#Does this mean that Gotham took the place of NYC?

[i-guess-batman]

Ummm. Who was going to tell me the in The Batman (2022) Gotham City is in New York state? What happened to Gotham being in New Jersey?

This means that Metropolis isn't across the Delaware bay. No twin cities. No Metropolis in Delaware.

Most of all we miss out on the magic of Bruce struggling to get gas when out as Batman in NJ. (Like the Batmobile is low and he has to stop to get an attendant to pump his gas.) Now that has to be the real reason why this man allowed a nine year old sunshine child to come fight crime with him at night.

Battinson would rely on Dick to do a lot of 'translating' for him. Imagine all of the questions that would be able to be asked at crime scenes with a Robin who could figure out what he wanted to ask by a look or a small hum. Magic right there. 10/10. This version of Batman has so much potential to be serious and awkwardly funny at the same time.

[tripsonflatground]

Is it just me, or is it kinda capitalist that in order to get new superheroes, people kill off or age up the old ones and then put the new heroes in the same role/identity? Like, they killed Peter Parker to have Miles Morales. Bucky Barnes and Falcon/Sam Wilson both became Captain America after the death or age & retirement of Steve Rogers, depending on whether you’re looking at the comics or the MCU. Batman goes through Robins and Batgirls like it’s going out of style (and seriously, why does Dick Grayson let other people be Robin? That was a personal nickname from his birth family, right? Why would he give something so intimate away?). Replacing someone else and living up to their legacy rather than making your own path was a whole plot point/theme in Spider-man: Far From Home!

There are exceptions to this, like X-23 and Wolverine, who have managed to have some form of a father-daughter relationship in the comics (although, if memory serves, I believe he’s been killed in recent comics and she replaced him as Wolverine - though I haven’t read anything recent, so I might be wrong, and in the film Logan they killed him off). And things like Conner/Superboy from Young Justice being created with the idea to replace Superman doesn’t count in the same way because it was a villainous plot and Con didn’t end up following through. And there’s a new Ms. Marvel now that Carol Danvers is Captain Marvel, which is a much better alternative considering that Carol wasn’t using that identity anymore.

The idea I’m trying to get at, if it isn’t clear, is that the costume identity, AKA Spider-man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. seems to me the thing that’s given value while the person behind the mask is more recently being treated as expendable/dispensable. Which doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, because the person created the mask, and so much of themselves and who they are and what their goals are drove the reasons behind the creation of the identity and the way they behave in that identity. It’s like being a kid and trying on your parents’ clothes or getting hand-me-downs, even if it fits, you didn’t exactly choose it, and you look different wearing it. And I’m calling this capitalist because it feels like capitalism. If we equate being a superhero to a job, which in many ways it really is, especially if you are employed by an organization to do it like SHIELD, then the value is being placed on the role/job, and not with the labor. Capitalism doesn’t give a shit who’s doing the job and how they’re being treated as long as it’s getting done. Employees in the service/retail industry get treated like shit and don’t get paid enough but that will never change unless people have other options and aren’t desperate enough to accept those conditions and get something better. Recently, with the deaths and/or replacements of superheroes in order to have someone else fill the identity in comics and films, the individuals behind the mask, who are the real source of emotional connection and relatability, not the mask, seem to have become dispensable in the eyes of the creators.

And I do get that it’s a shortcut and an attempt to bring in new audiences by putting more modern characters into recognizable roles. But why does the original character have to *die*?

