#pre new-52

[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

[damianbugs]

What you mean by" willis todds love for jason is the reason bruce failed him" ?

Sorry ive seen your post and I agree with everything but this just kinda suprise me, not hating, just curiuos

HELLO! so this is a take that is based on pre-new 52 todds, before they were simplified to the one dimensional (and classist) personalities they're known for now. neither of them were shown to be abusive or willfully negligent, but rather found themselves in bad situations out of their control and died, leaving jason to fend for himself.

in the most simplest way what i mean is willis todds self sacrificing actions of turning to crime in order to provide for jason and catherine is the key defining part of jasons life and why he views bruce's love for him as 'not enough'.

(of course, the actual proof of this is like. one single panel and its not even said by jason. however i think it is something that can be found in jasons character through other, less obvious situations.)

in jasons initial (public) return to gotham and that long and convoluted plan to mess around with batman psychology to get the two of them and the joker in the same place, it all seems like a well planned out revenge story until the final conversation:

Batman: Under the Red Hood

it always stood out to me, not just because of how absolutely heart wrenching the entire moment is (definitely read utrh if you haven't, at least once), but because it really gives you an insight into what love and loving someone means to jason.

to him it's an all encompassing responsibility. this idea that love is something that you need to be able to prove by the quantitive value of what you'll sacrifice for it. in this case, jason is saying i love you" in the way he truly believes gets across how much he means it; i would kill the person who hurt you.

whenever i read this part of utrh, another situation immediately pops into my mind. and that's when jason found out two-face had killed willis todd.

Batman #411

upon finding out two-face had killed willis, jason goes on a brief grief filled rampage, swearing he'll kill him for what he did. it's important to note that up until now, jason had assumed willis was still in prison, only to find out he was actually murdered.

again, it's this idea that love is the extremes you'll go to for family. jason was well aware of willis' less than legal means to make money, and even bruce makes a mention of it in.

Batman: A death in the family

i imagine, like a lot of what fuels jason to fight crime now, guilt is a major deciding factor in a lot of his choices. it's this guilt that he feels upon hearing about willis' death that makes him take it out on two-face. it's even guilt that plays a huge factor even in new 52 stories (such as Cheer).

so when he returns to gotham, or even before that, just hearing about what bruce had done following his death (locking the joker up instead of killing him, taking in tim as his robin) were, to him, clear evidence that he did not love jason in any way that mattered. that bruce did not love jason as much as jason loved him.

because loving him means giving up your morals. loving him means sacrificing your health and your time and your safety.

but bruce didn't do any of that in a way jason could see.

i imagine to someone like jason, who lost every parental figure in some capacity, whether it be to illness or crime or something else entirely, the evident disregard for him was as painful as any rejection could have been.

a lot of how jason feels and acts can be seen in much more interesting ways if we all look at him for he is; an unreliable narrator. he is missing huge chunks of story, especially when it comes to bruce, and has no choice but to act irrationally on the little truth he does know.

of course we the readers, and some other characters, know just how hard jasons death was for bruce. how destructively he mourned for his son.

but again, the surface level proof of it is not enough for jason, who's entire life has been love through sacrifice. but now, it's a sacrifice bruce can not ever give him.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

[duketectivecomics]

‘Jason was Duke’s robin’ ‘tim was dukes robin’ YOURE ALL FOOLS

Steph as dukes most formative robin is RIGHT THERE

[tastycitrus]

David Cain: This is my daughter, who I spent years raising under meticulously abusive circumstances in order to make her the perfect assassin.

Barbara Gordon and Bruce Wayne:

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

Steph: Tim tried to what?

Damian: I know. The NERVE of that little man. The utter gall! It clearly speaks to his pitiful self-worth and tiny-

Steph: But what did he say?

Damian: Drake tried to insinuate that YOU used to have romantic relations with HIM!!

