#this is from detective comics 28

[browniesarethebest]

i love his original car

[sunny1927]

✨🔎Spy Mickey 🔍✨

Out of no where an idea occurred to me, since Mickey is already a detective in the comic series. What if he is a spy aswell…👀 (him basically having an alter ego of himself as a spy in the night time, but at day he’s a detective. Hope that makes sense!)

So for a plot idea? I suppose, is that Mickey becomes an undercover agent/spy who goes by the name “Agent Mouse” or “Agent 28” (I don’t know which one to choose so-) to track down the villains and stopping them for good with their no good evil plan, without blowing his cover as a detective in the day. Not only Mickey has to stop the villains but also protecting his love ones from danger as well and other people (as he figures out some villains out there is trying to harm them…👀)

Anyway that’s all I got! Let me know if you wanna see more of this! (Sorry if it doesn’t makes sense I didn’t really plan out a plot 😅)

Also I wanted to draw Paperinik as well… or is it Duck Avenger? I don’t know aha-

[mydarlingbat]

Do you know how many times The Batman saved The Joker? If you do not know, then ignore this message pls.

So i actually been ask this question before, but I'll add a few more to the list. I'm just updating the list. Death of the family. Batman unhinged 13 #14 Batman gotham after midnight #6. Legends of the dark knight annual #1. Batman adventures continue #12. Batman the max. Arkham dreams #2. Batman confidential #11. batman ninja turtles 3 # 5. hitman #3. Batman The shadow #4 ( league of justice. Tales from the dark multiverse the death of Superman #1 ) Batman White knight present generations of Joker #6. Batman #353. Batman damned #3. Batman #7. Batman #1. Batman adventures #16. the Batman strikes #9. Batman fun house of evil. Batman death by design. The batman who laughs #1 the Batman who laughs # 2 Batman secrets. Batman cacophony #3. Legends of the dark Knight # 200. Batman legends of the dark Knight # 145. Batman Gotham Knights #73. Batman dredd / die laughing. The Joker mask. Batman Gotham adventures #31. Detective comics annual #5. Batman vs the punisher. Two face year one #2. Batman #544 Batman Arkham unhinged #29 #30 Batman unhinged # 28 Batman 1992 annual. Batman Arkham knight. Batman #649. Batman #719. Batman Europe #2 legends of the dark Knight #195 detective comics #1058 2024 ) catwoman #63. Legend of the dark Knight #16. Batman adventures #1. Batman adventures #3. Batman and catwoman #6. Batman adventures #30. Batman secrets #1. Batman 2016 #48. Batman the white knight #7. The spectre #51. Batman annual #1. Joker switch. Wonder woman #165 #167 elseworlds finest. Batman Gotham after midnight #8 Batman gotham adventures #31 dc super friends. Batman / Harley and ivy #1 Batman #146 Batman #37. The Joker last laugh #6. Batman last knight on earth. Legends of the dark knight #10 2012. Batman and Superman / world finest #11. Batman legends of the dark Knight. #50 batman Odyessy # 6 #2. injustice ground zero #6. Batman ego. Batman deadly duo #1 Joker devils advocate. Action comics. #719. Legends of the dark Knight 2020 #2 . Batman #139 2024. Batman brave and the bold #118. Batman 2016 #123. Batman adventures continue season two #7. Batman and Spiderman crossover. The fortress #1 Batman #16 The Batman animated series ( Christmas with JOKER ) ( the Phantasm ) The Jokers favor ) Harlequinade ) legends of the dark Knight #2 2023. Joker's Millions ) make 'em laugh and that's all I recall. Batman Arkham origins. Batman under the red hood. The dark Knight 2008 ) The Batman vs. Dracula. Batman Ninja. Scooby-Doo & Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2018) Batman telltale series # episode 5 Batman tomorrow the game. Gotham the series. the Batman series 2005 The Bat in the Belfry )( Rumors ) The Clayface of Tragedy (Part 2) The Metal Face of Comedy) Batman #66

I can't say them all, but he saved the Joker 77 times in comics. How many times he attempted to save the Joker 14 times in comics. 92 times i guess. Not including the movies and series, but all together 118 times i can recall. Thank you so much for asking though.

[whump-lover-and-reader]

Kindaichi Shonen no Jikenbo N (金田一少年の事件簿N (Neo)) Whump List

Synopsis: High school student Kindaichi Hajime solves a variety of difficult cases that he gets entangled in with the deductive powers inherited from his grandfather, the famous detective Kindaichi Kosuke.

Genre: cop/crime, thriller, mystery, comedy, youth

Whumpee: Kindaichi Hajime played by Yamada Ryosuke

Note: There's apparently like so many iterations of the adaptation of the manga, but I only watched the one with my boy Yamada Ryosuke, so I don't know what happens in the other adaptations.

Little side note for the movies, if you're watching the second movie (about the puppeteer guy) warning for slight arachnophobia and insectophobia: at about 16:28–16:41(a scorpio and a tarantula) + at ~28:10 (a centipede for a couple of seconds)

Check out Yamada Ryosuke in Kiwadoi Futari: K2: Ikebukurosho Keijika Kanzaki Kuroki as well.

!!Spoilers Below!!

Ep. 01: drugged, fainted

Ep. 02: nearly hit by a bus, knocked out by sleeping gas, kidnapped, forced to play in this weirdass death escape room, wearing a mask with an explosive locked on his head, trapped in a room full of fire for a second, coughing from sleeping gas, knocked out by it (he thought it was poison), in hospital

Ep. 03: stomach-ache, in hospital on examination

Ep. 04: scared (semi-comical?), fell from a high place, knocked out by sleeping gas

Ep. 05: pretends to be hypnotized, feeling tired, physically subdued, feeling tired and out of it, seemingly stabs his friend under hypnosis(?), arrested, escaped, gun to the head, at gunpoint, hands tied, locked up in a room, points a gun at someone, sees the news of his friend passing away

Ep. 06: running away from police, at gunpoint, running away from police, feeling dizzy, fainted, feeling feverish, helped to walk, collapsed in someone's arms, cared for, forearm cut with a knife

Ep. 07: just lots of angst ig

Ep. 08: drenched in rain

Ep. 09: none

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

List of Bat Family Team-Ups and Crossovers from the Batman: Reborn Era

While to me the late 90s and early 00s produced the quintessential Bat Family, 2009-11 (plus Convergence) gives us a maturing and quickly evolving Bat Family; forced to reckon with the themselves and their pasts, to sustain a future. Crossovers had a very different tone to 10 years prior; all that shared history now boils to the surface, asking if these already complicated relationships, new and old, will stand the test of time. I also added links and bolded my favourites.

For newer readers: This is the period after Bruce Wayne's "death", which caused a reshuffling of monikers and Gotham to break into chaos. The extended Bat Family at this point includes Dick Grayson (Batman III), Damian Wayne (Robin V), Stephanie Brown (Batgirl IV), Barbara Gordon (Oracle), Helena Bertinelli (The Huntress), Dinah Lance* (Black Canary II), Tim Drake-Wayne (Red Robin), Cassandra Wayne (Black Bat), Selina Kyle (Catwoman), Kate Kane (Batwoman II), Renee Montoya (The Question II), Jason Todd* (Red Hood II) and Bruce Wayne (Batman I).

Team Up Comic Runs

Batman and Robin 2009 (#1-26)

Dick and Damian

Batgirl 2009 (#1-24)

Steph and Babs

Birds of Prey 2010 (#1-15)

Babs, Helena and Dinah

Team Up/Crossover Arcs

Battle for the Cowl (#1-3)

Dick, Babs, Tim, Damian, Helena, Selina, Squire, Cass (cameo), Dinah (cameo), and Jason (antagonist).

Batgirl Rising: Point of New Origin (Batgirl 2009 #1-3)

Steph, Babs, Cass (flashback), and Dick and Damian (cameos)

Revenge of the Red Hood (Batman and Robin 2009 #4-6)

Dick, Damian, and Jason (antagonist)

Life After Death (Batman #692-697)

Dick, Helena, Selina, Babs and Damian

Blackest Night: Batman (#1-3)

Dick, Tim, Damian and Babs

The Eighth Deadly Sin (Batman Annual #27 & Detective Comics Annual #11)

Dick, Renee and Damian

Leviathan (Streets of Gotham #5-6)

Helena, Babs, Dick and Damian

Batgirl Rising: Core Requirements (Batgirl 2009 #5-7)

Steph, Babs, Dick and Damian

Collision (Red Robin # 9, Batgirl 2009 #8 & Red Robin #10-12)

Tim, Steph, Dick, Babs, Damian, and Helena (cameo)

Blackest Knight (Batman and Robin 2009 #7-9)

Dick, Kate, Knight & Squire, and Damian

The Flood (Batgirl 2009 #9-12)

Steph, Babs, Selina (antagonist), Helena (antagonist), and cameos for Dick, Tim and Damian.

Pipeline: Chapter Two (The Question: Pipeline or Detective Comics #859-864)

Renee and Helena

The Hit List (Red Robin #13-17)

Tim, Dick, Damian, Cass (epilogue), and Steph (cameo)

Batman: Imposters (Detective Comics #867-870)

Dick, Babs, and Renee (cameo)

Black Mass (Batman and Robin 2009 #16)

Dick, Damian and Bruce

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Batgirl

Steph, Babs and Bruce

The Great Escape (Batman #703 & Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Batman and Robin)

Dick, Damian, Tim and Bruce

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Oracle

Babs, Bruce, and Steph (cameo)

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Red Robin

Tim and Bruce

Planet Gotham (Batman: The Return)

Bruce, Dick, Steph, Damian, Babs and Tim

Batman: The Black Mirror (Detective Comics #771-781)

Dick, Commish Gordon, Babs and Tim

All the Rage (Detective Comics Annual 12 & Batman Annual 28)

Dick, Bruce and Renee

The Lesson: Frogs, Snails & Puppy-Dog Tails... (Batgirl #17)

Steph and Damian

Judgement on Gotham (Batman 708, Red Robin #22, Gotham City Sirens #22 & Batman #709)

Dick, Selina and Tim

The Streets Run Red (Batman and Robin 2009 #23-25)

Dick, Damian, and Jason (antagonist)

Five Minutes Fast (Batgirl 2009 #22)

Steph and Squire

Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes!