Yeah, superhero-ism is a dangerous occupation, sure, but doesn’t death seem like the most extreme option? It’s not as if there aren’t other possibilities:

1.Having characters be located somewhere else other than New York City or its fictional equivalent (Metropolis, Gotham, etc). There are other major cities in the US where crime happens, let alone other cities in the world. Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle, Philadelphia. Who doesn’t want to imagine a Spider-man or a Batman with a Boston accent? Wouldn’t it be a cool storyline if other Kryptonians not related to Superman escaped Krypton and eventually made it to Earth and moved to different cities and took up mantles and eventually the Kryptonian race could start rebuilding on Earth? Talk about a really interesting and positive way to show a diasporic community. And also, it doesn’t make any sense statistically that the majority of the world’s superheroes are in the US. Put some in Toronto, Paris, London, Cairo, Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Rome, Athens, Rio, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Seoul, Istanbul, etc. If the Olympics happen there, then there’s probably a lot of people that need saving and crime happening. It’s especially dumb with the alien invasion stories where they show the audience aliens popping up in places other than NYC and suddenly the heroes have to get other there, like unless you got super-speed or teleportation, it’s going to take a while, and how are you even going to communicate with the civilians if there’s a language barrier?

2.Having characters be from other dimensions. Marvel and DC have a history of playing with alternate timelines and multi-verse theory. Into The Spiderverse was a super-popular movie that inspired tons of people to make their own Spidersonas, and the lesson that can be taken from it is that you can take a character and make it still feel unique or individualistic even if you’re using similar themes. Maybe instead of the dimensions having evil versions they have to fight or being fucked up in some other way, make the new version of Wonder Woman or Iron Man or whatever be from an alternate dimension and end up in the main because of science/magic, or a dimension-hopping villain they’re fighting, or an accident, or to get help from other versions of themselves, or even escaping from an apocalypse/doomsday from their own universe. It’s so easy to either send them back to their own universe when you decide you’re done playing with them or keep them around if you want them permanently. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if the Captain America we’re familiar with met a Captain America from an alternate universe where he fought in the American Revolution or for the Union in the Civil War or even in WW1 or Vietnam?

3.Having female characters take on feminine versions of the identity, or vice versa, or non-binary characters find a way to have a gender-neutral version. This has been done with Hulk and She-Hulk, Superman and Supergirl, Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel back when Captain Marvel was a dude, Spider-man’s daughter May was Spider-girl at one point, Batman’s cousin or something is Batwoman. There’s also been some adjacents, such as AntMan and Wasp or Wolverine and X-23. There are definitely ways that you can use a familiar identity to put more female and non-binary superheroes out there. I mean, military titles (the Captains) or even names like Black Panther, Green Lantern, and Flash aren’t even gendered. You can feminize names if you want to, but I’m pretty sure the female Hawkeye is just straight-up Hawkeye. People like Thor I feel differently about because Thor’s an actual mythological character, not something Marvel came up with, but you could just use a different Norse god/goddess? And yeah, Dr. Strange is the man’s actual name so that’s also a little different, but if he had a daughter or a non-binary child who also got their doctorate, they are in fact entitled to call themselves Dr. Strange rather than something lesser. Not to mention, that whole alternate universe versions point I just made? Yeah, these can be characters from gender-bent alternate universes or a universe where humans are androgynous or something.

4.Have multiple characters use the same secret identity. This would be the perfect concept for twins or friends with the same build. The bank’s been robbed but A is on a date? B can totally show up at the scene! B got really hurt in their last fight? A’s got them covered. There’s a bit of risk to it, like if people recognize they have different voices or someone notices them at two different crises happening at the same time, but that’s just what makes the challenge of pretending to be the same person interesting. And it could get even more complex if you had triplets doing it, or four college roommates, or whatever. It’s also a great excuse to be able to write deep interpersonal relationships and identity struggles. Hell, can you imagine how much scarier multiple Batmans would be? They could play even more on the “you never know where he’s going to be next or what shadow he could be hiding in” thing, like, just when the crook thinks he’s lost Batman, another comes out out of nowhere.

And if superhero writers don’t want to do any of this, there’s also the C-List and D-List heroes that maybe got introduced in like the 70′s or 80′s or whatever but didn’t take or ended up being a blip in another character’s backstory. If you want more modern superheros connected to the major ones so you can use them in the same stories, it is totally valid IMO to try revitalizing these obscure concepts. I have a vested interest in seeing if Monica Rambeau shows up as her hero identity Photon in the Captain Marvel sequel. This idea is still using what you have, but it doesn’t capitalize the lives of the characters you have or make them expendable in any way. In fact, it’s also kind of like recycling, or the opposite of capitalism, because you’re trying to use alternative resources or all of your resources instead of very specific ones to the point of over-saturation.

