#cancel teen titans go

[kenzie-ann27]

I want you to understand. Everything I went through, everything I've accomplished. Everything I've suffered. It's all here. Inside me, and now... it's in you.

Joseph Wilson | Teen Titans (2003 - 2006)

[ordinaryschmuck]

I love that The Ghost and Molly McGee's forced cancellation isn't just frustrating to fans of the show but to people in the animation industry as well. They're just as sick as we are about how much studios disrespect animation. They keep looking for the next Spongebob, Simspons, or goodness forbid Family Guy, but instead having faith in the creators and their content, they just...wait. They wait to make a profit and do the bare minimum to market their shows and make them available.

Let's look at Gravity Falls for example. I remember that when Gravity Falls was still airing, you would be able to find out a new episode was coming out based on coming across a commercial by random chance or by the people working the show promoting it online. Add that with the fact that it was on a different channel that required you paying MORE for your cable to get it. It WAS available through Disney Channel, a channel more available at a cheaper price, but the entire of Season Two got moved to the more expensive Disney XD, where Disney shows go to die, because...REASONS. With no warning or announcement. I think I found out about Gravity Falls moving to Disney XD because the trailer played during a commercial break. And that's just the START the show's problems. Mixed in with poor marketing, the show would have a crazy inconsistent schedule, where we'd have four episodes a week, a few months of NOTHING, a few more episodes a week, nothing for a few months, a random episode playing between that nothingness with next to no promotion, and all of that happening to the rest of the show until it finally died a slow death with its series finale where four episodes got stretched out for six months. That...is NOT okay. And it doesn't stop with Gravity Falls.

Steven Universe, OK KO, Ducktales 2017, Amphibia, The Owl House, and now Ghost and Molly McGee are all shows that had similar and sometimes WORSE treatments as Gravity Falls did, where the networks gave next to NO marketing, the creators had to promote their own shows themselves, and the airing schedules were so inconsistent with wildly long hiatuses that only the most dedicated fans were willing to keep watching. General audiences (mainly kids) weren't willing to keep up with shows that had ongoing stories if the episodes stories kept being too spaced apart and never had reruns as frequent as other shows like Teen Titans Go or Big City Greens (Or whatever's constantly on network TV nowadays. I don't know. I mostly watch shit on streaming).

The people of the animation industry is catching onto all of these tricks, and they're getting sick of it. They're getting sick of inconsistent schedules. They're getting sick of trying to bend over backwards in every possible way to make the show they wanted. By either making serialized content as episodic as possible so the network could air it more or by condensing their stories as much as they can, already expecting that forced cancellation to happen sooner than later. And in some cases, they don't even get the luxury of being told their show is ending. Did you know that Inside Job and Paranormal Park both had seasons that were already in development before Netflix pulled the plug shortly after releasing new episodes of their shows? Did you know that The Ghost and Molly McGee was already working on a Season Three before Disney shut that down so they had to force out a series finale that would still be good despite the cancellation? Because it's true. It's ALWAYS true. Creators want to make MORE, but the studios won't let them because they didn't profit off of it. Except they WOULD HAVE if they treated it better.

I want kids to grow up with characters that stick around through their childhood, just like I did with mine. I want kids to have their own Ed, Edd n Eddy, Codename: Kids Next Door, Phineas and Ferb, or Kim Possible. I want kids to watch shows that last more than two-three seasons, stick around for years, and leave an impact as if they have all the time in the world because to them, it feels like they do. I want kids to have a show that ends on a high note because the creators wanted it and not because the networks demanded it. But the unfortunate thing is that it doesn't seem possible nowadays. Because if a mostly episodic show like The Ghost and Molly McGee fails, despite being charming and inoffensive and something most kids will love, the what hope IS left.

[theliterarywolf]

Learning that the guy behind that 'if you've ever pirated a show or you haven't bought merch, YOU'RE the reason it got cancelled' comic is a storyboard artist for Teen Titans Go

AKA Cartoon Network's equivalent to SpongeBob as in 'Nothing, not even the mighty, unyielding cry of Angel Israfil's trumpet, will get Cartoon Network to cancel this show'

Puts a lot of things into perspective.

But mostly just how tone-deaf his comments and his follow-ups were even after dozens of people in the industry came out to say 'oh yeah, let me just watch my show that was cancelled by Networks and nuked out of existence'

[trexiejan]

What Batman thinks of Starfire.

Okay so I've seen many people curious about what Batman thinks of Starfire. I've seen a lot of people say Batman hates her and that he doesn't trust her cuz she's an alien and cuz he's a dickbabs shipper. I will explain why those statement aren't true. That's not who the original Batman is.

Let's go back to the original canon before all the stupid ooc retcons were created.

The first time Batman ever mentioned Starfire's name was in Tales of The Teen Titans #50 (1985) where Dick and Kory have already been dating for years.

and behold

- Bruce never referred to Kory as "the alien" he called her by her real name.

- He knows his son is in a real serious relationship with her.

- Bruce never made any bad comments about her nor did he show contempt for their relationship.

- He acted like a kind father who just wants to know how his son is doing with the woman he loves.

The 2nd time he mentioned her is in Swamp Thing #53 (1986) where he defended Human/Alien relationships like Dick and Kory's.

again he called her by her actual name and showed no issue towards Dick and Kory's relationship.

The 3rd time was in Funeral For a Friend (1993) where Bruce greeted her and Dick. He was happy to see both of them attending Superman's funeral. And for the 3rd time he called her by her actual name.

The Original Batman was a kind father who respected his son's alien girlfriend. Who wasn't spiteful and xenophobic towards Starfire and doesn't compare her to Barbara. and no, he wasn't a pro-dickbabs shipper. That ship didn't even exist before they retconned a lot of shit.

That everything changed after Dick and Kory got broken up. Reason for their break up? The Bat-editorial demanded they wanted Dick Grayson back to the Bat-office. The Titans Editorial had no choice but to pull him out of the Titans books and hand him back to the Bateditorial.

The Bat-editorial didn't like the idea of Dick dating someone outside the Batfamily like Kory so they couldn't continue their relationship in the Bat-books. It needed to end. The original wedding plan for Dick and Kory got cancelled. They don't like Dick and Kory? Okay fine, no one is forcing them to like them, whatever.

but no they couldn't just move on and leave Dick and Kory's past relationship alone.

They just had to say something negative about their relationship and put down their shared history, didn't they.

Why?

Is that really necessary?

Why can't they just respect the love that Dick and Kory had for each other when they were together and leave it at that ?

Cuz they did love and care for each other. It was a genuine love.

You can ship him with another woman without undermining and invalidating his history with Kory.

Like what did Kory ever do to them to make them hate her so much.

After they deaged Barbara to be the same age as Dick and pushed them together as the new pairing, they made a lot of comics degrading Kory, minimizing her interactions with Dick, and retconning her history and relationship with Dick into a one sided sexual fling.

and they turned Bruce against Kory too. This is where the idea of Bruce being a "anti-Starfire" and "pro dickbabs shipper" started.