Steph and Bruce (part 1) | Bruce, Dick, Damian and Tim (part 2)

Hostile Takeover (Birds of Prey #12-13)

Helena, Renee, Babs and Dinah

The Gates of Gotham (#1-5)

Dick, Cass, Damian and Tim

7 Days of Death, Part 3 (Red Robin #25)

Tim and Cass

Storybook Endings (Batman #713)

Dick and Damian, but cameos for Bruce, Tim, Steph, Babs, Helena and Selina.

Unsinkable (Batgirl 2009 #24)

Steph and Babs, cute cameos for Damian and Cass

new reader note: Flashpoint ends Post Crisis continuity here but the 2015 Convergence event revisits this continuity for one last time, giving us a few more complete endings.

Father and Sons (Convergence: Batman and Robin)

Bruce, Damian and Jason

The Love Song of Stephanie Brown (Convergence: Batgirl)

Steph, Cass and Tim

Just One More Thing… (Convergence: The Question)

Renee, Helena and Kate

Birds of Rage (Convergence: Nightwing/Oracle)

Dick, Babs and Dinah

[thekillingvote]

No Birds Allowed: Batman without Robin

The usual claim is that Jason Todd was singularly hated by audiences. Dick Grayson, Carrie Kelley, and Tim Drake are proper, beloved Robins—and Jason Todd is the one and only outlier so unlikable that audiences killed him off by popular vote.

But this claim ignores a massive piece of the puzzle—the Robin role has long been treated as an outdated remnant of a childish era, not only by a significant share of Batman fans, but also by Batman creative teams. While there were definitely fans who hated Jason Todd, he was at least partly chosen to be killed as a scapegoat for some long-standing complaints about the Robin role in Batman stories.

The 1988 poll to kill Jason Todd wasn't just a poll to kill Jason Todd—the poll to kill Robin was a poll to kill Robin.

Fan letters columns from Batman #221 and Detective Comics #398, reacting to Dick leaving for Hudson University in Batman #217 (1969):

Denny O'Neil Batman/Detective Comics writer (1970-1980) Batman group editor (1986-2000) on sending Robin away to Hudson University:

Dan Greenfield: Actually, last night I went back through my comics and the one thing that always strikes me is that before you came onto the character, they’d already made the decision to have Robin leave. Robin was up at Hudson University and was used sparingly from that point forward. Denny O’Neil: Well, that was a conscious decision of mine. Greenfield: Oh! O’Neil: Yeah, I mean … I had been offered Batman a year before I did it. Greenfield: No kidding? I wanna hear this. O’Neil: Because that was in the (Batman TV show) camp thing. The comics were very half-heartedly following in the footsteps of the camp because it was having a palpable effect on circulation. That’s not always true but it was in that case. Camp as in the sense — as opposed to the more erudite sense — this one-line joke about: “I loved this stuff when I was 6 and now that I’m 28 and I have a bi-weekly appointment with a therapist and a little, mild drug habit and two divorces, ‘Look how silly it is.'” I would go into the most literary bar in Greenwich Village on (Wednesday) or Thursday evenings and there would be writers and poets and college professors, all looking at Batman! But when that was over, it was over. It was like somebody turned a switch. And that’s when (editor) Julie (Schwartz) said, in his avuncular way, did I have any ideas for Batman? And at that point, I wasn’t going to be asked to do camp. I was going to be asked to do anything within the bounds of good taste, etc., that I wanted to.

O'Neil, quoted from “Notes from the Batcave: An Interview with Dennis O’Neil” in The Many Lives of The Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media:

There was a time right before I took over as Batman editor when he seemed to be much closer to a family man, much closer to a nice guy. He seemed to have a love life and he seemed to be very paternal towards Robin. My version is a lot nastier than that. He has a lot more edge to him.

O'Neil in 2015:

Modern Batman does not do camp. He has to evolve but to stay true to the concept he has to stay lonely. The kids, there shouldn't be many. Keep him the lone, obsessed crusader and the stories will be better. We did a story called Son of the Demon. It told a story where he had a kid, a baby. It wasn't in continuity. These days, the kid came back and became the new Robin, and I hear that Batman's got a few more running around.

Jim Starlin, Batman writer (1987-1988), writer of A Death in the Family:

I tried to avoid using [Robin] as much as I could. In most of my early Batman stories, he doesn’t appear. Eventually Denny asked me to do a specific Robin story, which I did, and I guess it went over fairly well from what I understand. But I wasn’t crazy about Robin.

I thought that going out and fighting crime in a grey and black outfit while you send out a kid in primary colors was kind of like child abuse. So when I started working on Batman, I was always leaving Robin out of the stories, and Denny O’Neil who is the editor finally said, "You gotta put [Robin] in."

In the one Batman issue I wrote with Robin featured, I had him do something underhanded, as I recall. Denny had told me that the character was very unpopular with fans, so I decided to play on that dislike. [...] At that time, DC had this idea that they were gonna do an AIDS education book, and so they put a box out and wanted everybody to put in suggestions of who should contract AIDS and perish in the comics. I stuffed it with Robin. They realized it was all my handwriting so they ended up throwing all my things out. About six months later, Denny came up with this idea of the call-in thing. [...] I didn’t find out about it until I came back [from Mexico] and found out that, just as I expected, my ghoulish little fans voted him dead. But by a much smaller margin than I’d imagined. It was only like 72 votes out of 10,000, so statistically it was next to nothing.

Dan Raspler, assistant editor/associate editor to Denny O’Neil (1988-1990):

Denny wasn’t really interested in comics continuity, and he didn’t like superheroes. And if you read his work, you see his influence was really a pushing away from the conventions at the time—it was growing old, that sort of Golden Age-y, Silver Age-y stuff, and Denny sort of modernized it, and he never stopped feeling that way. Jim Starlin’s Batman appealed to Denny. It was a little more ‘down to Earth. Nobody liked Robin at the time. For a while Robin was not—it didn’t make sense in comics. Comics were darkening, and so having the kid was just, it was silly, and even at the time I kind of didn’t. Now Robin is my favorite all-time character, but at the time when I was twenty-whatever, I accepted kicking Robin out, the short pants and all the rest of it.

Comic shop owner Phil Beracha on A Death in the Family, quoted in The Sun Sentinel (October 22, 1988):

"I got 100 copies, and I don't expect them to last past the weekend," said Phil Beracha, owner of Phil's Comic Shoppe in Margate. "I usually get 50 copies of Batman. I doubled my order, and I still expect to sell out." The readers voted right, Beracha said. "Robin is an outdated concept. He was created in the `40s, and back then in a comic book you could have a kid beating up grown men. I don't think that works today."

Writer Steve Englehart, quoted in "Batman, the Gamble; Warner Bros. is betting big money that a 50-year-old comic book vigilante will be a `hero for our times'" in the Los Angeles Times (June 18, 1989):

Writer Steven Englehart, who did a series of Batman stories in Detective Comics, also worked up some movie treatments. In a letter to Comics Buyer's Guide, he revealed the approach he had in mind, which would have pleased Batfanatics: "My first treatment had Robin getting blown away in the first 90 seconds, so that every reviewer in the country would begin his review with, `This sure isn't the TV show.' "

Michael Uslan, producer and film rights holder for the 1989 Batman film:

I only let Tim [Burton] see the original year of the Bob Kane/Bill Finger run, up until the time that Robin was introduced. I showed him the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers and the Neal Adams/Denny O'Neil stories. My biggest fear was that somehow Tim would get hold of the campiest Batman comics and then where would we be?

"Death Knell for the Campy Crusader" in the Orlando Sentinel (23 June 1989):

For most people, the name Batman summons up a picture of a clown in long johns, a Campy Crusader who - with the young punster Robin - ZAPed and POWed his way into our lives. That's the Batman that appeared on TV in the mid-'60s, and that's the Batman that the world at large knows. Such is the power of television. But this ludicrous image may become obsolete now that the new, $40 million Batman movie has opened. Robin is absent from the film, as are the perky Batgirl and the utterly superfluous Aunt Harriet of the TV series. And though the movie has plenty of sound effects, they don't appear on the screen as words, spelled out in neo-Brechtian absurdity.

Sam Hamm, writer for Batman (1989 live-action film):

The Case of the Disappearing Robin is high comedy. Tim (Burton) and I had worked out a plotline that did not include the Boy Wonder, whom we both regarded as an unnecessary intrusion. Really: Our hero was crazy to begin with. Did he have to prove it by enlisting a pimply adolescent to help him fight crime? Was Bat-Baby unavailable? But the studio was insistent: There was no such thing as solo Batman, there was only Batman and Robin. So, after holding off the executives for as long as we could, Tim and I realized we had better try to accommodate them. He flew up to my house in San Francisco and we walked around in circles for two days, finally deciding that there was no way to shoehorn Robin into our story. [...] We figured that if we managed to squeeze him in, the lame hacks who were making the sequel could worry about what to do with him next. When the film went into production in London, and ran seriously over budget, WB started looking for a sequence that could be cut to save money. And there was one obvious candidate: Intro Robin! So Robin was cut from the movie and shoved back to Batman Returns— from which he was cut yet again and shoved back to Batman Forever.

Grant Morrison on creating Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (written 1987-1988, published 1989) with Dave McKean (see the annotated script's fourth page):

The original first draft of the script included Robin. Robin appeared in a few scenes at the beginning then remained at Police Headquarters for the bulk of the book, where he spent his time studying plans and histories of the house, in order to find a way in to help his mentor. Dave McKean, however, felt that he had already compromised his artistic integrity sufficiently by drawing Batman and refused point blank over for the Boy Wonder — so after one brave but ridiculous attempt to put him in a trench coat, I wisely removed him from the script.

Paul Dini on Batman: The Animated Series (1992), as told in the 1998 book Batman Animated:

The Fox Network, on the assumption that kids won't watch a kid’s show unless kids are in it, soon began insisting that Robin be prominently featured in every episode. When Fox changed the title from Batman: The Animated Series to The Adventures of Batman & Robin, they laid down the law-no story premise was to be considered unless it was either a Robin story or one in which the Boy Wonder played a key role. Out were underworld character studies like “It's Never Too Late"; in were traditional Batman and Robin escapades like “The Lion and the Unicorn.” A potentially intriguing Catwoman/Black Canary team-up was interrupted in midpitch to the network by their demand, “Where's Robin?” When the writers asked if they could omit Robin from just this one episode, Fox obliged by omitting the entire story. Looking back, there was nothing drastically wrong with Robin's full-time insertion into the series—after all, kids do love him. Our major gripe at the time was that it started turning the series into the predictable Batman and Robin show people had initially expected it would be. For the first season, Batman had been an experiment we weren't sure would work. We were trying out different ways of telling all kinds of stories with Batman as our only constant. For better or worse, having a kid forced him, and the series, to settle down.

