#most panels are from Red Hood and the Outlaws (2011)

[evasive-anon]

jason todd inspo for dpxdc

So I know not everyone is gonna read through comics so here is some dope Jason panels that I think absolutely SCREAM danny phantom xover material.

After coming back from the dead, Talia dropped Jason off with the All-Caste which is like a sect of warrior monks who do magic.

The All-Caste have a nexus chamber that can go ANYWHERE and ANYWHEN and looks absolutely insane and is filled with door ways. It absolutely screams GZ/Infinite Realms material. Jason has been in it multiple times both when learning magic bullshit as a teen and again as Red Hood when trying to track down The Untitled after they killed off all the All-Caste.

Below is a pic of Jason just after he left the All-Caste after getting kicked out and I do think his hair looks like Danny's here so I'm dropping it in for all those ppl who like writing fics where Jason is Danny's universal variant.

I have not found any panels where Jason actually has glowing green eyes but he does glow with occult symbols when meditating.

If you don't know about the All-Blades then just know are fire swords Jason can summon and use to destroy evil. Also they come with a mystic disembodied voice talking about balance and shit sometimes. They're powered by your soul so you can do some real weeb shit with that.

Bonus, sometimes Crime Alley or Gotham are referred to as Jason's Haunt and I think that's beautiful.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

STARFIRE (DC COMICS) (CW: Sex Trafficking)

1.) She is frequently put down in the og 80s comics due to being more expressive and open with her emotions, and ever since the og she has frequently been painted as just eyecandy (ignoring her sexual trauma) when her character is so incredibly complex. Special mention goes to red hood and the outlaws (2011) (written by a sexual harasser) for just terrible stand out awful reasons which will be seen in the below photos and her 2015 solo for combining her vapid portrayal there with her cartoon quirkiness to culminate in a trash comic that is just her basically being the born sexy yesterday trope.

2.) 2011 reboot, in RHATO she was turned into a walking fetish by retconning most parts of her character and erasing all personality displayed in the past 30 years of comics. in that iteration she is only interested in sex and is dehumanised and ‘exotic’. she ‘forgot’ all her past relationships because she doesn’t care about them only sex. her only purpose in that book is as a powerhouse and a sex/love interest for one of the male characters who view her as a trophy because she used to date someone he dislikes (in this continuity) let’s also not forget that she was first created just to be a love interest and although she did grow into a hood character at some point, she is treated horribly time and time again by writers because of conflicting ships. she’s written as a ‘vixen’ as opposed to another ‘good girl’ female character who is shipped with the same guy in canon

3.) Her original characterization was fairly decent, however it still had her stuck in relationships with men that weren't very good for her and had overtones of racism with how she was written. Post that her characterization was slowly chipped away at, some writers with harder sledgehammers than others, culminating in current writing where she's dismissed as "just a fling" to her original counterpart (Dick Grayson) to prop up a different ship (Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon) and frequently has been used as eye candy in other comics. Simply open the first comic of Red Hood and the Outlaws, which obliterated her personality to make her associate/be subservient to the Red Hood, and you'll find plenty of panels of her appearing simply for eye candy in the boobs and butt pose for absolutely no reason. This is not the only time she's been used to cater to the male gaze (I'd argue even in her original context that was part of her appeal) but in this comic she essentially has no personality beyond "i want sex" as her memory of all past events has been erased. She's essentially just a tool for her male counterparts in the comic to bounce off of, and eye candy to bring more male readers in. She does eventually get more storylines later on, but that doesn't excuse the bad writing she was put through. Her own solo series also cashes in on her sex appeal, by infantilizing at the same time as drawing her in skimpy outfits + more boobs and butt poses galore to go for the "born sexy yesterday" misogynistic trope.

NYA SMITHA (LEGO NINJAGO)

1.) it would take way too long to talk abt all of it but like… in the series colors are very important for characters and everyone has their own color but from episode one for the next 8 seasons her colors were specifically tied to her brother.. and then when she finally got her own ninja outfit she wasnt given her own color the colors were specifically red for her brother and blue for her boyfriend. shes constantly diminished to just the men who are closest to her. also every time she meets someone they Must become a love interest (including the man who was significantly older than her and trained her to use her powers. and also she was kidnapped and forced to marry a thousand year old djinn (when she was like SIXTEEN) because she looked a little bit like his dead wife. weird as hell.)

2.) she was given NOWHERE NEAR as much development as the guys (except for the bullshit love triangle!!!) despite being at the time leagues more competent than her brother in their debut, was damsel’d so he had to Save The Girl. again, the Bullshit Love Triangle. even after she got her own “thing” she was just boiled down to “oh look it’s the girlboss!! she’s just as good as the guys!!” while still getting sidelined. as time went on and flanderization increased she pretty much just became The Team Girl, and she was ALREADY The Team Girl!!! they left her behind with the fuckin grandpa!!!

3.) Left behind to take care of the kid simply because “she’s the girl” for the first season and a half, is fairly blatantly excluded from the team, is believed to be unable to protect herself or others by antagonists throughout the series, and repeatedly dehumanized and referred to exclusively as “girl.” When the ninja are public figures in season 6 she is shown dealing with misogyny from the press in several ways, and in her focus season (Seabound) she speaks out against how she’s been treated as an object rather than a person. All around a girlboss who deserves better

[pluckyredhead]

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 (2011)

It's been a while since I've read RHATO, so I figured I'd reread it - and if I'm doing that, why not make you all suffer with me? I will probably get tired of this before I finish all the various series, but let's see how far we get.

Roy, that would probably work better if your bow had a string.

The issue begins with Roy in a prison in Qurac for trying to overthrow a dictator. He's rescued by Jason, in disguise as a pastor in a fat suit (sigh). There's so much wrong with these opening pages: the fat suit, the writing off an entire Middle Eastern nation as evil and corrupt, the fact that there's no way even a collapsed bow would fit inside a hollowed-out bible, the lazy way the panel layouts waste space...and yet. And yet.

These pages. THESE FUCKING PAGES. "His name is Roy Harper. He's an idiot. Nice guy, but an idiot." "His name is Jason Todd. A lot of people say he's crazy...Let's just say the Red Hood is my kind of crazy!"

This kind of parallel narration always makes me think of the 2003 Superman/Batman comic, which used it extensively, to extremely (and likely unintentionally?) homoerotic effect. After I read this issue, I told a friend that I got it now: Red Hood and the Outlaws was Superman/Batman for edgelords.

Which is to say, I'm pretty sure I started shipping these assholes just from these first terrible pages.

(But seriously, there are three pages up there and only five panels. Five panels! Plus some pointless maroon boxes that don't do anything! I want my money back.)

This panel is super misleading, because it implies that Roy and Jason know each other well enough for Jason to tease Roy about being a chatterbox, but later issues will show that barely know each other at this point. But then, trying to keep the backstories straight in this or any Lobdell book is like watching sand run out between your fingers.

