#tied in with the panel of him hitting bruce

[martyrbat]

the man who falls – secret origins (1989)

[ID: Two cropped comic pages of Bruce Wayne as a child after falling into a cave and being ambushed by a swarm of bats. There's multiple narration boxes over the pages:

Page One: a three panel sequence of Bruce being rescued by his father. In the first panel, Bruce is screaming with his eyes squeezed shut in fear. He has his fists clenched in front of him and is wearing a reddish pink turtleneck sweater. The narration says, ‘Again, he shrieked — not in terror, but in despair...’ In the second panel, Thomas Wayne is shown from behind in a low angle. He's wearing a red sweater similar to Bruce and is holding a flashlight as he jerks Bruce into him. Above them is bats surrounding them and the broken wood floors that Bruce fell through. The narration continues, ‘The arm curled around him, muffling his voice, and his cheek rubbed against the rough wool of his father's jacket... He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to be away from here—’. In the third panel, they're standing outside. The narration reads, ‘When he opened them, he was in the area behind the mansion, in the pale light of the autumn afternoon, and his father's words pounded at him—’. Thomas is kneeling down in front of Bruce in front of the hole he fell in. He's gripping the child's shoulders as he scolds him, “Idiot! I told you never, never to go off alone. Didn't I? Didn't I?” Martha Wayne is behind them with her hand on the side of her face as she looks at them with relief that Bruce is okay.

Page Two: Martha is defending Bruce as Bruce has his head down. Thomas is still squeezing Bruce's shoulders as Martha tells him, “Thomas, he's frightened.” Thomas replies, “He damn well ought to be. He could have been killed.” Martha replaces Thomas's spot in front of Bruce, kneeling to gently place a hand on his upper arm and using a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. Bruce is standing with his fist still clenched and grimacing as Thomas angrily says, “He's got to learn.” Bruce is shown in a low angle, looking up at his mother with wide eyes. The narration continues, ‘He listened to his father's boots crushing the dead grass, and when he could no longer hear them, he dared to ask:’ “Mommy, was I in hell?” Martha soothes, “No, baby, that was just some old cave. You're safe now,” as she hugs him. His cheek is pressed against hers and she has her eyes closed as Bruce still looks uncertain. END ID]

[celaenaeiln]

Hi it’s me again, the anon who asked about the Joker hating Dick. Back with two more things, sorry. First is Dick being the hardest bat for Cass to read, is that canon or fanon? Another is Dick, Cass, and Bruce being the only bats (heroes?) able to beat Jason in a fight, where is that from?

Sorry for the lengthy ask and I hope you’re having a wonderful day 💕

Hey again (＾▽＾)!! Not at all and thanks <3

Dick is just a hard person in general to read for anyone.

Titans (2016) Issue #11

And this is coming from a mind reader and empath.

But in terms of Cass, I think it may be because he's the only one whom she can't tell what he's thinking without him saying something. For example with Tim,

Batgirl (2000) Issue #59

Even though they're just sitting there silently, Cass can identify every emotion that Tim's emoting without him saying a word. However with Dick, she only learns about him by watching his interactions with other people.

Nightwing (1996) Issue #81

She can still read his fighting movements but she doesn't have the same level of emotional understanding of him through body language that she has on everyone else. I guess it comes with him being a born performer. It's like her trying to read Alfred given that Alfred and Dick both understand and bond with each other over their acting abilities.

Another thing about Dick and Cass is that Dick is able to read Cass as easily as Cass is able to read other people.

In fighting, just like she can easily see his form

Batman and Robin Eternal Issue #1

Dick can see hers too

Batman and Robin Eternal Issue #1

He's able to identify her weakness and analyze her fighting technique just like she's able to do his. Although Cass wins because she's always quicker on the draw than everyone. It comes with her almost meta-like ability to identify weak points in someone's body language.

So that's canon for emotional understanding I think but unless I have the direct canon panel I can't say for sure.

Dick, Cass, and Bruce being the only ones of the bats to defeat Jason is canon.