Christian Bale, star of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy (2008):

If Robin crops up in one of the new Batman films, I'll be chaining myself up somewhere and refusing to go to work.

Summed up

Among the keepers of Batman, there has been a vocal contingent arguing against the inclusion of Robin. They argue that Robin damages Batman's brooding, solitary persona. They argue that the concept of Robin is too ridiculous and fantastic for the grounded, gritty ideal of Batman. They argue that a respectable version of Batman shouldn't allow, encourage, or train "child soldiers" to endanger their lives fighting against violent evil-doers.

The original and most iconic Robin, Dick Grayson, has definitely benefited from his deep roots in DC lore and his consistent popularity among fans—and yet even he has been shunned from various Batman projects over the decades. When even he struggles to get his foot in the door, his successors face stiffer opposition.

So it's not quite correct to say that Jim Starlin hated Jason Todd. In his own words, Starlin wasn't fond of Robin, and his storytelling (most obviously A Death in the Family) set out to argue against Batman having any kind of "partner" at all. This, following the wildly successful comic that treated Barbara Gordon as a disposable prop. A growing audience welcomed the Dark Age, and the gruesome spectacles made of kid-friendly elements like Batgirl and Robin.

This trend could be broken by the upcoming sequel to The Batman and by the planned slate of upcoming DCU films. But most Robin fans will tell you that many movie-going Batman fans still have their doubts about Robin sharing Batman's spotlight.

[blindbeholder]

Barbara Gordon is almost the same age as Bruce Wayne

(In the silver age) (but she still should be)

The infantalization of Barbara Gordon has been eating away at my soul for a little while, and i decided to do a little research into the problem and how old she actually is.

The initial search showed that she was, at the oldest 18 when she started as Batgirl, but this was new earth information, and it didn't satisfy me. So I decided to check whether there was any evidence to her age in her first appearance: Detective Comics 359.

She has a PhD. This is the first page. That takes 8 years of study. She is 26 minimum, and the way she talks about it makes me think she's been holding the title of Dr Gordon for at least a year.

This story takes place during the silver age Batman's 7th year, which makes him 27-28 years old at this time. Dick Grayson, for his part, is ~10 years younger than Bruce in this timeline, making him 17-18 here.

This is actually older than I thought she would be, but it works out for

Jim as Bruce's father figure, since his actual child would be the same age.

Most of her popular ships, which are usually with older characters like Bruce and Dinah.

Barbara as Cassandra's mother.

Barbara taking out Killer Moth by herself in her debut.

Her position of leadership relative to basically everyone ever.

I wanted to make this an essay but I'm losing focus so under the cut is more stuff from that first batgirl issue!

So she's also qualified to train people. I want to imagine she got Stephanie to be good at fighting. For all i remember of Stephanie's adventures she actually did.

This is actually very cool, I want equipment breakdowns for everything that everyone uses.

You tell her, Robin. Also just... that shadow.

Where were you hiding that, you came here in a convertable.

How does that work? Wait stop HOW DOES THAT WOR

I really like that she has rescued batman twice in her first issue, and they managed to do it without undermining Bruce's skills.

I want to say this is sexist but it's too clever for me to disparage it.

That is not how lasers work Batman.

Oh no, what is your problem Jim.

[sunnymusingsao3]

The Half-Life of Sixty Seconds

Words: 6626 Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tim Drake & Lonnie Machin, Tim Drake/Lonnie Machin Summary: Based on Red Robin #16. Missing Scenes and Relationship Building. Tags: Pre-Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Developing Relationship, Developing Friendships, Missing Scene, Pre-New 52, New Earth, Medical Trauma, Canon-Typical Violence, Coma, Based on Red Robin #16, Comic: Red Robin (2009) #16

Preview:

The problem with thinking like a detective is not actually that thinking like one is too strict or structured. There’s organization on a document, but Tim’s mind is not a bullet journal. It’s not a legal form, it’s not a spreadsheet, it’s not a ledger.

It’s messy and human and creative. Loose, unstructured, instinctual. Detectives aren’t good at solving cases because they work like machines; it’s much the opposite. It’s that creative mess which aids in seeing between the structure of presented facts, reading the code, and then cracking it. It’s like tracing a spider web back to its center. There’s an observable track leading exactly where one needs to go— a veritable method to the madness— but it’s still art, all the same, even to the broom that ruins it.

So, when Tim is presented with a countdown, it’s not just a mechanical, factual understanding of time that pushes hard against the inside of his ribs; it’s a too-clear visual of a digital clock-face, neutral and unyielding, counting down from sixty in his neocortex. Artistic and messy and emotional.

There is only one place to go once one is caught in the web.

00:59:99. He doesn’t even know what’s happening, yet, but dread spreads in his stomach regardless because there was a piece on the chess board that he didn’t see, and now he’s in check.

He grits his teeth and demands information.

By 00:56:19, he has a location, and by 00:54:43, his feet aren’t on the pavement anymore, while Ulysses Armstrong lies there frozen, trapped by Tim’s last-ditch effort to see the guy to justice.

As he takes off, he tosses half-formed instructions to the bystanders who stopped to see Red Robin use a guy to ollie down a stoop, and it’s like he can hear his own voice on a time delay, like he’s listening to both the live scene and the news broadcast at once. It’s shrill and tense, and even in his own head, it sounds like his vocal cords are pulled too tight, like they’ll snap at any minute.

He doesn’t stop to think too hard about that— his brain, while no computer, is still running calculations in prestissimo tempo, flying through his mind as quickly as the freezing Gotham wind passes over his exposed cheeks, chapping the skin there, and on his chin, his lips. He is moving at a blistering pace, and he still won’t make it for another twelve seconds.

00:43:01. He dips his left shoulder and careens through a tight curve, one of the fastest he’s pulled off with the new glider. If he wasn’t counting building numbers like dandelion fluff on the breeze, Tim would pass time thinking about the effects of adrenaline on a trained skill. But he, more than most, has examples plenty of that very thing, dating as far back as when he was twelve and still unable to wear the colors he was training for.

The windows of 515 Roussos Boulevard’s penthouse apartment are splashed in plum and claret from the setting sun, and it’s the perfect target for a bullseye. Tim’s cape slackens.

00:28:03 and he shatters the plate glass with the force of his dive, hitting it with the hardened armor of his elbows and knees first. It isn’t even a contest; the barrier explodes, and his feet crunch on the powder and shards beneath them, and it doesn’t even matter that it all went everywhere because Lonnie evidently wasn’t in any danger of getting hit by it all— because all Tim can see of Lonnie at first is a goddamned metal tube.

It doesn’t feel any less horrifying when he rotates and finds Lonnie’s head exposed at one end. His cheeks are sunken, and he’s so pale that Tim would have thought him dead if he hadn’t been talking to him that very morning.

Red Robin’s voice is sotto voce soft, though when the only other sound in the room is the dull murmur of equipment, it sounds loud as a gunshot, even over the blood rushing in his ears. “Lonnie…”

Two images splinter in his mind. One, his friend now, lying with his eyes shut and a disarmingly neutral expression written into the too-sharp angles of his face— the other, a direct antipode; Lonnie, cheeks flushed high with color, green eyes lit with gold and will, and impassioned words of revolution in no shortage on his sharp tongue.

Like yesterday…

“What did he do to you?”

[Read the rest on AO3] Note: You do need to be logged in to read. Apologies for the inconvenience. Until I can be sure that AO3 is not being used to train AI, my works will remain open to users only.

[iambicpentameterhamster]

Every umbrella academy character ranked

Prior to Season 4 coming this year, thought I'd share my character rank with you for the first 3 seasons all together. (Spoilers ahead)

#33- Marcus, Jayme, Alphonso and Fei

Painfully insignificant and underdeveloped. Their only character traits being "spoiled and a bit evil" made them EXTREMELY captivating villians...

#32- Christopher

Only higher because I find the idea of someone carrying around a cube on a stick onset really funny.

#31- Sparrow Ben

Hard to watch honestly, especially in comparison to his lovely counterpart Umbrella Ben.

In general, the Sparrows were terrible and pointless characters, and clearly the writers knew this because most were killed off pretty quickly. All except for Sparrow Ben, which just meant we had to suffer watching him for even longer.

#30- Viktor

This is a controversial choice. He is tolerable in season 1, but then just becomes a moochy emo sod who is boring to watch. I don't know if it's the acting, script or both, but he’s just such a meek and flavourless character who is PARTICULARLY bad in season 3 when he jeopardises his whole family and is repeatedly selfish and has a victim complex.

#29- Luther

He caused the apocalypse in season one and you can't convince me otherwise. Got some alamaba shit going on with Allison...

There are so many reasons I hate Luther. He's a self-centred man child who couldn't care less about his siblings and their feelings, showing zero empathy to Klaus or Vanya, for example. He only shows respect and kindness when he is attracted to the person (As shown when seasons 1 and 2 he is only nice to Allison, then completely ignores her when he moves on to Sloane) or when they pose as an authority figure to him. All he does is whine and feel sorry for himself.

What's that? You lived in the apocalypse all alone for 40 years? You are addicted to drugs and lost the love of your life in a war? You have a power you can't control and a lifetime of rejection? WELL LUTHER WENT TO THE MOON

#28- Carl Cooper

Hated him as a character but he was a menacing villian which I can respect

#27- Harlan

Couldn't care less about him, only there for plot convenience and Victor's arc pretty much

#26- Sloane

An improvement from Luther's literal sibling. Further evidence that Luther will simply fall for any woman who gives a flying fuck about the moon.

Personality: attracted to Luther

#25- Pogo

Basil exposition of the first series

#24- Detective Patch

Barely remember her

#23- The Swedes

They were kind of goofy as villians but there was some good acting and they posed a real threat. Cute moments with the cats. In general, alright, but they could have easily been replaced plot wise with something more interesting.

#22- Cha Cha

Lack of character development for me. I think she deserved to be fleshed out more, I don't think it's fair that only her partner got to be a three-dimensional being. What are her motivations? Who is she underneath it all?

But overall i liked the acting and she was a good villian.

#21- That hotel worker from season 3

He's barely a character but I liked his sass so he's on the list.