Look, I’m just very tired of superheroes getting killed off to be replaced by someone else using the same identity or because it’s edgy or dark or whatever. Even a debilitating injury that leaves them in a wheelchair or blind or deaf is a hell of a lot more interesting. Once a character’s dead, they’re dead, there’s nowhere else you can take them unless you bring them back to life  (which admittedly happens a lot in superhero universe) or have them hang around as a ghost or something. It’s boring, it doesn’t give the audience any closure and just messes with their emotions for shock value, and it promotes toxic capitalism.

[baskervilleshund]

4,5 years of Gotham in my life♥

Wow my emotions these last days. I’m not much of a text poster on this site but when Gotham ended I really felt I wanted to write this!

Gotham has been a huge part of my life for so long now. 4 years and 7 months since the first episode aired, that’s some time gosh. And so much has happened during this journey! I just wanna mention some memorable things during these years. Like remember the pre-s02x09 excitement?? And other stuffs, ah here we go!

The first trailer made me SO EXCITE, I had wanted more batman villains content for years since I have always found the batman villains squad so interesting and good and unique characters, there is so much to explore here! And so the Gotham trailer came and I just OH MY GOD this is exactly what I want!! And so it started and it was amazing. My first love was Ed, it took him his first scene in ep1 to make me go totally THIS IS MY FAV! More eps went on and I required more Ed content. But then Oswald slowly grew on me kinda out of nowhere like I wasn’t expecting it. And when amazing ep7 aired it just hit down on me from the sky, like it does when I know I got a new obsession/fandom. Oswald’s amazing scenes in ep7 and I went ”Okay this is it, I’M DEEP INTO THIS NOW AND I LOVE IT!”. In exactly THIS↓ scene/moment I basically said those words out loud and realized this is my life now, ugh also one of my fav looks I miss the bangs:

Shortly after ep7 I started shipping Nygmobblepot, since we knew who these characters were and who they will end up being it made SO much sense in this show, they were like the two familiar main villains in kinda the same age and I also loved them both so I mean it was obvious for me. Man in the beginning we were so very few in the shipping Nygmob pond, in the OCEAN of Gobblepot. It was a bit of a struggle sometimes, ppl wrote hate on my Nygmob posts n stuff shrug. And I just didn’t get how not more ppl could see it? It would make more sense if this were new characters like they hadn’t even met but since we knew this is Riddler and Penguin it just was fate for them to cross paths soon enough! We needed Nygmob content! I started making tons of my own AU:s since if the show wouldn’t give us content I would do it.

BUT we had Robin & Cory with us! Reminder that Cory invented the shipname after 5 minutes and Robin & Cory’s amazing twitter activity during s1 especially I will always remember as a fav. Remember when they we’re so into roleplaying Nygmob and spoke how Ed & Os loved each other and all sorts of things. All about going to The Foxglove together and stuff. Ugh it was amazing, I miss their interactions.  

In this very smol pond is when one day my shining star @conscience-killer (aka okimi79)  approached me, with this ♥ ”Sometimes I feel we’re the only Nygmobblepot shippers in the world…well apart from Robin and Cory. We should have a secret handshake or something.”

And man did we get a secret handshake! Gosh MY DEAR OKIMI! That I up til this day since then has spoken with like everyday for 4,5 years, you are amazing ♥ And in that time of so few shippers it felt even more special, to have  someone else out there as obsessed as me. I’m so grateful we found each other at exactly that time and we’ve been through so much on this journey ♥.

When Nygmob in spring finally had their first scene it was so amazing and I have no idea how many times I have watched that scene to this day, and also with that the ship grew a bit yas!!