Dick beat Jason even after being electrocuted, tranquilized, hit with fear toxin, and blown up in the Battle for the Cowl

Batman: Battle for the Cowl Issue #3

Yet even after all this he still wins. He accidentally uses too much strength though and knocks Jason off the ledge

Batman: Battle for the Cowl Issue #3

Dick is always controlling his power. He's careful in the way he fights and goes easy on everyone especially if they're his friends of allies (evidenced in Vigilante comic), but when he loses that carefully maintained control, he always wins. There are other instances where Dick wins too but to give one that evens the playing field (where neither holds back), Battle for the Cowl is the best example.

This idea of holding back ties into Bruce too. Bruce doesn't restrain himself nearly half as much as Dick does but he does it too. When he doesn't hold back against Jason, he wins

Batman: Under the Red Hood Issue #13

Cass beats everyone, there's no question but here's the evidence anyway:

Batman and Robin Eternal Issue #3

Even as he's saying this, Cass has already identified all of Jason's weak points

Batman and Robin Eternal Issue #3

People sometimes use the following scene to say Jason can beat Cass but c'mon. It says right there he caught her by surprise and she wasn't seriously fighting.

Batman and Robin Eternal Issue #3

But Jason can beat Tim, Duke, and Damian canonically.

Here he beats Tim when Tim decides to dress up as Batman.

Batman: Battle for the Cowl Issue #2

It's kind of a one-sided fight. He also beats Tim when Tim is Robin but it's a little unfair to use that given than Jason is a trained adult and Tim is sort of just starting out. Also to be fair to Tim, Jason catches him by surprise and hiding but overall I'd say Jason still wins.

He also beats Damian in a fight rather easily

Teen Titans (2016) Annual #1

He also beats him in Batman and Robin and in Batman (2016)

Batman and Robin (2009) Issue #5

Although Damian has beaten Jason a few time in a no holds barred fight. I guess it just depends on how much they feel like fighting and who's writing. I can't tell with these two but I believe Jason would win eventually.

He can beat Duke too

New Talent Showcase 2017

He does it so easily.

I can't remember him fighting Stephanie so I'll leave her out. In terms of fighting ability in the batfam, I'd say Jason's solidly in the middle. Still a strong fighter though.

[kenandeliza]

untitled draft for future marvel family comic strip, (mostly crack)

Based on a discussion with a mutual. Doesn't take place in a specific continuity.

Mary is shown to go home after Wayne Gala, Billy is shown waiting for her back home.

Billy: "Welcome home Mary, So how's the fancy party?"

Mary: " if you ask me, it was a bit boring, but I met this one Boy-"

*thunder can be heard in the panel*

Captain Marvel with a serious/protective look on his face: "Tell me more.."

Mary: "Billy, he's not-"

Billy:"I just want to talk to him."

Mary sighed:"....Billy, relax, he only wanted me to pose for a portrait he's working on"

Next panel having him switch over to Billy: "oh.."

Mary:" Besides, I'll be fine, you don't need to be worried, I can take care of myself! I'm the older one after all"

Billy:"Yeah, By five minutes!"

Freddy appearing in the front door: "I saw the lightning, what are you two yapping about?"

Billy:"oh nothing, Mary met a boy in the Wayne Gala-"

Freddy frowned immediately acted protective, preparing his crutch: "who's the hoity toity brat that's been hitting on you!?"

Mary getting tired of her friend's and brother's overprotectiveness: "Not you too!!"

____

Reminder to insert more Dialogue of their shenanigans at the Wayne Manor, I haven't perfected the dialogue yet so only the timeline of events are shown

[Bruce expresses his relief for his son to finally have civillian friends, the son is revealed to be damian]

Freddy and Billy begrudgingly tagged along with Mary. Just to be safe

[Mary introduced them to Boy who asked for Mary to be his reference for a portrait, Meeting between Billy and Damian, they eyed each other suspiciously]

[A journalist vs a son of a high-profile billionaire playboy beefing?]