#20- Reggie (Reginald Hargreeves)

He is supposed to be the main antagonist/villian of the show, yet The Handler stole his spotlight. He's a bit too stereotypically evil and asshole-ish for me, basically twiddling his moustache and stroking a cat in a dark corner the entire show. The delivery is too blunt and that doesn't help to build the tension and mystery surrounding him as much, but if he were more complicated and cryptic in his personality it would be more effective.

This is very nit picky and overall Reggie is fine. He has some hilarious moments with Klaus in season 3 and I am genuinely intrigued about the unanswered questions surrounding him.

#19- Elliott

He wasn't a particularly important or central character but I enjoyed it when he was on screen and he played his role convincingly. He was a good comic relief in some scenes, and when he died (spoiler alert) the reactions from other characters were realistic and quite impactful. I felt for him throughout, which is impressive for less significant characters and he had a lot of depth relative to the size of his role.

#18- Destiny's children

Not a singular character, but I LOVED Destiny's children. It fit Klaus's character perfectly to have a cult and led to some of the funnies moments in the series.

#17- Dave

From the very limited moments we see with this character, a lot of personality and emotion was communicated, and I feel like we got a big sense of the character. That is down to the brilliant acting from both of Dave's actors and from Robert Sheehan that really sold this character with so little screen time.

Anyway please come back to life Dave! Death doesn't look good on you!

#16- Agnes (Donut woman)

Very sweet and I wish her all the best in life.

#15- Sissy

BRILLIANTLY acted and impactful. Stole every scene between her and Vanya.

Also, she looks EXACTLY like Sheldon's mum in young sheldon...

#14- Herb and Dot

I want to put them both in my pocket and protect them from harm.

#13- Kenny's mum

Again, barely present but I love her. She's a queen. I would go to a rave with Kenny's Mum.

#12- Stan

I love Stan, and he's a big part of Diego and Lila's character development and motivations. I hope they adopt Stan and live happily ever after.

But yeah, great one-liners from Stan.

#11- Grace

Very well acted and haunting.

Top 10 *drumroll please*

#10- Harold Jenkins (Lenoard Peabody)

Again, quite a controversial placement, but I stand by my decision. The acting and delivery of Harold Jenkins as a villain is possibly the best in the whole show. I was totally convinced Lenoard was a nice guy and I was rooting for him and Vanya, until he started dropping hints and slowly revealing his true self and losing the facade and its... it's chefs kiss. So realistic. The actor deserves an award and a standing ovation.

The writers also deserve a pat on the back for this one because he has a convincing motivation and backstory, and the dialogue is DELICIOUS when it comes to Lenoard. He is a truly menacing villain without being overtly scary and powerful and dangerous.

#9- Ray

Charismatic, gentlemanly, empathetic, loving, trusting, supportive... Ray is THE IDEAL MAN. I'm a little bit in love with Ray so I don't blame Allison.

HUGE step up from Luther, for sure.

#8- Umbrella Ben

I would have liked to see more of his character, but I liked what I did see. He loves his siblings and shows it. He is selfless and sacrifices his own existence for Vanya, he is blunt with Klaus because he cares and wants him to improve. Of course, he and Klaus are also a hilarious duo.

#7- Hazel

One of the most touching arcs that offers an insightful message about what life is for, and about Love. Beautifully acted, a very real and lovable character who probably resonates with many in some ways. Hazel is adorable and i miss him in later seasons.

#6- The Handler

I LOVE THE HANDLER MORE THAN WORDS CAN EXPLAIN!!! Funny, playful, entertaining, uexpected and whimsical and yet simultaneously dark and menacing, AMAZING villian that stole EVERY SINGLE SCENE she was in. Kate Walsh was the perfect choice for the role and she played it to perfection.

A bit of trivia about the role, The Handler was originally written for a man, and when Kate Walsh got the role she insisted they didn't change the script (which, let's be honest, they would have.) She put a wonderful spin on it and it's just perfect, I wouldn't change a thing. I would 100% watch a spinoff all about the handler. Season 3 was worse than the previous two thanks to them killing her off (amongst other questionable plot choices)

#5- Allison

Allison was the only character who knew what they were doing, and honestly, if everyone just listened to Allison, there would be no apocalypse. Her storyline losing both Claire and Ray and her powers driving her crazy with power breaks my heart but is well portrayed and impactful.

She's charismatic, clever, strong, and kind. I love Allison and I think most of us do.

#4- Diego

He's stupid but in an endearing way, I find him to be so entertaining and funny, and the actor's face is like an open book. He's not show-stopping but his consistent presence just sets the mood and allows others to act off of him, while he really sells it with his expressions. He's like the rock of the show.

#3- Lila

Lila. Mi amor. Mon amour. Amore mio. Meine Leibe.

#2- Five

For several reasons:

A) He is the daddy here, Luther!!

B) That should be the only reason you need

Seriously, though, I was SUPER impressed with Aidan Gallagher and his incredible screen presence, especially at such a young age. He really embodies the character. Five is the face of the Umbrella Acadamy, and is undoubtedly the most iconic character. 10/10, two thumbs up, absolutely BRILLIANT.

#1- Klaus

No justification necessary.

[a-strange-server]

🦋 Strange Tales Of Halloween 2024 👻

It’s finally happening! The most awaited server event makes its yearly appearance! Can you believe it’s our third time?! Here’s to participation in whatever form you desire, let’s be strange together and make some spooky things!

Anyway, as our baby event grows, this year we decided to make one significant change: instead of lasting a whole month, the event is set during the last 2 weeks of October.

Brief info:

The event is set between 18–31 October 2024

We are open to all forms of creativity (fics, art, gifs, etc.) 🦋

42 prompts to choose from (2 types: words & sentences); 3 daily prompts

The main rule — works centred around Stephen Strange

Tag with #strangehalloween2024, so we can reblog on our Tumblr

If applicable, submit in our dedicated ao3 collection

Art by @unnnamedidiot with permission to use for the event. Show your support and reblog their amazing art!

We hope that you will once again have fun with Strange Tales of Halloween, whether by active participation or enjoyment of the contributions! Please remember to show your appreciation in comments, reblogs, kudos, etc. We encourage you to let others know that you like someone’s work! The fandom and its growing content exists because we want to be there, engaging with another. This is what allows Strange Tales of Halloween to be organised each year — you never disappoint by asking about said event!

🎃 Prompt list, FAQ & rules can be found bellow the line:

Prompt List

Friday 18 October — Bedtime story | Basement | Potion

Saturday 19 October — Claws | Whispers | “Follow me”

Sunday 20 October — Lies | Trick or treat | Zombies

Monday 21 October — Abandoned mansion | Scarecrow | “I don’t take orders from a cat”

Tuesday 22 October — Web | Cloak | Vampire

Wednesday 23 October — Spell book | Horns | “Stay still, or I’ll chop your hand off!”

Thursday 24 October — Candle | Wanderer | Shadow

Friday 25 October — Stars | Ruckus | “Say, weren’t you the one playing that creepy tune earlier?" "…I thought that was _you_.”

Saturday 26 October — Screams | Sacrifice | Poison

Sunday 27 October — Morbid curiosity | Wings | “Well, that’s a nifty spell!”

Monday 28 October — Summoning | Buried (alive) | Angel

Tuesday 29 October — Smile | Kingdom | “Are you speaking Latin?" "Why, aren’t _you_?”

Wednesday 30 October — Deal | Pumpkin (Spice Latte / Carving) | Demon

Thursday 31 October — Full Moon Party | Halloween | “Don’t mind them, they’re in the wardrobe.”

⚝ ⚝ ⚝ ⚝ ⚝

FAQ & rules 2024

1. What must be included in the content of a filled prompt?

Stephen Strange (any version of him: film, TV, or comics etc.) must be either the main or co-main character. Otherwise, anything goes!

2. Can I still take part in the event even if I ship Stephen with someone?

Well, that can be a bit tricky, but generally — yes, you can. We’d prefer to not having Stephen or the other character(s) being there for the sole purpose of shipping, but we’re not against shipping during the event, as long as it all resolves to showing the story or whatever you come up with, that regardless of the dynamic or chosen relationship (platonic, romantic, familial etc.), in the end, it is about Doctor Stephen Strange.

An established relationship, first meeting, or getting together could be allowed if shipping isn’t the driving force behind writing a prompt (yes, of course you can be wanting to have them together, but the thing is — dig harder. Romantic content is a given within the fandom, but the fandom also needs General content! Or/and especially good whumping or angst, or a detective story, an unique AU etc. There are a lot of interesting prompts, so it’s a very good opportunity to try something new or different.

3. What must be included in the tags of posts?

Use the hashtag #strangehalloween2024. Add either into description or a tag the prompts you use (or both). On Tumblr, please include additional tags for NSFW (or NSFT meaning Not Safe For Tumblr) and common triggers (see AO3 for examples). The triggers apply to SFW works if necessary.

4. When can I post my prompt fill(s)?

In the spirit of the theme, these should be posted between 18–31 October 2024. Any strict rules don’t really exist, but we'd prefer if you post prompts the day they were chosen to be posted, e.g. one of the prompts from Saturday 26 October (Screams | Sacrifice | Poison) on said Saturday or after it if you're late, but not eatlier (not on Oct. 20). Don’t worry if you won’t be able to fulfil something on time, you can always participate even if fashionably late. We’d still add it to the ao3 collection or reblog on Tumblr if we see it.

5. Where on the discord server do I post my submissions?

In our gallery for the event in #strange-halloween. It’s for submitting your finished works. Even if it's fanfiction or something that would usually go into art channels, this event is an exception.

Reminder: said channel is not for casual talking, not even about the event, there’s a separate thread within the channel for that.

If your work happens to be NSFW, the usual rules apply: post those into NSFW channels. But if you want, you can write a message in #strange-halloween channel to tell others that you have created something, and point to the appropriate channel.

6. What medium can I use?

Anything! Written prose, poetry, gifsets, mood boards, artwork, playlists, you can even cook or bake something! Make a figurine, crochet something, do a scrapbooking thing, do a cosplay, make a board game, or a quiz. An app for a phone. A game, a collage. Anything goes. All it has to do is to follow the main rule of the event — being about Stephen Strange. No Stephen? No contribution in this one, sorry. So, all is acceptable as a prompt fill. It's all about Stephen Strange in any form he comes in.