They created this retcon in Gotham Knight #43 (2000) where Bruce acted xenopobhic towards her, making him refer to Kory as the alien and belittling her relationship with Dick, something he's never done before. Just to portray Barbara as his one true love. Bruce has never even talked about Dick and Barbara before and now suddenly he's shipping them. This retcon is not only an assasination of Kory and Bruce's character, it has also done a lot of damage to people's perception of Bruce and Kory's relationship.

All of this for the sake of propping up a retconned romance.

Not only is Bruce mischaracterized here, Babs is also acting so weird and ooc.

There was no reason for her to moon and whine over Dick like a lovesick girl from highschool.

She was a congresswoman when Dick was still in highschool. She called Dick "a child" and "little brother". She wasn't interested with him, he was too young for her 😭

Barbara already had a life of her own and own relationships, she dated Superman and got enganged to Jason Bard 😭

Dick had a precocious crush on her but he moved on from her when he moved out of Gotham. Even the original dickbabs writer said they were never meant to be together 😬

Barbara and Dick weren't pining over each other when Dick and Kory dated for years!

Dick never even once mentioned Barbara's name in the New Teen Titans books!

There was no reason for Babs to pursue Dick and vice versa, Both have already moved on to other people but stupid dickbabs retcons just had to exist 🙄

So yeah Bruce only hates Starfire when he's written by dickbabs writers and bateditors.

He was fine with her in canon before they pushed their dickbabs agenda.

Even in elseworld stories where it's not written by dickbabs writers.

Like in the animated show He supported Dick and Kory's relationship.

and in Kingdom Come he literally went to find the best doctors to help cure Kory's illness 😭

There's no logical reason for Batman to hate Starfire other than just to shit on Kory and prop up Dickbabs.

the whole "He doesn't like her cuz she's a dangerous alien" form of excuse is also BS

his bestfriend is literally Superman, an alien who is far more powerful than Starfire, he's also teammates with Martian Manhunter who is also an alien 😩

Overall yeah Fuck Dickbabs. It's the only ship that is good at character assasinating characters.

[mysterycitrus]

hi! i just got finished with the second chapter of persephones in hell and!! such a great dick fic and i loved getting to see the titans. but i’m feeling like i’m interpreting things wrong wrt bruce and wanted to clarify.. what are you thoughts on bruce? ik he’s obsessive and has a tendency to manipulate and shut out those close to him, but i’ve never gotten the feeling he’s actually physically or emotionally abusing these kids. i’m picking up a vibe in the fic tho that some of the titans think bruce is abusive (towards dick at least) and i’m wondering if it was your intention to write bruce that way, or just that he’s perceived as such? (i’m aware also that dicks perspective is justifiably skewed)

i could just be over thinking it. sorry for bothering you. i don’t mean this in a “problematic bruce get cancelled” kind of way. i feel bad if it comes across that way sorry i’m just genuinely curious :)

hello! i won’t go into specifics cause this is like… the thesis of part three, but no — i personally don’t subscribe to the idea that bruce is an irredeemable abusive asshole. there’s plenty of evidence for him being one in comics, but a lot of it is dregs of frank miller era masochismo, and i prefer batman to be fundamentally kind.

in saying that tho — the titans are right. i think u would be very hard pressed to find a comic where bruce and dick (of all his kids) don’t have an unhealthy, codependent relationship. bruce inspires debilitating loyalty in many people he works with, but dick has it the absolute worst of everyone because he’s been emotionally regulating bruce since he was eight years old.

when people say dick was parentified, i think there’s some confusion about what it means in this context. it’s not about a child raising their younger siblings (dick was out of the house and an adult by the time jason came around) but more that a child is made responsible for the emotional well-being of their parent. we see this in scarecrow year one, in teen titans year one, and sporadically all over canon. the titans, looking in, see dick still carrying bruce’s expectations well into adulthood and hate it.

i also think bruce being a maliciously abusive character is a disservice to the characterisation of everyone else — there is absolutely no way dick would’ve let bruce adopt anyone else if that was the case. there’s no way babs would. tim isn’t an idiot, he would’ve kept his distance. same with jason. cass has a very twisted understanding of pain, but she could literally read his body language and be able to tell if he was hurting someone on purpose. clark and diana would snap him like a twig.

i think it’s a lot more interesting if a kind person who wants to do good is so pathologically afraid of losing the people he loves that he’ll hurt them in response, and was so traumatised that after twenty years his sole pillar of emotional regulation was a boy who’d just suffered the same trauma he had.

[lazydoodlesandfanfic]

DC (EXCLUDING MAINLY BATMAN/FAM) MASTERLIST

*DISCLAIMER: SOME STORIES MAY BE TAGGED FOR WRONG DEMOGRAPHIC (ie, Not GN, male or fem) IF SO, PLEASE POLITELTY INFORM ME SO I CAN FIX IT

CLARK KENT/ SUPERMAN

A Kent And A Wayne (Clark Kent X Wayne!Male!Reader)

Effects Of The Toxin (Clark Kent X Wayne!Male!Reader)

DIANA PRINCE/ WONDERWOMAN

Motherly (Diane Prince X Teen!Reader)

Family Visit (Diana Prince X Daughter!Reader)

Snow Day (Diana Prince X Reader)

Washing Up (Diana Prince X Male!Reader)

BARRY ALLEN/ FLASH

Little Gifts (Barry Allen X Wayne!Reader)

Anyone But Him (Barry Allen X Wayne!Reader)

Another Speedster (Barry Allen X Reader)

The Wayne Mystery (Barry Allen X Fem!Reader)

Sorry!(Barry Allen X Fem!Reader)

Cancelled Plans (Barry Allen X Fem!Reader)

Please Stop (Barry Allen X Fem!Reader)

Actual Flirting (Barry Allen X Male!Reader)

Caught Red Handed (Barry Allen X Fem!Wayne!Reader)

How Did It Come To This? (Barry Allen X Sibling!Reader)

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Would You Kindly? (Justice League X Male!Reader)

Hidden Scars And Memories (Justice League X Male!Reader)

MULTIPLE

New Start (Roy Harper X Male!Reader X Jason Todd)

A Mostly Successful Mission (Jason Todd X Male!Reader X Roy Harper)

Keeping Secrets (Dick Grayson X Male!Reader X Wally West)

The Quiet Son (Bruce Wayne X Son!Reader X Justice League)

Father's Day (Bruce Wayne X Male!Reader X Clark Kent)

No More Joker (Harley Quinn X Fem!Reader X Poison Ivy)

City Siren's Daughter (Harley, Ivy & Selina X Daughter!Reader)

Nightmares (Harley Quinn X Daughter!Reader X Ivy)

Their Redemption (Harley Quinn X Daughter!Reader X Ivy)

One Of Us Hurt (Bruce Wayne X Male!Reader X Clark Kent)

VILLAINS

Penguin's Friend (Ed Nygma X Male!Reader)

Waiting For You (Jerome Valeska X Fem!Reader)

My Responsibility (Jonathan Crane X Fem!Reader)

There For Me (Harley Quinn X Batsis!Reader)

Never Going Back (Harley Quinn X Daughter!Reader)

We Could Be A Team (Deathstroke X Daughter!Reader)