And again here, it implies that they were already friends, a team, partners...something. But later we'll learn that they only met once, and it was years ago, when they were kids, so...what gives?

(This page is actually interesting, because Jason is constantly saying playfully mean things to Roy and Roy never seems to mind, but here he clearly hurts Roy, and he knows it.)

Siiiiigh.

To add insult to injury, Jason immediately announces that he's fucked Kori. You'll notice I aggressively ignore this in every fic I've ever written. Part of that is because I love Secret Virgin Jason, but also it just doesn't mesh with his and Kori's relationship throughout the rest of the series or his hilarious lack of game in general, and it's also so inextricably part of Amnesiac Sex Doll Kori that I just want nothing to do with it.

HATE. HAAAAAATE. The devious smile on Jason's face in the bottom row and Roy's calculating expression are so deeply disgusting to me. "This woman can't meaningly consent! She's like a cave fish with a vagina! Sweet!" Scott Lobdell is a vile human being and so is everyone who signed off on this piece of shit. (Fun fact: this was a HUGE controversy when the New 52 launched and the outcry was so loud they walked it back in a later issue when Kori tells Roy she...just lied about all of that for no reason? Okay.)

Also, "ask her about the gang you used to hang with." Uh...what gang is that, Jason? Because Donna didn't exist at this point, Wally was 12, Garth was a literal baby, Vic joined the League immediately upon getting his powers, and Gar was a child being tortured in a lab somewhere. So was it just Roy, Dick, and Raven? And they certainly weren't the Titans, because Tim's team was the founders in this continuity...which Lobdell should have known, since he was also writing that book.

The person asking to speak to Jason is Essence, his ex, who tells him something cryptic about murder victims with missing organs.

YOU DON'T KNOW MOST OF THOSE PEOPLE EITHER, ROY!!! "Remember Garth? The baby?" (Literally, he is a baby who shows up for one panel. In Atlantis.) And who the fuck is Dustin?

Anyway, Kori propositions Roy and he's like "Sure, why not." Did the target audience actually think this was hot? It's so depressing.

Essence tells Jason that something called the Untitled has attacked something called the All Caste, and Jason makes a surprised Pikachu face.

Elsewhere, a guy in a basement looks at a picture of Kori online.

I will admit to liking two things about this page: the fact that Jason's helmet is in the nightstand implies that Roy and Kori fucked in Jason's bed, which is either hilariously rude or an invitation that sailed right over Jason's head, and the red hand print on Roy's chest. It's the first glimpse of a recognizable Roy in this book; he did always like getting manhandled by scarily powerful women, pre-Flashpoint.

Jason goes...somewhere, to a temple of sorts with a lot of vague cultural appropriation going on, and kneels over the corpse of an old lady. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for you, Ducra," he says, before a bunch of people attack him. END OF ISSUE!

And that's Red Hood and the Outlaws #1! It's confusing, misogynistic, lazily drawn, and not very funny, and there's no reason to be invested in whatever the fuck happened at the end because I know nothing about Ducra, Essence, the All Caste, or frankly, this version of Jason. And yet I am absolutely going to read nine more years' worth of this shit. See you in issue #2!

[leonstamatis]

hi blink!!! how about top 5 comic recs and/or top 5 ballads?

oh god okay gonna start by saying as much as i love comics i’ve read very few of them okay let’s go

x-men: exiles. if you’ve ever wondered “hey, where did the name ‘blink’ come from, and also, how did you and jaz get to talking” the answer to both is in fact x-men, and exiles is my favorite. i haven’t read the shorter 2018 run (yet), but the earlier run is one of the first comics i ever read and clarice ferguson my darling is front and center so obviously it bangs.

x-men: x-factor. okay this one is great it’s a detective/noir setup with a bunch of great people including terry cassidy, my literal wife, and rictor and shatterstar - who are definitively the gay romance of all time. it gets uhhh less enjoyable as it goes in my opinion? but the first half fucking WHIPS and you just don’t get team-ups like this anymore.

hawkeye. yknow the matt fraction run. so like i’m a fake fan or whatever but i didn’t read this run until very recently and in fact i’m still working through it but i adore both the way clint is written and the way kate is written which is stellar because everything i’ve read with kate in the past has just been kind of. fine? she’s not the most compelling to me usually. but I love her in this one. she’s so so good. man.

red hood and the outlaws (2011). don’t read this one. don’t. it’s not good. for every one (1) panel showing the platonic ideal of a bi4bi4bi ot3 there are 70 panels of nonsense and bullshit (derogatory). instead, find a local bisexual who has read it and ask them to explain the best takeaways and plot points to you, so that you can ignore all the bad writing and poorly done plots. the version that exists in someone’s head is better than what exists on the page. even so, i am the local bisexual who goes feral over it. so like, it got me and it goes on the list.

birds of prey - once again. do not read this one. or at least don’t read the 1990s run because the politics are just. they’re so. questionable and in fact bad. and esp in the later issues the characterizations are very off. but what you CAN do is accept that dinah and babs were in love even before dinah knew babs’ name, and then go read the later runs by gail simone because that little factoid is all you need from any of the hundred or so issues written before ms. simone came along.

ohoho BALLADS. what if i just listed ballads (poems from Romantic authors) instead of songs. i’m not going to but i did consider it. i struggled with this one actually because like, technically ballads have specific meanings and i spent a while trying to find the narrative, abcb rhyming, folk songs. but that’s hard lmao so here have five slow love (?) songs regardless of genre.

“all the pretty girls” by kaleo. this is one of my top songs of all time actually which is why it’s on here, regardless of question specifications. OR. fuck. listen to “my fair lady” off their next album too. godddd god i lose my mind.

“weights and measures” by dry the river. everyone who knows me long enough has to eventually listen to me wax poetic about the album shallow bed (acoustic) at some point, i’m not going to get into it here again, but like. albums i can recite front to back and WILL at the slightest provocation. god this song. GOD this song!!! see also: bible belt and new ceremony. the fact that i use lyrics from any other artists for fic titles is a miracle.

“boy crazy” by dessa. okay listen, this is nothing like the first two songs and may not technically count as a ballad, i know. but, like. lie down in the grass and stare at the sky and listen to the live version from her performance with the minnesota orchestra. unlocks new emotions every time.

“nothing at all” by the crane wives. i wasn’t going to include it because it’s not quite right per the parameters set above but i keep circling back to it and going goddamn that’s a good one though,,,

andkfkgmhm i’m so. me. every time. okay go listen to “into your arms” by the maine. i’m sorry. the warped tour kid in me refuses to let this one go. music videos i watched on REPEAT in high school.

honorary mention to hozier, i told myself i couldn’t list him because everyone already knows all his slow love songs and that’s fine, but it’s weird not to put him on lists of favorites because. well. he is one.

[bitimdrake]

so what color is the lazarus pit? I mean, i know that its generally accepted to be green, but in UtRH it looks yellow? it was yellow in tower of babel too, i think.

There are many Lazarus Pits of many colors! There's plenty of variation in the red/orange/yellow/green range.