7. Can I combine different prompts into one submission (e.g.: Wednesday 23 October Spell book | Horns | “Stay still, or I’ll chop your hand off!” + an earlier/later one) ?

Sure!

8. There are 3 prompts per day. Do I have to do it all?

No. You can do whichever one you want. But if you want to do all no one would be stopping you.

9. Can I use your prompt list with other prompt lists/bingo cards?

Absolutely! Combine it with any other event you'd like to do.

10. Are there any limits to how many prompts I can use/have to use?

Nope! Participate with one or all 42 items! Do as much as you'd like!

11. I’m a bit confused about some prompts; what are the brackets for?

The prompts that have a word in the brackets or also a slash within are the ones where you can be a bit creative (and cheat the system to have more prompts if you try enough), e.g.:

Monday 28 Oct — there's Buried as a prompt. You can use just that word or include the one in the brackets to have Buried alive. Technically, you could also try a different way and get rid of the first one and only have Alive.

Wednesday 30 Oct — we have the prompt Pumpkin so either use this singular word or use the suggested ones to get a Pumpkin Spice Latte, or another option which is Pumpkin Carving!

So, you can either completely omit the additionally suggested words or not. Have fun!

12. I’m not a native English speaker, can I make something in my native language or the one I'm trying to learn?

Of course, there are no limitations. The more, the merrier! Any contribution is valid.

🦇 🎃 👻 🦋 Any other questions? Feel free to send an ask to this tumblr. We can't wait to see what you come up with!

⚝ ⚝ ⚝ ⚝ ⚝

Have a great spooky time! 🦋🎃🦋

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Breaking down the Comics: Writing a legend, building a history.

Today we aren't reviewing an issue of Moon Knight. Today we are going to talk about something important.

So who wrote Moon Knight?

"Easy!", you might say. "Doug Moench!"

Sure. But you'd be surprised to find that it's not as much as you'd think.

Doug Moench wrote issues 1-15, 17-26, 28-33.

He returns in 1998 for a 4 issue mini seires Vol 3 "Resurrection Wars" which revives Marc Spector, who had been killed off in the previous volume.

He continues in 1999 with Vol 4, another 4 issue mini series "High Strangers/Strangeness" which won an award for favorite limited series.

He also wrote werewolf by Night, which gave us the first iteration of Moon Knight. An instantly popular character that made appearances in other comics like "The Hulk" before he was given his own comic.

He had time to work on the designs with Bill Sienkiewicz. They built up the weapons, the costume, the cab, and the copter.

He also built up the side characters of Gena, Gena's two boys, Crawley, Frenchie, Detective Flint, and Marlene.

He set the ground rules:

Moon Knight system is Jewish.

Marc, Jake, and Steven are a part of a system and are not one man pretending to be someone else

Jake is the one that is friendly and loves being with the people.

Steven is posh, collected, and takes care of things.

Marc is the one with experience, has the skills needed to get things done, and holds all the pain.

They are former Mercenaries who did terrible things and have deep guilt.

Khonshu resurrected them to act as Moon Knight

They strive to protect any who would come to them for help that perhaps might not get it elsewhere

I would even argue that he was building up to the fact that Moon Knight himself was his own form of alter but it has since been glossed over and replaced with the idea that Marc is most often the one under the mask.

Pretty simple rules to follow to make it a Moon Knight comics, but you'd be surprised what some writers have done with it.

These comics were written long before DID was acknowledged and the different forms of PTSD and Dissociation were defined.

And yet, here we stand with a traumazied man from Chicago slowly working through a freshly cognizant system and trying to figure out how three (four) people can work together towards not just a life, but life as a superhero who wants to help people.

Further more, an odd thing happened in this.

We had a comic that often focused more on mental health than on super powers, heroics, or villains.

More often than not, we watched Marc, Jake, and Steven struggle with themselves and one another. We watched stories unfold from the villain's point of view, often just being ordinary people pushed too far by a system that failed them.

More so, we watched Moon Knight sympathise with these villains.

How often he let them walk away or he let them kill their abusers, wondering if he was doing wrong himself.

How can he help when sometimes the help he offers is not what is needed?

We even watched him fail. We saw him lose his temper and cause damage. We saw him curl into a ball and break. We saw him get lost in his own nightmares and dissociative fuges.

Moench stepped forward and often handled current events with raw emotion. We saw his characters cry over the loss of public iconic figures. We watched people struggling as they returned from war. We saw child abuse and poverty. We watched economic struggles with classism and we watched people struggle to deal with grief.

We even watched them deal with antisemitism over and over again. How many times were the victims of his stories Jewish and trying to survive in America? What about the story that took place with the mass shooting in the Synagoug? We heard stories of Generational trauma as elders struggled with survival after the Holocaust.

Moon Knight was a unique comic unlike any other I've ever come across. For it's time and for it's topics at the time. What's more, this comic continued.

It was no 'special of the week' comic and spanned multiple years as they grew.

What do we know about Moench? Who did he write this comic for?

The Moon Knight in the Were Wolf by Night certainly didn't have all this depth. He was just a man dressed in silver, fighting a monster and ultimately choosing the side of the monster.

Moench himself was from Chicago. He knew what it was like to live in the city and see the fall of factories and hard times on the streets. We know he witnessed the times of Vietnam veterans being forgotten and abused. He witnessed a lot of changes happening in the world and the places he was writing about.

He wrote about what spoke to him and what he saw around him.

And in his stories, there often were no clear heroes, winners, or villains.

But there was one issue that he chose to add into this comic that was already filled with so many things that other comics avoided.

Moon Knight wasn't written as Jewish in that one shot cameo. He wasn't written with DID either, but I'll get to that.

There are interviews of Doug admitting that "I didn't say, 'I'm going to sit down and create a Jewish character.'"

In fact, he picked a name and later found out it was a Jewish name. This made him do research. Not just into Judaism, but into the areas that Marc Spector fought in and where his family came from.

Do you have any idea how many writers of that time and our current time simply slap the label of "Jewish" on a character and refuse to actually look into what makes them Jewish?

I can't say how much he researched and how much he got wrong or right, but I do know that when he did choose to dive into topics that touched on certain issues, he handled them with a grace that is often overlooked.

The writer that came after Moench? Alan Zelenetz, a former Jewish day school principal from Brooklyn.

Zelenetz had been acting as an editor for a bit before he took a look at Moench's early start.

And it was in Issue 37 and 38 where we get the real backstory of Marc Spector. A man running from his Rabbi father.

Marc now became the son of an Orthodox Rabbi who had been forced to flee Czechoslovakia after the Nazi invasion.

Here, we get the story of Marc running to the Marines. Running to the mercenaries, and running from home. Perhaps even, running from G-d.

Zelenetz wanted to lean into the Jewish past and Jewish story. He explored themes of using a holy book to create a villain while playing with Jewish myths. He also explored Antisemitism without toning it down or hiding it under comic bookish villainy. He portrayed Moon Knight facing white supremacist vandalizing a Jewish Cemetery. He showed Moon Knight saving the Torah from a Synagogue fire. He also showed a strained relationship and the question of Moon Knight finding his own relationship in what he does with his father's views.

Alan Zelenetz edited/wrote shorts for issues 18, 21–22, 27, 32, Then wrote the whole story for issues 36–38.

Zelenetz voiced that he was looking to add some Jewish representation into his workforce and perhaps into the comic industry at the time. Considering his background, perhaps he was the only one at the time that had the proper knowledge to play with things the way that he did in the story of Elias Spector's death and Marc Spector's pain.

He did not stick around with Moon Knight for long after. Though, he admits that he wanted to play with the fact that Khonshu was an Egyptian god and Marc was from such a Jewish background. I am sad we didn't get to see that story.

After that, Moon Knight's original 1980s run was finished. The question of what to do with Moon Knight, where to take him, and who would take up the mantle of writing him now lay in the hands of Marvel.

Many failed after this. They failed to keep the heart of what Moon Knight stood for and who Moon Knight was. His Jewishness was forgotten and his mental health became a joke.

Not to say all of them failed. There are a few shining stars that gleamed in the darkness and I like to think that it was these moments that kept Moon Knight going all these years.

Moench didn't set out to write a story about mental health, and yet his approach is the most real I've seen. Hardly a shining picture of perfect representation, there is still something there in watching the character almost seem to push back against the unintended desire to push him into a corner.

No matter how often Jake and Steven and Moon Knight were seen as Marc pretending to be someone else, there was always ALWAYS that correction. Always that push back.

Call it the writer's curse of characters misbehaving and taking on a life of their own, but perhaps there was something more there. Perhaps he felt the weight of time and cry of the suppressed and overlooked.

So many of his stories danced the line of "I can't say it because it will get edited out by the big wigs at Marvel, but if you would just look... Just look over here for just a moment..."

And years upon years later, a writer did see the whispers there and said "I see the story of pain. I see the cry of mental health." Lemire told the story that Moench couldn't and from that, we are still pushing forward with McKay.

And more, perhaps we will see the Jewish story that hides in all that also get a spotlight again.

In the era of big battles, cross-over events, explosions, and super villains cackling about domination... I still look back at Stained Glass Scarlet, The Druid, the Music Box, And Colloquy.

As I finish the original 1980s run, I brace myself to dive into what comes next.

I think I'm trying to find where and how the original run ventured so far into the dark and insulting territory it did and the journey back into a revival that now means so much to so many.

In a way, perhaps it mirrors a journey into our own mental health. How easy it is to become lost in what everyone around you tells you that you are and how you are supposed to be until your own doubt sets in to drown you. Perhaps it is the journey of Moon Knight's character emerging from this to find a path to healing that is what kept us here so long.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

05/27/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Rhys Darby; Kristian Nairn; Tell Tale Awards; Articles; New SOFMD Event Calendar; FanSpotlight: Cast Cards; Never Left Podcast; Our Flag Means Fanfiction; MerMay; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Today's Taika

= Rhys Darby =

Rhys giving us a little preview of their upcoming Cryptid Factor Episode!

And just a reminder from Rhys' Twitter, you can still buy tickets for To23AndBeyond going on June 7-8!

Source: Rhys Darby's Twitter

= Kristian Nairn =

Kristian posted with his next two con appearances in the UK!

Comic Con Yorkshire - 22nd & 23rd

June Comic Con North East - 26th & 27th October

Source: Kristian Nairn's Twitter

== Tell Tale Awards ==

Reminder that you can vote on the Tell Tale Awards every day!

