#pre 52 this new 52 that IT ALL MEANS NOTHING!!!!

[cuephrase]

as someone who knows nothing about dc/batfam besides bare basics where do I even start with the comics? please send help its so confusing and sm to go through 😭🧎‍♀️

help has arrived!! my sincerest apologies for the delay, i started writing and somehow 2.5 days had passed.

full transparency, for a second i was like, "oh idk if i'm the best person to ask, i haven't been reading comics for years" and then i realized i figured my way into comics with like essentially zero prior experience so maybe i am uniquely qualified to help! that being said, if this doesn't work or you see a post from a comic veteran that looks more helpful, by all means ignore me.

first things first- it is super confusing!! there's all these big events, DC is obsessed with the word "Crisis", some labels are mainline and others aren't- don't worry about any of that. ignore the vast forest that is Comics and focus on one tree.

and by that i mean, pick one character to start with.

this post ended up turning into a behemoth when i wasn't looking so everything else is going to go under the cut!

alright, now that you have your character of choice, it's time to choose which era of comics you want to start in. there are basically 4 different eras, and you may have heard their names tossed around.

PRE-CRISIS: this is where Comics begin. this era covers comics from when they began being published up until 1985. most of this is no longer canon, but like when they hit the reboot button in '85, they didn't restart from the very beginning. so like, 90% of robin!dick comics is Pre-Crisis. some comics kept a few Pre-Crisis storylines canon, like The New Teen Titans starts before the reboot, but the pre-boot storylines are still canon. i personally have not read very many Pre-Crisis comics, i cherry-picked what looked interesting to me. unless you want to like dive in chronologically and begin at the Beginning, i wouldn't recommend hopping in here bc you'll probably get super fatigued, but yk, it is ultimately up to you. most important takeaway here is that whenever people mention Pre-Crisis, they mean old comics.

POST-CRISIS: 1985-2011. this is where most comics veterans started reading comics/what they grew up with. these are the comics that a decent amount of current comics writers/artists grew up reading/what got them into comics. there is a lot of love + nostalgia for this era, with good reason!! i do think some people who favor this era have a tendency to be close-minded in regards to current comics but re:nostalgia and there have been some dumb decisions so i get it!

NEW 52: aka, Post-Flashpoint, N52. 2011-2016 dc gets new management. they more or less decided to toss all pre-existing canon out the window and re-start in the middle. honestly, it was like they just started making fanfiction. and i don't mean that negatively, i mean like, even though they "restarted" and "anyone" should be able to jump in on an #1 in n52...the comics still assumed you had some working knowledge about the characters. which. i mean, i understand that a total restart was not plausible, (lmao imagine just snapping the vast majority of characters out of existence. they did snap some but like, a full restart would have axed even Dick technically.) i started reading comics here bc when i asked my brother-in-law (who grew up reading comics, with a dad who grew up reading comics), he was like, "omg!! start here, it'll be perfect!!" and i was like "okay!!" and then...i found myself googling. a lot. which is fine!! but idk maybe not as beginner-friendly as advertised? also, notice how this era only lasts for 4 years. it's not that none of it is relevant now, but it was a) not very well received, and b) while some of it is def still canon/referenced, a lot of it contradicts with Post-Crisis, and our fourth and final era reboots so that most of Post-Crisis is canon again. you will see a lot of hatred/dislike for comics in this era/concepts introduced here.

REBIRTH: 2016-present day. DC decided to rollback their extreme changes and soft-reboot to basically try and meld Post-Crisis and N52 timelines/continuities into one cohesive continuity. which. is a lil like trying to mix oil and water, but it is an improvement imo. all the runs restart at #1.

other people might disagree with me, but i honestly don't think it matters which era you start with. unless you start from the very beginning, you're going to have some questions. if you start in Post-Crisis, you're going to have questions when you get to N52/Rebirth, and vice-versa. and that's okay!! don't be ever be embarrased/discouraged because you have a question. google is your friend. also, odds are, if you end up enjoying comics, you'll read from all the eras. timelines will always be confusing. if you read arcs/events out of order, you'll sort stuff out. as long as you're reading what sounds interesting, you can't really go wrong. you might laugh at your decisions later, but that's okay!!

for example, personal experience, this was my intro reading order: N52 Nightwing, A Death in the Family (Post-Crisis), Under the Red Hood (Post-Crisis), Joker War (Rebirth), Robin 1994 (Post-Crisis) until like issue #11?, Rebirth Nightwing to most current release, back to Robin 1994.

clearly, I had no clue what the hell i was doing from one perspective. but in the moment, i was having a grand ole time. i read N52 Nightwing, had my mind blown at the existence of FOUR Robins, couldn't believe they KILLED one, had to see that for myself, then i had to see how his return played out, and when I was buying the UTRH trade the Joker War trade had a lil rec note from an employee, i flipped through it, thought the art was sick, was confused AF when i read it but googled for some clarity and just rolled it with it, thought Tim was neat, decided to check him out, had a rough time adjusting to the older art style, bounced back to modern comics with Dick, and then ultimately decided I could handle the art change (which, ngl, very useful skill for comics reading) and the rest is history.

even once i got more well-versed in comics, sometimes i knowingly read out of order because i just wanted to see a specific event and didn't feel like reading a ton of comics to get there. legit, read City of Bane, did not understand why Dick was not there but just accepted it and then months later was like OH!! HE WAS RIC THEN.

point is, if you're having fun, you're not making mistakes imo. am i going to recommend anyone follow my initial reading path to the T? no way!! but it worked for me.

but okay! so now, you've got your character and your era, and surprisingly the rest is really simple!! i have compiled a list for you that attempts to cover the trickier batfam entry points, but for almost any character the hopping on point is literally whichever run they're lead in: #1. for some, as you'll see with Batman, it won't be #1 in Post-Crisis but you can google, "where to start reading Action Comics Post-Crisis" and there you go. If there is a #0 issue, I would personally not recommend starting there, I would still start with #1 and then read the #0 issue when it would've come out, so like if it came out after #10, read it then. oh also, i'm sorry, i cannot offer personalized help with Barbara Gordon/Babs/Batgirl No. 1/Oracle, as of rn, i have only read her when she shows up in events/other people's runs. my best guess would be Batgirl/Bird of Prey.

now, before we get to the lists, may i present you with

MISCELLANEOUS ADVICE

there are a handful of mindsets that i think will be super helpful for breaking into comics, but the most important, especially starting out, is to make sure you're reading what interests you and that you're having fun. you can worry about slogging through significant runs later, once you've cut your teeth a bit, or never.

i would honestly ignore "best of/top rec" lists. most of those are made up of comics that hit bc they're building on a foundation. if you're brand-new, you don't have a foundation. focus on that first, rather than reading the "right" runs. comic readers, veterans and casuals and newbies- they do not all agree on what the "right" runs are. and that's bc there are so many different writers/artists. bookmark these for later, when you feel more solid in your understanding of the character and maybe want to experiment.

characters, imo, can totally be written OOC. but one of the really beautiful things about comics in my experience is that getting to see characters written by different writers really adds so much depth and dimension to them, bc diff writers are going to have different angles they want to explore. will you like all these different angles? probably not! but that's okay. you'll develop your own taste for which stories you like/what takes resonate with you the most. sometimes you might find yourself in agreement with the popular opinion, other times you might find that you loved something it seems a lot of people hate. great! there is no test, you'll like what you like and that will be perfectly valid even if no else agrees.

with that in mind, be open-minded. adjusting to older art styles can be really hard! that's totally valid! but if you try it out here and there, you'll probably be able to get used to it. you're not always going to love the art in any era. sometimes not even in the same run. i think acknowledging that you dislike it is better than trying to force yourself to like it. my rule of thumb was, if i didn't like the art style, give it 3 comics. bc by then, i'd either adjust to it (which is not the same as liking it)/or get sucked into the story and not care so much, or i would know, yeah this really isn't working for me. and then i had a decision to make: power through or drop it. sometimes you can knuckle down. other times, i've found that giving myself a break and returning to a difficult comic once i've recharged is better.

mostly the same advice for writers. although, i have learned that just because i dislike an author in X run, doesn't mean i'll dislike them in Y run, or even in the next arc they write in X run. as you go through comics, keep in mind that most storylines within a run are six issue arcs. if you're not vibing with the current arc, try skipping ahead to the next one. skimming is okay. obvs, yk, don't skim every comic you read, but if you find yourself not super interested, but feeling like there's some important stuff so you don't want to have to backtrack later, skim. again, the goal is to have fun!

