#guys you read comics about a rich guy who beats up mentally ill people and then throws them to the most unethical institution ever

[strangesickness]

THIS IS A PRO COMICS/ROCKSTEADY/ETC. BATJOKES POST PLS DONT GET IT CONFUSED FROM THE MEME. I LOVE THEM <3

batman twt when they find out i'm reading batman comics where batman and joker are trying to kill each other and i'm kicking my feet and giggling

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Hey!! I don't know if you've ever answered this before but how did u discover Tony? Why do you like him so much? Which is your favorite marvel verse? (Also your art is literally heartbreakingly beautiful)

Thank you so much for saying such nice things about my art!!

I don’t think I’ve answered this fully before but I don’t mind answering again!

I always kind of vaguely knew who Iron Man was peripherally because I had a few marvel stuff (comics, posters, watching the cartoons on tv) growing up because I loved the X-men. In the 90s if you were into Marvel dollars to donuts you probably were more into the X-men than any other series. Like I had a poster of random marvel heroes that I bought because it had Wolverine and Storm on it. But it also had Sue Storm and Iron Man. (I think the Thing was on it too or maybe spider-man. Probably spider-man honestly lol)

But I didn’t really get into Iron Man exactly until I started being a fan of RDJ. I was SUPER into Sherlock Holmes (I read all of the collective works in a month and I retained almost none of it bc of ADHD lol) and then the first Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie came out and it had RDJ in it so I was like hell yes. Like a lot of people I only knew Downey from his infamous history and being convicted of drug abuse. And my dad liked Ally McBeal so I used to watch him on that show and on SNL and he was ....BAD on SNL lmfao ....errr anyway  

I liked SH a lot and started looking into his other movies. And I missed when Iron Man 1 came out because I was living in Japan but when I moved back the second one came out after SH so it sorta spiraled from there. I’m a capricorn!! When I fixate I fixate HARD lmfao

I like Tony because he is at his core a different kind of hero in a lot of respects. He started out as what would normally be considered a villain. A rich guy who makes weapons. He hasn’t got any actual super powers, like batman, but he’s also not like.....relying on his body (he can’t) to be a power fantasy. His armor gives him that so it was something he built. (He’s still a power fantasy in terms of money but that’s a whole US cultural thing that’s too much to get into right now). He has a weakness and its not something like Kryptonite or being obsessed with his parents dying. His weakness is alcoholism which is something real people have. He has other weaknesses that can be viewed as mental illnesses, PTSD, trauma, never feeling like he’s good enough, being extremely stubborn in thinking that he’s the ONLY ONE who can do something (armor wars/MCU) etc. And when written correctly he can be really moving and tender. Which when comic books are a male dominated viewpoint and written by a lot of straight white dudes that’s not something you see all the time. And in some cases he’s a real punching bag. Like oh my god Vol 3 of Iron man is just him getting the crap beat out of him all the time. Kurt Busiek was like I’m gonna write a great story but Tony’s gonna have broken bones, broken heart, broken head. Get wrecked Iron Man.

And because its Marvel he also has that cheeky “I’m making a joke while punching bad guys thing” which FOR ME is always charming. 

And in terms of MCU ....he smol lol. And Downey is so good at playing those vulnerable points. The MCU is still ultimately fairly vapid bc its still popcorn movies at its core and I love and dislike that in the same breath. But Downey does a really good job of getting those emotional points across even if sometimes you don’t notice them right away. (The sunglasses to hide behind is something I literally only just noticed last night lol)

My favorite marvel universe is Avengers Academy lol I will hold onto that awful game for the rest of my life because its so cute, its so fun, it takes a lot of characters from all over the Marvel Universe, even some no one really thinks about (Union Jack?, Werewolf by Night, Man Thing?? That guy who looks like Manthing but is like a red rocky turd?? I forgot his name) and makes them fun college students. And it was very open about making fun of things like Thanos’s MO in the MCU as being completely nonsensical which it WAS.