[Insert a line of Bruce wondering why his co-worker is there, The rest of the Family didn't know because they'll question why he let marvel join despite not being an adult. Billy doesn't know Bruce is Batman]

[Freddy eventually warms up to Damian after finding out their mutual love for animals? With Freddy and his monkey, Jeep and Damian with Batcow]

[After the trio left the manor, Damian began researching the suspicious Journalist that accompanied Mary.

Damian has A tango between "oh no a journalist" and "a journalist that mainly covers Marvel and is seemingly close to him"

"Father has recently been stumped on his identity, perhaps this journalist could be the key! I can finally do something Father has never done before, Discovering Captain's identity!'

Now its just a chess gamebetween billy and damian

Billy:'This hoity toity kid is getting too close with my sister, I must get more info on him" (maybe accidentally discovered that Bruce wayne somehow had ties to The league of assasins that way)

[He might eventually lead to this scenario:

Billy keep coming up with wild imaginations that doesnt reflect the reality

Billy:" BATMAN LIVES IN YOUR BASEMENT??!!"

Bruce: "No, I build my manor in his attic."

]]

Further brainstorming and sicovering plot bunnies needed

[flybynightwing]

What's funny is how this makes me think of parents shittier than Bruce. It's almost like starting with Marv Wolfman giving us Trigon, Deathstroke, and Myand'r, writers insisted? Chuck Dixon gave us David Cain, someone who literally made me want to reach into the panel and strangle him. Tom King had that whole thing with two sisters at war, and as a bonus, they're related to Kate. That's bats for you.

Comics of the 80s-2000s are obsessed with terrible parents! In the Bat books alone, just off the top of my head, you've got Harvey Dent's parents, the retcon to make Barbara's biological dad an alcoholic, Steph's dad, Helena's whole deal, the retcon to make Catwoman into Falcone's daughter, David Cain (created by Kelley Puckett and Damion Scott, btw), Ra's al Ghul, SHONDRA KINSOLVING DEAR LORD.

(There were of course plenty of bad parents outside of Bat books—this is the era where Wally's relationship with his dad was changed to be much more complicated, for instance.)

It's funny, because I think Wolfman and Perez, at least, understood what they were doing with Bruce. Like, you read through New Teen Titans, you look at all of Dick's interactions with Bruce, and that's not just an abusive father, that's an abusive father written by people who have put some real thought into the exact kind of abusive he is. In NTT, when Bruce hits Dick, it's not out of nowhere, and it doesn't go nowhere. The argument in New Titans #55 is heavily tied into Dick and Bruce's specific history, and after Bruce hits Dick, he immediately starts gaslighting him about a real conversation that we've seen them have previously. In subsequent issues, Dick talks to a therapist about the incident, and it lays the groundwork for the response he's going to have in Batman: Year Three and A Lonely Place of Dying. Like, the one line from Batman: Year Three:

"I feel like the child of an alcoholic—you know the problem isn't yours, but it is."

That's not a line written by someone who thinks that Dick and Bruce's relationship is healthy!

We all love to talk about how the Titans all hate each other's parents, and I think for Wolfman and Perez, that's very much the point of the team. These are young adults who have all been very let down by their parents in one way or another, and so they find each other and become each other's family. So yes, Trigon and Deathstroke and Myand'r and Bruce are all different kinds of bad, but they're all part of the same conversation.

But then you move out of the Titans era and into the solo Nightwing era, and it's the 90s and comics are just getting generally grimmer, and Batman is being written as increasingly violent and isolationist. And all of the behaviors he had under Wolfman and Perez are still there, and sometimes even worse, but he's being written by people who I don't think actually understand that he's abusive. Like, in this post, I don't think either Ed Brubaker or Chuck Dixon noticed or intended that parallel.

As for O'Neil, I honestly think he just leaned towards reconciliation generally, and towards a much less abusive characterization of Bruce specifically, and I guess introducing EXTREMELY TERRIBLE fathers in Nightwing Vol 1 was his way of squaring that circle. I'm thinking about "Snowbirds Don't Fly," and how O'Neil wanted that story to end with Roy and Ollie reconciling—even though there was absolutely no reason they should've! It feels like a similar impulse was at play in his Nightwing mini.