other things that might trip you up-

terminology: wtf is a volume anyways?

i'm so glad you asked!! answer: it depends. so okay, if like you google a reading order list, you might see Batman (Vol. 1) #1-100, or something like that. in this case a volume is a whole entire run from start to finish. Batman Vol 1, in this example, would be synonymous with Batman (1937-2011), which includes both Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis.

however, if you're looking at collected editions, or trades, a volume will be more like a volume of manga, where volume refers to that set of issues.

trades: this is when the publisher collects a run or event into a book that would be sold somewhere like Barnes & Noble, it can be hardback or paperback. single issues are not trades.

events: these are crossover storylines! sometimes they cross houses, so you could have issues from Batman and say, Green Lantern, but usually they're contained within a house. events that effect the whole universe are usually their own "run", like Infinite Crisis had tie-in issues from most (all) on-goings, but the core issues were Infinite Crisis #1, and so on. they range widely in scale, clearly.

on-goings: can refer to currently running comics, for example rn, Zdarsky's Batman and Tom Taylor's Nightwing are on-goings. Jason and Tim are not leading any on-goings rn. or, it can be used to refer to comics that were on-going at the time of whatever is being discussed.

variant: this has nothing to do with the comics content itself, it relates purely to the covers. most current comics have their standard cover, and then a variant or two or four. any ratio, so for instance 1:25 variant, just means that for every 25 standard copies, there is 1 of that variant. that kind of variant is usually a store incentive, so that they'll buy a certain amount of copies to sell. not all variants are rare though!

facsimile: this is when they reprint an old comic. not as a trade, just as single issue.

black label/elseworld: these are comics that are published by DC, but not part of the mainline comics' canon continuity. sometimes they'll sort of fold in black label stuff, but like, it's essentially licensed fanfic.

events: ahh!! the last page says the story continues in a different run!!

2 options:

1) ignore it, stay in your run. there'll be a couple gaps but you'll live, and google is free.

2) google "event-name-here reading order". this will give you lists that will tell you which comics to read in which order. sometimes the order they came out in is not the best reading order. some events flow better than others. also, there will be "core" issues and "tie-ins". core issues are the Main Storyline, not skippable, (if you don't want to be confused). tie-ins are character-specific, so important for that character but if you don't care about them, those issues will be skippable.

there is no wrong choice. you can change your mind, decide you want to read the event, or lose interest in the event and stick with your current run.

concurrent runs: what should you do if there are multiple runs you want to read that came out at the same time while they were being published?

again, two options.

1) read them in the order they were released. the easiest way to do this is to read month by month, so read all the issues that came out in May of X year, then June, so forth. you'll basically be simulating keeping up with current comics as they release.

2) pick a title, read it to the end, start the next one. this will have you essentially cycling through the same period from start to finish a few times, but honestly there's a lot going on in comics and outside of events where they cross-over, there isn't too much overlap, so it doesn't feel super repetitive. at least to me. plus, if you've read the event, you don't need to re-read it every time you hit it, imo. this is how i do it actually. i mean, current comics, i read the runs i'm following as they release, but for backlog, i stick to one title at a time. if i'm feeling fancy, i might read one run up to a certain point, then switch titles, then switch back, but i am max switching between 2. an example of this is actually what i'm doing rn. i read batgirl 2000 up to issue #11 (or 12?) and then switched to Batman: Gotham Knights, which is what I'm currently reading. why? B:GK starts after B2000, and i couldn't pick, so i split the difference and went semi-chronological.

finally, there's no pressure. by which i mean, you don't need to speed run. especially if you don't have a ton of free time, don't worry about being the most efficient reader, always reading runs that'll give you the most bang for your buck according to other people, etc. i mean also, there is just. so. much. content. you cannot sprint your way through, this is a marathon at best, a leisurely jog, ideally.

looking at the sheer amount of content out there was super overwhelming to me, even though i wanted to read it. it's not a quick task, so it felt impossible. like even if i finished one run, well, that was just a drop in the bucket, i'd made barely any progress in the grand scheme of things. that was paralyzing.

i ended up mocking up a list for myself of what i thought of as "key" runs. this was still an ambitious list, but like tailored to my interests. as i read/saw posts, if a title not on this list sounded interesting, i stuck it on my tbrl list. (to be read later). that was essentially me going, 'hey, this looks interesting, but my plate is full rn, so i'll save it for later.' i didn't add runs from my tbrl to my key list as i went, i focused on working through my keys first.

within my keys, i just bounced all over the place. the order made sense to me, lmao, and probably no one else. it was a very loose, "follow this character chronologically". except for dick i read him all wonky, mainly bc i started with N52, skipped some N52 to get to Rebirth, skipped some Rebirth (*cough* Ric era *cough*), switched characters, then came back to Dick, bounced to NTT, practically bounced right back off it bc the transistion from modern to 80's comic was ROUGH, went and Grayson (N52), forced myself to adjust to older comics, then went through chronologically until i hit dick!bats era bc i'd read a solid chunk of it between reading for Tim and Damian. i share all this only to say, you can read however, it'll work out.

if you're curious, it took me six months to read my whole "key" list. almost to the day, funnily enough. i don't remember the exact number, but i think it was like north of 700+ comics at least? tbh, i didn't feel like i'd read all that many comics but based off some conversations i've had, maybe it is? i have no frame of reference. operating under the assumption that that is a lot of comics, i feel like it's important that you know a) i have a ton of free time, and b) i read very fast.

set zero expectations for yourself time-wise. it's not a race, no one is judging you. don't be an idiot like me and try to calculate how long it will take you to read X amount of comics either, okay HAHA. context: when i started Robin 1993, the fact that it was 195 issues was massively intimidating. the longest run i'd read so far was 30. i averaged out my comics per day, lowballed to give myself breathing room and nearly cried bc it was going to take me 20 days (3 whole weeks!!!) to read the whole thing and that felt like an eternity. i ended up reading it in 5 days. (i was HOOKED.) on the complete opposite end of things, i started Batman: Gotham Knights...a month ago? maybe two. i'm still on #18, bc life got busy.

bottom line, you've no real idea how long it will take you to read anything, let alone your whole wish list, and it really doesn't matter how long it takes you, as long as, say it with me, you're having fun!!

god i feel annoying.

okie dokie!! i think that covers all the dilemmas i remember having, but if i missed anything, feel free to send in another ask!

BRUCE WAYNE:

Post-Crisis only bc everywhere else is just #1

Batman 1940 #404

Detective Comics 1937 #568.

DICK GRAYSON:

Dick's og robin days are allllll Pre-Crisis. i'm not sure which issues he comes in tbh. if you don't read want to start in Pre-Crisis, (valid, wise imo), most robin!Dick content is going to come from flashback storylines. but there are some robin!Dick comics that are solid, contained stories that are not Pre-crisis. not an exhaustive list but:

Robin: Year One

Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet

Batman- One Bad Day: Mr. Freeze

and then for Dick as Nightwing, it's a lil tricky bc technically that starts in The New Teen Titans 1980. You could start at #1, or #42, which is the Judas Contract storyline where Nightwing debuts. (The title's name switches to Tales of the Teen Titans, it's the same run.)

However, if you're not interested in reading a team book, valid, then you have:

Nightwing 1995 (technically comes before the main run, this was a 4 issue prequel mini)

Nightwing 1996, start at #1. Now, if you stick with this run, there are 2 stories that are part of it but were done separately as minis so for whatever reason, on DCUI at least, they're not in the order, but you'd read Nightwing/Huntress after Nightwing #18, and then Nightwing: The Target after Nightwing #60 i believe.

Or, Nightwing: Year One. This is part of the Nightwing 1996 run, but has been collected separately, so you could start here, i suppose.

JASON TODD

okay so technically, he does not lead a title until N52. but obvs, he has relevant comics before that.

i would not personally recommend starting with UTRH. like, if that's what you want to read, valid, do what you want. but also, if you're willing to read 9-23 comics beforehand, i truly think you will appreciate/enjoy UTRH way more. bc like they just make the overall drama/angst that much more, yk? like okay if UTRH is chicken breast, you could just cook it as is and eat it. but unseasoned chicken just does not hit the way it could. add a lil salt + pepper, bam, big diff. add some legit seasoning?! now you're cooking. does that make sense?

actually okay hmm. i loathe to be prescriptive and give orders, but here, i'll lay out what i consider to be the Bare Minimum (salt and pepper) + the Crash Course (legit seasoning). no wrong choice!