So green isn’t a totally invalid color, but it's just blatantly false to claim all Pits are always green. Indeed, most are orange/gold.

Considering that many different Lazarus Pits have appeared in canon, multiple colors aren’t a contradiction. And I'm not sure how often we've seen the same pit colored multiple ways, but I wouldn't even consider that to be a contradiction since...it's magic goo. It can change colors if it wants.

The first ever appearance of a Lazarus Pit (located in Switzerland) is in Batman #243, from 1972. It’s sort of a dark teal with green smoke?

1981's Batman #335, shows a different pit on Infinity Island that is orange.

1986's Batman #400, we find yet another pit in Gotham that's bright yellow.

The three issues above are from an era with a more limited color palette available to comics. For more modern references:

The pit in 2000′s Tower of Babel (this page from JLA #46) is red-orange.

2001′s Birds of Prey #34 sees Dinah Lance healed in a yellow-orange pit. In 2006, Cassandra Cain is resurrected in Batgirl #73 in an orange pit that might also be on fire?

Jason Todd was resurrected in a gold/orange pit. Top three panels are from Batman Annual #25 in 2006, part of the Under the Hood arc. Bottom panel is from Red Hood: Lost Days #1 in 2011, and totally matches.

Batman: the Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul in 2008 shows the only lime green pit I can think of off-hand. This panel is from Nightwing #139.

And in 2010, Kate Kane is resurrected in another orange/gold pit in Batman and Robin #9.

No pics, but in the New 52, Red Hood and the Outlaws #0 shows Jason being resurrected in a green pit in the new continuity so...I guess the entire source of this is people only reading the worst comics. (brb back on my ‘jason fans please read a decent comic’ hill.) And then a number of animated adaptations ran with the Pit being green, and now fans everywhere are convinced that’s universal.

[ectonurites]

i would love to see someone explore jason both as an adult who makes concious decisions about murder, who creates his own moral codex, and who doesn't hesitate to spill blood if he thinks it's right, and as someone who has ptsd from traumatic life in poverty, seeing his own parents die/rot away, and from being murdered slowly and painfully at the age of 15 and then coming back and mentally comprehending that still in his teens, and all the rage he feels, like angry and murderous jason in control vs angry and murderous jason out of control (also the fact that he came back as 18/19 year old and never had proper stationary/human support in his life afterwards, and how much also that fucked him up...)

ok im finally starting to go back and answer some old asks BUT YEAH!!! YAH YEAH YEAH!!! 

Jason has some of the most interesting potential as a character, there are so many complexities and layers to his actions and why he does things the way he does, but I just feel like DC has dropped the ball on him so bad because Jason basically exists as a challenge to Batman and even though everything Jason does isn’t right he does make points! And DC never wants Batman to look bad or wrong for more than maybe part of a story at a time, but it won’t be part of their status quo. So he gets watered down and shipped off to go do Outlaws stuff (2011 putting him on a team with two heroes who don’t really kill, and 2016 setting him in Gotham adopting a no-kill rule to fit in with the fam) or he’s there for all the big batfam group stuff but again not... doing the main thing he was reinvented as the Red Hood to do: Challenge the bats. 

Like, man, I absolutely understand a desire for the bats to be a big happy family but making Jason be part of that just with ‘oh ya know Jason our little black sheep’ rather than actually looking at the huge difference in morals he has from the rest of them... it just cheapens his character. Like for fan content go wild and do what makes you happy that’s what fan content is for, but in terms of the actual official comics Jason should not be included in group things nearly as often as he is. (Like, Joker War makes total sense for him to be part of because of his Joker trauma but like, man, even though I thought he was handled pretty well when there in the Batwoman Trial thing in Detective Comics 2016 him being included in a round table about the morality of another person in the batfam killing someone at all just feels so wrong to me. That’s just a completely different Jason than the guy I became interested in from before the reboot, ya know?) 

I really enjoyed the first part of Zdarsky’s new Jason story though in Urban Legends, and based on the new preview panels for the next part (which includes Jason talking about the difference between killing nameless faceless guys who were attacking him vs him impulsively killing someone, and how much the second thing was fucking him up, I think that’s definitely an interesting take that feels in line with Jason. Because when Jason knows someone is evil and bad and trying to hurt innocent people he will take them down, that’s what he does, but when it’s a heat of the moment thing and he knows the little kid who he’s gonna have to break the news to that his dad is dead, that’s so much harder) I think he’s taking a really cool route with him as a character. 

But yeah in general I just... want nuanced Jason takes, from fandom and official content. Not just ‘oh hes crazy from the pit sometimes but otherwise hes fine’ or chalking it up to just angst or whatever. I just... care the him, and am so glad Lobdell is hopefully never gonna touch him again 😌

[northoftheroad]

The Wayne family

Sometimes, when I read Batman fanfiction, I wonder whether the writer has been reading the same comic books as I have. Because they paint a picture of a big, happy Wayne family where the kids are very close and sometimes the whole bunch even live together. 

Now, I do know the difference between canon and fanfic. And I get that wishful thinking and selective reading plays a big part. But still, I'm curious where these conceptions come from.

Just to be clear. I do think of Bruces adopted/foster children as a family because they have a common father(figure). But they have not grown up together. It depends on what DC continuity you're playing with, of course, but most of them are in their teens when Bruce Wayne comes into their lives and they can’t have lived more than a few years with him. Several of them have not lived together. So even if I let my imagination run amok, I can't see them living at the Manor together as a tight-knit family, and I don't think all of them know each other very well.

Batman and Robin vol 2 # 10. By Peter Tomasi, art Patrick Gleason and Mick Gray.

Dick Grayson had moved out (or been kicked out, depending on what version you go with) when Jason Todd came along (and Bruce suffered from empty nest syndrome). Jason was dead when Tim Drake came into the picture, and Tim lived with his parents or boarding school in the beginning. Even if Dick kept in pretty close contact with Tim, he had a permanent home elsewhere.

Batman: Gotham Knights # 45. By Scott Beatty, art Roger Robinson and John Floyd. 

I admit I haven't read a lot with Cassandra Cain. As far as I understand, after Flashpoint she has never lived in the Manor. Before Flashpoint, she was adopted, but I don’t believe she lived long in the Manor, and the only other Wayne adoptee she can have shared the home with is Tim. 

Edit: At least, Bruce probably did have time to adopt Cass, even though he promised to do it in Batman: Redemption Road (2008), just before the story arc Batman RIP where he, presumedly, died. They certainly did not live together as a family for long. 

Batgirl: Redemption Road # 6. By Adam Beechen, art Jim Calafiore and Jack Purcell.

I’m sure there are cute panels of Tim and Cass out there, but I’m picking some from comics I know of.

Batgirl # 50. By Dylan Horrocks, art Rick Leonardi and Jesse Delperdang.

Batman: Family # 7. By John Francis Moore, art Steve Lieber and Stefano Gaudiano.