The Tell-Tale TV Awards votes are up! There are several categories with Queer shows so if you have the time please take some time to fill them in! You can vote for up to 3 per category. Not only does OFMD show up, but Good Omens, Deadloch, Dead Boy Detectives, etc.

OFMD Categories Below:

Favorite Cable or Streaming Comedy Series (Round 1) - Our Flag Means Death

Favorite Performer in a Cable or Streaming Comedy Series (Round 1) - Rhys Darby / Ruibo Qian

== SOFMD Event Calendar ==

New Event Calendar today!

== Articles ==

5 canceled shows from 2024 that Amazon should save (although it's unlikely)

More Under the Cut: Long Post Is Long

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Cast Cards =

Woohoo! Today's Cast Card from @melvisik is Alex Sherman! Famously known for #AssTonight, and all around "porn of my coworkers" supporter!

Source: @melvisik's Twitter

= Never Left Podcast =

There's a new episode out of Never Left Podcast! This one is focused on the fandom! Check out their Linktr.ee for your favourite place to listen!

Source: Never Left Podcast's Instagram / Artwork by @ AmysBirdHouse on Instagram

= Our Flag Means Fanfiction =

A new mini episode of Our Flag Means Fanfiction is available! Check it out on your favourite platforms here!

Source: Our Flag Means Fanfiction Instagram

== MerMay ==

= Deanbird_ao3 =

Today we have a new spotlight for mermay-- @swashbuckling-sweethearts aka DeanBird on Instagram and Twitter! They're going to be bringing their mermay work to tumblr soon, but they were kind enough to allow me to share a preview of them. Absolutely stunning work for @bizarrelittlemew's Mermay prompts of Rescue and Bioluminescence! They have several more on their IG and soon on their tumblr, feel free to check them out!

= Snejpowa =

More SOFMD Mermay prompts by the lovely @snejpowa! I'm digging that the marmalade is by Jenkins & Crew <3 Day 27: The Chain / Day 28: Marmalade

= Blueberreads =

Some more lovely prompts by our talented @blueberreads! The foot touch, the marmalade, excuse me while I weep over here. They are so sweet. Day 27: The Chain / Day 28: Marmalade

= Eros The Artist =

Another previous days prompt by the fabulous @erostheartist! Loving the metaness of it all! Day 17: Have you ever been sketched?

= Spencer Does Artt =

The fantastic SpencerDoesArtt is still at it for Mermay! I'm absolutely adoring the Ed wink for The Chain.

== Love Notes ==

Hey lovelies. I'm continuing to have a bit of a rough time with personal stuff so I'm delayed on a lot of things. Just want you to know I'm thinking of you, and you're doing a great job. Sending some other folks words today. Take care Crew <3

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by julie | self love & mental health art (@gladyourehereco)

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

Today's theme is Tongue. Gifs courtesy of the marvelous @sherlockig and @meluli -- many thanks for their contributions to this fandom's thirstyness.

[zenzenzence]

Hi! A few months ago I discovered this video from September 28, 2023 for The Invisible Man and His Soon-To-Be Wife by Iwatobineko that includes a few of the scenes from the manga voice acted!

The video doesn't have an easy English translation available, so I decided to provide below. Please note, I used my manga copies as a reference, so apologies if there are any mistakes.

I hope this can get more people interested in the series! :D

Title: CV: Yuichiro Umehara & Hina Yomiya [Voice Comic] Invisible Man and Human Woman - The Two Who Will Become Husband and Wife

VIDEO DESCRIPTION:

A heartwarming and heart-pounding love comedy about a gentlemanly non-human and a blind woman that has received a huge response on social media. It's a 100% transparent love comedy that's so precious you can't breathe.

■CAST Tounome Akira: Umehara Yuichiro Yakou Shizuka: Yomiya Hina VOICEVOX: Shikoku Metan

■Introduction Even if you can't see, this excitement is proof that you're in love. Yakou, a gentle human woman, works at a detective agency run by a smart and kind "invisible man" called Tounome. His ability is perfect for detective work, but even if he disappears, the blind Yoka can mysteriously find his location. Attracted by her "invisible" charm, Tounome escorts her around again today…!?

SCENE 1: Timestamp 00:02 - 01:50

YAKOU: "Tounome-san..."

TOUNOME: "Can I sit next to you?"

YAKOU: "Sure, go ahead."

SFX: KEYBOARD CLICKS. PAPER FLIPS.

TOUNOME: "Hmm?"

TOUNOME: "How did you know it was me?"

YAKOU: "Huh?"

TOUNOME: "You can't see, right?"

YAKOU: "Yes, but I could smell you..."

YAKOU: "OH! It's not a bad smell or anything!

TOUNOME: "I have... a smell?"

YAKOU: "It's not like that! It's just since I'm blind, my hearing and smell are stronger!"

TOUNOME: "Hmm?"

SFX: SNIFF SNIFF.

TOUNOME: "Your sense of smell sure is better than mine. I can't smell myself."

YAKOU: "Yes! it's a perfectly good smell...!"

TOUNOME: "Ha ha."

TOUNOME: "I never knew I had my own distinct smell. Thank you."

TOUNOME: "......"

SFX: SHWF...

YAKOU: "?"

TOUNOME: "Yakou-san... Where am I now?

[LISTENING, SMELLING, HEARING]

YAKOU: "You're right here."

SXF: GRAB.

TOUNOME: "Heh."

TOUNOME: "Yakou-san, you might be the only person I know who can see me."

TOUNOME: "My heart skipped a beat."

YAKOU: "Skip...?"

TOUNOME: "........."

YAKOU: "......"

SFX: DUN

TOUNOME: "Would you like to get dinner with me later?"

SFX: DUN

YAKOU: "UH?! Sure!"

■ "An invisible man and a human woman who will soon become a couple."

SCENE 2: Timestamp 01:51 - 03:50

TOUNOME: "Do you have any preference? Western? Chinese? Japanese?"

YAKOU: "Anything's fine."

[YAKOU SHIZUKA]

TOUNOME: "Any allergies?"

YAKOU: "None."

[TOUNOME AKIRA]

TOUNOME: "Then..."

TOUNOME: "Is there somewhere in particular you want to go?"

YAKOU: "Uh... Um..."

YAKOU: "I rarely eat out, or rather there's only a handful of restaurants I can go to..."

YAKOU: "I'm happy to go anywhere you like!"

TOUNOME: "......"

TOUNOME: "That's good."

YAKOU: "Actually, there's a place I've been meaning to try."

YAKOU: "Great! Then... Let's go there!"

TOUNOME: "Okay, sounds like a plan."

YAKOU: "Phew."

TOUNOME: "Here, take my arm..."

SFX: SLIDE. GRIP.

TOUNOME: "Off we go."

YAKOU: Hm...?

YAKOU: His gait is uneven...

YAKOU: As if he's lost.

YAKOU: ACK!

YAKOU: Maybe he's still trying to decide on a restaurant? I was no help at all.

YAKOU: Ahhh! I'm sorry Tounome-san, I didn't mean to make it complicated.

TOUNOME: "Yakou-san...

TOUNOME: "Which direction smells more delicious?"

YAKOU: "Hm... This way."

TOUNOME: "Oh, good."

TOUNOME: "I've been nervous to go in, not knowing if you'd like it or not."

TOUNOME: "Glad to hear you do."

TOUNOME: "And thank you for helping me pick."

YAKOU: "Thank you for inviting me! I'm looking forward to dinner"

TOUNOME: "Me too."

■ A Vietnamese restaurant.

SCENE 3: Timestamp 03:51 - 06:20

TOUNOME: "Since it's the first time for both of us, I ordered the dinner course."

YAKOU: "Mm... I'm smelling things I've never smelled before."

TOUNOME: "It's an adventure, huh?"

YAKOU: "It is, isn't it?!"

TOUNOME: "That's a fresh spring roll. (With shrimp, cucumber, and cilantro)."

YAKOU: "Oh...is that...an hearb? What an odd flavor!"

TOUNOME: "That's cilantro."

YAKOU: "Teehee!"

YAKOU: "This is a first for me, getting food with someone from work."

TOUNOME: "Is that right?"

YAKOU: "So, I was pretty excited..."

TOUNOME: "My heart skipped a beat."

TOUNOME: "Would you like to get dinner with me later?"

YAKOU: "Ah."

YAKOU: I was so excited about the prospect of going somewhere new, I didn't even consider what it meant.

YAKOU: Isn't this...what you'd call a date?

YAKOU: But he didn't say it was a date, so maybe it isn't?

TOUNOME: "Yakou-san..."

YAKOU: "Huh?!"

TOUNOME: "This is really good. I'll put it on a small plate at, uh, twelve o'clock."

YAKOU: "Ohh, thanks."

YAKOU: "......"

TOUNOME: "?"

TOUNOME: "Is something wrong?"

YAKOU: Well, to start...

YAKOU: My back is tripping with sweat.

YAKOU: "No, it's just I've never gone out like this with a man."

YAKOU: "It kind of feels like a date... Doesn't it?

TOUNOME: "It is a date."

YAKOU: "eep!"

TOUNOME: "Does that make you nervous?"

YAKOU: "Yes, well...a little bit..."

YAKOU: "Gosh...this is embarrassing..."

TOUNOME: "Yakou-san, may I..."

TOUNOME: "borrow your hand for a moment?"

SFX: CLATTER

TOUNOME: "Because I'm invisible... typically no one can tell..."

TOUNOME: "But with your sense of touch, you might be able to."

YAKOU: "?"

TOUNOME: "I don't want you to think that you're the only one..."

SFX: BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM

TOUNOME: "who's nervous."

YAKOU: "!"

YAKOU: "Your heart is racing!"

TOUNOME: "Don't blow my cover now."

BACKGROUND CHARACTER: The invisible man has a heart...?

■ After that, they received a round of silent thumbs-up.

SCENE 4: Timestamp 06:21 - 11:01

TOUNOME: "This place was great, wasn't it? I'm glad it suited us both."

YAKOU: "Y-Yes, I thought the same!"

TOUNOME: "Shall I take your hand? Let me walk you to the station."

YAKOU: "!"

SFX: SWSH

YAKOU: Uugh... My heart is still fluttering...

SFX: PINCH

Both: "......"

TOUNOME: "Wouldn't it be safer to hold on tight?"

YAKOU: "Oh, don't worry! I have my white cane! I can manage!"

TOUNOME: "Well...if you say so..."

YAKOU: "ACK!"