Bare Minimum (9 Comics before you read UTRH):

A Death in the Family

A Lonely Place of Dying

Crash Course (23 Comics before you read UTRH):

Batman #408- 409

Detective Comics #569-571, 573-574

Batman #416, 424-425

A Death in the Family

New Teen Titans #55

A Lonely Place of Dying

Batman: Gotham Knights #43-45 (45 is the important one imo, but like it will make a lil more sense if you start at 43)

if you want to read the entirety of his og run as Robin, that would be Batman #408-425, and Detective Comics #568-#582. if you want like a whole ass breakdown of all his appearances in chronological order, check this godsend of a resource out.

and again, not to tell you what to do, but New52 Red Hood and the Outlaws is um. i'll be nice. i did not enjoy it. is it worth reading if you love Jason? honestly yeah. but i wouldn't start there, that's all i'm saying.

CASSANDRA CAIN:

Very simple!! She first appears in Batman, during the No Man's Land arc, so her issues there would be Batman #567-569, and then Batgirl 2000.

she gets deleted in the New 52 launch, (boo tomato, tomato), and isn't brought back until Batman and Robin: Eternal. then she co-lead a recent (Rebirth) Batgirls run with Steph. lots going on in B&R:E, would not recommend as a starting point.

TIM DRAKE:

Alright, honestly, with Tim all your best jumping on points are Post-Crisis. N52 Teen Titans is whack, I have yet to revisit it and power through, and if you've seen my other rec list, yk I'm not a fan of any modern runs he's lead, so i cannot in good conscience, rec those as starting points. Detective Comics Rebirth, i've heard, is solid, but a) i still haven't read it yet unfortunately, and b) he like dies. "dies". not very far in. and then, consequentially, is not present for a hot minute. so.

but anyways! you do have options in Post-Crisis!!

A Lonely Place of Dying. his intro!!

his official like debut as Robin is Batman #457, but he is in Batman comics that take place between aLPoD and #457.

Robin 1991. this is the first of 3 mini-series that take place before Tim's main run. i accidentally skipped them bc i didn't know they existed whoops

Robin 1993. his main run! the longest Robin title to run so far.

technically, Young Justice 1998 is also an option, if you're interested in the team. I started reading this after Robin #120, read the whole run, then went back to Robin. see advice on concurrent runs below.

Stephanie Brown:

tbh, not a great starting character. not because she isn't great!! she's just very much so a side character until she gets her own run, Batgirl 2009, but there is so much going on in that time-period (Bruce is dead, Dick is Batman, etc.), that like it's not super beginner friendly imo. and then they delete her when they do New 52, she gets brought back in Batman Eternal if i'm remembering correctly? And then she and Cass lead a recent (Rebirth) Batgirls run.

ik her first appearance is in Batman, although i don't know exactly which issue. she's in Robin 1993 a lot, ofc. she's also in Batgirl 2000 here and there. basically, you'll have to do some hunting and moving around if you just want to follow Steph. i do not know those issues by heart, someone somewhere has probably listed them. re: google is your friend!!

Duke Thomas:

okay so. ik he first appears at some point in the N52 Batman run, don't know the exact issue, but i'm pretty positive it's an event of some kind, could be wrong. then he is the main in a team book, We Are Robin. then i think he's a side character in Batman/Detective Comics mainly? he has a mini-series, Batman and The Signal.

i have not read his first appearance yet, i have read We Are Robin. i hesitate to say that he's not a great character to start with bc i'm pretty sure DC created him to like attract new readers, which should imply that he's a good starting character?? but like stuff is weiiiird where he comes in, Bruce is not Batman bc he doesn't have his memories (idk why yet, haven't read yet), Jim Gordon is Robo-Batman- weird. very confusing place to start, i would imagine. which is a bummer bc like, Duke is fantastic. love him. cannot wait to read more. unfortunately, there are just some characters who's existence necessitates a lot of context. i like to think they're worth the wait, though!

Damian Wayne:

he is the trickiest to hop in on imo, out of the "main" members. he is also a character who's existence necessitates context. you can def crash course him though, to an extent. honestly, with any characters that came in towards the end of Post-Crisis or later, being okay with confusion is like extra important, if you want to start with them.

2/3 of Damian's first 3 major appearances are events. i read Dami later on in my comics journey, so by then i was like, pshh, event nbd. i also read him chronologically, so i could be biased, but i do think that is best. however, yk, go for what interests you.

Post Crisis:

Batman #655-658, then The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, then Battle for the Cowl.

Batman and Robin: Batman Reborn. Dick!Bats + officially Robin Damian

New 52:

Batman and Robin. He's going to die. He will be resurrected. Then, Robin: Son of Batman.

Rebirth:

Super Sons

Robin

ofc, this doesn't cover everyone, but i hope this is enough to get you started!! i realize that this is long-ass post, i'm sorry i couldn't be more concise. i sincerely hope this was helpful/made stuff less intimidating, and if i failed in that regard, i'm so sorry.

i hope you have so much fun!! my ask box will always be open, and so are my dms if you have any more questions or want to freak out about comics :)

[thedrunknextdoor]

people arguing over fanon vs. canon batfam is so funny considering the comics wouldnt know character consistency if it hit them over the head with a steel bat

[iambatmuppet]

i'm somewhat new to (sharing my) writing but here's an excerpt from one of my newest wips!

CONTEXT: this is set in the Young Justice Comic (New Earth/Pre-52) universe, though RR’s costume is from the new 52 bc no cowl duh!! featuring BAMF Tim Drake AKA Red Robin, and also BAMF super sweet boyfriend Kon

-----

Red Robin stands alone, suit all but shredded and hanging off of him, surrounded by bodies. The grainy camera feed combined with the dim lighting of the cage isn’t enough to see the look on his face but the blood running in rivets down from his forehead is obvious; he doesn’t even flinch as it drips into his eyes, a peek of his tongue momentarily flicking some more of the red liquid from his lips.

Shit.

They all watch as his chest heaves, head bowed as blood streams onto the floor beneath him. Kon ignores the echoing sounds of the loud keycaps in favour of staring at Rob's face.

“Got another angle!” 

The view switches, focused on Tim’s side profile as he stares blankly ahead, lips pressed firmly together and jaw clenched. The blood on his forehead is seeping from a slash above his eyebrow, and more is coming from a broken nose and a split lip, although his nose has obviously been set so it must not be from this fight.

There’s a tinny noise in the background, like from a low-quality speaker, but even with his hearing it’s unintelligible. Through his mangled domino, Tim’s eyes harden as he looks up, glaring out into the crowd. His mouth starts moving, tendons in his neck flexing as if he’s yelling but Kon can’t hear anything outside of just a faint murmur.

“What’s with the sound?” Dick clacks away, murmuring to himself, but nothing comes of it. He relays that the BatComputer’s audio features are all fully functional, so the issue isn’t something to be resolved on their end. 

Kon wants to scream, to throw something, but he knows with his anger where it is right now, it isn’t safe to do anything surrounded by humans like he is, bat-clad heroes or not.

He pushes off the desk where he was hunched over a screen – watching pain flicker across Tim’s face before he closes himself off, eyes cold – and stalks across the room, bracing a hand on the wall, the cool stone distracting him from the current situation. 

He can’t help but attempt to listen in for Tim’s heartbeat again and again, but there’s nothing; no steady thumps, no flighty jumps in fear, nothing. It’s like the volume dial has been turned all the way down.

“Kon? You should see this.” 

He turns back towards the screens and freezes. Tim is flying across the ring, all spinning kicks and hard punches before he takes down his opponent with a sweeping throw – a move that Artemis was still trying to successfully replicate whenever they sparred at the Justice Cave – and launches him into the chain-link fencing that separates the fighters from the audience. 

He … Kon knew that Rob was an amazing fighter, deft and dexterous, all concussive kicks and fast jabs when faced with combat sans his trusty bō, but this … Kon had never seen him fight like this, like there was no one watching over his shoulder, in his ear, critiquing his every move. Like he was finally out of his own head and just letting go, trusting in his instincts; like it was as easy as breathing.

From the current angle spanning the ring, they sit silent as Tim creeps forward, keeping an eye on the man crumpled on the ground for movement, swiftly knocking him out with a hard punch to the nose when he stirs. He looks relaxed, casual as if he didn’t just dominate a fight against a man thrice his size but the tension in his jaw, straining the muscles in his neck and shoulders, speaks for itself.

Kon wishes his x-ray vision worked through cameras because the way Rob favours his right side, both torso and arm, means there’s obviously an underlying injury – one he can’t fully see, minus the select few showing through the tears in Tim’s suit. 

