constantine as well. "DANYAL!"
The white-haired boy's eyes widened as he seemingly came to a realization. "DAMI!" He yelled, attempting to fly to Damian as he reached for him. Some of the other ghosts nearby wheeled around as they noticed what he was trying to do, a few grabbing him.
One with long blue hair(?) and a guitar had him held on one side as they quickly began to speak to him. "Woah there, Babypop! Stay together, you know how dangerous it is to get separated!"
The teen in their arms shook his head as tears streamed down his face, slowly being pulled farther from his black-haired counterpart. "NO, NO, PLEASE! DAMIAN!!" He nearly begged, reaching out as far as he could.
Damian had nearly slashed through the men holding him, his father having to join in to keep him back as he thrashed in their holds. Face twisted in emotional agony, he shouted once more. "DANNY!!"
"I'LL FIND YOU! I PROMISE! I'LL FIND YOU!" Danny shouted as his spot in the parade drew closer and closer to a portal that had opened outside of the humans' collective notice. "STAY SAFE; I WILL FIND YOU-!" Cut off by the portal, the last traces of the collective of ghosts disappeared.
Swirling itself out of existence, the portal disappeared with all of the fight left in the youngest vigilante. He collapsed to the ground, silent and nearly unmoving.
"Baby Bat?" Dick asked, concern lacing his tone. When his brother didn't respond, he gently reached out, slowly pulling him into a hug. When he didn't get a response, he held him closer.
"Robin."
Neither Damian nor Dick responded in any way to Bruce's prompting.
"Who was that?"
- - -
Sorry for how rough this is, I just wanted to get the idea out before I forgot! Essentially, Danny and Damian are twins, and when they were, like, four, Danny got dunked in the Lazarus Pits but didn't come back up from it, instead being taken through the Infinite Realms for a few moments before getting flung back out through another, smaller rift between dimensions. He was found by Jazz while the Doctors Fenton were out doing their ghost hunting thing. They adopted him and that was that.
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