Let’s jump forward a bit. NYC Comic Con 2015 in fall, one of my fav Robin & Cory cons/interview times! Because the legendary ep 2x9 was soon upon us and OMG remember how excite they were in those interviews!?! And THEN, that fkn night THE episode aired. I couldn’t believe it was real, it was EVERYTHING we had dreamed of!!! SO MUCH NYGMOB CONTENT and so in character and gosh. Man their season 2 relationship is just so beautiful and I love it til this day and 2x9 is forever my favorite episode because it meant EVERYTHING for us shippers and more people also started seeing the connection between Nygmob and so more ppl started to make content and join in!

A time after another shining star came into my life, @constant-sinner (aka (riddlelvr) ♥ This amazing person and artist! And together with her and okimi I am part of the best trash family of three and I can’t believe I’ve been a mom (yet i’m the youngest but i’m fashion fur coat mom okay) to these trash sinners for like 4 years. ♥

Okay but remember all INSANE SMAYLOR CONTENT BEFORE SEASON 3!!? Man that was also one of the best times I had during these years. God they were so excite for their relationship in s3 and WEREN’T WE ALL! And omg Comic Con. I had my fkn header for 3 years soon lol, man that moment I remember seeing the signing booth stream all casual and Robin & Cory goes “Smaaylor!! Nygmobblepot!!! ;))” And I’m just wait WHUT omg. Their press tours with Sean is something I’ll miss even more than the episodes, always such a joy seeing those three together!

And when season 3 started it was just insane. To be honest how their relationship grew in s3 that’s how I expected it to grow after their meeting in s1, it made sense already back then. Ed admiring Oswald and sneaking to his club and Oswald would be a huge part of Ed’s journey to become the Riddler but ah well, I did my best with my AU:s back then!

And then s3 came and Gotham EXPLODED and I had no idea where all million ppl suddenly came from lol. It became huge. But since it still feels kinda close to this day (2,5 yrs though man), my most nostalgic feels will always be over s1-2 so I’m not gonna write so much about the season 3-5 times in this text. My closest to heart milestones is during the first years and now that I’ve seen all episodes I still think season 1 is the best overall, except the lack of Nygmob content ofc ;)

I’ve not just felt love for the show ofc, the show isn’t perfect. There has been serious flaws and bad writing and plot drops. Tbh s4 I just felt so NOPE about? 22 eps of waste…Like Ed’s plot for example like he barley had his own plot what happened? And we also have the q*eerbait Nygmob issue obviously. I have also felt the show has been a bit childish being -helloo- GOTHAM city we’re talking about? I think it would have been much better off with a MA-rating tbh to properly tell certain stories. After s4 though I’m glad in s5 Nygmob finally got some proper screen time being together and in character!! Like that’s how their relationship should have been from beginning of season 4, or season 1 if u ask me lol but ya know!

BUT I LOVE THIS SHOW, the amazing actors and characters and scenery and costumes!! Ed, Oswald, Robin & Cory will ofc always have the most special place in my heart ♥ The Nygmob journey in the show has meant so much to me to follow it from day one and I never knew how much this show would mean to me when I started back in the day.

This show. And not just the show itself but my journey and life around it!!? So much has happened. For one example I had made a bit of gifs before but Gotham really got me into gif making, and it’s been a joy sharing content and my Nygmob AU will always be among my most fun things I’ve done, it was like if they ain’t gonna give us enough content I WILL. It’s a fun way of gif making to manip scenes to create something new! And today I still enjoy making gifs, as you probably know heh. Thanks so much for all nice comments and reblogs through all these years ya’ll!! It warms my heart and I love to read reblog tags! 

I have been at con and got to meet Robin, enjoyed so many interviews and promos, chatted with wonderful people. Every Friday night I have been up in my Europe timezone at 2am to live watch the show, the workdays after has been a bit of a struggle of being tired with going to bed like 5am lol but man it’s been so nice to follow it when it airs!