Steph: *eyes go wide*

Damian: Don’t worry, Stephanie, I’d never fall for such a preposterous tale. You? Involved with that pasty, half-witted wet dog? If it’s any consolation, this lousy fabrication only exists to boost his ever-poor stature amongst the men in my family.

Steph: *turns to her side and buries her face in her hands to stifle laughter*

Damian: I’m...sorry, Stephanie. *reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder but then retracts it at the last second and looks away* It must be so incredibly maddening— unsettling even; to be on the receiving end of such a vile rumor mill. I was disappointed that even Richard didn’t care to rebuke this heinous lie. MEN. Men, I say— their crude wickedness never ceases, their fragile egos never satiated, their—

Steph: *spins around and slaps both hands onto his shoulders* Thank you for telling me, Damian. You’re a trusty frie— um, comrade.

Damian: Naturally.

Steph (dramatically): Excuse me if I speak too much out of anger *Damian shakes head* but it seems like such a crime against…um…women warrants some citizens’ justice.

Damian: What are vigilantes for? *nodding very seriously* I have already sabotaged his grappling—

Steph: Red Robin isn’t our target, Damian— Tim Wayne is! You see, I have a friend with a few connections to the Daily Planet and I’m sure they’d LOVE to hear from a trusty, anonymous, inside source about...*gestures for Damian to finish*

Damian: ...About Drake’s comical death during a company-paid skiing retreat that he sanctioned.

Steph: *winks* ‘Atta boy.

[kiteou]

Doodle of today

[fantastic-nonsense]

it's hilarious to me that the "best" era for any given Bat-affiliated character is usually either a) 1999-2004 or b) 2009-2011.....and then there's Jason, who's living his best life right now in the Infinite Frontier era, and Damian, whose "best" era as a character so far has arguably been 2011-2016 even though he was fridged and dead for two of those years

[eggplantwaffles]

I know people want Jason and Steph to be friends, which I understand. They are very similar and would cause amazing amounts of chaos. But I think nobody is considering the possibility for drama here.

I think the similarities in their stories are just as compelling as the differences. Here’s some juxtaposition (I think I’m using that word correctly) for you:

They both had abusive, criminal fathers and addict mothers. But Jason grew up in Crime Alley and ended up on the street stealing to survive, before Bruce took him in. Steph was (lower?) middle class and lived in a suburb of Gotham. Jason was set up for failure by his economic status and where he lived, Steph was failed by the people around her (Arthur and Crystal).

Jason gets taken in by Bruce, going from living on the street to living in a mansion. Bruce loved him and he was Bruce’s son. Jason became Robin largely for fun. Steph was never “saved” from her situation, and she had a crappy up and down relationship with Bruce, which was partly a result of what happened to Jason. She became a vigilante all in her own, to save herself.

The only precedent to Jason’s Robin was Dick, who obviously grew to be a very successful solo hero, so there was a lot of pressure on Jason to live up to the original. Steph had three Robins come before her, but instead of being compared to Dick, like all the other Robins, she was compared to Tim and Jason. Bruce always saw her as a stand in until Tim came back and she could never get past that, but he also saw a lot of Jason in her which is (partly) why he never wanted her to be a vigilante (until she was useful to him).

They die in very similar ways but there are still some key differences, when Jason died he was actively trying to save his moms life. He objectively died heroically, but what gets remembered was his impulsiveness and this idea that he got himself killed. Steph died trying to fix a mistake she made. She accidentally started a gang war and got people killed (it wasn’t entirely her fault, a lot of it was because Bruce never really trusted her and treated her unfairly). When Jason died Bruce was actively trying to save him, but he never even knew Steph was gone. Steph escaped on her own and ran into Bruce on her way to Leslie’s clinic.

When Jason come back to life, he spends the time before returning to Gotham with the League of Assassins (not the best influences tbh). He expected Bruce to avenge him, but he never did. Jason was pissed off that his father let the man who killed him live. Steph (who spent her time after dying around better influences, like doctors) never expected Bruce to avenge her, she had many reasons not to expect this: Bruce was not her dad, they didn’t have a very positive relationship, and she started a whole gang war before she died.