[kudosmyhero]

Detective Comics (vol. 1) #826: Slayride

Read Date: February 18, 2023 Cover Date: February 2007 ● Writer: Paul Dini ● Penciler: Don Kramer ● Inker: Wayne Faucher ● Colorist: John Kalisz ● Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher ● Editor: Michael Siglain ◦ Peter Tomasi ●

**HERE BE SPOILERS: Skip ahead to the fan art/podcast to avoid spoilers

Reactions As I Read: ● the cover of this issue is stunning. I love the black and white art with “Detective Comics” in red. ● the opening splash is great, too. I can tell the art in this issue is going to be a feast for the eyes! ● “Any port in a storm.” Except maybe this port… Though Joker’s eyes look unsettlingly kindly…

● Ah, there we go. That’s a bit more Joker-like. ● the timeline jump around is a bit confusing… ● is this Bruce, Dick, and Tim traveling by ship? ● Robin regains consciousness in Joker’s car. he’s tied up with Christmas lights and gagged with an ornament ● Joker’s eyes are kindly again. says he’s calling a truce due to “Christmas spirit” ● yikes, we can just see the top of someone’s head in the backseat. not good, when Robin was thinking about the smell of something rotting moments ago…

● jeez. I guess we know why this issue is called “Slayride”! ● “Kid’s race car… they have a little boy… focus!” little girls can like race cars, too, Robin… ● so, Joker’s a karen. who knew.

● I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tim so angry… ● throughout this issue, the light source on Robin and Joker is ambient light from the car’s instrument panel and maybe backglow from the headlights. it creates a really nice effect in how they light and shadow the characters’ faces applauds artists ● whew, Tim manages to make Joker laugh with a bad joke, and Joker seems to change his mind at the last second about running over kids with Santa Claus on the sidewalk ● “Very good! A Marx Brothers quote.” - ah, a bit from the flashback/dream Robin had while unconscious ● Robin’s loose! ● 👏👏👏👏👏

Synopsis: Robin is escaping a gang of drug dealers when the driver of a passing car offers him a ride. He jumps inside and sees too late that the driver is the Joker. The Joker uses a gas to knock him out.

Robin wakes up, bound with Christmas lights. There are two dead bodies in the backseat. The Joker runs over multiple pedestrians as he drives and calls in the hit-and-runs. He takes Robin for milkshakes, and when the employee can't understand his order, he shoots the manager.

The Joker threatens to kill more people unless Robin begs. Robin knows begging won't stop him and quotes the Marx Brothers instead, which makes the Joker laugh. He spares the people. Robin gets the Joker to argue with him about the Marx Brothers, and while the Joker is distracted, he frees himself and punches the Joker in the face.

He gets hold of the knockout gas, spraying it in the Joker's face, and then pushes him out of the car. The Joker is run over by a trunk, but when Batman and the police search for his body, he's gone.

(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Detective_Comics_Vol_1_826)

Fan Art: Robin Poster by pinkhavok

Accompanying Podcast: ● Robin: Everyone Loves the Drake - episode 20

Happy Holidays, you crazy bastards

[daringyounggrayson]

whumptober day 9: presumed dead (AO3)

Bruce understands that Dick is capable of getting himself out of many dangerous situations, but this isn’t one of them. Right now, Dick is sedated and tied to a giant ticking clock that will trigger a lethal injection when it strikes midnight. Bruce has the live footage streaming in front of him as he drives to the next location, hoping that 1) Dick is there and 2) he makes it there in time.

Because if he doesn’t, Dick will die.

Riddler was very clear about the stakes. He’s covered the city in clues and riddles for Batman alone to solve, and if anyone tries to help him or someone else tries to find Robin while Batman works on the clues, he’ll kill Robin and set off a series of hidden bombs across the city. If Bruce follows his rules, plays his game, then he has a chance at saving Robin, and no civilians will get hurt. So that’s what Bruce agrees to do.

Bruce gets to the building and jumps out of the car before it stops, running toward the doors and screaming when he can’t open them, blocked by another riddle. He reads it quickly, types in the answer, though he’s only 75% confident in it.