YAKOU: His voice went all flat...

YAKOU: "Ah! I didn't mean..."

YAKOU: "I'm not...trying to...keep my distance...!"

YAKOU: "You see...it's quite..."

TOUNOME: "It's quite..."

TOUNOME: "The opposite?"

YAKOU: "Ngh... Tounome-san, are you laughing at me?!"

TOUNOME: "Huh? You can tell?"

YAKOU: "Well, you're doing a poor job hiding it!"

SFX: SST

TOUNOME: "I'm not hiding it at all. I want you to see the real me."

YAKOU: "Eh...?"

YAKOU: For a second, it felt like the distance between us disappeared...?

SFX: SWSH

TOUNOME: "In fact I'm so giddy I feel like skipping. What do you think? Should we skip?"

YAKOU: "I-I'd rather not. No skipping, please!"

TOUNOME: "Then I must resist the urge. I promise to be an exemplary escort the rest of the way."

YAKOU: "!"

SFX: CLASP. SQUEEZE.

YAKOU: "Okay..."

[AT HOME]

YAKOU: KYAAAA... AHHHHH!

YAKOU: "Dinner with..."

YAKOU: "Tounome-san was so niiiice!"

SFX: POMF. POMF. POMF.

NOTIFICATION: "Your bath is ready"

YAKOU: "......"

YAKOU: "Time for a bath, huh...?"

[THE NEXT DAY]

YAKOU: "......"

YAKOU: Tounome-san... Hmm...

YAKOU: He struck me as a pleasant man during the conversation at my interview but...

YAKOU: It was his gentle and measured voice...

YAKOU: The rustling of his clothes...

YAKOU: His foot steps...

YAKOU: The way he opened and closed the door...

YAKOU: That spoke even more to his grace and character.

YAKOU: He seems like... a wonderful guy...!

YAKOU: Slow down! You went out with him once, that's it!

YAKOU: No one said a word about dating!

YAKOU: Don't get ahead of yourself! Relax!

YAKOU: "......"

YAKOU: I wonder... what he really thinks of me...

[TOUNOME: "I want you to see the real me."]

YAKOU: What did he mean by that? He is the invisible man...

YAKOU: So others can't see him.

YAKOU: What is it like to be invisible to sighted creatures?

YAKOU: Maybe...

YAKOU: "Tounome-san... Do you ever wish others could see you?"

TOUNOME: "See me...?"

TOUNOME: "......"

TOUNOME: "Hmm..."

TOUNOME: "No... I don't."

TOUNOME: "It's who I am."

TOUNOME: "Yakou-san, do you wish you could see me...?"

YAKOU: Hmm...

YAKOU: He doesn't mind being invisible...

YAKOU: "I can tell... What kind of person you are..."

YAKOU: "That's all I need."

YAKOU: I'm kind of relieved.

TOUNOME: "Ha ha! That's good, otherwise we'd be in trouble."

YAKOU: "!"

YAKOU: "I'd say so...!"

■ Seems like they took an important step in understanding each other.

HERE'S A SNEAK PEAK AT WHAT'S TO COME!

SCENE 4: Timestamp 11:02 - 13:28

YAKOU: "Tounome-san... I would've noticed."

TOUNOME: "Yakou...san."

YAKOU: "You always have such a calm and grounded air about you... So it's easy to tell when something's off."

YAKOU: "During the interview, you kindly worked with me to define my position at the office..."

YAKOU: "And gradually increased my responsibilities after I started. And it wasn't just me. You showed the same trust and respect to everyone."

YAKOU: "You inspire me to be a better version of myself."

(Unvoiced – Yakou: I'm a big girl! Jarashi: Yes, you are.)

YAKOU: "And... I'd really miss you if you were gone. There's only one Tounome-san."

YAKOU: "I'd look for you everywhere."

TOUNOME: "........."

TOUNOME: "Yakou-san..."

TOUNOME: "Will you be my girlfriend?"

YAKOU: "Eh?"

YAKOU: "Huuuh?!"

TOUNOME: "Uh... Is that an 'I shudder at the thought' look?"

YAKOU: "Huuuh?!"

TOUNOME: "Uh... Is that an 'I shudder at the thought' look?"

YAKOU: "N-No, it's not that I don't want to...!"

TOUNOME: "No?"

TOUNOME: "I'd love... to keep spending time with you."

TOUNOME: "Do you not feel the same?"

YAKOU: "Uhn... Ah... I just..."

YAKOU: "If I say yes right now...what are...what are your intentions for the rest of the night?"

TOUNOME: "......"

TOUNOME: "GOSH, NO!"

SFX: WOOSH. WOOSH.

TOUNOME: "NOT THAT!"

TOUNOME: "Tonight, I plan to get you home and go straight back to my place.

YAKOU: "Tonight...?"

TOUNOME: "Yakou-san, who do you take me for?"

TOUNOME: "I give up..."

SFX: PULL.

YAKOU: "!!"

TOUNOME: "Is it... that you're waiting for me to take the first step?"

YAKOU: "eek!"

TOUNOME: "What's wrong? You sound like a scared manga character."

YAKOU: "I wasn't readyyy."

TOUNOME: "Okay. Right. Right"

TOUNOME: "SIgh..."

SFX: SQUEEZE.

TOUNOME: "I really like you."

YAKOU: "eeek!"

TOUNOME: "I'm getting mixed signals."

YAKOU: *yelps, but hugs him back.*

■ After that, Yakou exploded with excuses.

SCENE 5: Timestamp 13:29 - 15:24

TOUNOME: "Blaming wrongdoings on the invisible folk is a talk as old as time."

TOUNOME: "So, you can imagine how happy it made me... to help our client clear her name."

SFX: BIRDS CHIRPING.

TOUNOME: "I was truly relieved."

YAKOU: "......"

TOUNOME: "Anyway, we're here now..."

SFX: SCOOP. POMF.

YAKOU: "A-Akira-san?!"

YAKOU: "!!"

SFX: BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP BDMP

YAKOU: "His heart is beating so fast!"

TOUNOME: "You don't like this?"

SFX: BDMP BDMP BDMP

YAKOU: "No... I do."

YAKOU: "Ah! You just laughed, didn't you? I felt your body shake a little."

TOUNOME: "Heh."

SFX: SHFF

TOUNOME: "You always know how I feel."

SFX: SWFF

YAKOU: "Huh?"

TOUNOME: "It means so much to me."

TOUNOME: "Please, never stop blowing my cover..."

SFX: RUSTLING LEAVES. SWF.

YAKOU: "..."

YAKOU: "Um... Was that...?"

TOUNOME: "A kiss? Yes."

YAKOU: Direct.

YAKOU: AAAAAAAH!

YAKOU: His lips were so soft and warm.

TOUNOME: "Should I not have?"

YAKOU: "It's not that... But... But..."

YAKOU: EEEE!

TOUNOME: "Ha ha... Shall we get going?"

SFX: SWUF

YAKOU: "Oh... Um..."

SFX: SQUEEZE

YAKOU: "Can we stay like this...a little longer?

SFX: B-DMP B-DMP"

TOUNOME: "Can I kiss you again?"

YAKOU: "Wha? Well... Um... I'm not opposed to it..."

TOUNOME: "Ha ha! Is that so?"

YAKOU: "It's not that... But... But..."

■ They kissed three times.

The relationship between the two is heartwarming and heart pounding.

TOUNOME: Thank you for watching the video.

YAKOU: Please check out the summary section if you're interested in the rest.

[mydarlingbat]

Batman adventures continue #12 Batman the max. Arkham dreams #2 Batman confidential #11 batman ninja turtles 3 # 5 hitman #3 Batman The shadow #4 league of justice. Tales from the dark multiverse / the death of Superman #1 Batman #353 Batman #7 Batman #1 Batman adventures #16 the Batman strikes #9 Batman fun house of evil. Batman death by design. The batman who laughs #1 the Batman who laughs # 2 Batman secrets. Batman cacophony #3 legends of the dark Knight # 200 Batman legends of the dark Knight # 145 Batman Gotham Knights #73 Batman dredd / die laughing. The Joker mask. Batman Gotham adventures #31 detective comics annual #5 Batman vs the punisher. two face year one #2 Batman #544 Batman Arkham unhinged #29 #30 Batman unhinged # 28 Batman 1992 annual. Batman Arkham knight. Batman #649 Batman #719 batman Europe #2 legends of the dark Knight #195 catwoman #63 legends of the dark Knight #16 batman adventures #1 Batman adventures #3 Batman adventures #30 Batman 2016 48# batman the white knight #7 the spectre #51 batman annual #1 Joker switch. Wonder woman #165 #167 elseworlds finest. Batman Gotham after midnight #8 dc super friends. Batman / Harley and ivy #1 Batman #146 batman #37 the Joker last laugh #6 Batman legends of the dark Knight # 10 Batman last knight on earth. Batman legends of the dark Knight #50 batman Odyessy # 6 #2 injustice ground zero #6 Batman ego.Batman Europa 1#2#3#4 # Dc challenge #12. the Batman strikes #28. The heart of hush. The Joker 80th anniversary 100 page super. Mother panic Gotham ad. The last knight on earth. JLA Justice League of Arkham. Batman legends of the dark Knight #22. Batman rebirth #48. Joker advocate. Death of the family. Batman endgame. Batman confidential # 11. The man who laughs. Batman cacophony # 3. Batman #650. Batman the Prince charming #2. The Batman who laughs #4. Detective Comics #1008. Batman legends of the dark Knight #19 and 20. Batgirl #1. Catwoman #63. The Joker's apprentice. Killer smile. Batman zero year one #25 #23#22. Batman damned. Doomsday clock #6. Batman legends of the dark Knight # 105. Justice League annual issue #2 1988. Outsiders #3. Batman Arkham City #1. azrael #53. Batman the white Knight issue #1 detective comics #625. Detective Comics #729.

comics i enjoyed.

[fantastic-nonsense]

Hi! I was looking to see if you know of many comics with Batman's villains at the lead!? (Besides Harley and Selina, who've had multiple series and are pretty easy to find). Other than the "Joker" Novel and Penguin: Pain and prejudice, i couldn't find any. Any good suggestions for Joker, Ivy, Two-Face, or any other villian from the Batman universe?

the tldr is that Ivy has several, Two-Face has a handful, the al Ghuls have a couple, and everyone else has had a couple of single issues starring them.

