Y'know, it's so funny to me when people make out like Tim Drake would keep files on how to take down his friends when Tim has explicitly said he disagrees with Batman on this:
[Young Justice (1998) #36]
Like, yes, during his Red Robin tenure he does make a Hit List full of contingency plans for known heroes. But if you go and read that, you'll notice that, while the Justice League and Damian may be on there, Tim's own friends are decidedly absent:
[Red Robin (2009) #14]
In fact, a lot of these heroes are people that have either (a) attacked Tim specifically, (b) have a track record that includes turning evil/getting mind controlled, or (c) are on the JLA (meaning Batman probably already had those files compiled and Tim just stole them).
So yeah: Tim's not down with contingency-planning for his friends. You know which one of the YJ crew DID agree with Batman though? My favorite blorbina Anita Fite, aka Empress:
[Young Justice (1998) #36]
But yeah, this contrast is honestly fascinating to me. Because while both Anita and Tim have been shown to be incredibly loyal individuals, this exchange really highlights the fact that, between the two of them, Anita is far more likely to engage in this kind of pragmatism when she thinks it's necessary to get the job done
The whole Our Worlds at War arc actually does a really good job of illustrating how both of them react to betrayal from within. It's not just the Batman Files conflict either -- I'm thinking specifically about the hallucination-based torture Granny Goodness put them through, which showed them their worst fears. Most of the team ended up having to watch their loved ones die, but what's super interesting to me is that we really only see Anita and Tim hallucinate that their loved ones blame them for their deaths:
[Young Justice (1998) #37]
Like. It's not the same as a teammate turning evil at all. But it does give us a good idea of how they'd both react when faced with a friend or teammate doing harmful things, albeit on a smaller scale. Because where Tim kind of just accepts Superboy yelling at him and moves straight into bargaining for Kon's life, Anita actually flips the script, gets angry, and defends herself against her father:
[Young Justice (1998) #37]
(she actually gets so righteously pissed off that she manages to break out of the VR simulation Granny Goodness had her trapped in, but that's another point)
But yeah, it's super interesting, because by this point, both Anita and Tim have been set up to be very similar characters. They both can be a little bit obsessive, they both have some issues with boundaries and stalking (Tim with Nightwing and Batman, Anita with Cissie), and of the team, they're both portrayed as the "normal" members (Anita does technically have mind control powers but she barely ever uses them, and in a fight, she's basically just a very good, human-level fighter)
But at the end of the day, though Batman forces Robin to put on a cool front of objectivity, Tim (at least in his pre-grief-spiral era) ultimately wants to see the best in his team. When the people he cares about screw up, he wants to give them second chances. And when that trust gets broken, his first instinct is to try to use diplomacy, or, failing that, simply remove himself from the situation (as we see at the end of the Our Worlds at War arc when he quits the team)
Anita, on the other hand, while still incredibly loyal, does not hand out that loyalty unconditionally. We see this when she tries to keep her identity secret from the YJ squad, we see it when she gets pissed in Granny Goodness's hallucination when her father blames her for her mother's death, and we see it when she later blames Secret for her perceived role in Anita's father's death
Anita also happens to sit right smack dab in the middle of the YJ morality scale; while she's generally pretty chill and willing to abide by typical superhero codes of ethics (unlike Slobo and Secret), she's also been shown to bend those rules when she believes it's necessary (as seen here when she tortures and threatens to kill a man for trying to hurt Cissie). Ultimately, what this means is, between Tim and Anita, it's honestly Anita who'd probably be the most willing to put her personal qualms aside, buckle down, and go against her loved ones if it was the only reasonable option
Anyway. This is a really long-winded way of saying I think Gun Batman's biggest nemesis should be Empress
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So I know some of the more current theories is that Stan didn’t need glasses until he was much older or that he only wears them to look more like Ford, but can I offer:
• Stan needed glasses around the same time Ford did as a child, but Filbrick wouldn’t budget for them because “he wouldn’t use them anyway” or “he would just break them”
• This is the real reason Stan always copied off of Ford. Because his brother’s desk was closer than the chalkboard and therefore easier to see.
• Additionally, Stan didn’t want to admit that he needed glasses and his family (supposedly) couldn’t afford them, so he quickly just embraced the “slacker” persona
• When Ford disappears into the portal, Stan finds an old pair of his glasses and tries them on out of curiosity. They aren’t a perfect match to his prescription, but the difference is enough that he either keeps wearing them or scrounges up enough money from the Murder Hut to get his own.
• This made reading the journals a little easier for him until he realized that he actually retained a lot of that information he’d copied from Ford. Had he had the resources and support to continue his education, he probably would have done quite well if he only had some glasses
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[ID: A digital comic of Sam and Celia from The Magnus Protocol and Danny from The Magnus Archives on a gray background. Everyone is colored in a single color. Sam is red, Celia is green, and Danny is yellow. Sam is a fat Arab man with short curly dark hair, a mustache, and a small goatee, and he is wearing small black earrings, a cardigan, a turtleneck, trousers and loafers. Celia is a slim Korean woman with short dark hair and she is wearing rectangular glasses, piercings including an industrial piercing, an x-shaped earring, and snakebites, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a vest, trousers, and black wrist cuffs. Danny is a tall, beefy Latino man with short hair, a cut in his brow, and a "cat mouth" and he is wearing small hoop earrings and a waiter uniform including an apron and name tag.
Sam and Celia sit at a table looking tired. Sam is resting his chin on his hand and Celia has her fingers steepled.
Sam: We'll NEVER get what we need without this specific thing and/or connection. WHATEVER will we DO?
Danny appears holding a notepad and pen, shrugging sheepishly and smiling with flowers around his head. Sam and Celia sit up, smiling at him excitedly with their hands in the air
Danny: UM, I might just know a guy!
Sam: Our regular waiter, Danny Stoker!
Celia: You ALWAYS have what we need!
Danny: HAHA, what can I say?
end ID]
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rusty quill i have a suggestion
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