Colleagues (Jonathan Crane X Fem!Reader) Pt 1/ Pt 2

OTHER

What Happened?! (Leonard Snart X Reader)

Close Your Eyes (Leonard Snart X Reader)

Nothing Else (Leonard Snart X Fem!Reader)

Secret Meetings (Leonard Snart X Fem!Reader)

We're Having A Baby? (Leonard Snart X Fem!Reader)

She's My Sister! (Leonard Snart X Fem!Reader)

I'm Not Letting You Go (Leonard Snart X Fem!Reader)

Future Child (Leonard Snart X Daughter!Reader)

Saving Up (Harrison Wells X Trans!Male!Reader)

Stubborn And Injured (Raven X Fem!Reader)

Not Fireproof (Raven X Reader)

Blues Music (Teen Titans X Reader)

A Little Help (Batman X Scarecrow) Pt 1 / Pt 2

Finally Married (Rip Hunter X Reader)

Cant' Wait (Mick Rory X Fem!Reader)

Sneaking Out (Mick Rory X Fem!Reader)

[volleypearlfan]

Where are the teenage/YA cartoons?

Recently, two cartoons that were slated to be on Cartoon Network, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal and My Adventures With Superman, are now going to be on Adult Swim.

To me, this move makes no sense. These shows could have diversified Cartoon Network’s very barebones lineup, but they were shoved to Adult Swim. I sorta understand Unicorn, as it is dark (but definitely not on the same level as Primal, one of Genndy Tartakovsky’s other shows), but My Adventures with Superman? That show seems pretty innocuous. It has a bright color palette and doesn’t seem similar to Harley Quinn or the later seasons of Young Justice.

This reminds me of the desperate need there is for teen/YA-oriented western cartoons. In western animation, there are three primary audiences:

Preschoolers; anything rated TV-Y, shown on PBS Kids, Nick Jr, Disney Junior, or Cartoonito. Example: Doc McStuffins.

Big kids/elementary school crowd; anything rated TV-Y7, can be seen on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney Channel. Example: The Amazing World of Gumball.

Adult; anything rated TV-14 or TV-MA, seen on Adult Swim, Comedy Central, or the prime time Fox lineup. Example: Rick and Morty.

That’s it. Despite what the rating of TV-14 might lead you to believe, the stuff on Animation Domination or Adult Swim isn’t targeted to teenagers, obviously.

This leaves teenagers in a weird spot when it comes to watching cartoons (western ones, that is. They definitely watch anime). They tend to stick with big kids and/or adult cartoons, like Avatar. With all of the heavy subject matter it and Korra tackle, they definitely feel more like teenage cartoons, especially since they were inspired by anime.

I bring up anime because they have clearly defined demographics, including teenagers. They have manga/anime for teenage boys, shonen (Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball Z), and teenage girls, shojo (Fruits Basket, Kamisama Kiss, Yona of the Dawn).

Shojo anime (except Sailor Moon) pretty much never air on American TV, but when shonen anime are exported here, they end up on Adult Swim’s Toonami block. For example, Demon Slayer aired on Toonami (they had to stop airing it because it got too expensive), and in America, the Mugen Train movie was rated R. This despite Demon Slayer being aimed at teenagers, and also being enjoyed by small children in Japan. They even had a Japanese Happy Meal promotion that ran alongside Pretty Cure, a show that actually is aimed at small children (kodomomuke).

With America’s teenagers flocking to anime, I believe that the American animation industry should keep up with the times and try to capitalize on the teenage demographic instead of shoehorning shows to be for elementary schoolers or adults.

Here are some western cartoons I believe could be classified as YA/teenage shows:

Avatar and Korra, as mentioned above.

Most cartoons aired on MTV, such as Daria, Beavis and Butthead, and Clone High. It helps that MTV itself was aimed at teenagers. Aeon Flux is an exception however, as it is clearly for adults. They’re often shoehorned into the category of “adult animation,” but their subject matter is more appealing to teens.

6teen. It’s right there in the title! Canada knows what’s up.

Total Drama, another Canadian cartoon. I know that they made the younger-skewing DramaRama spin-off because teenagers weren’t watching cartoons anymore, but now that the main show is coming back, it will definitely be aimed at teenagers again.

Sym Bionic Titan, yet another Tartakovsky show, pretty much is a teen/YA show, minus swearing. If I remember correctly, it aired on Toonami for a little while.

Regular Show. The most obvious example of a YA cartoon disguised as a kids cartoon.

Infinity Train. Never forget that it was cancelled because “no child entry point.”

As Told By Ginger is essentially a teen drama in animated form.

Invader Zim - Nickelodeon asked Johnson Vasquez to make a show directed towards older audiences, got exactly what they wanted (most of the viewership was from teens and adults, especially of the shops-at-Hot Topic variety) and cancelled it anyway.

Arcane is technically an adult series, but League of Legends is rated T by the ESRB, so I’m putting it in the teen/YA category (there IS a distinction between ‘young adult’ and ‘adult’)

I highly doubt that the likes of Nickelodeon will add a teenage animation block to their lineup (and TeenNick is nothing but iCarly reruns), but I hope that streaming services will start capitalizing on the YA demographic for western animation. Bee and Puppycat is a good start, featuring relatable young adult situations while technically being watchable for all ages. At least Unicorn is gonna air on ACME Night, which isn’t too late in the evening (currently, the block starts at 5:30 EST). And with Clone High and the aforementioned Total Drama making a comeback, I’m holding out hope for more YA animation.

[dawnanddorisqna]

So the Cartoon Network website has been taken down and replaced with its page on Max. Any thoughts a proud network of Cartoon Culture has been reduced to this?

Fucking pissed off! You go to the page and just get an ad for Max!? Animation already doesn't get a lot of respect (Does it get any?). Sure, Cartoon Network is mostly a teen titans go channel and the only things I'm really looking forward to are on Adult Swim (Uzumaki baby!!!). Maybe invest in new shows, ideas, things like Over the Garden Wall. Give me a reason to go to your already established channel rather than try to get us to your struggling streamer. They can't be surprised that We wait for shows to build up on there, subscribe for a few weeks, and then cancel and wait for more to build up. Obviously, I'm a little heated. Doris is still upset they stopped playing Popeye and Canadian animation at night. Did you know they did that? Sounds like vintage swim.

Cartoon are the thing studios look to when they need a boost or to keep running. A whole pandemic, and animation was still going strong. Then we're the first to be cut down to save money. Execs like saying "Animation is Cinema" but that's just to try to get hits online. They need to show me they mean that, not just say it.

This seems like a good time to remind people, the Animation industry is struggling. Studios are making billions and the people creating these films are left to starve and struggle. Help get the word out and Stand With Animation!

[zee-rambles]

Guys if you like GREAT hand drawn animation, fantastic lady superheroes, support diversity, and if you want to support Rise, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, TUNE IN TO MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR ON FEBRUARY 2ND IF YOU HAVE DISNEY PLUS!

Also! IF you have cable, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! WATCH IT ON TV! Disney is doing the same thing Nickelodeon did to Rise, making the show impossible to watch and blaming low ratings for its lack of success.