His previously-dislocated shoulder, only a month healed, must be acting up from however long he’s been forced to fight; he’s been missing for 4 days, not including the half-day where no one had realized he was even missing yet, and Kon can only guess how … busy they’ve kept him, based on the cuts and bruises in various stages of healing.

Let me know what you think!!! :D

[bitimdrake]

okay so I know that Jason now is like completely different than he was pre 52. I hate new 52 with all or my heart, but at the same time im a huge fan of how Jason is now

Do you have any thoughts on like the change to his character or like opinions on how it's different now or whether or not you like it?

New 52 Jason sucks and I hate him. He's not a terrible person. He's not a horrible villain. He is something far worse.

He's flawless and boring.

(DISCLAIMER: I'm only going to be talking about post-crisis vs new 52 here. I have not read anything after the new 52 yet. Rebirth/Infinite Frontier Jason may or may not be great. I don't know yet, and I'm not gonna make claims.)

So, without putting words in your mouth here, I think that when a lot of people say they like Jason better post-Flashpoint than pre-Flashpoint, that's not...actually what they mean. They mean they like Jason better as a protagonist and hero than as an antagonist and villain.

That might be for any combination of (a) preferring your faves to be morally supportable and (b) just wanting the narrative to give attention directly to them rather then using them as a tool in the real protagonist's story. And that's fair!

But I care about execution more than concept. I am open to both the concept of antagonist Jason Todd and protagonist Jason Todd. And New 52 Jason is--to his detriment--not just the same Jason Todd now turned antihero.

Post-Crisis Jason was far from a perfect character. He was a supporting character (and usually antagonist) who was tossed between short story-arcs with different writers, and the character's consistency absolutely suffered for it.

Sometimes he was a very sympathetic antivillain doing bad things for understandable reasons that genuinely challenged the protagonists' viewpoints. Sometimes he was an insane villain. These extremes were not stitched together well.

But, dammit, he was interesting. He was defined by trauma. He had strong emotions that were regularly unhelpful or unhealthy. He had principles that often conflicted with those emotions, and he usually let his feelings take precedence. He had complicated, messy, layered relationships and history with characters around him. He was a walking tragedy. You could write ten thousand essays just on his interplay with Bruce.

New 52 Jason Todd, on the other hand, is just fucking boring. He's an adolescent concept of A Cool Guy.

New 52 Jason is the world's most specialest boy. He's the chosen one, and he's good at everything, and he's the best ever. His friends would be helpless without him because he's so cool and he always saves the day. He has no meaningful flaws. He's never allowed to be truly wrong. He's never allowed to mess up in a significant way.

He's an encapsulation of why Mary Sues are bad characters.

I want to be clear here: it's not that Jason has to be tragic and antagonistic to be interesting. I would have loved Post-Crisis Jason to get protagonist focus in a good book. I would have LOVED an arc of him becoming a better and/or healthier person.

But the New 52 didn't just skip that arc--it also stripped out anything interesting or complicated from Jason's character.

The most nuanced and compelling relationships he had (particularly Bruce; also Dick, Barbara, Alfred) are simplified down to nothing. The new relationships he was given (New 52 "Roy" and "Kori", even Tim Not-Drake) only exist so there are other characters around to prop him up.

The flaws and trauma and complicated emotions are gone. He has the mildest aesthetic of a bad boy, pasted onto a Perfect Person.

And the most compelling potential--the conflicts of morality or principle--is missing entirely.

How does New 52 Jason feel about killing? I literally don't know, because none of his stories give a shit about questions of morality. New 52 Jason kills when Lobdell thinks it will look cool and badass, and he refuses to kill when Lobdell thinks that would look noble and heroic--and it's the same for every character around him. He has no principles, because his stories don't think silly things like principles are interesting. He is, again, always right.

I hate him.

tl;dr: Post-Crisis Jason is an example of how a compelling character concept can survive even messy, inconsistent stories. New 52 Jason is an example of how to squander every interesting thing you could have done with a character because a shitty writer decided to adopt him as a self-insert instead.

[thrustin-timberlake]

can i say something potentially controversial. i’m sad we live in a cultural climate where commentary youtube channels will most likely stay as popular as they are. i think calling them “commentary” is a huge stretch, because the most popular/relevant channels are essentially: *sees cringy thing* *makes fun of thing*. i think it’s a mean-spirited genre that no actual creativity goes into, and my proof of that is that truly, if you pick a random creator, most of their videos are indistinguishable from one another. it’s just…so boring. it’s truly “content,” which, we can talk about the consequences influencers and the like have had in that word becoming something that unfortunately loops in…actual artists (across mediums!). everything is content and nothing is art. oh, white guy #47 watched an animated movie with a 14 cent budget and made fun of it? should we tell everyone? should i wake up walt disney and tell him about it? or white guy #52 platformed a bigot and then said, “no, you see, i’m showing why he’s bad! thankfully i am playing no role in his exposure to new audiences.” like…give me a fucking break. and all that to say- i do think there ARE some really creative ones out there! like, i love jarvis johnson and people like gabi belle or annamarie forcino, but the difference is they’re also…actually transforming content? there’s active research or bits or actual positivity in how they react (not just the ol reliable of “this thing bad!”). idk. maybe it really is just the straight white dudes of youtube commentary, but honestly i mostly watch video essays and crafting/sewing/art channels and oh my god i sure would like it if the youtube algorithm recommended me people similar to what i actually like and interact with, and not whoever their pre-approved money making blorbos are

i think being a true hater is an art form. none of these dweebs are achieving that- they’re just reinforcing cringe culture in a boring and brand-safe way

[reviviscencegruiform]

//Hi, hello. Um...

That wasn't the first or only hatemail likely from the same person or one person and their friends so I think I'll say something.

I may not seem like it now, on this blog, but I actually interned at DC comics pre New 52. I put my blood, sweat, and earned skill into my work and got somewhere with it. I got pretty far with it. Am I there now? No, but that's for other reasons that aren't as important right now.

If there was an authority in this spat on canon it would be me and genuinely?

There is no authority. I'm looking directly at some comics and revamps right now and saying there is no authority. I am looking so hard at what they did to Jervis- anyway.

There are fan takes on here that are deeper and richer than half the stuff I had to wade through at DC. Every new run, oneshot, siderun, and series has it's own take on it's contained characters.

Jervis Tetch from 1948 is nothing like Jervis Tetch in 2023 and he's nothing like what he was in A house on Serious Earth as he is in BTAS. The Jervi in Joker's Asylum II isn't like the Harley Quinn show, is it? It's the same for all the characters. Even in the same series the characters aren't consistent.

Because it's entirely different writers with entirely different leads and goals and entirely different demographics.

I'm not trying to sell comics on here. I'm not trying to make the most marketable version of a well trod character. My goal isn't to write BTAS Crane or Arkham Crane or any other Crane. Not even MY Crane. He's just a fun take on one of my favorite characters. He probably is more like an OC than a canon anything and if you don't like that then you can block me. That's the fantastic nature of this website. You do not have to interact with anyone you don't have to.

You are telling the story here. I am telling the story here. There's no team lead to tell me "That's brave, but it doesn't match the vision the producer laid out for this." I don't have a team lead anymore and no one can tell me what I can and can't write or make.

So block me. Blacklist me. Tell your server I'm a stinky no good tattletale.

Do you need a sprite cranberry or something? Because no one not going through it would take the time out of their day to be that mean. Please seek help or support for whatever you're dealing with and understand that taking it out on strangers on the internet makes you the bad guy.//

[jasoncanty01]

How Reagan's GOP Impacted America

From Facebook

Jonathan Zucker

  · 

I have long been positive that the Republican party prolonged the Iran Hostage crisis in 1979 to ensure Jimmy Carter's defeat.

The theory was based on the fact that the hostages were released the day Reagan was inaugurated, far too quickly for any legitimate negotiation to have occurred. Furthermore, the Iran-Contra scandal (in which the Reagan administration violated a US arms embargo to covertly sell arms to Iran) always seemed to be the perfect quid-pro-quo for holding the hostages until Reagan was President.

However, multiple credible investigations--focused on Bill Casey (chairman of Reagan's campaign and later director of the CIA) as the intermediary--had been unable to substantiate the theory.

However, we now have proof.

The problem, as it turns out, is that these investigations focused on the wrong person as the intermediary. Casey was smart enough not to do take the trip himself or to use any foreign relations expert as a surrogate.

