#the black bat

[nefarious-616-necromancer]

[maxwell-grant]

I can probably guess, but how would those individuals getting the Death Note make things worse?

Well,

While she probably should have the book over Light, Emilia is far more ambitious and dangerous that he could be even without the notebook. She's sort of this embodiment of a child's imagination/rebellion in that she's this rebellious firecracker that can do basically anything and has very little respect for grown-ups and very little tolerance for injustice, but she's also egotistical and stubborn and has very little breaks and a very stunted sense of morality, among many other flaws. She's not really that bad, she's a trickster with a big heart trying to make the best of a fiercely opinionated brain and a lease in life she was never supposed to have, she grows for the better but, she did think about cutting off an angel's wings just to see what happened (she later saved the angel by beating Popeye with food poisoning). She held the world hostage with a shrinking spell to try and force the U.S President into ending war forever. Her first appearence had her win a fight by carving out a scorpion's eyeballs with a barbecue spit. Again, she's not evil, but she tends to rejects concepts like "nuance", "social filter" and "not getting to do what she wants right now". She absolutely would have a list planned for the occasion, and there would be a lot of politicians and big shot important folks in there. I'm starting to reconsider my stance on whether she should have the book or not.

The Golden Amazon actually is just straight up evil though. In the first book, she destroys most of England and attempts to rule the world by replacing humanity with synthetic beings, by the second she's leading a secret society of superwomen from the Amazon, and in the following books, while she became an "anti-hero" in the loosest sense possible, that's more so because she succeeds in taking over things and so now has to defend her matriarchy from aliens and saboteurs (I think the books might have retconned some details as they went along but she seems to be either defending Earth so she can rule it or already being it's ruler). She is the Dominatrix of the Solar System, the greatest scientist who ever lived, a cruel, ice cold murder expert superhuman who pretty much doesn't need the Death Note in any way, she really really doesn't need any kind of help in killing/torturing people. The real danger here is her learning about the existence of the shinigami and the shinigami world and deciding she doesn't like death gods in on her territory (existence itself) and deciding to do something about it.

The Black Bat, I mean, Tony Quinn is kind of a piece of shit. He's a scarred and miserable District Attorney turned vigilante serial killer who brands the corpses of the criminals he kills, and unlike The Spider he's not exactly dealing with apocalyptic extreme circumstances to make this behavior less insane, he's just fighting mobsters. Passing the Death Note from the son of a cop, into the hands of a disgraced District Attorney who already decided to go out at night to murder crime with guns and has associates at hand to help him do it is just, well it's not exactly a step up from the threat Light Yagami posed.

El Sombra, look, Djego tried, he truly did. He did a lot of good. If you gave him the Death Note, he'd use it exclusively to kill Nazis and he'd mean it, because that's all he ever did, if you handed him the book during the events of El Sombra and Gods of Manhattan he could have done a lot of good with it. It's just, Pax Omega happened, and what became of him is absolutely not someone who you want to hand something like the Death Note to. He failed, and he failed where it mattered most, and his reward for failure was becoming version 2.0 of everything he hated most and nearly dooming the entire planet. Even if he could have used it to kill Hitler and every member of Untergang, there was no happy ending to the tale of El Sombra. He just failed too profoundly for that to be possible.

The Whisperer, see The Black Bat's deal but times ten, or really just read that editor note above introducing him. The Whisperer is "Wildcat" James Gordon, a handsome young dandy Police Commissioner who, once elected, turned out to be a total maniac asshole (famously burned down an illegal casino as Commissioner, didn't even put on a disguise to do it) and who fights crime by transforming himself into an unrecognizably older persona so he can murder people with impunity. I feel like I don't have to elaborate much here, what's wrong with this guy is fairly brutally self-evident.

The Blue Morpho, because, well how long you've got? Even if you've never watched The Venture Bros and don't know all the horrible things he's done personally, I feel like "cartoon supervillain moonlighting as a dark violent pulp hero in order to kill all the other supervillains in town standing in his way" is fairly self-explanatory. Mr Fitzcarraldo here offed his world's Legion of Doom in one blow pretty much by accident. He's not really out to kill for killing's sake, he just wants to get one guy really badly, but he doesn't really care who he has to get rid of to do that, or even just killing people to solve minor dumb inconveniences like avoiding paying taxi fare or being annoyed by a henchman. He might have the biggest on-screen body count in a show that has Brock Samson in it and only became deadlier as The Blue Morpho, that's no small feat.

Hugo Danner, because there is not a single aspect of Hugo Danner's life that didn't suck and that he didn't find a way to make worse. Hugo Danner was every bad/evil/stupid take on Superman published years before the genuine article. Hugo Danner is the Garth Ennis Superman pisstake that Garth Ennis loved the character too much to actually do. Hugo Danner enlisted in WW1 and only realized he could have ended it single-handedly after he'd already slaughtered thousands and thousands of poor infantrymen with his bare hands and the war ended, and promptly hated himself for being such a colossal idiot. He could not conceive of solutions that didn't envolve "squeezing continents into submission" and punishing all the people too stupid and scared to love him the way he thought he deserved. He hated himself too much to even kickstart plans to create a master race. He got himself killed by cursing the skies and being struck by a lightning bolt on the final page. There's not a lot that the Death Note could have done to save his life from being a shit show, but all he ever did was perpetrate that shit show on others so, yeah, good riddance Danner you stupid bastard.