Animation is is trouble. We’ll keep getting creat shows cancelled and not given a chance if you don’t support the good stuff that is out there right now! Flying Bark makes some great shows! Keep supporting their work if you want them to keep creating. Unless you want soulless work made by AI and more copies of SpongeBob and Teen Titans Go, please watch the good stuff.

If you want fluid, well made, and beautiful hand drawn animation, please support the ones we have! Otherwise, we will never see it again!

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

zutarians and their cope kinda remind me of bbrae fans

You're right and you should say it. It's crazy how simmilar they are.

The writers of Teen Titans repeatedly said "We toyed with a few ideas, but Robin and Starfire was the one ship we were set on being endgame" yet these fuckers insist they meant "Robin and Starfire AS WELL AS BEAST BOY AND RAVEN."

The writers of Avatar repeatedly said "Kataang was always the heart of the show", yet zutarians keep saying shit like "Zuko was originally Katara's love interest!"

BBrae fans constantly talk about Raven disliking Terra, Beast Boys actual love interest, "due to both of them liking the same guy", but Raven didn't dislike Terra at all, she just didn't immediately trust her - and for good reason, because Terra was working with the villain, and she even explicitly pointed out that Raven was so furious at her after that revelation because she DID think of Terra as a friend.

Zutara fans insist all the drama with Zuko was because "he posed a threat to Kataang" when anyone who isn't delusional can see that it was about his former role as a villain, and the character that was originally gonna be Aang's rival for Katara's affection was TOPH, who was going to be a boy.

Raven was constantly annoyed at Beast Boy and he repeatedly said he found her creepy? Opposites attract! Even when they don't! CLEARLY the writers are just using this innitial clash in personalities to set up a romance - the fact that they NEVER move past that "innitial" clash is a detail!

Katara was mad at Zuko for wanting to help his dad commit genocide and he hated her on the basis of her resisting said genocide? No, silly, can't you see it's just sexual tension? Why else would a boy and a girl "not get along"? They want to kiss!

BBrae fans continued acting like the ship would have totally been endgame in the original show instead of just in comics or the shitty remake that was Teen Titans Go!, "if only the planned sixth season had not been canceled."

But there was no planned sixth season. The show was supposed to end in season four, but it got a bonus fifth season that was originally planned to be a bit longer, but then end up with the same number of episodes as the others - and the only plot that was "cut" was the return of the main villain, Slade. The movie "Trouble In Tokyo" was made specifically to resolve the romantic plotline of Starfire and Robin, since they couldn't do it on the actual show... yet the writers didn't make Raven and Beast Boy get together despite knowing they'd likely never have another chance at it. Almost like they never WANTED to do that in the first place!

Zutarians constantly about how "There was totally a deleted scene in the finale with Iroh saying Katara was perfect for Zuko" and how Aaron Ehasz supposedly confirmed Kataang being endgame was a last minute change, and that Zutara was supposed to happen in the "planned, but scrapped fourth season."

But there was no "planned" fourth season. Bryke were offered a bonus season, but rejected it almost right away. The interview with Ehasz was fake and so were the rumors about the "deleted" scene with Iroh. It just never existed.

Hell, even a ship I like had some of the fans try to pull that shit. A ton of Robin X Raven fans swear there was a deleted kiss scene in the season four finale (which again, was originally going to be the series finale) - like Robin and Starfire didn't almost get together in the previous episode (and probably were made an item in original version, before the show got a bonus season), and weren't made endgame on the actual conclusion of the show.

Some shippers do that in the hopes that sequels/reboots end up pandering to them - and in the case of Beast Boy and Raven it "worked", but it was shit, because it was in a bad show so clearly it wasn't worth it. Zutarians meanwhile got nothing. Nada. Zilch. No zutara in the comics, in Korra, and apparently not even in the Netflix version.

And at least there ARE moments between BB and Raven that even I call blatant ship tease, and there's five seasons worth of content of them being "the friends that don't get along but care about each other" aka having an actual dynamic that people were meant to get attached to. Zuko and Katara's "dynamic" for two and a half seasons consisted on nothing but taunts in battle, Zuko being an asshole/a legit threat to the heroes' safety and thus being hated by all of them for it. Only in the second half of the third season did they have any meaningful interactions AND half of these were still negative.

I can talk a lot of shit about BBrae fans, but I can never say that Beast Boy and Raven ever lashed out when the other saved them because there was just that much resentment there. Or that the times Raven got a bit too aggressive towards him werent pure slapstick and that she did genuinely want to hurt him, nor that he ever got so mad at her for it that he tried to leave her behind to die. Or that Raven ever hired a hitman on him. Or that Beast Boy full on said he pictured her face when he tried to imagine "the face of the enemy." Or that he ever looked Raven straight in the face and threatened to murder her if she ever did anything against his actual love interest.

That's a level of "Take the L already, Jesus" that BBrae never reached, or even got close to, and I'm surprised Zutarians managed to make people not talk about the fact that they very much did.

"Zutara sexual tension" is literally just two people legit wanting to murder each other, saying as much, actively working towards it, and the shippers sill being like "They don't mean it though."

They do, girl. They very much do. Grab a body bag.

[suzukiblu]

As someone who's super into Superboy, do you have any reccs for curious beginners about what to watch/read to check that out?

( GOD I'M SO SORRY HOW LONG I TOOK TO ANSWER THIS, I LEFT IT HALF-FINISHED IN MY DRAFTS BECAUSE I MEANT TO LOOK UP SOME FIC RECS LATER AND THEN TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT IT, hahasob. Dangit, self! I don't know if this is even still a relevant question for you but screw it, forget both that concern and the recs-research, I am ANSWERING IT NOW. )

So as far as actual canon goes, in the comics I mostly read his original solo title from issue fifty to cancellation, which was about another fifty issues, and also all of Young Justice's original run and both the World Without Grownups and Sins of Youth events, as well as a few other YJ-related one-shots and specifically Young Justice: The Secret, which is I beeelieve only one issue and was the comic that first got me interested in YJ as a team to begin with. I went back and read some earlier issues later, but issue fifty of Superboy's first solo is actually a really good jumping-on point for him imo, it's the start of an arc about him being stranded on an island of beast-men with amnesia and repressed powers and it sets up a new status-quo for him after. There's also a later arc in the series about interdimensional travel through Hypertime where he meets a lot of other versions of himself, including the grown-adult version who's trying to invade half the multiverse, which I thought was especially good too. And like, just it was a real good run in general, I thought, I really dug it.

Also, he was originally introduced as a character after (or during?) the Death of Superman arc and featured reasonably heavily in the Reign of the Supermen event as one of the four replacements trying to become the new Superman, though I haven't personally read much of those. If I started anywhere as a newcomer, I'd probably start with either his original solo run or the original Young Justice. Or both! Both is good! Young Justice is especially choice, though, and also tells a full and pretty well-developed story over the run of the comic without anything in particular getting cut off prematurely. Like, I remember it wrapping up really well, especially for an ongoing American comic from the Big Two.