Watching together with my dearest @conscience-killer and @constant-sinner . Two of the best that happened to me during these years. These two people that I’ve spoken with like everyday for 4 years! Through Gotham finding two of my dearest friends in my life. Watching the show together and screaming, crying, laughing during this journey, about not just the show but EVERYTHING in life. They also are amazing writers and artists ♥ And also helped me endless times with gif caption when my non-native brain trying to write gif captions at 3am after the episode lol. All my love to you both ♥

THANKS TO ALL AMAZING PEOPLE that impacted me over these years. The cast and nice fandom people! My dearest @conscience-killer and @constant-sinner. And I also wanna mention dear @millicentcordelia and @selene-volturo that are amazing ppl that have been here with me since the very beginning of season 1. And they have always been so down to earth even during the stormiest periods of this show’s existence ♥ I’m so glad we’ve shared this LONG journey!

And also hugs to my dear mutual fandom friends that I’ve shared hours of conversations with over the years. Some of us maybe don’t speak as much nowadays and some of us have gone separate ways with new interests but I hope you know who you all are, regardless if we spoke yesterday or 2015. You have made my fandom time a joy!

I’m actually okay with the show ending now you know. Ofc it’s a bit sad but as I said I felt s4 was kinda stomping around in the same spot and even s5 had some fillers like they didn’t have more to do to push the story forward? The last ep was a nice easter egg wrap up for this LONG journey. And I mean shows live on with fan content, and who knows maybe it will return somehow? But it feels good they told us it would end so I was prepared for this and to say ”goodbye”. But it’s not goodbye because content will continue on this site and I’ll continue re-enjoy this show!

This is 4,5 years. In 2 pages, I could prob write 20 but ah, but i felt I got to to summary the most important things for me over these years ♥. This show and stuff that came with it will always be such a big part of my life, ALL LOVE AND HUGS!

[davidmann95]

Why is spiderman so great?

The same thing needs to be said upfront here as with Superman and Batman: what makes a character good - at least in the sense of defining core principles of their personality and themes - is not the same thing as what makes them successful. That’s a necessary ingredient, but Spider-Man didn’t climb to the top of the merchandising heap on the back of Peter Parker worrying about his money problems. What was much more relevant - starting at the visceral mass-appeal stuff and working our way down - is likely that:

Everything about Spider-Man and his world looks cool

Each aspect of how Spider-Man looks and moves is calibrated to be slick as hell. He’s got that nifty Steve Ditko costume that shouldn’t work at all with how much detail it has going on and how much it obscures what his deal actually is with traditional superhero elements, but it comes out to a streamlined whole that accentuates how his body curls and angles itself around, and obscuring he’s based on spiders isn’t a problem because they’re the actual worst. He doesn’t just run or fly, but cirque du soleil’s through endless freefall on manmade tightropes and swings that he sticks to and contorts himself around at impossible angles. And he does it all through the most iconic skyline in America - Gotham’s creepy, Metropolis is generic, the other Marvel heroes (aside from a couple in Hell’s Kitchen) use NYC as a base for adventures elsewhere, but Spidey’s the Manhattan hero, ducking and weaving through neon and brick in three dimensions. Add the little storytelling touches on top like the spider-sense lightning and his mask and face appearing at the same time, and his adventures are just cool to look at in a way unlike any other superhero.

His power fantasy is physically easy to imagine

I commented with Superman that he just does what we do but better, and it’s much the same with Spider-Man, but on an even smaller, more intimate scale. His only powers that aren’t just better versions of the things we already do (though not SO much better as to become incomprehensible) are:

* He’s sticky

* He swings from ropes

* He gets a bad feeling about things

We know what those are like. We can imagine the sensations that accompany being him in a way that few other superheroes can match, and therefore watching him do what he does has a certain extra power to it that doesn’t come with watching a hero use telepathy or a wishing ring.