And then probably after AvAc I’d say 616 is my favorite bc its the OG. Then maybe....Avengers Assemble bc its a cute cartoon. Then maybe MCU and then Ults which I kinda throw hand in hand since the MCU took a lot of inspo from Ults.

[gloriousmonsters]

said it on twitter & i’m gonna say it here: if you want to write anything examining villains, making them main characters, saying ‘maybe they have a point’, whatever:

don’t fucking sanitize them. and I mean that in two ways. One, every time I see someone decide to write a villain as a protagonist instead, or someone who would usually be cast as a villain, they immediately try to make whatever they’re doing as non-bad as possible - oh, they never really hurt anyone, they have noble reasons for everything, they had special knowledge that made what they did OK. And sometimes this isn’t so bad, except it almost immediately segues into (2) making them likeable/cool/not so bad means making them neurotypical and abled and generally Normal. 

like, I read a short story supposed to be from the POV of a henchman in a please-don’t-sue-us-DC but definitely Batman universe. the only thing noted is the baby-level Tumblr post objection of ‘but if Batman’s RICH... why can’t he just solve all the problems in Gotham with money? check and mate!’. and this could be a valid point to make. except. except. here’s the thing about comics where Batman is an asshat, because there absolutely are ones (tho that is definitely not my Batman). he’s occasionally shitty about class stuff, poor people are only used as misery porn or are villains. that’s an issue. but here’s the thing. 

What really distinguishes the shitty!Batman stories is the ableism. Because the Rogues are, to an overwhelming majority, mentally ill. A number of them physically disabled. and in shitty!Batman comics, you have mentally ill people mocked, demonized - literally compared to/called demons, on multiple occasions - accused of faking their insanity, or it ‘not affecting anything’, told they should have been killed long ago. they’re either depicted as sources of disgust and fear due to their evil, icky mental illness, or slimy bastards who are manipulating a too-soft system (that regularly beats them to a pulp and imprisons them indefinitely in dehumanizing conditions) by LYING about being mentally ill when they’re just CRAZY WITH EVIL. did we mention they’re evil? oh, and the only people who ever claim ‘police brutality’ or complain about being beaten up are also crazy and/or evil. it’s essentially the same thing, right?

shitty!Batman stories drip with physical ableism too - to die is not such a big thing. to be confined to a wheelchair? horror, disgust. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN. how can anyone LIVE like that? panels linger with delight on Two-Face’s scarred side, drool over how ugly it is. how repulsive! don’t worry, it’s ok to say that because he’s EVIL. and a shitty comic or two have told us exactly what a good disabled person is like - they shut up, fend for themselves, and definitely don’t want any handouts. and they never get angry when people stare and point. also, they’re generally white and heterosexual and want to form nuclear families, but that’s par for the course. that’s normal. 

in the story I read, two villains are vaguely mentioned. one, I couldn’t figure out who it was supposed to be. one was a poor man’s Mr. Freeze. The poor man’s Mr. Freeze no longer had a wife he was trying to cure, or wanted revenge - he only worried about proper things, like how the city was run. neither of them are crazy, of course. the ‘one who was scarred with acid’ is only mentioned offstage. no word on whether he’s also been cured of his crazy. we’re assured that our narrator, the henchman, is not crazy. thank goodness! for a moment I thought

well, I thought a story that came up all smug, acting like it was the first one to say ‘but what if the Villains were good and the Heroes bad...’ would actually say something with teeth. wouldn’t frantically paint over the villains, erase their insanity and their queercoding and their general messiness. would instead say: hey, even if you’re not a good person, you deserve to be treated for your mental illness, to be treated with a certain amount of respect for your humanity. hey, maybe mentally ill people, people with scarred faces, are human. maybe just ‘cause this black guy has some kind of crocodile mutation going on doesn’t make it OK to hurl insults at him about his subhuman intellect, about how he’s basically an animal. because that was also a problem, y’know.