Other comics I know Kon's been prominent/important in but either haven't read or haven't read much of: Superboy and the Ravers, Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day, Teen Titans (2003), another solo Superboy title set in Smallville, Young Justice (2019), Dark Crisis: Young Justice, and Superboy: Man of Tomorrow.

There's also the Young Justice cartoon, which has a VERY different take on his personality, though I still really liked what I saw of the character and have written fic about that version of him, and then there's the animated Reign of the Supermen movie, which I still haven't seen but looks real good and seems to be more comics-accurate, personality-wise. And like, I absolutely LOVE his design in it, haha. He's just a lil' brat, it's great! In live-action there's both Titans and later seasons of Smallville, but I wasn't very interested in either of those myself and don't know much about them.

There's . . . there's a lot out there, haha, the character is like a good thirty years old now. And honestly I kinda play fast and loose with some of the canon, this is VERY much the kind of fandom where I just go for what I think works best for the story I wanna tell. It's comics, okay, canon is BARELY EVEN GUIDELINES AT THIS POINT, hahaha.

[pluckyredhead]

Character Profile: Eddie Bloomberg (Kid Devil/Red Devil)

Some of you could probably see this one coming. I have an Eddie fic ready to share with you very soon, but for those of you who have no idea who I’m talking about, I figured I should fill you in. So here he is! The sweetest little devil in the DCU!

Eddie Bloomberg debuted in the 1984 Blue Devil series. Blue Devil is Dan Cassidy, a Hollywood stuntman/special effects artist who was cursed by a demon and trapped in a devil costume forever. If he had been a Marvel character, he would be hated and feared etc, but since he lives in the DCU, it literally has no effect on his movie career. I love the DCU.

The producer of the movie Dan is making when he’s cursed is Marla Bloom (real name: Marlene Bloomberg), a somewhat manic but fiercely loyal visionary. Her nephew, Eddie, is a gofer on set and in fact is only known as “Gopher” for quite a few issues of Blue Devil before anyone uses his actual name. Eddie is teeny tiny in this series - logically he’s probably no younger than 12, since he’s allowed to actually have a job on set, but the writing and art, especially his little OshKosh B’gosh green overalls, make him seem younger, more in the 8-10 range.

(Note: It is never explicitly stated that Eddie and Marla are Jewish, but their last name, and Marla changing her name upon arriving in Hollywood, are such obvious clues that I wouldn’t even consider it coding or subtext. It might be missed by people who aren’t familiar with Jewish names or the long history of Jewish people changing said names to make it in Hollywood - which, trust me, is as antisemitic as anywhere else - but they are Jewish. This will have some HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC IMPLICATIONS further down the line, but we’ll get there.)

Eddie’s hero worship of Dan leads him to make his own costume, plus a “trident” (Dan has one too and that’s what they both call it, but you guys, you are devils, not mermen. They’re pitchforks.) that he uses to fly, which, UM??? Eddie is apparently a genius and no one ever comments on it?

Eddie is probably best known these days in fandom for his extremely brief (it’s a four page story) friendship with Jason Todd in his Robin days. They are PEN PALS and they team up to catch a jewel thief and it’s so damn cute:

But not too long after this, Blue Devil was canceled, and Eddie faded into obscurity. That is, until he showed up on the Teen Titans 20 years later, looking like this:

Eddie is now 17, and the intervening years have been extraordinarily shitty for him.

First, his Aunt Marla was like “Hey, I talked your parents into letting you stay with me indefinitely, because I love you!” and it took him years to realize that actually, his parents had suggested he stay in Hollywood because they didn’t want him.

Then Marla died in a freak helicopter crash, because some safety lights that should have been on were out. Eddie struggled to keep a job after that, since he’s not actually very good at being a gopher/PA. (Why he was allowed to live on his own/work/not go to school as a minor is not explained.)

He decided to focus on being a superhero, but no one wants a kid in a devil suit with no powers, so that didn’t go so hot either. Eventually he got his chance when a mysterious hooded stranger gave him a black candle, which...Eddie, no. Lighting the candle took him to Neron, who is one of the DCU’s several versions of the devil, specifically the one who makes Faustian bargains with characters.

Neron asked Eddie who he trusted the most in the world, and Eddie said Blue Devil. Neron offered Eddie a deal: he would give Eddie powers, and in exchange, if Eddie ever lost his trust in Blue Devil, his soul would belong to Neron on his 20th birthday. Eddie, thinking nothing could shake his faith in his hero, agreed.

And then Neron told him that Blue Devil killed Marla.

This was in fact completely true. Years ago, Dan had made a deal with Neron: fame in exchange for destroying a power station in the middle of nowhere. Dan, assuming no one would be hurt, agreed. The power station being down was the reason the warning lights were out during Marla’s helicopter crash. Dan never told anyone the truth about her death.

Eddie refuses to believe him, because after all, Neron is a demon and demons lie. He goes on to finally join the Teen Titans as the happy go lucky comic relief/loser. But it weighs on him, and finally he confronts Dan:

Eddie realizes to his horror that his soul is now forfeit to Neron on his 20th birthday, which is less than three years away. But he doesn’t want anyone to pity him, and he doesn’t want to spend the next three years being miserable, so he doesn’t tell anyone (except his friend Zachary Zatara, who was there when he met Neron), and continues to be the sweet, seemingly happy-go-lucky comic relief of the 2000s-era Titans. EDDIE MY DARLING. 😭

I do want to pause here to talk about the implications of Eddie’s transformation. Like I said earlier, Eddie is Jewish. Even if that’s never confirmed in the comics, even if he isn’t religious (we have no evidence one way or the other), Eddie is at the very least ethnically Jewish on his father’s side. This is the extremely clear intent of his (also Jewish) creators.

Jewish people having horns, and just generally being associated with devils, is a very, very old stereotype dating back to the Middle Ages. It was used in Nazi propaganda. I’m a millennial, and I know Jewish people my age who have been asked where their horns are. It is a living stereotype, and an incredibly dangerous one.

I am...let’s say 90% sure that giving a Jewish character horns was a genuine mistake? Maybe Geoff Johns, who wrote that storyline, didn’t realize that “Bloomberg” was a Jewish last name. Maybe he wasn’t familiar with the stereotype. But I can rattle off a whole list of shockingly racist things that man has written by (maybe) accident, and he was one of the people Ray Fisher called out for racism during the filming of Justice League, so...who knows. I love Eddie, I love the devil version of him, but I also don’t trust Geoff Johns an inch, and am generally very uncomfortable with the implications of this particular transformation. (Also, like...cramming a Jewish character into Christian mythology like this is still pretty gross. Jews don’t believe in Hell.)

Eddie has a lengthy tenure on the Titans, from the mid-2000s almost all the way to the New 52. Like I said before, he’s largely comic relief/the “loser” team member who thinks no one likes him (and some characters are pretty relentlessly contemptuous of him, particularly Cassie and Tim during their era of being written horribly OOC at all times). He’s also incredibly self-sacrificing - at one point a villain tries to kill him but accidentally absorbs his curse instead, and Eddie insists on taking it back, because he can’t let anyone suffer in his place, even a rando who tried to murder him for no reason. EDDIE MY LOVE.