Tim was an older teenager when Damian al Ghul/Wayne dropped into the house and immediately tried to get rid of Tim the hard way, and I don’t think they spent a long time under the same roof until Bruce "died", and soon after Tim left (at least partially). 

Batman # 657. By Grant Morrison, art Andy Kubert and Jesse Delperdang.

Dick moved in with Damian and raised him (for about a year). When Bruce first came back he travelled with Batman Inc, and Dick and Damian continued to live together. There were times when you could find Bruce, Dick, Tim, Damian and Alfred in the Manor at the same time, but not living permanently together. 

Batman & Robin vol 1 # 20. By Peter J. Tomasi, art Patrick Gleason and Mick Gray.

Now, Flashpoint, New 52 and Rebirth makes it even more impossible to puzzle together a credible timeline for everything Bruce Wayne is supposed to have done and everyone's relationship with each other. We’ll end up with Jason being Robin for about a month... But, anyway...

At the start of New 52, Dick has gone back to Nightwing and moved into his own flat in Gotham. He’ll continue to move around in different cities so he’s clearly not living with any other Wayne. By then, Cassandra is retconned out of the family and I haven’t seen any sign that Jason lives at the Manor with Bruce and Damian (and I don’t know about Tim either).

Fast forward into Rebirth, and Duke Thomas stayed and trained with Bruce for a while. If any of the other kids lived there at the same time is anybody's guess, but you can see the whole Bat-family (including, for instance, Stephanie Brown and Luke Fox) share a happy meal in the Manor, so at least they socialize from time to time. I’ve read somewhere that Duke since has moved in with relatives.

In canon right now, as far as I can make out, the only one who (at least sometimes and varying between the books) lives with Bruce and Alfred in the Manor is Damian. 

Another fanon exaggeration on the opposite part of the scale, in my opinion, is the penchant for portraying Dick and Jason's relationship as extremely bad from the start.

There are three different versions of how they met before Flashpoint. The first time, when Jason was a circus-boy Dick clone, Dick originally wanted to take him in, but Bruce stepped in instead (DC needed a new Robin for Batman, after all). The second time, Bruce had fired Dick from Robin because he was shot by the Joker and then promptly picked up Jason, after Dick had left. The third time (Nightwing Year One), Bruce fired Dick and kicked him out (I tend to ignore this version mostly, to be honest, because Bruce is ridiculously much of an ass here) and then, as you know, took in Jason.

And it's not that Dick loves Jason straight away, or the fact Bruce took in a new Robin by the blink of an eye, in the two later versions. But he still gives Jason his old Robin suit and his phone number in version two and in version three, they part on decent terms, and Dick tells Bruce (by recording) that he could have done worse.

After that, they hardly meet before Jason is killed because Dick is working with the Titans and doesn't live in Gotham. Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Jason helped the New Teen Titans a few issues (Dick was busy getting in the hands of Brother Blood and being brainwashed, at the time) in New Teen Titans vol 2 # 20–31. And there is a snapshot of Dick and Jason hanging out as civilians in Nightwing vol 2 issue 63. That's about it. 

Nightwing vol 2 # 63. By Chuck Dixon, art Trevor McCarthy and Karl Kesel. 

Then, of course, Jason came back from the dead slightly unhinged (2005). I don't know the whole picture of meetings or confrontations between the Bat-kids between Jason's comeback and Flashpoint (2011). I do know he dressed up as Nightwing and killed people in Nightwing vol 2 # 118–122. When Jason was abducted, Dick struggled a bit with the question "Is it ethical for me to save someone who's a danger to society?" before he went to save Jason. In the end, Jason sends a telegram where he says "Thanks for coming for me, brother. I know we don't agree on much. I just wanted to believe we could be family again." Tim and Dick also had a confrontation with Jason in Teen Titans (2003) # 47, and Dick and Jason had a not very amicable meeting in the Outsiders v 3 # 44.

Nightwing vol 2 # 118 –122. By Bruce Jones, art Joe Dodd, Paco Diaz, BIT and Nathan Massengill. 

And then we have Battle for the Cowl, where Jason shot Damian, left Tim for dead and tried to kill Dick after he had refused to become Robin to Jason's Batman. (I guess there are Jason fans out there who think that Dick was not justified to put Jason in jail after that. Obviously, I'm not one of them, but if anyone dislikes these years in canon and decides to ignore it to the best if their ability, who am I to judge?)

So, the Wayne boys definitely had a partly antagonistic, partly close, partly distant relationship. After Flashpoint, I think it has in been portrayed as better. At least, I haven't seen them try to kill each other...  Tim calls Damian "gremlin", Jason is Damian's secret mentor (or so I've seen somewhere), they sometimes meet on the rooftops and work together. On the other hand, the previously close relationship between Dick and Tim seems pretty much forgotten. (Let's hope they start remembering that soon again.)

Detective Comics # 975. By James Tynion IV, art Raul Fernandez and Alvaro Martinez.

Somewhere in Batman and Robin Eternal, Jason says that Tim is the only of the other Robins that he likes. (I honestly don't know where that came from, I never noticed them seeing eye to eye before. Still, it's not like I've read every Bat comic ever printed. But then, I rather believe the same goes for a number of DC writers... Edit: I’ve been informed that it’s probably from a flashback in an issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws.) In RH and the outlaws annual 1 (I think that’s the only issue of that series I’ve read, to be honest), Jason narrates that there was a time when he would have killed Dick on sight. "Not my proudest moment. We've made up since then." They have a complicated relationship, but they are still somehow clearly brothers, and Jason thinks back to when he saw the Flying Graysons perform and how Dick was a hero to him then (another retcon after Flashpoint).  As far as I know, it's the only post-Flashpoint retelling of how Jason and Dick met, and the story is that Alfred puts Jason in Dick's room so he wouldn't have to clean a new one. Dick is not happy to find someone in his bed when he comes home to visit. They fight. Honestly, I can't imagine Alfred doing that, so that's one version of the canon I’m happy to overlook...

On the other hand, we have Jason and Dick hanging out on the rooftops in Blüdhaven in Nightwing vol 4 # 15, and Dick, Jason and Damian certainly bicker like siblings (together with Duke) in Batman vol 3 # 16 and # 33.

Nightwing vol 4 # 15. By Tim Seeley, art Minkyu Jung. 

Batman vol 3 # 16. By Tom King, art David Finch. 

On the whole, I think the only thing you can be sure of about the relationships between the Wayne family members these days is that it varies quite a bit between titles and writers and has had its ups and downs over the years. But that they have never lived together as one big, happy family.

Of course, all this is based on the comic books I’ve read, and there might very well be stories out there that paint a different picture. But on the whole, I’m pretty confident that this panel is about as close to a happy family gathering we’ve seen. And then it’s not only the Waynes but the Bat family.

Batman and the Signal. By Scott Snyder and Tony Patrick, art Cully Hamner.

[secretlystephaniebrown]

I'm new to the Batman comics and was wondering if you could answer a question? I saw another blog talking about Batman adopting kids and how it helped him recover which I follow for the most part. But then they said he relapsed after Jason. What happened to Jason? I don't mind spoilers, it helps me get through the darker parts.