A blockbuster article in the New York Times yesterday revealed that, in 1979, John Connally (former Republican Governor of Texas) went on a tour of middle east capitals with one message to be passed to the revolutionaries in Iran: "If you reject any deal Carter is offering and hold the hostages past the election--all-but-ensuring Ronald Reagan would win the election--Reagan will give you a much better deal than Carter is offering."

Accompanying Connally on this trip was a little know political aide named Ben Barnes.

Yesterday Barnes came clean (50 years later) and, in a detailed interview with the Times, revealed where Connally had travelled and to whom he had spoken. And, that, upon his return, his first stop was to brief Casey on his trip.

What this means is that:

(a) the Reagan campaign condemned 52 American diplomats to months of unnecessary (additional) captivity with the express purpose of influencing a Presidential election;

(b) the illegal Iran-Contra arms sales were, as suspected, the quid pro quo to the religious dictatorship of Iran for holding America's hostage to ensure Reagan's victory.

Just another reminder that the contemporary Republican party--focused on winning at all costs, damn the republic--is nothing new.

It's the same Republican party we have had since FDR broke their hold on power in 1932. It is just that from 1932 to 1980 they only managed to win Presidential elections.

But, starting in 1980 when they took control of the Senate (for the first time since 1955), and began their campaign to

(a) take control of the judiciary to undo the New Deal regulatory state (abortion, gun rights, and so-called "religious freedom" are window dressing issues to secure votes from White evangelicals) and

(b) pile up debt by engaging in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy (eventually forcing, in their view, a radical downsizing of federal programs).

This has been the agenda of the wealthy elite that funds the Republican party since--literally--1932.

With Trump's Supreme Court appointments and tax cut (which built upon the Reagan and both W. Bush cuts), they succeeded.

It took them 90 years, but they won.

Tax rates on the wealth are lower than at any time since the 30s and the Supreme Court is systematically hamstringing the 20th century regulatory state. And, as a result, concentration of wealth has returned to the pre-New Deal levels of the "Gilded Age."

While I do not think it was their intent, I don't think they care that our very democracy may be a casualty of their efforts.

Anyway... clear evidence that Reagan's victory in 1980 is severely

tainted, if not completely illegitimate.

[incoherentbabblings]

Do you think Tim in Rebirth was portrayed too differently than how he was pre-flashpoint and came across as too teen geniusy?

Oh yes let's talk about Rebirth Tim my favourite iteration of this disaster of a bisexual let's go.

This went a little off topic I'm sorry.

I think I read comics a little differently to others in that - if there is continuity, great, grand, lots of depth and mirroring and decades of building up of characterisation and such what - but at the same time I really don't mind reading a comic where the the characterisation doesn't match up with prior depictions. So long as it's internally consistent and aids in telling the (good) story the author wanted to tell, I'm not that precious about character traits that I think should or ought to be innate. Obviously there are certain things where I'm like... no wait that's actually important, but otherwise, nah. Go to town.

So Tim being a smart alec to the point where barely an issue goes by without him mentioning his dumb wrist computer and hacking? Okay, yeah. Bit annoying that, mostly because it's a lazy way to get him out of tight situations. Like how did he hack into Mr Oz's computer again? Just because he's sooooo smart. Blergh.

But! I think he's a great blending of pre-Flashpoint and New 52 Tim, and it's what they do with that overbearing intelligence which I think is interesting.

But Abbie! You cry, New 52 Tim is literally irredeemably bad!

Hoho. Ho. Ho. Ho. You have no idea how much I'm about to stretch this. Doing the splits I'm trying so hard. I... really like ideas and concepts that were introduced with New 52 Tim. Are they executed well? Lol no. But!!!! There's things there which could have been, and isn't that more fun?

Right?

Anyway.

Read more under the cut. This ran away with me a bit.

I want to compare New 52 Tim to Rebirth whilst keeping everything he went through pre-Flashpoint in your head.

New 52 Tim is odd because he is literally not Tim. He has different motivations, different attitudes to his family (biological and otherwise) and honestly there is an interesting character in there, but they never acknowledged how legitimately awful of a person he was and could be. He only ends up becoming Robin (not Robin) by throwing his parents under the bus and seemingly feels no remorse for it because he gets the chance to work with Batman only he seems to have nothing but disdain for Bruce and spents most of his shared panel time with him calling Bruce a piece of shit and to back off.

New 52 Tim is cold. And Bruce let's Tim get away with it; and it could be because he finds Tim just unnerving or he feels guilty or... he just doesn't care about Tim. Something happened between the two in this timeline where when Tim goes off to form the Titans, Bruce just completely wipes his hands of him and only calls him back to Gotham for face events or for the crossovers. Coupled with the fact that Tim is apparently closest to Jason (so dumb) about feeling like black sheep outsiders... Like it's just so wrong for Tim? But also who is this boy like he's so weird there's so much unspoken horridness festering beneath the surface I don't think it was intentional but this Tim of all Tims is certainly the Supervillain in the making. Bruce takes Tim in during the New 52 and its not out of any compassionate means or ends really. Tim very aggressively shoves his presence in, cocks up, and forces Bruce's hand to clean up the mess.

He has no concept of privacy he wants to be as disconnected from Bruce as possible finding out who Batman is was treated like a game by him he is indifferent at most to the concept of death and on and on...

One also gets the impression that he is terribly, terribly lonely.

What a horrid little boy he is where does this character development come from????

So come Rebirth, where we're told that pre-Flashpoint is coming back, we just don't know how, and Tim has finally 'come home' to the Bat Editorial team after being in the Titans one for years, it then becomes a question how much is Tim going to be Tim. If that makes sense.

So! Motivation wise, where is Rebirth Tim at?

So I sort of think, for every 'kid genius' comment, there's something about him feeling he had to step in because no-one else could, about how he absolutely does not want to stick around.

And I (personally) think Tynion does a really cool thing with this which is he really plays into Tim's fears for the future. He fears for Bruce's wellbeing, he fears for his own, he fears for Gotham. It's one hundred percent motivated by love though.

And its exploited ruthlessly. Very Star Wars of them.

There's this great push and pull which I love between the neurosis and fear and love that Rebirth Tim has for Bruce and Gotham and his family and Steph etc etc. Where he's managed to convince himself that he's the smartest guy in the room, he's the only one who can see the big picture, and he's the only one who can fix it as a result. And it terrifies him.

Now, tell me those aspects don't ring true for pre-Flashpoint Tim? Especially Red Robin era? But of course, all that trauma hasn't happened to this Tim, so it's this weird merge of New 52 and Pre-Flashpoint and yet it works?? At least, it does for me.

The teen genuis comments are a little heavy handed, but they serve a purpose. This kid is confident in one thing, which is his noggin. He's insecure about his place in the family, he's frightened of being alone, he does not want to be a vigilante long term but has no clue how to back out and soon it just isn't a viable option for him anymore...

Of course, we've still got the lingering New 52 Tim there. The arrogance is posturing, the poor social skills, the sharper relationship with Bruce... God there's this one panel where Tim looks positively hateful at Bruce and I love it. It didn't really go anywhere because Tim's fright over the future Ulysses showed him won out but uh

Tim? Arguing with his dad? Thinking he knows best? A sense of entitlement and lashing out? Seen that before?

Rebirth Tim is consistent with what he was pre-Flashpoint. The journey is different, but it's the same boy. The incessant references to hacking don't change that I think.

[w4nderingstarfanfics]

Disappointment Dissertation

With the launch of Overwatch2, I know everyone on the internet is jumping on the hate bandwagon. But I still wanted to get my thoughts into a cohesive argument. The short version is: I am so disappointed.

I have several chapters in mind, but the most shocking and yet not shocking one I wanted to do first as it literally affects every single player of the game.

Chapter 1

Part 1 

    The reason why they made these changes is very clear: Money. They can now force a majority of people to literally spend the same money on a yearly basis for a game that before, we only had to buy once. Even if you only buy the bare minimum of the new currency just for the battle pass and nothing else, you end up buying the the game for an even higher price on a yearly basis. 

The Battle Pass Math

The game now requires a new “battle pass currency” that you must spend your real life money on to unlock everything from Overwatch2. The Legacy Coins from Overwatch can only be used to buy some items that existed pre-October release. Let’s break down the pricing. 

(Battle Pass Currency shorthand will be a ‘c’ following a number)

500c = 5.00 (this is the least amount of currency you can buy)

1000c = 10.00

The premium battle pass cost is 1000c, or 10 real life (American) dollars. There will be a new battle pass roughly every 6-9 weeks. Let's take the fastest turnaround time per-pass to see the high end of what the true cost of Overwatch2 is. 