I think this post is getting away from me. And there’s still reams more to say, because as some blogger whose url I can’t recall stated: ‘complaining about ableism in Batman stories is like complaining about water in the ocean, I know...’ and yet people keep on looking at these stories and saying, ‘not only are we going to reject the stories where the hero is kind, where he tries to understand, where he is also neurodivergent and simply at one point on a spectrum of messed up people reacting to this dark little world, but when we take that from you - when we choose to only remember the moments he’s written worst - we are also going to take away the villains.’ it’s the same ugly sting as the people who talk about the horrors of old asylums, and say, in hushed horrified tones, you know - sane people got put in there!

if you’re going to write about villains, don’t strip away what got them called villains in the first place. fucking deal with it, or keep your hands off them. 

[briangroth27]

Joker Review

I was not excited to see Joker based on the trailers that seemed determined to excuse and justify Joker’s (Joaquin Phoenix) madness and motives with a sympathetic light. While it is well-shot and well-acted—and if you enjoyed it, I’m glad you got something positive out of the experience—I thought the movie confirmed my impression of the trailers and I wasn’t a fan.

Full Spoilers…

Arthur Fleck is a sad, lonely man with vague mental illnesses who can’t catch a break in life or love. His life does suck and he does get dealt several bad and unfair hands, but nothing this movie did convinced me to feel sorry for him because I know the monster he’s going to become. It’s the same way I don’t care about real-world rapists’ “bright futures” being put in jeopardy by being held accountable for their crimes and have no sympathy for mass shooters’ sad histories of being turned down for dates. In the end, society is a problem, but how Arthur reacts to it is all on him and what he becomes is reprehensible, so I found it impossible to connect to him even before the villainy. Maybe if he were an original character—or even a Batman villain who does have a spark of good intentions and true tragedy to them, like Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, or Two-Face—I would’ve cared about him, but the Joker has far too much baggage to be painted as a tragic figure, and drawing this character so close to being an anti-hero who’s right to act like he does is gross. Even if the adoration he gets from the rioting crowds after the car accident is his imagination (much like he imagined Sophie (Zazie Beetz) thought stalking her was charming at the beginning of their “relationship”), he still felt that hero-worship throughout the movie from the protesters adopting his clown persona so I don’t think it makes a big difference if that one post-accident scene was real or not.

I didn’t like the choice to make most of his laughter part of his illness either, as that took a huge part of the character’s outlook/personality and sense of “humor” away by making it something uncontrollable. It’s also an antiquated and harmful view of mental illness in a time when we’re fully aware that mentally ill people are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. Continuing to draw mentally ill people as violent criminals is something that needs to be addressed and updated in the larger Batman canon too. Like so many other choices here, explaining his laughter takes away the scariness the character previously had. I have no problem knowing who Joker used to be, but knowing why he does what he does (even just trying to convince us that he’s an “agent of chaos”) is too much information in my opinion. My preferred Joker is one who’s unpredictable and incomprehensible, where trying to puzzle out his motives either leaves you dead or drives you insane (like it did Harley Quinn). I also want more variety in his crimes, not just a series of revenge killings for personal slights and abuses. Give me everything from trying to patent Joker Fish to deadly laughing gas attacks to just wanting to pie Batman in the face for Christmas. During his big debut on TV in this film, I was wishing we could see a classic caper instead (even though yes, hijacking a TV show is something Joker would do). Confining Joker’s victims to people who personally attacked him also takes away from the threat he poses: if you treated him well, you’re totally fine here.