[obsidian-sphere]

Black Book Detective, Summer 1946.

With The Black Bat.

[holy-shit-comics]

[pppaniccc]

Please tell me I’m not the only one who just knows that any one of the Batkids would start the Red Robin jingle when Tim walks in the room

Bernard and/ or Steph def end the jingle though.

[haveyoureadthiscomic-poll]

[lehoodcollector]

Cassandra Cain (a.k.a. The Black-Bat a.k.a. Batgirl a.k.a Orphan)

[telekinesis-mind-control-comics]

[marvelousmop]

The most annoying thing about the Black Bat to me is that I look at his costume and the only thought in my head is “This costume needs Batman ears” - and obviously he can’t have Batman ears because, if he did, then he’d just look 100% identical to Batman and get into (even more) legal trouble from DC.

[krinsbez]

Pulptober 2023 Prompts Elaborated, Part Two

Before we begin, link to part one:

Again, plus sign next to an alt means it was @maxwell-grant's idea, asterisk means I haven't read the source material.

6-The Lone Ranger/The Mask Does What The Badge Can't: Another fairly straightforward one; despite the core concept of the Hero Pulps being that the protagonist is a vigilante, seeking to bring justice outside the legal system, etc. many Pulp Heroes are, are *part* of the legal system. Today is for them. Alternates: The Whisperer, Dick Tracy*, The Black Bat (Yes, DAs count also)

7-The Spider/Tortured Justice: The weed of crime may bear bitter fruit, but fighting against it is no picnic either. Some Pulp Heroes go through not just physical, but also emotional Hell on the regular, enduring tremendous loss, heartbreak, and angst whenever they "suit up". Today is their day. Alternates: Elric of Melnibone*+, The Moon Man

8-Nita Van Sloan/Remember The Ladies: Today's theme is a famous quote from a letter that was sent to future US President John Adams by his wife Abigail, a power couple that, unusually for the time considered each other to be equals, and worked as a partnership. Similarly, many Pulp Heroes work alongside a Love Interest who is more than just a Damsel In Distress, but an partner in the crime fighting business. Alternates: Nora Charles*, Dian Belmont, Margo Lane*.

9-John Blacksad/Heroes Don't Have To Be Human: For almost as long as human beings have told stories, some of those stories have been about animals with human characteristics. It is not, therefore, a surprise that the same applies to Pulp Heroes. Alternates: Scrooge McDuck, Inca the Siberian Cat+*

10-The Grey Seal/Gone But Not Quite Forgotten. Pulp Heroes have been around for over a century, and there are *a lot* of them. It is, therefore, not surprising that so many of them have fallen between the cracks and been almost forgotten, even those that were important contributors to the genre's evolution. Today is for them. Alternates: Phra the Phoenician*, Reverend Dr. Syn*

[chronivore]

The Black Bat

https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Bat_(Quality)

[nefarious-616-necromancer]

[maxwell-grant]

Random thought, if various Pulp Heroes somehow had Social Media, what would it be like. If you want specifics, let's say The Shadow, The Spider, The Green Hornet, Kato, The Lone Ranger, Tonto, Zorro, The Spirit, Domino Lady, The Green Lama, The Black Bat, G-8, Operator No. 5, The Moon Man, and The Avenger (not including Doc cuz I know you don't like him). Bonus: Supporting Cast members (Harry, Nina, Justice, Inc. etc.)

(I’m going into this ignoring the time periods and just putting the characters in a vacuum)

The Spider is effectively a social media cryptid, who constantly makes short-lived accounts on most platforms that usually consist of first-person records of the terrors he goes up against and varied forms of death threats against criminals, with “DEATH TO THE BRINGERS OF DEATH!” becoming a rather contentious, ban-worthy slogan across the web. Surprisingly, not many people actually have the guts to make Spider roleplay accounts, terrified that they’ll be targeted by his enemies or the Spider himself. Richard Wentworth doesn’t maintain social media, but he’s rather popular across it as a figure of public fascination, this sullen millionaire who does and says weird things, scion of a dead family, who looks so tired and broken sometimes and who sometimes rants about systemic inequalities and philosophical quandries and horrors of the world even when he’s just being interviewed, and who sometimes gets violent and thrusts himself headfirst into people that try to shoot someone near him, and who absolutely would have been outed as The Spider already if it wasn’t for the fact that most people don’t think The Spider is a human being. 