~52 weeks in a calendar year

52/6 = 8.667, roughly 8 battle passes a year

8*10= 80

To unlock all the new content a year you will have to spend 80 dollars a year. Overwatch itself was 60 dollars flat and you never had to re-buy it. Discounting the “Watchpoint Pack” where you did rebuy the game but with 2 $20 skins included. 

There is an option to buy 2000c and you get a “10% extra” where you get an extra “free” 200c for 20 dollars. To not overspend and only buy the 8000c required:

3 2200c packs: 20*3= 60$

1 1000c pack: 10$

1  500c pack: 5$ (and 100c left over that you had to buy even though you did not want it)

Total: 75$ 

Grand total savings: 5$

There is also the 50$ currency bundle for 5700c with a 14% “extra.”

1 5700c pack: 50$

1 2200c pack: 20$

1 500c pack: 5$ (with 400 left over that you had to buy even through you didn’t want it)

Total: 75$ 

Grand total savings: 5$

The extra bundles are the same “savings,” but with 100c or 400c extra that you were forced to pay for.

So the free to play game is 75-80 dollars a year to have access to the new content. 

Part 2 

The New Hero Math

BUT WAIT. The battle pass does not include all new content. 

Yes indeed you read that right, even after spending 80 real life dollars, you only receive access to unlock the new cosmetics and in-game content on the battle pass. And yes, you read that right again, you do not give them money and get the content, you must grind and “unlock” the content you already paid for. It’s unclear to me if you do not unlock all levels by the end of the season, if you just get those items, or if that content (and your money) is dust in the wind and you get nothing that you failed to unlock. 

 “Regular” new character skins, highlights, emotes are all completely separate from the battle pass and cost money. You like that new Junker Queen skin? It’s extra. Want that Sojourn highlight intro? It’s extra.

(I am excluding “souvenirs” and “weapon charms” as these might be 1 time unlocks that you can use for all heroes after being paid for once and also I have no clue what the hell a “souvenir” is or why anyone would want to spend money on it and I’m sure as hell not spending money on them to find out) 

All three new heroes appear to have the exact same spread of cosmetics with minor variations. Any cosmetics that appear on either the free or premium battle pass I have excluded from these price totals. I’m unsure if these are battle pass locked, meaning if you don't get them on the pass you will never be able to unlock them. Or, if at a later date, they will become “unlocked” and buyable like their rest. Which will increase the base price to fully unlock a new hero, only time will tell at this early point in the game’s launch. 

Cosmetic Discrepancies: 

Sojourn has 1 epic skin and 10 sprays (one less of each than both her counterparts) 

One of Kiriko’s legendary skins is currently free for watching Twitch streams but will be paywalled in battle pass season 2 

2 of her recolor skins are listed as locked and not purchasable and do not appear on the battle pass track. Possible glitch? Maybe part of a “bundle” in the shop that I don’t see and/or is rotating?

2 Legendary skins (1900*2= 3800)

2 Epic skins (1000*2= 2000)

4 Recolors (300*4= 1200) 

Total Currency For Skins: 7000c

4 Emotes (500*4= 2000)

3 Victory poses (300*3= 900) 

10 Voice lines (100*10= 1000)

11 Sprays (100*11= 1100)

2 Highlight intros (700*2= 1400)

Total Currency For “Other” Cosmetics: 6400

Grand Total To Fully Unlock ONE New Character: 13,400c  (135$ real American dollars)

Part 3

The Grand Total and the Future

If you are looking to unlock only the new Overwatch2 characters and the battle pass season 1 your total is: 

(3 x 135) + 80 = $485

FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIVE DOLLARS JUST TO UNLOCK THE NEW CONTENT.

I shudder to think what the cost to unlock the entire cast of heroes is since they have 6 years of cosmetics banked. No. I’m not going to go through each hero to run their prices and get a grand total, I want to keep what’s left of my soul. 

And this also does not include any possible “seasonal” event content. The first being the “Wrath Of The Bride” Halloween event. There appears to be 3 new (no doubt legendary, another staggering $50 just for those three skins if you buy that currency bundle) skins for Junker Queen, Kiriko, and Sojourn. Ashe was included in the promo art in her Warlock skin which is not new, unless they have changed something and will charge us again for a recolor of it. 

As these Halloween skins do not appear on the current battle pass track, I believe it’s safe to assume any and all “event” content will never be free or part of a battle pass “bundle.” This could change in the future, but I don’t see a financial reason for them to do so. 

    Absolutely gobsmacking. The cost just for launch day cosmetics makes me numb. 

    I honestly can’t see how this could be sustainable at these price points. $20 dollars for one hero’s single legendary skin. $7.50 for a three second highlight intro. It’s insane! And what makes it worse, is there is no “grind and hope” option. 

    In Overwatch, you were rewarded for grinding out levels with lootboxes. If you didn’t want to pay for new cosmetics, you could grind and hope you got what you wanted in loot boxes. Or, save your acquired coins and buy them that way. 

    My suggestion would be to bring back lootboxes in a limited capacity. Because the company is in the middle of a money hungry cash grab, yes, you should be able to buy them. But, after say 2-3 battle pass levels, you got a “free one.” It would reward the free track players to keep grinding (since 75% of the battle pass items are paywalled) as well as paid track player with extra content and currency to unlock non battle pass items. Obviously, paid battle pass items could not appear in loot boxes (until a later date if those items became unlocked) so it would not interfere with the push for people to pay for the battle pass. 

    And it would be critical for brand new Overwatch2 players to be able to have anything other than the base skin. 

    In conclusion, I’m disappointed about how naked the cash grab is. And I’m angry that they are not even doing the naked cash grab well. 

    If Blizzard had any sense at all, they would have kept the loot boxes, temping people to try their luck, and been a smidgen more kind to their players. They would have stuffed the battle pass full of things the player actually want. They would have done skins, highlights, poses, charms and not voicelines, player icons, and “player cards” that are worthless fluff that could have gone into loot boxes to force us to buy both currency and loot boxes. 

[syrelivesforptj]

I know I’m a mlaal acc, but I need to talk about a little brother ally Jason and Dick thing I thought of

So, I was listening to Gilded Lily, and randomly a little scenario popped into my head! Imagine if Dick.. DIDNT leave the manor, and stayed with Bruce and Jason. (This definetly is already a real thing and I’m just spouting a whole entire fanfiction synopsis but I DONT CARE I WANNA WRITE IT)

Jason adores him, he loves going out and causing chaos with his cool new brother (and now idol), Nightwing. Ofcourse, Dick isn’t the biggest fan, I mean sure he loves him, but he’s like a little annoying dog. This causes Dick to ignore Jason from time to time, trying to catch a break. Then, he dies! Joker kills him and Dick is HEARTBROKEN, he doesn’t know how to move on at all but then one day Bruce comes home with a little raggedy boy, Tim. The Tim he met at the circus those years ago. The Tim in the photo with his parents.

Ofcourse, he uses him as a scapegoat for his problems. It’s extremely unhealthy but Tim is happy to have a big brother figure in his life (and those big shining eyes Dick receives when he does one of his tricks will always remind him of his little brother). They do everything Jason and Dick did, except Tim always has this weird gut feeling that this is all for show. And Nightwing try’s his best to give Tim the attention he didn’t give Jason.

Now, onto the good part!!! (I am lying it is a bit sad)

Okay, so Jason came back alive and stuff. (Let’s say this is pre 52, and he wasn’t resurrected by the Lazarus Pit, but by Superboy.) The first thing he does is go see the Manor, ofcourse. He sees Alfred and Bruce in the garden, no suit which was weird, and he’s just sitting there, smiling. This both makes Jason happy and a little annoyed, ‘why was he happy when I was dead? I know he should’ve moved on, I WANTED him to move on if something happened to me… but I was… his son...’ Then he goes to look for Nightwing, who was also in the garden, though he was in his suit, laughing at something…but he couldn’t tell what. Honestly, Jason was suprised he still lived there and had suspected him to have left after his death. That was when he saw the short black haired boy in a eerily familiar Red yellow and green suit.

Jason just stared as the two ran around the courtyard with sticks and wooden swords. He had no clue what to do, but his head was racing and his heart was beating, and he had a pounding headache. Bruce looked in his direction after Jason tried to choke back a sob and so he hid behind a tree, deciding to cancel his plans of saying hello to his family.

Somehow, Dick could feel his presence. He had always said it felt like he was still with them, but this time…

‘oh well. It was probably nothing.’