… oh gosh you poor soul. 

Okay so um. 

Well first of all let me start off with saying that if you can find it, you should track down the animated movie Under the Red Hood. It’s a very solid, if streamlined, adaptation of everything I’m about to tell you, and it probably will do a better job than I ever could.

Let’s continue this under the cut, because this got long, and I have pictures, some of which will be… unpleasant, as will be the topics discussed. Warnings for violence, death, and references to sexual assault below! 

Now, since you’re new to comics, I’ll give you a quick rundown. 

(Batman (1940-2011) #368)

Jason Todd was the second Robin, and he had the misfortune of being the first attempt to make the role a legacy. 

He was a very controversial figure. Dick Grayson was widely beloved, and while Jason had his fans, he also was present in a time in comics when many people, both among the readers and the writers for DC, believed that kid sidekicks weren’t dark enough, and fans of Dick often found Jason to be unlikable and too edgy. Jason smoked, he was lower-class and drew attention to a lot of the less palatable parts of Gotham, his mother died of a drug overdose, and he became Robin by stealing the tires off the Batmobile. 

(Batman (1940-2011) #408)

And infamously, towards the end of his run as Robin, he might have possibly killed a rapist who would have gotten off otherwise because of diplomatic immunity. 

Batman (1940-2011) #424

… yeah. That was a thing. 

A lot of Jason’s “bad Robin” stuff which he has become slightly infamous for was in fact retconned in after… everything else, but, as seen in this story above, Jason was a character who was pushing a lot of traditional boundaries in Batman comics, and the violence and temper were there from the beginning, but it was presented as something that Jason was relatively in control of, and that Bruce was helping him with.  

(Batman (1940-2011) #411 - for context, Two Face killed Jason’s father)

But Jason had some bright spots; he joined the Teen Titans briefly, he was Robin present for For the Man Who Has Everything, one of the most famous comic stories during that time, and had a pretty decent relationship with Dick Grayson (which… they retconned later.) 

(Batman (1940-2011) #416)

And then, in 1988, one bright DC executive decided to try a gimmick to drum up publicity for the upcoming storyline Batman: A Death in the Family. (Because those always work out well.) It was decided that in the upcoming story, they would have a phone poll, to see if Robin lived or died. 

The vote was taken, and the people spoke. Jason was to die. 

(I’ll note here that there’s a LOT of controversy about the vote; apparently there was a robo-calling scam, people were charged per-call so younger readers couldn’t vote, people weren’t sure if the question pertained to Dick or Jason, and some people voted just to see if DC would actually do that.) 

So Jason undertook a rather fascinating story where he discovered that the woman who had raised him wasn’t his birth mother, and began to track down his birth mother. After a few false leads, including Lady Shiva, he eventually tracked down his birth mother, Sheila Haywood, who was a volunteer doctor in Ethiopia. Jason and her had a relatively cute reunion, before it was revealed that Sheila was involved with the Joker, who was blackmailing her. 

Batman (1940-2011) #427

Jason, against Bruce’s advice, revealed his identity as Robin to Sheila and offered to help. She then lured him into a trap, where the Joker beat Jason to near-death with a crowbar.   

(Batman (1940-2011) #427)

While she smoked a cigarette.

Batman (1940-2011) #427 

The Joker double-crossed Sheila, because he’s the Joker, and left her and Jason both to die in the warehouse with a bomb. Despite his injuries, Jason tried to rescue Sheila and get them both to safety, but he wasn’t fast enough. 

(For the record, anyone who blames Jason for his death here can fight me. He was trying to help his mother, and it bothers me a lot that most interpretations cut out this angle.)

(Batman (1940-2011) #427)

Sheila, possibly having some regrets, managed to tell Bruce that Jason had tried to save her before she died. Jason had no such opportunity to exchange last-words with Bruce. 

(Batman (1940-2011) #427)

Bruce had arrived at the warehouse just in time to see it blow up, which shook him to his core, and for which he blamed himself.

I can’t emphasize enough how huge this was to comics at the time; the death of Robin was a major shakeup to the status quo, and for years Jason Todd was defined as one of the three perma-dead characters in comics. (The others being Bucky Barnes and Uncle Ben.) 

The Joker then… went off and had a wacky sideplot about getting diplomatic immunity by becoming the ambassador for Iran, and then he tried to blow up the United Nations. It was… weird. 

But back to Jason, his death severely shook up Bruce for years. 

Batman: Gotham Knights (2000-2006) #45

His costume literally haunted Bruce in the Batcave in the form of the memorial case, and Jason’s death affected Bruce’s relationships with the next three members of the Bat Family; Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Cassandra Cain, while the Joker became cemented in his place as The Man Who Killed Robin. 

Batman: Gotham Knights (2000-2006) #44

Batman (1940-2011) #629

Brucefrequently hallucinated Jason, and his fears of losing anotherRobin/Batgirl/protege (compounded by the fact that The Killing Joke happenedjust beforehand) lead to extremely over-protectiveness towards Tim, and shaped hisentire relationship with Stephanie Brown prior to her run as Batgirl. Butthat’s a post in and of itself.

Jason came back from the dead in Under the Red Hood. (The movie version of which kind of… simplified Jason’s death by cutting out the bit about his birth mom. But the details vis-à-vis the Joker and the crowbar remained the same.) In the comic, we don’t see how Jason got resurrected, but it was revealed in a later comic that, in a major event called Crisis on Infinite Earths, a character named Superboy Prime punched the walls of reality and resurrected Jason Todd. 

Batman (1940-2011) Annual #25

Yes. Really.

Anyways, Jason then had to dig his way out of his own coffin in one of the most horrifying sequences ever. 

Batman (1940-2011) Annual #25

Jason then wandered Gotham in a catatonic state, living on the streets and scavenging for food, until he and his still-retained fighting skills were recognized by someone, who called Talia al Ghul. Talia tried to help Jason recover on his own, before realizing that wasn’t going to work, so she shoved him in the Lazarus Pit (against her dad’s wishes), which solved the catatonia, and, depending on your interpretation, possibly made Jason violent and angry. 

Most more recent adaptations/continuity reboots chose to place Jason’s resurrection solely as a Lazarus Pit endeavor, which I’m iffy on, simply because Jason digging out of his own grave was an image that really stuck with me when I first read the comics. 

After escaping from Ra’s, Jason started to figure out his new place in the world. Jason discovered that the Joker was still alive, and that there was a new Robin. 

Batman (1940-2011) Annual #25

Red Hood: The Lost Days (2010-2011) #4

This enraged Jason, who set about on a multi-year journey to learn the “skills that Batman never taught him”, before making his return in Under the Red Hood. (Which, I should note, occurred almost directly after the infamous War Games saga, where another Robin, Stephanie Brown, was killed. This isn’t actually addressed in the story itself, but on a meta narrative level, it’s interesting to note.)  