And he does have friends! Aside from his friendship with Zachary Zatara (who isn’t really on the team), he’s particularly close with Miss Martian and Blue Beetle.

And then there’s Rose Wilson, Ravager. She joins the team right around the same time Eddie does, and he very obviously has a massive crush on her. Rose equally obviously does not really know how to relate to people in an honest and healthy way, so she veers wildly between flirting with Eddie, being scathingly cruel to him, opening up to him in a way she doesn’t with anyone else, and going feral to protect him.

Also, this happens:

I have never recovered.

Eddie eventually loses his powers when he’s bitten by Brother Blood, because sure, why not? A trip to Hell confirms that not only is he free of his obligation to Neron, but he never actually signed a contract in the first place - Neron simply activated Eddie’s latent metagene, which...turned him into a demon for reasons but can be mystically deactivated, apparently? Look, there’s no time to make sense, Eddie has a noble sacrifice to get to!

Eddie is happy to be free of Hell, obviously, but he’s now stuck being support staff for the Titans, since he doesn’t have any powers. Rose, who had left the team a while back, returns and tries to get Eddie to leave with her, since it’s dangerous to be powerless around superheroes. He turns her down. EDDIE, NO.

Literally the next issue, a riot breaks out on Alcatraz, which is a supervillain prison in the DCU. While the Titans are fighting the supervillains, Eddie is tricked by the Calculator into flying out to the island in the T-Jet to try to find a nuke. When he discovers that the nuke is just a man with radioactive powers who is melting down and minutes from exploding, he gets the man into the T-Jet and flies it as high as possible before the explosion, saving the Titans, Alcatraz, and San Francisco.

😭😭😭

Eddie stayed dead for the next year or so, and then the New 52 happened. He appeared in one issue as Blue Devil’s godson in the New 52; then returned for one more issue with his powers intact in Rebirth.

And then he died at Sanctuary in Heroes in Crisis, because apparently if you’re a redheaded friend of Jason Todd with a penchant for backwards baseball caps, you’re gonna die in HiC.

We haven’t seen Eddie since, so it’s anyone’s guess whether he was brought back to life by Infinite Frontier or not. I choose to believe he was, because I love him and I say so.

If you want to read about Eddie, your best bet is the 2003 Teen Titans series. It’s, like...pretty bad, but it’s also the lion’s share of Eddie’s appearances, and he’s extremely lovable. If you’re looking for fic, I'm mostly familiar with stories where he appears as Jason’s bestie. Eddie Fucking Bloomberg by chucklesbuckles makes me laugh every time I read it. Eddie also has small but delightful roles in the longer JayRoy fics i wish i was by @shhhenanigans​ and gentle on my mind (the actual world) by @hamjay​. And Burning my defenses by the shaking of her hips is some excellent Rose/Eddie by @macabrekawaii​.

(Also, I have a fic about him coming next week! Stay tuned!)

In conclusion: don’t cry. Baby Eddie in Tiny Titans, okay?

[underratedshowsfan]

Seeing as how Warner Brothers finally has acknowledged Loonatics Unleashed in a "non-antagonistic" way (Teen Titans Go, i see YOU) by making a compilation of fights from s1, i really wanted to see how actual fans of the show think of the possibility of a reboot.

Loonatics Unleashed isn't great, but it's not the monster Looney Tunes fans depict it either. Like other shows with this problem, it was made because the studio wanted to cash on a popular trend of the time, that being superheroes (with an anime influence.) So WB decided to use their popular ID, Looney Tunes, and try to make a show based off it. We all know how that turned out.

Then s2 came out and they decided to make it more Looney which most of the fans of the show didn't like. But it was still all over for them, for no matter what they changed, people didn't change their opinions on it, so they cancelled it. And is basically treated as the 'Pacific Rim Uprising' of the franchise.

But unlike what WB thinks there are still fans of it. Fans who can see the flaws but still like it for what it is. And with the idea of a reboot, it can help fix those flaws. IF WB actually cared for it, but with all their cancellations they'd rather do ANYTHING else than a LU reboot.

So i wanted to ask other enjoyers of the show here on Tumblr (pretty sure this is where most of the fans are anyway) what changes a reboot could fix! And if you think if a reboot is even possible (personally i think no.)

Here are some of my takes that the reboot could possibly improve:

1. The characters. LET US GET TO KNOW THEM MORE! Out of the 6 main characters we only personally KNOW about 2! (That being Rev and Danger, since we get to know their family and more of their backstory.) We hardly know anything about them before being heroes. Heck! We don't even know how OLD they are! So seeing their lives outside of being heroes would be nice.

2. Being Looney but also having that edge to it. Their based off the Looney Tunes, let them embrace that. But also not letting it be just the Looney tunes cosplaying as heroes, they should find a way to perfectly mix both the slapstick comedy with the edginess the first season had.

3. Maybe have more "animal" characters. Seeing as how only 12 characters are animals it makes it feel like they are the only ones. It's difficult to put this into words. Like i remember seeing somewhere that it would have been better if the Loonatics were originally human but then changed after the meteor struck. And, just NO. Like what I'm trying to say here is just, don't make it seem like only humans populate Acmetropolis.

That's all i can come up with for now. But yeah, I've just always wanted to see fans talk about the flaws this show has and how they could fix it if we were given a season 3.

[linkspooky]

Do you think Batman could empathize with Terra?

Short answer: Yes. Long Answer: Oh, here we go again.

So, Terra is my favorite character of all time. I want her to live, recover from her trauma, and then become some anti-villain mercenary that just shows up to annoy the titans.

However, I will forever defend the decision to kill Terra at the end of Judas Contract. Her complexity as a bad victim and the tragedy that Terra was just too complicated a victim for anyone in her life to notice or save is what makes her character good. The whole point of the story is Terra should have been saved, but she wasn't. That gives the story it's punch. Terra is a teenage girl who joined the Teen Titans, put on a costume, and died. Her creators sort of half-realized this and half didn't when they made the decision to kill Terra.

"Hers was the power over the earth itself. She could have brought life to deserts, heat to the frozen tundra, food to starving millions, she could have damned raging rivers and funneled water to lands parched dry, and dead. Her powers were limited only by the mind that controlled them. A mind which sought not hope, not love, not life, but death."

Even the panels that narrate her death that call her a psychopath and victim blame her, also speculate on how much potential good for the world is lost by snuffing out life as young as Terra's. Hers is the story of a young girl who by the narrative is doomed to die hence why there is nothing, no hope, no love, no life just death in her mind.

That's what makes the question of "Could Batman have empathized with her" so compelling, because it makes you think and realize there was a chance for Terra, miss "Dead at the beginning of the story" to be saved. So, why wasn't she? Why couldn't anyone involved in her situation empathize with this troubled teenage girl?

Out of context of her creators intending her to be an irredeemable monster, don't these lines, the last one especially sound horribly tragic?

"A mind which sought not hope... not love... not life... but death."