When Jason come back as Redhood he is a villain, he goes on a crime and killing spree, becoming a major crime lord in Gotham. When Steph comes back she just goes back to being Spoiler, while Jason was angry at Bruce for not avenging him, Steph was just trying to make up for her own mistakes. Steph earns herself a second chance and becomes Batgirl, which she works hard for and genuinely succeeds at.

And I know that was a lot of information and (subjective) analysis but I thought it was important. So here’s where the drama comes in, I think that Steph intentionally avoids Jason for a long time because she used to get compared to him. She never knew him as Robin, all she knows is she was told she was too much like him and was gonna get herself killed, and then exactly that happened. And now he kills people, so what does that say about her?

Jason, on the other hand, doesn’t know Steph. What he does know is that another Robin died and came back, but this one came back better. When Jason died he was saving his Mom, when Steph died she got other people killed. But she gets to come back and be Batgirl? He’s upset that (from what he can tell) her death doesn’t affect her, she’s bright and optimistic, while his death haunts him.

Add on to all this the fact that Jason has a memorial in the bat cave and Steph doesn’t. Steph knows that despite all that Jason has done, Bruce and the other bats would still welcome him back into the family, but if she did what he did Bruce would take Batgirl from her and she’d be completely on her own.

So anyway, I imagine them eventually getting in a huge argument about something random and it boiling over into some minor violence before the other bats break it up. They act like children and are pretty nasty to each other and every other bat can tell it’s not really about each other but about how the other bats (specifically Bruce) have treated them.

Eventually Steph and Jason figure it out and find out they actually get along and have a lot of common interest (reading, making fun of Bruce and Tim, kicking weirdos in the crotch) but before that happens they don’t like each other and the other bats all feel really guilty about it, because what are comic books if not vessels for pain?

[heroesriseandfall]

Not Wonder Woman writers stealing Cassie’s backstory for Diana 💀💀 And to top it all off Cassie doesn’t even appear in a single Wonder Woman issue in the New 52. They stole from her and then didn’t even let in her in the run for one issue.

[sherwoodflorists]

trying to map out a timeline for dinah post-flashpoint is headache-inducing like the amount of retcons that've been established in the past like two years alone is horrid

[bisupergirl]

"kara should actually be friends with x batfam member!" "no she should be teaming up with y batfam member!" you do not actually care about kara!! you do not care about her history or the characters that she's legitimately friends with!! she is a fully fleshed out character that deserves more than to be relegated to an accessory for whoever's the batfam character of the week!!

[tastycitrus]

Barbara: Steph and Cass have been queerbaiting for nearly twenty slutty, slutty years... Steph and Cass, hearing this over comms: Steph: Oracle, what is that supposed to mean? Cass: What are you talking about? Steph: What the HELL is that supposed to mean??

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

Art: Stephanie Brown's Looks Over the Years

Talk about character development.

[cheritouu]

Waylon Jones (Killer Croc) is a character who is an example of how (usually mentally ill) black people in poverty are villainized when they have to turn to crime to survive in a system that’s literally designed to hold you back and instead of being given grace are usually weaponized for someone else’s agenda. Because of their many similarities and paralleling story arcs, being Jason’s next father figure would serve as a way to guide the younger man back into a healthy community as well as help Waylon reclaim some of his humanity. In this essay I will-

[charliecuntcicle]

convinced everyone who says tim is boring or a bad character has never actually read a tim comic

[kryptonlore]

Welcome to Krypton Lore! This blog has been an idea of mine for a long time now, as I've always been fascinated with alien worlds and the DC Universe, and there's never been a good guide that collects the tidbits of information we get on Krypton in one place -- which is what we intend to do here with this blog.

We intend to cover information about Krypton's culture, fauna and flora here from every version of it, comics and adaptations included. As such we will include information on versions some of you may not like.

We ask you kindly to not bring those feelings out on our posts, or we will block you.

See all entries here.