Britt Reid posts via a Daily Sentinel account that he runs solo. As someone playing the role of idle playboy, he is just good enough at faking Twitter brainrot to the point it works in favor of his secret identity, and just good enough at masking information to be successful as a crusading journalist and activist. As The Green Hornet, he actually runs a separate account that kinda seems like a LARPing thing at first to those not in the know, enough to not get him shut down by Twitter, but everyone kinda knows that it’s the Hornet’s actual account. It works in favor of the crimelord façade, lets him drop thinly veiled threats and misdirections, lets him constantly talk shit about major public figures and/or other heroes and keep up the charade, lets Reid get away with stirring the pot and dropping controversial statements stuff he couldn’t get away with as Reid. He has Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen blocked on all social media. 

Kato was fine with just having burner flip-phones for picking up Reid’s calls, but Reid got him something a little more up to date. He still always uses the flip phones on the job, he uses gloves constantly and you can’t use touch screens with those but, occasionally he takes the time to get really good at mobile games of his choice. He holds world records on a lot of racing games, claims it makes for good practice. 

Don Diego de la Vega basically just sticks to Instagram, posting your average celebrity attendance photos and amateur photography shots, occasionally some very classy thirst traps here and there, never anything too racy or undressed. There are quite a handful of Instagram & Twitter accounts and subreddits dedicated to Zorro, reporting on his deeds, his work within communities, praising or condemning him, and a loooot of them are not at all subtle about their thirst for the guy. Diego largely just finds this amusing.

Denny Colt would be a redditor, and he’d sort of drop by on The Spirit subreddit on occasion to do AMAs, mostly lying or telling truths so mundane that most people believe them to be lies. He loves and shares cat memes. The Spirit is the only one of these characters that I could see making sort of an effort to communicate with people online about who he is and what he does, largely as a way for him to seek assistance in his investigations and try to make things a little easier in terms of public relations. There’s a separate Spirit subreddit for people who, usually either want the women of his rogues gallery to step on them, or want to tie him up and show him a good time. The Spirit pretends he doesn’t know about this.

Domino Lady has a TikTok, as Ellen Patrick. Ellen’s considered to be very private with her personal info, with only a couple of wikipedia articles about her and pictures of her attending events floating online. But she’s good at playing the TikTok thirst algorithm, good at building up a charismatic online presence, and very adept at using social media to find her targets and info on them, many of whom actually just approach her outright thinking she’s an easy mark. 

Jethro Dumont doesn’t use social media, or at least, not under his own name. The Green Lama has been banned from most social media sites following some of his posts targeting law enforcement figures and politicians, and if his secret identity wasn’t unknown, he’d be put on several watchlists at minimum. Most of his time online is spent on Goodreads writing book reviews, particularly scathing ones towards books that misrepresent buddhism and buddhist beliefs. The topic of cultural appropriation comes up a lot when people look up the Lama online. No, he is not selling his superpower-inducing radioactive bath salts anywhere, and the less people try to make their own, the better.

Black Bat lurks and posts on 4chan, and you’re just gonna have to take my word for it as to why. The /k/ weapons board doesn’t hold in-person meetings anymore because of him.

The Moon Man absolutely detests social media for a myriad of reasons, one of which being that it’s completely ruined most google searches for his name due to some wretched online memes attached to said name, almost got him to change his name and costume. The only place he really goes to is Linkedin, which is where he can sometimes find potential allies or people in need of assistance or money, and Tumblr, where he posts a lot about politics. He’s controversial, but all things considered, he winds up being pretty popular here. 

Operator 5 only really joined social media to try and recruit people against whatever Great Invasion he was supposed to be fighting off that week. He was constantly and repeteadly told to fuck off for being a secret service spook.

G-8 posts on Deviantart. It’s quiet, nobody bothers him, he’s already calloused against unfathomable horrors from beyond the grimiest depths of imagination, and it lets him keep journals and pictures of some of his exploits for record. 

Doc Savage still posts on Facebook.

Justice Inc maintains a website where they can be reached out for contact, and most of their social media is operated by Smitty and Nellie (who has a pretty massive following on TikTok). The group as a whole coordinates very effectively via Discord. The bulk of Richard Benson’s social media experience boils down to miserably staring at pictures of his family saved on old profiles. 

The Shadow maintains and manages profiles on ALL social media sites, even dead ones or ones that you’d never even heard about.  Lamont Cranston’s verified, but the account’s partially run by the real Cranston who mostly posts dumb garbage, which The Shadow allows for so long as it doesn’t jeopardize his cover. He’s got different profiles for his dozens of secret identities and most of these are maintained by Burbank and other social media-assigned agents who mostly pass on to him information. He arranges investigations, gathers clues, sets up traps, he hijacks podcasts to relay information, reaches out to people in need of assistance, manipulates information, and covers tracks for whoever helps him do it. It’s become a massive part of his crimefighting network and it further arises suspicion since no one knows which accounts could be secretly run by agents of The Shadow or The Shadow himself. Whoever thought that an era of endless communication networks would make The Shadow less effective or scary couldn’t be more wrong. 

In short,

[ashoss]

some things dont change

[holy-shit-comics]

[fact-dogsarehappiness]

Another reason why I’m a firm believer in letting Bruce get old is because the idea of him looking and his dark haired children without his glasses on and genuinely not being able to tell them apart is unparalleled