In general, the Batman Arkham series functions as a Batman Rogues Gallery "Greatest Hits" collection. While most of the stories collected in these trades don't feature the rogues as a protagonist, they all explore the characters and their backstories/motivations and feature them in a starring role!

On principle, I generally refuse to recommend Joker comics. Clown man has enough stuff starring him and they're generally easy enough to find without me promoting him more than he already is. Also, to be honest with you I occasionally go out of my way to avoid stuff starring him because he's frankly bored me ever since DC decided to emphasize him as a psychopathic serial killer instead of a funny villain with a clown gimmick.

However, The Joker's Five-Way Revenge (Batman vol. 1 #251) is a fun read, Joker: The Man Who Laughs and Joker's Last Laugh are both good, and Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles is decent as well. Another fun one that's a little out of the box is Superman: Emperor Joker.

Other than that...I generally recommend the following for Ivy:

Batman Arkham: Poison Ivy (basically an 'Ivy Greatest Hits' collection)

Batman: Poison Ivy (1997)

No Man's Land (yes, it's long. No, Ivy's not a 'lead'. yes, it's also ground zero for Ivy's redemption arc and features her in a major role)

Gotham City Sirens (2009)

Swamp Thing by Scott Snyder (specifically Vol. 2, Family Tree, and Vol. 3, Rotworld: The Green Kingdom)

Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death (2016)

Poison Ivy (2021) by G. Willow Wilson (curently ongoing)

Ivy also pops up in Ram V's Catwoman (2018) run and pretty consistently in Harley's solo books after 2015.

For Two-Face (my beloved), read Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory (which function as a double feature). Then read any of the following:

Batman: Faces (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #28-30)

Batman: Two-Face (1995)

Batman Annual #14: "Eye of the Beholder"

Gotham Central, which has an extended Harvey-Renee Montoya subplot

Batman/Two-Face: "Crime and Punishment"

Batman/Two-Face: Face the Face (2006)

Two-Face: Year One (2008)

Batman and Robin (2011) 23.1: Two-Face

Detective Comics #1020-1022: “The Ugly Heart”

Two-Face: One Bad Day

And for a couple of stories that aren't Harvey-focused but feature him as a prominent antagonist...read Robin: Year One, A Lonely Place of Dying, and Batman: Prodigal.

For the al Ghuls, apart from the Batman Arkham collections you're primarily looking for Tales of the Demon, the Demon Trilogy (Birth of the Demon, Bride of the Demon, Son of the Demon), Batman: The Chalice, and Batman Annual #26 (the prologue to Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, which is also fun). Two of Damian's Robin solos (Robin: Son of Batman (2015) and Robin (2021)) also prominently feature Talia. There are...certainly other options, if you want to read about the al Ghuls, but they're rarely well characterized in those (except Talia's LexCorp CEO arc; all hail Talia's Lexcorp CEO arc).

Clayface (the Basil Karlo version) prominently featured as a protagonist in Tynion's Detective Comics Rebirth (2016) run.

Everyone else...apart from stories where they're the prominent antagonist, there were several Villain takeover issues during the period of Batman and Robin (2011) when Damian was dead, Year of the Villain had a few issues focused on the Batman Rogues, and the One Bad Day series focuses each issue on a different Bat Rogue.

There are plenty of other stories centered on various members of Batman's Rogues Gallery, but hopefully this gives you a solid starting place!

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

Bat Family Ages (with Sources & Panels)

Notes: I'm NOT using a "year zero"; the calendar year before "Batman: Year One" is "1 Year Before Batman".

TLDR

Ages at the end of Preboot (Batman: Year Twenty)- Bruce (45), Renee (37-38), Kate (33), Babs (27-28), Helena (26-27), Dick (26), Cass (21), Jason (20-21), Steph (19), Tim (17 18), Damian (10-11).

D.O.B.-

Bruce Wayne- 26 Years Before Batman

Renee Montoya- 7th September, 19 Years Before Batman

Kate Kane- 14 Years Before Batman

Barbara Gordon- 8-9 Years Before Batman

Helena Bertinelli- 8 Years Before Batman

Dick Grayson- 1st Day of Spring™, 7 Years Before Batman

Cassandra Cain-Wayne- 26th January, 2 Years Before Batman

Jason Todd- 16th August, 2 Years Before Batman

Stephanie Brown- 1 Year Before Batman

Tim Drake-Wayne- Batman: Year One

Damian Wayne- Batman: Year Nine

Long Version

Bruce Wayne- 26 Years Before Batman

On the 4th of January, Year One, a 25 year-old Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham after 12 years abroad on 4th January, months before his first outing as Batman (Batman: Year One #1). Unless his birthday is between Jan 1-4, Bruce turns 26 the year Batman is born.

Dick Grayson- 1st Day of Spring, 7 Years Before Batman

Dick Grayson's origin story is appears in the tail end of Batman: Dark Victory, which takes place in the 4th and 5th years of Batman's career.

In its sequel, Robin: Year One, Dick begins attending Bristol Middle School. And in Batman & Robin (2009) #13, Dick, as Batman, tells the Joker he had already figured him out at 12 but The Joker doesn't appear in Robin: Year One. So, Dick is probably 11 when he becomes Robin, in Year Five (Dark Victory). Dick is 19 years younger than Bruce.

Important for later, Dick becomes Nightwing, aged 19 (Nightwing: Year One and Batman #116) in Year Thirteen.

Jason Todd- August 16th, 2 Years Before Batman

According to his death certificate, Jason Todd was 15 years and 8 months old when he died on the 27th of April (Batman Files). His birthday is August 16th (Detective Comics #790). At this time, Dick Grayson was 21, having left the Robin mantle 2 years earlier; at 19 (Batman #436). Jason is around 5 years younger than Dick. He was hence Robin for less than 2 years, from when he was 13 going on 14 in Year Thirteen up to 27th April, Year Fifteen.

Stephanie Brown- 2 Years Before Batman

Steph is 15 when she debuts as Spoiler (Secret Origin 80-Page Giant). At the same time as her debut comic, Deathstroke (1991) Annual 1 has Dick saying he, one of the oldest Titans, is no older than 21 (the age he was when Jason died). Dick is 6 years older than Steph. So Steph debuts in Year Fifteen; the same year Jason dies and Tim becomes Robin.

Steph becomes Batgirl right before her freshman year of university, aged 18, going on 19 (Batgirl 2009 #1). This is in Year Nineteen. Which means that Preboot ends in Batman: Year Twenty as Steph has not yet entered sophomore year. Convergence takes place after of course.

Barbara Gordon- 8-9 Years Before Batman

Batgirl (2000) #45 shows that Babs was already Batgirl at 18. As an adult, Babs is 5'11" and yet she did not meet the minimum height requirements for the GCPD or FBI during Batgirl: Year One. She must have become Batgirl before she stopped growing, and so was at most 16 during Batgirl: Year One. She also says that she is older than Dick in Batgirl: Year One but they must be close enough in age for them to go to prom together (Detective Comics #871). My theory is that Babs didn't go to her own prom because she skipped grades and was or felt too young so her high school prom was actually when she went with Dick to his. Babs is somewhere between 1-2 years older than Dick.

There's more evidence for this. Dick is already a Teen Titan during Batgirl: Year One and in New Titans #89 said that he knew Donna Troy since they were both 13. So Babs likely became Batgirl between Year Seven and Year Eight, when she was 15-16 and Dick was 13-14. Also, Dick and Babs have a picnic as friends 12 years before The Black Mirror, in Year Twenty, so these ages are pretty perfect.

Important for later, Babs is shot by the Joker just before Jason is killed and becomes Oracle before Tim becomes Robin. This is in Year Fifteen; she is roughly 22 here given that Dick is 20-21 at the time. No panels just math :P

Cassandra Cain-Wayne- January 26th, 2 Years Before Batman

Cassandra Cain debuts in No Man's Land aged 17 (Batgirl 2000 #1) and turns 18 on the 26th of January the following year, though she only learns this after it has passed (Batgirl 2000 #33). Later that year, Bruce brings her to Jason's grave on the 16th of August, the day he would have turned 18 (Detective Comics #790). She is 7 months older than Jason.

Helena Bertinelli- 8 Years Before Batman

Helena Bertinelli was 8 when her family was murdered and the events of Huntress: Cry for Blood takes place 15 years after, following directly after No-Man's Land. Huntress is hence 23 following No-Man's Land. Cass turns 18 soon after No-Man's land, so Helena is around 5 years older than Cass.

But, Cass is born in January and Helena could be born later in the year. Helena Bertinelli is 21 years-old during Huntress: Year One; when she becomes the Huntress. She soon moves back to Gotham after Carvinal in Venice (late Jan-early Feb), and encounters Barbara Gordon as Batgirl. Babs is at most 22 here so Babs is close to 1 year older than Helena and Helena is slightly older than Dick. Huntress debuts at the tail end of Year Fourteen.

Damian Wayne- Batman: Year Nine

Dick and Stephanie call Damian a 10 year old in Batman and Robin #2 and Batgirl #17. One takes place before Steph starts uni (since Damian appears in Batgirl 2009 #1) and the other takes place during Steph's second semester of freshman year (Batgirl #13). So Damian is 9 years younger than Stephanie. He first appears aged 9 at the start of Year Nineteen and becomes Robin later that year, aged 10.

Renee Montoya- 7th September, 19 Years Before Batman

In 52 #14, published in 2006, we see Renee's passport and date of birth: 9/7/1970. It is the 14th week of the year so she would be 35 going on 36. 52 takes place in Year Eighteen, the calendar year Damian turns 9, so Renee is 27 years older than Damian.

She debuts as the second Question in 52 #48 the same year, aged 36.

Kate Kane- 14 Years Before Batman

Kate Kane is 32 at the time of Batwoman: Elegy, in Year Nineteen, since she was in the same class at West Point as the real-life activist Dan Choi, which means that she was part of the US Military Academy Class of 2003. Damian is 10 at the time so Kate is 22 years older than Damian.

Tim Drake-Wayne- Batman: Year One

Tim's age is THE weird one because DC are hellbent on keeping him at 17. It's too much for my brain, like how is he still 17 in Red Robin?? Let's say he seems to be only a year younger than Stephanie Brown a la Secret Origins 80-Page Giant or that he was bitten by a strange vampire bat during the One Year Later time skip. Your pick.

Fun fact: Dick permanently becomes Batman at 25 (in Year Nineteen), which is possibly the same age Bruce was when he became Batman.