Batman (1940-2011) #635

Jason became a Crime Lord known as only The Red Hood, which was the Joker’s original nome-de-guerre. He played a series of mindgames and plots, before finally revealing his identity to Bruce. His endgame eventually lead to him kidnapping the Joker, beating him with a crowbar, giving Bruce a gun, and telling Bruce that he’d either have to shoot the Joker, let Jason kill the Joker, or shoot Jason. Bruce found a way around that, because he’s Bruce, but Jason vanished afterwards, leaving Bruce dealing with the fact that his greatest failure, to save Jason, had literally come back to haunt him. 

Jason went on to be a villain/anti-villain of various flavors, featuring in Battle for the Cowl, and the preboot’s Batman and Robin by Grant Morrison, before getting an image shift in the Nu52, primarily in Red Hood and the Outlaws, which shifted him into anti-hero territory. 

But that’s another story entirely. 

Hopefully this has answered your questions! Panel credits all go to @renaroo, who’s always the best to call up for screenshots.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

STARFIRE (DC COMICS) (CW: Sex Trafficking)

1.) She is frequently put down in the og 80s comics due to being more expressive and open with her emotions, and ever since the og she has frequently been painted as just eyecandy (ignoring her sexual trauma) when her character is so incredibly complex. Special mention goes to red hood and the outlaws (2011) (written by a sexual harasser) for just terrible stand out awful reasons which will be seen in the below photos and her 2015 solo for combining her vapid portrayal there with her cartoon quirkiness to culminate in a trash comic that is just her basically being the born sexy yesterday trope.

2.) 2011 reboot, in RHATO she was turned into a walking fetish by retconning most parts of her character and erasing all personality displayed in the past 30 years of comics. in that iteration she is only interested in sex and is dehumanised and ‘exotic’. she ‘forgot’ all her past relationships because she doesn’t care about them only sex. her only purpose in that book is as a powerhouse and a sex/love interest for one of the male characters who view her as a trophy because she used to date someone he dislikes (in this continuity) let’s also not forget that she was first created just to be a love interest and although she did grow into a hood character at some point, she is treated horribly time and time again by writers because of conflicting ships. she’s written as a ‘vixen’ as opposed to another ‘good girl’ female character who is shipped with the same guy in canon

3.) Her original characterization was fairly decent, however it still had her stuck in relationships with men that weren’t very good for her and had overtones of racism with how she was written. Post that her characterization was slowly chipped away at, some writers with harder sledgehammers than others, culminating in current writing where she’s dismissed as “just a fling” to her original counterpart (Dick Grayson) to prop up a different ship (Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon) and frequently has been used as eye candy in other comics. Simply open the first comic of Red Hood and the Outlaws, which obliterated her personality to make her associate/be subservient to the Red Hood, and you’ll find plenty of panels of her appearing simply for eye candy in the boobs and butt pose for absolutely no reason. This is not the only time she’s been used to cater to the male gaze (I’d argue even in her original context that was part of her appeal) but in this comic she essentially has no personality beyond “i want sex” as her memory of all past events has been erased. She’s essentially just a tool for her male counterparts in the comic to bounce off of, and eye candy to bring more male readers in. She does eventually get more storylines later on, but that doesn’t excuse the bad writing she was put through. Her own solo series also cashes in on her sex appeal, by infantilizing at the same time as drawing her in skimpy outfits + more boobs and butt poses galore to go for the “born sexy yesterday” misogynistic trope.

BUMBLE (WARRIOR CATS) (CW: Domestic Abuse)

1.) Back with another Warriors submission, I bet you’ll be getting a lot from other people too LMAO. Bumble is a kittypet (housecat) who befriends the male protagonist Gray Wing’s girlfriend, Turtle Tail, and lets her stay in her house. This gets Gray Wing all pissy because he’s controlling of Turtle Tail and shares most of the wild/clan cat’s proclivity for looking down upon kittypets. Turtle Tail gets pregnant by another kittypet, Tom, who tries to control her by hiding the fact that humans take away kittens after they’re born. Eventually Bumble comes clean about it so Turtle Tail returns to the forest. Some time later, Bumble is found in the forest seeking refuge because Tom has been physically abusing her, scratching her where the humans can’t see. So, she’s CANONICALLY ACKNOWLEDGED as a domestic abuse victim (unlike Squirrelflight who meets all the textbook signs but the narrative and authors deny it). How do you think our good guy protagonists, i.e. Gray Wing “The Wise” and Turtle Tail, respond to an abuse victim seeking refuge? They tell Bumble to go home, thinking to themselves that she’s fat and soft and therefore would be useless in their group. Bumble stands up for herself and asks to speak with the leaders of the group. One of them asks if Bumble could just get along with Tom better (bro???) and when Bumble says it’s not within her control, the leader suggests being nicer to the humans instead. Another rival leader butts in and verbally abuses Bumble again by ripping into how fat and lazy and useless she would be. Despite Turtle Tail having been friends with Bumble and Bumble had helped her through her own hard times, to Gray Wing’s approval Turtle Tail chooses not to intervene as Bumble is forcibly escorted back to her abuser. But that’s not all. Later Bumble is found in the forest maimed and dying, and it seems likely that Gray Wing’s brother Clear Sky, a male with a long history of violence, is the culprit. Rather than mourn the dying innocent cat, Gray Wing’s primary concern is how other cats might be mean to Clear Sky if they think he’s a murderer, and reassures himself that refusing to help Bumble in her time of need was still the right decision.

2.) I have no idea how she managed to be written so horrifically from an abuse victim and woman (/she-cat I guess) standpoint but here we are. Okay so my memory is a bit fuzzy but basically Bumble was a character in Dawn of the Clans and a close friend to Turtle Tail, a major character, as well as a character who lived close to Tom, an abusive dickhead of a cat. Bumble was largely depicted as just a really sweet cat. Turtle Tail was very briefly the mate of Turtle Tail, but once she got pregnant, he became super violent towards both her and our gal Bumble. Tom actively hid the fact that, once her kits were old enough, Turtle Tail’s kits would probably be taken from her, and made Bumble keep quiet about this too, but Bumble eventually told Turtle Tail the truth, Turtle Tail left and Tom became extremely violent towards Bumble because of this, and was extremely abusive towards her. Eventually, Bumble ran away from him to where Turtle Tail and co were and begged to stay, since the wilderness as a whole was genuinely more safe than being around Tom was. Naturally, this meant kitty xenophobia from cats who had only arrived in that area recently, because everybody was insistent than, since she was a kittypet/house cat, things wouldn’t work out, and even her friend Turtle Tail denied her on this, insisted she was too soft to live in the wild and only sent her towards a cat Bumble wanted to convince because she was absolutely certain she’d be denied. Also our good old protagonist Gray Wing got to spend this scene being all upset about this soft cat wanting to join them to escape an abuser and was all bitter about the fact that Turtle Tail lived with her for a short period of time, and he also got to have a sweet romantic moment with Turtle Tail after denying an abuse victim an escape from her abuser. Also as much as I like Tall Shadow usually she sucked ass in the following scene because she was essentially telling Bumble to go find a way to make peace with Tom as if she was not the one being abused (Bumble pointed out that Tom was the one who would need to make peace for it to happen, not her) and that she should just make life better by going back to being a housecat and being spoiled despite the fact that she was actively at risk with her owners because of Tom. Then she leaves after being threatened by several cats there and is called soft on the way out. The next time she appears she is literally dying, and her death is just a plot device to create a stupid little mystery which is solved in a very stupid way. Also her abuser does continue to be a shithead and for some reason is fully permitted to kidnap his own children but he also gets a heroic death and the only reason I will not rant more about him is because this is too long already. Long story short Bumble deserves the world and everybody who decided not to let her escape her abuser just because they thought she was soft sucks