While escalation to more indiscriminate victims is possible, as one of my sisters pointed out, the movie works really hard to justify everything he does with grounded motives in what feels like an attempt to say “see, anyone really could be pushed to this breaking point!” It’s not enough that Arthur’s co-workers don’t like him, one of them (Glenn Fleshler) has to essentially trick him into getting fired. Arthur’s obsessive love of TV personality Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) turning dark can’t just be a result of Arthur being a stalker who dreams of being a comedian even though he’s not funny, Murray also has to personally insult Arthur in front of the city/nation. It’s not bad enough that Arthur’s mom (Frances Conroy) abused and lied to him his whole life, but his secret “father” Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen) also has to be a horrible rich person. I totally get that Thomas would be furious about Arthur touching Bruce (Dante Pereira-Olson) and I’d be enraged too, but Thomas’ anti-poor sentiments set him against Arthur’s social situation and in the end it felt like we weren’t supposed to see his and Martha’s (Carrie Louise Putrello) deaths as a tragedy, but as a reaction to the way they treated the lower classes (since the riot is so closely tied to the way Arthur reacts). On a side note, Martha really just isn’t ever going to speak or contribute to a story at all beyond being a victim, is she? Anyway, my reading of Joker’s “you wouldn’t get the joke” line at the end of the movie was that the Arkham interview scene occurs after Batman had appeared and everyone’s favorite “badass” hero grew up to protect the system (the “care to explain the joke?” question is intercut with scenes of the Wayne murders). This Bruce would totally embody the “Batman’s a wealthy guy who beats up poor people” take that’s been going around for the past few years (just imagine how this Thomas was raising Bruce, instead of the good man that Thomas usually is), particularly since it was apparently someone protesting for fair wages and equality that murdered his parents. The clothing styles do look the same in that interview scene as in the rest of the film, rather than being 90s styles or later, but arresting some fashions and technology even as time moves on is hardly a new design choice for a Batman movie/animated series. Even if that’s not the joke that Arthur means in that final scene, I fully believe that’s the Batman that would come out of these events, and who wants that?

If the joke that Arthur references is that the world put all this meaning on him that he didn’t intend, it’s not a very good joke because he has a whole speech explaining that on TV. I believe Joker when he says he’s not political—he’ll take revenge on anyone, rich and poor alike—but having the protesters adopt his ideology and imagery is a really weird choice given who he is in the comics. Even though he doesn’t have anything to do with the protests themselves (though he does egg on the riots during his speech, as what he says about his own mistreatment by society is also what they’re feeling about theirs), the filmmakers saddling “his” movement with the language of the real-life left (like "resist") is extremely questionable: why are the filmmakers trying to make this monster a heroic inspiration (even if misunderstood) for what would be the social justice side? In The Killing Joke, Joker argues that one bad day will drive anyone insane, which seems to be what this movie wants to say too (with “insanity” framed as a “reasonable” reaction to a broken system). However, the end of The Killing Joke reaffirms that the world isn’t like Joker and one bad day won’t push most people to villainy, since he fails to break Gordon, Barbara, and (once it became an in-continuity tale) Batman. Joker has no one to make that argument, and instead has Joker give a speech on TV about how it’s totally justifiable to go on a murder spree in reaction to being mistreated because “this is what you get.” No thanks.

If the “joke” is that none of this happened at all, well then…why are we here watching his self-indulgent delusions of persecution and oppression?

If they wanted to make a movie about a sympathetic man turned bad by a cold system that hurts people who do nothing but get sick, they should’ve made a Mr. Freeze movie. A film about someone who goes to increasingly extreme lengths to change the world for the better while being labeled as crazy by society? Get a Poison Ivy film into production. Want to explore a villain with good intentions and a society divided between the rich and poor, with how you’re treated by people, the law, and the world left up to chance on how you were born? Then this should’ve been a Two-Face movie. There’s merit to saying that there are problems with our social system and that it fails people who have no other support network, for sure. And lots of bad guys have been successfully drawn with some core good idea that they take off the rails into full-blown villainy as they commit increasingly evil acts. The Joker is not one of those villains. He doesn’t have a logical point and shouldn’t be painted as right in any way.

Again, on a technical and performance level Joker is a well-made movie and I’m glad if you found something worthwhile here, but I vehemently disagree with its entire premise of making the Joker understandable and especially with trying to paint him as something of an anti-hero with a twisted point who’s justified in acting the way he does. I was bored and couldn’t get past the knowledge of what Joker becomes. This is just not for me. Oh well; on to the next movie!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!