Terra's life is so nihilistic and miserable. What exactly was she alive for? She was a sixteen-year-old mercenary who was cut off from her family due to being the bastard child. She thinks she's manipulating death stroke who she thinks is her equal when she's actually just getting manipulated by him. I mean the fact that Terra views relationships as transactions. That she views sex with Slade as using her body as a bargaining chip to gain leverage over them. The fact that she hates the titans, primarily because she doesn't understand them. She thinks all their goodwill for each other is fake, and that they can't possibly be as good as they pretend to be because, in Terra's mind, good people don't exist.

The best interpretation of Terra is to not make light of her crimes at all, she did not grow close to the titans, she was planning on betraying them and never wavered, she felt next to nothing about killing... but even if all that's true isn't she sympathetic regardless because her life's just miserable?

All of Terra's actions don't change the fact that a 50+ year old is not only raping her, and using her as a child soldier, but is good enough at manipulating that she thinks the relationship is consensual and she's somehow in on the partnership. These two things do not cancel out one another.

The reason I hammered this nail in so hard, is because this is what makes up the tragedy of Terra's character. Terra is a fifteen year old girl in a horrible situation and therefore deserves to be saved. Terra does not get saved. Why is that? That's the essential question of the tragedy.

Now to return to your question, would batman empathize with Terra?

Yes.

I would argue the Titans empathized with Terra too. However, empathizing with someone is different from having the emotional maturity to communicate with them. Which is the difference between Batman and the Teen Titans, he is an adult and they are children.

When I think about the Teen Titans who are unable to save a girl they've lived with for months from an adult man who's their mortal enemy and clearly exploiting her, I get frustrated until I realize the Teen Titans are just barely older than Terra. Terra's case so clearly needs adult intervention, and she doesn't have that she has a group of teenagers who all have the RESPONSIBILITIES of an adult, but don't have the requisite maturity to be able to handle those responsibilities.

There's a lot of reasons that Terra does not get saved, number one being that not a single Titan seemed to see through her act despite them all having suspicions. I know this wasn't the intent, but Terra's written as a pretty textbook CSA victim. She's aggressive, hypersexual, tries to pose as an adult, associates sexuality with violence (heck Beast Boy flirting with her during a training session makes her violently lash out, you could easy interpret that as her experiencing some kind of flashback). There was clearly something going on with Terra, everyone had an inkling, no one noticed.

It's because everyone around her just saw what they wanted to see of Terra.

Beast Boy only saw his own romantic feelings for her. He made up his own idealized version of Terra and pursued her. And let's be honest considering Beast Boy's weird relationship with women in early NTT he was probably just seeking a girlfriend to validate his low self esteem.Raven sensed something off with Terra, but projected her own situation onto her as well. Raven convinced herself that there was some kind of evil buried deep within Terra but was afraid to confront her because number one, Raven is convinced she is evil deep down inside, and number two Raven understands so little about humans she feels like she cannot judge them. Robin is frankly, too busy with the rest of the team to notice.

Terra is practically the Laura Palmer of the Teen Titans. For those who have never watched Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer is a young woman in the town of Twin Peaks who lives a double lie. By day she is a prom queen dating a kid on the football team and running a meals on wheels program. By night she is tricking her boyfriend into buying cocaine for her regularly, working at a whorehouse across the border, regularly sleeping with men twice her age. Laura has an ugly dark side that's hard to look at, but what's uglier is the source of all of this behavior. Laura's coping with being raped by her father on a semi-regular basis and keeping that secret, when every single person in town only sees what they want to see of her, they see a prom queen, or a girlfriend, or whatever.

Bobby Briggs: “You damn hypocrites. You make me sick! Everybody knew she was in trouble but we didn’t do anything. All you good people… You wanna know who killed Laura Palmer? You did! We all did.”

No one noticed because they all saw their own version of Terra. Terra herself played into that, because she was lying to everyone.

At the same time there's a difference between a child who is not fully emotionally developed or aware of their surroundings and an adult who should know better. An adult should be aware enough to pick up signs of abuse or even notice a child's distress, and if they ignore it that's a problem.

The question is should a kid reasonably be expected to do the same thing? I would say that's expecting too much emotional maturity out of a kid because that's asking them to do what should be an adult's job. At the same time, the Teen Titans are kids who put on masks and decided to make it their job to save heroes. This is what makes the Judas Contract such an effective tragedy, because it makes you ask these questions. If none of them were able to notice or save Terra, then will they be able to notice the next time someone like Terra is in danger but they're not a straightforward or easy-to-spot victim?

The complexity of Terra's victimhood is another reason why the titans failed to save her. There's a panel where Terra is telling Kory and Donna a fake version of her backstory to get sympathy and they deny it by going "Well, we all have dead parents." And Kory goes "I was a slave for five years."

Of course, Terra's lying about her backstory here but regardless it's dismissive to play tragedy olympics here. The fact Kory was a slave for five years doesn't really matter because we're talking about Terra's experiences here, and only Terra knows about her feelings.

Terra is a complicated victim, her trauma doesn't make her a hero, in fact she despises the idea she should have to use her powers to help others. Yet, she deserves saving because she's a fifteen year old girl getting raped. In fact you would think Kory if she learned that fact or even got an inkling of it would be the first to sympathize having gone through something herself. And hey, she might. I just want to point out, Starfire tends to suffer from black and white, them vs. us thinking. Especially NTT Starfire who's much more emotional and warlike. She also didn't even notice her own sister blackfire was being abused in the same household.

So why do usually extremely empathic heroes draw a line like that with more complicated victims like Terra? Why even bother to play Trauma Olympics in the first place?'

It's because once again they're teenagers. Teenagers have black and white thinking. Who would have thought? Teenagers don't realy have the emotional maturity to see outside of themselves and their own situation. Which is why we get one of two responses. The first being "Well, I went through this and I'm fine...." (Arguably, none of the Teen Titans are fine they're all drama queens). The second being "Well, just because that happened to her that doesn't justify her behavior."

Returning to the example of Laura Palmer, once again does Laura Palmer's dark side even matter? Does it matter she illegally buys cocaine, or helped kill a man? An Adult (Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks) would be able to see that literally none of that matters because Laura needs someone to notice what her father is doing to her and save her from it.

This is mostly a post about comic books Terra, because she's my baby darling but to bring one moment from the cartoon in. When faced with the weight of her guilt in the episode "Betrayal" Terra breaks down sobbing and starts apologizing to Beast Boy.

Terra: (from o.c.) Beast Boy...it's the truth.

Beast Boy: Terra...why?

Slade: Because you could never give her what she needs.

Terra: No! I won't let you hurt my friend! (Close-up of Slade.)

Slade: Dear child, you don't have any friends.

Terra: (sobbing) Beast Boy, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. (He moves partially into view near the camera.)

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) Then why did you let it? (She stands up.)

Terra: I don't know, okay? I don't know.

Terra: Slade...he helped me, saved me from myself. (Pan to frame an upset Beast Boy in the other spot; she continues o.c.) He said I owed him, but--

Beast Boy: So it was all a game? You were just pretending? (Cut to frame both.)

Terra: (steps to him) No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

(She reaches out to touch his shoulder, but he gives her the hardest glare he can and turns away.)

Beast Boy: Slade was right. You don't have any friends.