3.) Is nice to the group of starving, feral wild cats that left the mountains so their friends and family could have more food to eat and befriends one of them to the point of opening her home to her after she leaves the group because the guy she likes is too dumb to notice she likes him and keeps falling for his brother’s love interests.

Unfortunately, because Bumble is a house cat who lives in a house with people and not a Wild and Free cat, this is a grave and horrible crime (luring a wild cat into the safety and comforts of domesticity) and is villainized for the rest of the arc, including for things wildly out of her control

I.E.

Her owners taking in an aggressive male cat that bullies and abuses the two female cats already living there

When Bumble’s friend leaves and goes back to the wild cats, Bumble leaves her home (as the abuse as has gotten worse) to see if she could either get help or have her friend return so the abuse isn’t as bad again)

Bumble eventually dies in the wild because the feral cats all hate her for ‘stealing’ their friend and tricking her into becoming a kittypet for awhile and refuse to help Bumble adjust to wild life or even teaching her how to hunt.

They are littl e to no hard feelings at her death beyond ‘good riddance’ but the aggressive tomcat that chased her out of her home is later regarded with good feelings and regret at such a ‘good, heroic cat’ passing when he dies despite him literally never doing a good or kind thing in his life and actually causing trouble for the wild cats right before dying

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

STARFIRE (DC COMICS) (CW: Sex Trafficking)

1.) She is frequently put down in the og 80s comics due to being more expressive and open with her emotions, and ever since the og she has frequently been painted as just eyecandy (ignoring her sexual trauma) when her character is so incredibly complex. Special mention goes to red hood and the outlaws (2011) (written by a sexual harasser) for just terrible stand out awful reasons which will be seen in the below photos and her 2015 solo for combining her vapid portrayal there with her cartoon quirkiness to culminate in a trash comic that is just her basically being the born sexy yesterday trope.

2.) 2011 reboot, in RHATO she was turned into a walking fetish by retconning most parts of her character and erasing all personality displayed in the past 30 years of comics. in that iteration she is only interested in sex and is dehumanised and ‘exotic’. she ‘forgot’ all her past relationships because she doesn’t care about them only sex. her only purpose in that book is as a powerhouse and a sex/love interest for one of the male characters who view her as a trophy because she used to date someone he dislikes (in this continuity) let’s also not forget that she was first created just to be a love interest and although she did grow into a hood character at some point, she is treated horribly time and time again by writers because of conflicting ships. she’s written as a ‘vixen’ as opposed to another ‘good girl’ female character who is shipped with the same guy in canon

3.) Her original characterization was fairly decent, however it still had her stuck in relationships with men that weren’t very good for her and had overtones of racism with how she was written. Post that her characterization was slowly chipped away at, some writers with harder sledgehammers than others, culminating in current writing where she’s dismissed as “just a fling” to her original counterpart (Dick Grayson) to prop up a different ship (Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon) and frequently has been used as eye candy in other comics. Simply open the first comic of Red Hood and the Outlaws, which obliterated her personality to make her associate/be subservient to the Red Hood, and you’ll find plenty of panels of her appearing simply for eye candy in the boobs and butt pose for absolutely no reason. This is not the only time she’s been used to cater to the male gaze (I’d argue even in her original context that was part of her appeal) but in this comic she essentially has no personality beyond “i want sex” as her memory of all past events has been erased. She’s essentially just a tool for her male counterparts in the comic to bounce off of, and eye candy to bring more male readers in. She does eventually get more storylines later on, but that doesn’t excuse the bad writing she was put through. Her own solo series also cashes in on her sex appeal, by infantilizing at the same time as drawing her in skimpy outfits + more boobs and butt poses galore to go for the “born sexy yesterday” misogynistic trope.

MARWA (WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (TV SERIES)) (CW: Mind Control, Domestic Abuse)

1.) okok so a major character (nandor) uses a genie wish to bring back the 37 wives he had when he was human (he’s a vampire who was turned in the 1400s but is alive in the modern day) to pick his favorite to live with and settles on marwa. she’s established as someone who’s passionate about science and mathematics, but nandor uses his genie wishes to essentially mold her into his perfect woman like a doll, from changing her hair color to making her not want to go to the night market with him to making her like all the things he likes. this culminates in him LITERALLY TRANSFORMING HER INTO A BRITISH MAN NAMED FREDDIE and that is her send off from the show. the treatment of her is disgusting i’m sorry for ranting i love wwdits but honestly the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth

2.) WHERE TO START my god. Marwa is introduced into the story as one of a crowd of women who are interchangeable to the man summoning them, WHO IS HER CANONICAL HUSBAND but he gives less than half a fuck about her, which is played for laughs. The writers made it completely unclear whether she is a real person or basically a magical simulation with no inner life and did not bother to clarify that at any point. Her plotline consists of her husband using magical wishes to modify various aspects of her body and mind and the writers never explore whether she is aware this is happening or not, much less how she might be experiencing it. It is a terrifying psychological horror story from her perspective but we are not given any insight into her perspective so who cares I guess!! For example, he wishes for her to have a rounder ass and then wishes that all of her preferences align perfectly with his own, so that she’ll stop nagging him about wanting different colored flowers at their wedding than him. There are SEVERAL more examples. Her experience of having all of her desires replaced with her husband’s desires shows up only for jokes, plus one moment that is used to confirm that her husband’s real love interest is one of the other male leads in the show. (I ship the two male characters, I’m not complaining about that, but like COME ON SHE WAS A HUMAN PERSON ONCE AND SHE IS LIVING IN A HORROR MOVIE AND THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE DOING WITH THAT???) THE WORST PART is that when it’s time for her to exit the story because her body and personality have already been essentially replaced by magic and she is now a boring toy, she is LITERALLY PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY transformed into a random British man so that her husband can have that guy as a love interest instead of her. She (he? It? Again it is never NEVER explored whether Marwa is like, alive inside this British man’s mind somehow? Or if she was ever really alive in her body?) moves to England to be in love with the original British man she was based off of, so basically her twin. This is also played for laughs. Her entire personality and body are not even killed off with like a death scene but literally ERASED FROM REALITY AND REPLACED WITH A COPY OF THIS SHITTY WHITE DUDE.