Okay that’s it ahhahaha

Comic: Task Force Z #8

[commieconspiracy]

Teamsters Aristocracy: A Betrayal of the Part-Timers

interesting article about the Teamster’s contract that was recently negotiated

Fast-forward to the UPS negotiations, O’Brien reneged on his campaign promise to not sign non-disclosure agreements. [See endnote 10.] He appeared to support the militancy of the rank-and-file workers by encouraging “practice pickets”. However, the details of the contract show that this is a complete farce.[31]

Firstly, all the talk about AC’s and better air circulation was just blowing hot air. While UPS will install 18,000 fans to improve circulation and 2,500 water fountains in its buildings, there are no stipulations about their distribution across UPS’ facilities. So, it is likely that many places will see nothing.

More importantly, only new UPS vehicles will be given AC’s.

This means that workers will be driving in their oven-like trucks past 2050, as UPS keeps their vehicles for 25 years or more.[32] However, thirty days after the contract is accepted, all vans will be equipped with a single fan and a second fan will be added within a year. For workers in the blistering heat carrying heavy packages, two fans blowing hot air into their faces won’t do squat. It is inevitable that Teamsters will continue to suffer heat stroke and be killed on the job. These deaths and workplace injuries are just the cost of business to Lyin’ O’Brien, TDU, and UPS.

Secondly, the $25 per hour starting part-timer wage was abandoned. As I mentioned earlier, TDU took down this demand from their website for the nebulous “higher part-timer pay”. Instead, the new minimum will be $21 per hour ($23 by the end of the contract in 2027), which is much less than the initial demand and pathetic compared to the pre-1982 pay. With 4% annual inflation, the $23 starting wage in 2027 will be worth $18.90 in today’s dollars, much less than the new minimum. [See endnote 23.]

Thirdly, the pensions are insufficient. For workers in the Teamsters Western Conference, their pensions will be frozen for the next five years. In addition, part-timer retirees in the IBT-UPS plan with 25 years of experience will only get an extra $125 per month. This comes out to $1,450 a month, below the poverty line for a family of two. [See endnote 23.]

Fourthly, UPS is guaranteeing only 7,500 new full-time jobs, which is just a drop in the bucket compared with the 200,000 part-timers. Part-timers will continue to spend decades until they can get full-time positions. [See endnote 31.]

However, some concessions still needed to be made, otherwise there would have been a strike, which both the union and UPS wanted to avoid. As such, the 22.4 combination driver designation will be eliminated, and workers are being given MLK Day off. [See endnote 31.]

The biggest change comes in the increases for full-time workers. On average, full-time package car drivers currently make $145,000 a year ($95,000 in pay and $50,000 in benefits).[33] At the end of the new contract, full-time drivers will end up making $170,000 on average, $102,000 of which will be in pay (assuming 52 weeks per year and forty hours a week) and the rest in benefits. Before the part-timer and full-timer pay split in 1982, a worker making $12 an hour working the same total time would make $79,000 a year in today’s dollars (ignoring benefits).[34] This is much less than what full-timers make now.

To compare this to part-timer salaries, a newly hired part-timer working 20 hours weekly for 52 weeks just before the 1982 changes would make $39,500 a year in today’s value. With the new $21 hourly pay, a part-timer would make $21,840 – almost half.

[thevindicativevordan]

Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

[ms-m-astrologer]

The Week Ahead: May 9-15, 2022

Void of Course Moon

Monday, May 9, 12:39 UT (Leo) - 22:53 UT (Virgo)

Thursday, May 12, 04:00 UT (Virgo) - 06:34 UT (Libra)

Saturday, May 14, 08:07 UT (Libra) - 10:34 UT (Scorpio)

Lunar Phases

Monday, May 9, 00:21 UT - First Quarter Moon, 18:23 Leo

The key phrases for the First Quarter lunar phase are to “take action” and to “build new structures.” It’s one thing to plan what we want to do, and to daydream a bit about how wonderful it’s all going to be - and very much another thing to actually roll up our sleeves and get to work. If you really want that goal, you’ll do it, even when it isn’t “fun” or easy, or when you don’t get round after round of applause for taking action.

Thursday, May 12, 19:04 UT - Gibbous Moon, 7:02 Libra

The key phrases for the Gibbous lunar phase are to “adjust and tweak” our plans, and to “pour more energy” into our projects. Of course with a Libra Moon we need to balance things out. But both “benefics,” Venus and Jupiter, are now in Aries, opposing this Moon. We need to ask how much approval we need, and assess what’s more important - keeping that approval, or being true to ourselves and our goals.

Monday, May 16, 04:14 UT - Full Moon/Eclipse, 25:18 Scorpio

The key phrases for the Full Moon phase are to “illumine and fulfill,” and to “pour all our energy” into our projects. This may be a difficult one, as the eclipse will highlight our own shortcomings - our addicition to drama, and our unwillingness to let go of our resentments. There is always the option to “elevate our game,” of course. It’s still possible to align ourselves with our better angels.

Retrograde/Direct/Etc.

Pre-retrograde shadow: Mercury/Gemini (until Tuesday), Juno/Pisces (starting Friday), Vesta/Aquarius, Jupiter/Pisces-Aries, Saturn/Aquarius

Retrograde: Mercury/Gemini (starting Tuesday), Pluto/Capricorn

Post-retrograde shadow: nothing until June 3

Transiting Mercury stations retrograde on Tuesday, May 10, 11:47 UT, at 4:52 Gemini. Just in time for finals. Keep an open mind and try not to commit yourself. (In every sense of “commit”!)

Transiting Juno enters her retrograde zone on Friday, May 13, 10:11 UT, at 7:41 Pisces. Our attitudes toward relationships, and our beliefs in what makes a good partner, are due some work.

Ingress

Tuesday, May 10, 23:22 UT - transiting Jupiter enters Aries

Since Jupiter is in his retrograde zone, that means this ingress isn’t going to “finish” - Jupiter stations retrograde on July 25, at 8+ degrees Aries, and returns to Pisces on October 28. A very extended sneak preview, maybe? Once Jupiter returns to Aries (December 20) it will blaze right on through the sign, entering Taurus on May 16, 2023 and not returning to Aries for 12 years. That’s like, what, five months to take advantage and learn the lessons?

Sunday, May 15, 07:07 UT - transiting Ceres enters Cancer

All right, gardeners and green thumbs, let’s do this!! Ceres adores to be in Cancer and will make us all want to dig in the dirt, bake in the kitchen, and take care of our loved ones.

Et Cetera

No Opportunity Periods this week, alas. We are between eclipses, and Mercury stations retrograde on Tuesday!

As the week lumbers on, we’ll be thinking about how close we are to manifesting those Taurus ideals - as the Taurus Sun nears its conjunction with the Taurus North Node on Friday, followed by a difficult lunar eclipse on Sunday/Monday. This may be the first time we’re actually able to see and understand what those ideals may be, with the Sun literally shining its light on them. More intriguing is that Mars/Pisces will be sextile that North Node, and trine the Scorpio South Node, on Saturday. It is possible to achieve these goals.

[acceptsonlynttnightwing]

 People can’t be fans of RHATO and pre-52 Roy and the same time because they’re so different! I–Yo yes you absolutely can. Same as you can love Adam West Batman and Dark Knight Batman. Also even with all their difference I have seen plenty of fans merge the two. It actually isn’t that hard. Especially when you consider how much real people change over their lives. Or how people can act incredibly different around different individuals.

—-

Sorry, just want to say, I’d prefer if you could send this as a an ask - replying to submissions is weird.

I think you missed my point a little. When I said they were so different, I meant that OG Roy had experiences that make the very existence of N52 Roy impossible. Lian for example. Or his Outsiders era. It screws up the timeline to a ridiculous degree - like, the existence of 4 different robins really messes with Bruce’s and Dick’s ages, but having RHATO Roy would mean OG Roy missed out on a lot of formative experiences.

Yes, you can love Adam West’s and Christian Bale’s Batmen, but that because no one’s trying to reconcile the two or say one became the other. It’s very clear that both exist in seperate universes. No one would argue that say, George Clonney’s Batman grew up into the one Christian Bale played. Movies are like elseworlds - it doesn’t make sense to say the Tom Taylor’s Dark Knights of Steel fits in with the comic verse. However, Injustice was so cool because it built on pre-existing hero characterisations with just a few differences and more extremes.

Reboots should be like the later, not the former. If a character is basically unrecognisable, why would old fans want to read about him?