Spider-Man’s funny

So before moving past a picture and the ‘Powers’ section of his Marvel’s Who’s Who entry he’s got a lot going for him, but that’s not the same as a character. But he’s got that too, to an extent even takes as far afield as the Sam Raimi movies at least somewhat understood the biggest detail: Spider-Man’s a goof. Not of the winking-at-the-screen untouchable Bugs Bunny type Deadpool’s popularized lately, but a dope mouthing off in the face of danger because he’s too scared to shut up; whether or not he’s even actually successfully funny almost matters less than that he makes the effort while he’s fighting for his life, and the personality that lends him in the middle a fight where most superheroes default to grimacing silence. The surface qualities I talked about earlier help here too; his spindly figure and ability to get himself into just about any position help with the physical side of comedy, and even ducking the obvious metaphor, him firing silly string and goo all over the place (where it can fizzle out at any moment) like a one-man birthday clown doesn’t hurt. And that he doesn’t put up a serious front additionally means he can FREAK RIGHT OUT when under fire in a way that his colleagues can’t, giving him that little extra range in the right circumstances.

Spider-Man’s the ‘normal’ one

That he acts like a normal human (albeit one asking for a sock in the jaw) in the middle of fights points to the other defining side of his day-to-day adventures: he’s the hero who’s one of us. That’s a gimmick that’s a dime a dozen these days - in fact, Spider-Man didn’t even have the defining “superhero being a normal person” comic of the decade, that was Hawkeye - but he’s original and the A-lister who plays by those rules, and that gives him a cultural foothold that can’t be matched. It’s not just the big, soap-operatic material like his Aunt’s health troubles or losing his job or his friends trying to kill him either; it’s catching the flu, it’s his costume shrinking in the wash, it’s fighting crime for a couple weeks with his arm in a sling or trying to hold a conversation over the phone while people are shooting at him. These ‘what makes X great’ posts of mine tend to focus on what makes characters immediately and obviously connect to a general audience that generally pays attention to them for about 2 1/2 hours every 2-3 years, and with Spider-Man it’s obvious - his adventures are seeped in the mundane of everyday life in a way completely divorced from any other major superhero, and that makes it easy to look at him and go “hah, his costume’s soaked in the rain and he can’t get the boot off/he screwed up and took his mask off while someone was looking/he didn’t stick the landing and fell on his ass! Yeah, I know that feel, that’s probably how I’d be as a superhero too”.

Spider-Man’s a great character

And this comes last: not what draws ‘em in, but what keeps ‘em. Skipping past anything and everything to do with power, responsibility, and dead uncles, Peter Parker’s an interesting dude, because by all rights he should have been a supervillain. On the second page of his first story he’s all but thinking “I’ll show them! I’ll show them all!!!”, his immediate instinct is to make money, and his defining trait at first aside from power and ego is that he’s a budding mad scientist; May and Ben tried their best, and he loves them for it, but Parker’s been hurt by the world every day of his life and hasn’t developed any meaningful concept of why he should bother doing anything for it. But then what happens, happens...and in the original stories, he keeps being an asshole, only quitting showbusiness when he can’t cash the checks, only getting into crimefighting so he can sell pictures of his adventures. He’s just not a very good person by nature; he’s petty and vindictive, short-sighted, fearful, and above all arrogant.

But slowly, painfully, he learns his lesson, over and over and over again. He realizes what happens when he brushes aside his duties, he comes out of his shell and opens up to people, he goes from self-aggrandizing and self-pitying to self-effacing. In other words he stops being a shitty teenager and gets it beat into his head what it means to be a grownup, and no matter how much the world craps on his shoulders he takes it in his stride (give or take an understandable breakdown) and figures his way through it to the next crisis, because he remembers what happens when he shrugs his shoulders and lets the world just roll on past him as not his problem. That may be guilt talking more than principle or reason much of the time, but that’s what makes him vulnerable and scared and human; he fucks up hard and frequently, and keeps going because he can’t quit even when he wants to. He’s just some dude getting by in spite of himself; in other words, he’s the hero who could be you.