Terra confesses everything, shows obvious signs of guilt, and basically begs and Beast Boy turns his back on her. There's no more obvious opportunity to save her or change her heart, and Beast Boy just doesn't. He jumps straight to the victim blaming, "Why did you let it happen?" Again and again, they empasize Terra's choices and of course those are important but it doesn't change the fact she's being abused. "Why did you let it happen?" I don't know why did she let an adult man groom her. Why do children get groomed? Shouldn't they know better?

However, in doing that Beast Boy basically repeats the same words as her abuser "You don't have any friends" and drives her right back to Slade.

Now, Beast Boy was hurt because he thought his friends were possibly dead or injured somewhere else and Terra lied to him the whole night about it. Beast Boy's also a teenager so it's ahrd for him to see past his own hurt feelings and show empathy for the person who hurt him no matter what her reasons would be.

At the same time Beast Boy decided to put on a mask and call himself a hero. Heroes save people. This begs the question, if he's too immature to handle a victim as complicated as Terra which he will come across in the job because the abuse that happens to Terra is more common than you think then is he really mature enough to be a hero?

Now, having gone through all of that Batman would be able to empathize with Terra, for the simple reason that he's an adult so he should be able to step out of the situation and realize this a child who desperately need adult help that he's dealing with.

One important detail is that Terra's death, and Jason's death happened pretty closely to one another in comic book time. Dick Grayson in fact had a pretty bad reaction to both of those where he felt responsible because he was the one who gave Jason his Robin costume and allowed Terra on his team, therefore in both cases it was like he was approving of them being superheroes when they were too young for it... the very thing that got them killed.

Batman regularly refers to Jason's death as his greatest failure, because Jason was just a child and Bruce wasn't the caretaker that Jason needed him to be. Jason Todd is also a character that once reviving from the dead becomes a morally grey victim, with behavior that's comparable to Terra. Some people believe that Talia dipping him in the Lazarus pit like a crouton in soup has rendered him insane, or incapable of feeling remorse.

He is a vigilante killer. Tutored by several years by a woman from the League of Assassins and taught several forms of murder. He's involved in the drug trade and selling his services out for protection money. He is more or less a teenage mercenary like Terra, just with a slight vigilante bent to his actions.

Heck, his trauma is similiar to Terra's, they were both basically separated from their families at a young age, lived apart from them for years, and then became mercenaries and used their powers / vigilante training for both survival and profit. However, Bruce unconditionally views what happened to Jason as a failure because he let it happen. As an adult it was his job to be there for Jason and he wasn't.

Bruce's dying will and testament in Battle for the Cowl is an admission for this, and an offer to help him get the treatment he needs. Of course, it's Bruce so he still says it in a victim blamey way. He probably should have said "I failed you" rather than "You have been my biggest failure" but he still took responsibility.

Which is the underyling point and also something Batman as an adult can realize, that Jason was a child dealing with all of that pain alone and he couldn't possibly have coped with it the way an adult would because he's not one. He needs adult and outside intervention to show him the proper way.

Batman has taken in former murderers as sidekicks before (though arguably Terra needs to learn how to just be herself, making her be a hero was part of the problem in the first place). There's Cassandra Cain who was trained from birth to kill, his own son was also raised by the League of Assassins. In the new 52 Batman and Robin Damian and Bruce have a complicated relationship, but there is one scene I think demonstrates how Bruce has great potential to be empathic and communicate with Damian. Damian murders a man in front of Bruce, and breaks the bat family rule of no killing. He murders Henri Ducard's son, because the man was threatening to come back and kill Bruce at a later date.

Bruce does not throw him out or fire him for being Robin. THis time, Batman takes a long time to explain the truth to Damian about what his relationship with Henri Ducard and his son was. How in the past he also felt a desire to kill both of them for what they did and what the danger represented.

Bruce doesn't hit Damian over the head with "murder is bad" or "cool motive still murder" he doesn't see the crimes first he sees the victim.

He takes the time to let Damian understand him better as a person so they can have a connection there, and then he explains to Damian why he does not kill, and that he also doesn't want Damian to kill so he won't have to bear the guilt of it. He does that for Damian's sake, because he's a child and won't understand these things unless told.

Bruce needs to communicate this with Damian because they won't magically understand and empathize with each other, which is why I'm emphasizing over and over again the necessity of adult

intervention in Terra's case. An older and more mature Dick Grayson in Batman and Robin 2009 also emphasizes that Dick is the grown up in the relationship and Damian is the child.

And as the adult it is his responsibility to take care of Damian, hence the "Who's gonna save him if we don't?"

Batman has encountered children turned murders in one way or another and he always emphasizes the fact that they are children. If you want a more recent example, in the James Tynion Iv run for Batman, issue #105 where Bruce is facing off with Ghostmaker / Minhkhoa. Ghostmaker sets up a situation where Clown Hunter a murderous vigilante who started killing crimminals after his parents were murdered by the joker at twelve has a chance to kill Harley Quinn in revenge while Bruce watches. Bruce intervenes for two reasons, which he tells Minhkhoa.

Which features one of my favorite Bruce lines "caring about people hasn't killed me yet..."

Which really demonstrates Batman's empathy for others. His goal is to not put villains away, but stop the cycle of violence in the streets of gotham.

"How easy it would have been to just eliminate the joker's closest associates? But then nobody learns, nobody changes, nothing is better in the end."

It's easy to dismiss Terra for her crimes and let her face the consequences alone. But then, nobody learns, nobody changes, and nothing is better in the end. Batman doesn't judge who deserves to be saved and who does not. He doesn't let "not everyone can be saved" work as an excuse to not try to save someone.

Hell, Minhkhoa himself is diagnosed as a psychopath in universe with extremely low or nonexistent empathy, which is what Wolfram and Perez's original vision for Terra was. A person who did not feel empathy, remorse, or love for others. Yet, Bruce still gives someone like Minhkhoa a chance to do good, and still tries to communicate with him and get him to understand why Bruce does things the way he does even if Minhkhoa can't empathize with him.

To tie this all up. The tragedy of the Judas Contract arc is Terra was a child who did not get saved. There are reasons for this. She was surrounded by other children who didn't have the maturity to save her. She was being taken advantage of by an adult man who has been manipulating people for years. She was a liar and manipulator herself.

If Batman, an adult, had been there to help the Titans would he have been able to reach out to her and save her? We don't know, but I can say this he definitely would have tried.

[zahri-melitor]

Look, I am going to wait until we have more than just rumours, but if Jeremy Adams’ new book is the multiversal Young Titans team he was previewing over in The Flash:

(Reminder panel from The Flash #797) which contains deaged Damian and Jon from elsewhere in the multiverse, and it contains Steph, a la the old 2011 Teen Titans premise that got canned by Flashpoint:-

I'm...not hugely confident I'm going to enjoy it.

It's going to sell like hotcakes, I can tell you that, and it'll probably get crossed over with Sinister Sons (if Sinister Sons hasn't been cancelled).

It's giving very 'Super Sons and the Babysitter' vibes and I cannot think that is going to do anything helpful for Steph's character.