As for the second part of you statement, Sure you can merge the two - if you ignore large parts of canon, any logical timeline by which to base other characters and take basically nothing from RHATO except that Roy and Kori are suddenly BFFs with Jason. And even so, it makes little to no sense that the Outlaws even formed since a good number of their storylines (especially the Kori ones) has already been done in the ntt or New Titans.

And yes, people change over the course of their lives, but what RHATO did was completely rewrite Roy and Kori, not change them. Like, Tim and Damian and others grew/changed in N52 because they were young enough that it didn’t undo large swarths of their history (or STEAL large parts in an effort to make lesser know character more important). With the Titans, N52 just doesn’t reconcile with their past selves OR Rebirth selves. Like, I’d be more honest and comfortable with my friends vs my family - I can’t change my past depending on whom I’m with.

Roy went from being an reasonable and independent, if sometimes insecure hero to being the sidekick of someone who used to be atleast 5/7 years younger than him and who died before at 15. While Kori just became a weird bimbo with very little of her old complexity. Anyone wonder why the only part of OG Kori Lobell kept was the free sex one? (The sexual harrasment allegations he admitted to made me wonder for sure).

Also, the Titans were SUCH a huge part of Roy and (especially) Kori’s history, that without them or Roy previous closer to the arrows, the series was just super flat, generic and unrecognisable. Both Roy and Kori were largely defined by their loyalty to others and their emotional bonds. Of all the people to have amnesia, it’s just …

I’m sorry, I could ramble on and on and I’m sure you don’t want to hear it. In short, I hated RHATO’S portrayal of Roy and Kori and given how it doesn’t fit with Pre-flashpoint version OR with the Rebirth version. I took the destruction of Earth 52 in Crisis on Infinite Earths to be DC’s tacit way of saying it was gone.

Here’s what RHATO Roy and Kori are more like. It’s like if you had Rani’s first two Spiderman movies and then jumped to Spiderman homecoming and then went, “no it makes sense, you’re just not understanding the genius in saying a guy who became Spiderman as a high school senior and THEN lost his uncle, all while being best friends with Harry Osborne is the same as a guy who was spiderman by his sophmore year, lost his uncle a while BEFORE that and apparently had a fatherly relationship with IRON MAN (???). See, it’s brilliant! Who gives a hoot about logic or timelines or fans of the first guy (who existed for like 60 years before that)?”

[pluckyredhead]

The Jason Todd Book Club

Over the weekend, a friend asked me how accurate the popular fanon that Jason is a book nerd is. “Mmm, medium?” I said. “There’s evidence, but fandom definitely took it and ran with it.”

Since it coincidentally came up on Discord tonight, I decided to compile every instance I know of of Jason either referencing literature, or just enthusing over books. If I missed any, please let me know!

(I don’t have issue numbers because most of these I took from my own previous posts on Tumblr and I didn’t note down the issues then. I’ll try to give as much context as I remember!)

Robin, Pre-Crisis:

Jason quotes the opening (and most famous) line from Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

This one’s borderline: Sherlock Holmes is of course a literary character, but he’s also famous in pop culture in general, and he never said “Never overlook the obvious” in the original canon. (The closest I can find is “There is nothing so deceptive as an obvious fact” from “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” which means...basically the opposite of what Jason’s saying here.) Has Jason read Sherlock Holmes or is he just bullshitting random detective-sounding stuff? We may never know.

Robin, Post-Crisis:

This isn’t a book quote and it’s a very Dick Grayson line, but it is about book/printing history so I’ve included it.

Red Hood, Post-Crisis:

This isn’t a quote, but it’s an obvious reference to Hamlet and how the scene with Yorick’s skull is traditionally staged. (From Red Hood: Lost Days.)

Probably the main source of the fanon! Jason is so caught up in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen that he keeps reading even while fighting other inmates in prison. Presumably he’s up to Darcy’s first proposal and is like “Oh you stupid fucker.” I wouldn’t put the book down, either. (From Batman and Robin (2009) #23.)

Red Hood, New 52:

Jason quotes an extremely famous line from Richard III, making Shakespeare the only writer he references twice (if you count the Hamlet thing). (From Batman Incorporated (2012).)

Red Hood, Rebirth:

Alexandre Dumas is best known for The Three Musketeers,  The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask. I’m assuming Jason is referencing the last in this since literally everyone is wearing metal on their face, but Jason spouts a lot of very entertaining nonsense in this series, so who knows? Dumas is the only non-white writer Jason references, although very much part of the established literary canon. (From Batman & Robin Eternal.)

Arkham Knight:

This is just baby Jay being excited about books in general. Aw, nugget. Your life is gonna be terrible. (From, uh...one of the Arkham Knight tie-in comics. Sorry.)

IN CONCLUSION: Jason’s been around for 37 years and I was only able to find eight book-or-play-related panels, only four of which are unquestionably references to a specific author or literary work. He is shown reading exactly once. They are also all really really famous books/authors/quotes from old books with dead authors, so he’s either a totally basic bitch when it comes to literature, or he’s never read any of them but has heard other people quote them.

HOWEVER, I love this fanon so you’re prying it out of my cold dead hands. If you want to headcanon Jason as a book nerd, I say go with God! I’m certainly going to keep doing it.

Now to see if the nicknames “Little Wing” and “Jaylad” were ever used more than once each...

[flashfuture]

what's hal's relationship with his family like? in fact, what's his family like in general? I just know he loves his nieces and nephews a lot lo

So earlier comics are weird. he was close to his had but some writers take a different direction where Hal's dad was really mean to him and maybe even a drinker? Which he's a test pilot he wouldn't have been a drinker (i assume it's pathetic projection and an inability to actually write a character that's not a self insert but DC writers have to be the most pretentious and self involved people alive)

Anyways Hal really looks up to his dad Martin who was usually written as a loving father and husband. Hal's mom Jessica and him almost never got along. Jessica was very much against the test pilot career for Hal even before Martin died and after that she didn't want him near planes.

She and used to ask Martin to discourage Hal from wanting to fly but you know that didn't happen. When Martin died Hal kept his jacket and wanted to fly just like his dad.

Jessica loved Hal but never really got him. And when Hal left at 18 to join the Air Force and learn how to fly she wanted nothing to do with him.

Every writer does it different cause they suck at their jobs but the original story was Jessica was dying of cancer and refused to see Hal because she basically disowned him after he left. She wouldn't speak to him till he left the Air Force. Hal then gets himself discharged by punching a superior officer. He's too late however and his mother has already passed.

At this point it's been years since Hal saw his older brother Jack or younger brother Jim. Jim looked up to Hal a lot and was crushed when he left.

But reconciled quickly with Hal and met Susan Williams married her and they had three kids Howie, Jane, and Arthur. (Arthur was in one issue pre crisis and then disappeared from existence) Hal even babysat Howie when he was first born.

Hal never got along with his older brother Jack and things only got worse as Jack blamed Hal for Jessica's death. Jack originally was a DA and married to Jan.

Pre crisis Jack and Jan had twins Jennifer and Jason who were older than Jim's kids. Post zero hour it was just Helen who was said to be a remake of Jennifer. (But Helen during the Spectre series says she remembered being a boy in a past life so I think the original intent was she was the spirit of Jason)

Anyways New 52 we have Howie and Jane then Helen and Jason as twins back. Helen seems to remember her time with Spectre Hal she's a special girl. Again Helen and Jason are twins and the oldest of Hal's nieces and nephews.

Another important family member to Hal is his cousin Hal jr. In the 40s there was a character Lawerence Jordan he was Airwave a superhero. He's one of Hal's Uncles (he has a lot). And Hal Jr. is Lawerence's son. Lawerence died when Hal Jr. was a teenager and Hal Jr.'s mother Helen had a mental break down. So Hal Jr. went on an adventure to be a hero. Met Hal they figured out they were cousins. Along with Oliver Queen they trained Hal Jr. in superhero stuff... and then promptly dropped Hal Jr. on Jack and Jan's doorstep to finish high school. He died during crisis or final crisis or something.

In New 52 Jack like died in a car crash or something. But Hal Jr is back so that's something.

Anyways TL;DR:

Hal looks up to his dad Martin even in death. Hal never really got along with his mother Jessica and she died with bad blood still between them. Hal loves his little brother Jim and is quite close with him. Hal is fond of his sister-in law Susan. Hal dislikes his older brother Jack and never really got along with him. He's fine with his sister in law Jan. Hal adores Jack and Jim's kids with all his heart. Hal is also quite fond of his younger cousin Hal.