3.) (Context: Nandor is a vampire who has been alive for a while. When he was human he had 37 wives. (Btw some of the wives were men but that’s besides the point.))

She was brought back to life (along with a couple others) via Djinn wish just because Nandor wanted to have a ‘wife’ (some of the ‘wives’ are men). After being deemed the ‘best wife’ by Nandor she is the only one left alive. It is clear the entire fourth season that Nandor doesn’t care for her much and she is only there because Nandor wants to be married to someone. He ignores her wants and interests the whole season. Via another Djinn wish Nandor makes Marwa like everything he likes so she is more agreeable with him. Later on, he meets another character’s boyfriend named Freddie. Nandor basically falls for Freddie immediately and via Djinn wish, wishes Marwa to be exactly Freddie. :| With that wish, Marwa is effectively gone. She now looks and acts like Freddie. The two Freddies meet and after freaking out a little (and some magic) they get along because they like the same exact things. By the end of the season both Freddies are sent off to never be seen again. Also, Nandor has some extra Djinn wishes so he could’ve turned Marwa back but he didn’t.

Additional links: Article about the Freddie thing:

She likes what he likes:

Also This:

[pluckyredhead]

Red Hood and the Outlaws #2 (2011)

I'm continuing to make choices.

At least Roy remembered to string his bow this time.

When we last left our hero, he had returned to the headquarters of the All-Caste to find a dead old woman named Ducra. Issue #2 begins with a flashback of Talia taking a recently resurrected Jason to "the Hundred Acres of All," which I guess is supposed to sound cool but just makes me think of Winnie the Pooh. Jason meets Ducra, he sasses her, she kicks his ass but agrees to train him.

Cut to "three hours ago" and Jason and Roy on a plane:

Jason dresses extremely formally in this run and it does feel pretty incongruous to me because Jason doesn't strike me as someone who cares for formality or appearances. I've chosen to headcanon this as Jason rigidly emulating Alfred and Bruce's notions of adult male fashion, especially in situations in which he's uncomfortable, because if he can project wealth and power the way Bruce does, maybe people won't see his painful backstory and soft underbelly. It doesn't really work with Jason's love of telling everyone his trauma to make them feel bad for him, but...look, man, RHATO is incredibly bougie, I don't know what to tell you.

Roy, meanwhile, is essentially just a series of scribbles. "Stage three clinger" is kinda funny, though.

(Roy is actually historically very, very good at not clinging to the people who are constantly abandoning him, but he latches onto Jason for dear life. I know that's because this Lobdell has never read a Roy comic before this, or anything at all including a cereal box or his own sentences he has just written, but I choose to believe it's because Jason is special.)

Oh, Isabel, honey. Don't bother climbing unprofessionally into the next seat like a lunatic. The man is Undateable.

(I'm not posting every panel but on the next page she gets him a second drink - "Soft drink, extra ice" - and Jason's like "Good memory!" "SOFT DRINK" IS NOT THE NAME OF A DRINK. "Liquid in a cup." "Good memory!")

Anyway Isabel hurls herself at Jason for a few more panels and then gives him her number and Jason fully and completely cannot process it for some reason:

I know Jason is supposed to come off in this series like a cool macho dude getting all the ladies, but scenes like this just...don't work? If Jason is supposed to be a stud who has already hooked up with Talia, Essence, Rose, and Kori, why can he literally not complete a sentence here? I feel like this reads much more like a very, very young man who missed most of his teen dating years to death and vengeance and has very little experience.

They arrive in Hong Kong, where Kori meets them in a limo. Why fly away from Kori and then meet her in a limo? Apparently just to show Jason and Kori both spending conspicuously so that readers will know they are rich and therefore cool, and for no narrative or characterization purpose. How did Kori get money? Hush your mouth.

Is the "gorilla" in the room Dick? Both Kori and Jason explicitly stated in the previous issue that she doesn't remember him, so why would she be upset here? Is it that Jason and Kori have supposedly slept together and now Roy and Kori are sleeping together? Both Jason and Kori have ALSO explicitly stated that they don't care. Is this dialogue meaningless? Yes!

Jason refuses to take them to his safe house because last time he did they "soiled [his] sheets," which I'm taking as confirmation that they did in fact fuck in his bed last issue. In the safe house, he finds a woman named Suzie Su and her henchmen, who he quickly shoots a bunch and seemingly kills. We don't know who Suzie is or why this matters.

Cut to the team jumping out of a helicopter over the Himalayas during a freak thunderstorm, where we learn that Jason has gloves with metal wings that allow him to fly or at least glide. This is dumb, but it's extra dumb when you remember that Lobdell gave Tim an almost identical gimmick at the same time in Teen Titans. (He writes Jason and Tim identically in general: hyper competent and extremely bougie Gary Stus with the comebacks of a dull 12-year-old.)

They land in the All-Caste HQ to find everyone dead.

NOW HOLD ON JUST A DING-DANGED MINUTE. In issue #1, we explicitly saw Jason leave Roy and Kori in bed and come here for that scene in the middle panel, alone. Now supposedly Roy and Kori are there? We are an issue and a half in and there's already a massive continuity error? WHY DID THIS MAN GET PAID TO WRITE THIS BOOK FOR TEN YEARS???

The All-Caste come back as zombies (why? not explained) and the Outlaws fight them while Jason flashes back to being trained by them, which is just another generic fight scene. At one point Jason calls the All-Caste warriors "the greatest people I have ever known," but like...we haven't gotten a chance to know any of them, so who cares.

Anyway. Jason is sad, and then tells the others "Let's go kick some ass...team." THE END.

Here's the thing. Whenever you're starting a new story, a new comic, a new universe, whatever, there are always going to be things the reader doesn't know, and gradually learns as the story unfolds. It's not a bad thing that there are some unanswered questions.

However, we don't have any actual sense of who the All-Caste were, what they can do, or how long Jason stayed with them. We aren't shown any significant interactions or relationships between him and Ducra or the generic warriors, none of whom have names or distinguishable faces. There's a little uncreatively quippy dialogue from Ducra, but no actual reason for us to care. To follow this plotline, we need to either like Jason or understand the importance of this relationship or the stakes of the Untitled, and none of that has been sold in these two issues. In fact, I don't think the Untitled are even mentioned in this issue. (I mean, I do like Jason, but not because he wore a fat suit, bragged about fucking Kori, and killed some people, which is all he's done so far in this book.)

We also don't know who Essence is or what her history is with Jason or the All-Caste. And we don't know who Suzie Su is, why she was in Jason's safe house, or whether it matters that he (apparently) killed her. We know nothing about Kori except that she knows nothing about herself, and even less about Roy.

Again, some questions are fine and even good, but this many questions makes the book a parade of disconnected, uninteresting events we don't have any reason to care about. Which isn't a big deal when you're marathoning the series through dubious means in 2023, but I sure as hell wouldn't have paid $2.99 every month for this shit back in 2011.