The door beeps, and Riddler’s pre-recorded voice congratulates him on answering his riddle correctly. The door opens, and then the clock strikes midnight. He’s lost.

Riddler had told him what the injection contained: pancuronium bromide to cause muscle paralysis and respiratory arrest, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. Bruce has no way to counteract the drugs, no way to save Dick, but he runs anyway, charging through the building and trying to find Dick.

A panel opens on the wall next to him, and a screen appears. It shows more live footage of Dick, and next to him is the heart monitor, though now it’s screeching and showing no rhythm.

Something washes over Bruce, and it finally hits him that he is no longer trying to rescue Dick; he is trying to retrieve his son’s body.

Bruce goes still. He stops moving, stops breathing. His son is gone, his child is gone, and his chest aches. He sinks to the floor, screams for reasons he cannot understand.

How is he supposed to face a corpse? How is he going to tell Alfred, and all of the other people the boy loved and was loved by? How can Bruce return to the circus, hat in hand, and tell them that he broke his promise, that in the end, he hadn’t been able to protect Dick?

With stuttering breath, he picks himself up, encouraged only by the need to hold his child, to see him. He staggers through the hallway, finding the further room from the door and entering.

He sees Dick, bloodied and broken as he had been on his screen in the car. His last moments had been painful and filled with fear. Even without the lethal injection, Bruce isn’t sure he would have survived these injuries.

He steps closer, and with shaking hands, he unties Dick from the clock and rips the electrodes from his chest, catching his limp body as it tries to fall to the ground. Bruce lowers them to the floor, knees giving out toward the end. He cradles his child close against his chest and releases a broken sob.

Bruce looks at Dick’s neck, sees where the injection had pierced his skin. The blood is dry already, and Bruce hopes that the sedative was still working when it happened. Without it, Dick would have felt everything as the lethal injection stalled his breathing and heartbeat. It would have been terrifying; it would have hurt.

Bruce lowers his head to rest against Dick’s forehead, rocking his boy back and forth. He should take him home, clean him up, but he can’t move, can’t think, can’t—

A warm puff of air hits Bruce’s face, and he realizes that Dick is breathing. It should be impossible, but Bruce rips his glove off and checks Dick’s pulse and breathing, both of which are present, though not in healthy ranges.

Hope fills him as he runs Dick back to the Batmobile, taking the syringe as he goes. He has never been so happy to be so greatly mistaken, to be so wrong. Dick is alive. Dick is alive!

As Alfred and Leslie work on making sure Dick staysalive, Bruce finds that the “lethal injection” had just been another sedative. It had been the wrong syringe.

A week later when Dick seems to finally be on the mend—when he’s sitting up in bed and talking and smiling—Bruce finds it in himself to leave his bedside. The first thing he does is go to the evidence locker at the GCPD to examine the heart monitor. There he learns that it had been tampered with as well; specifically, it had been altered to display a flatline ten seconds after the final syringe was emptied, regardless of the actual reading.

Someone had done this on purpose. One of Riddler’s henchmen had saved Dick, and Bruce has never felt so grateful.

[iphoenixrising]

DickTimWeek2021 Day 2

** Day 2: Time Loop | Jealousy | Stray AU

Welp. Time to break some hearts.

They’re laughing like assholes as they climb through Timmy’s penthouse windows. 

“Did you see that thug punch himself in the face?”

“That’s the right way to get out of an ass beating by the Batman.”

Tim, still in Red Robin, doesn’t even bother, just lets his knees buckle so he can slide down to the floor and laugh until tears are rolling down the dominio still plastered on his face.

He’s riding the concussion train with 

(J)

Josephine and she’s not as bad as some of them are. 

Dick at least tosses the gloves and gauntlets before hauling Timmy’s bruised ass up off the floor, throwing the arm around his shoulders.

“C’mon, you butt. Really Timmy, just laying here in your suit? Alfred would be appalled.”

“S’why I don’t go to the Manor much anymore.”

“Ooh, I’m telling. You’re going to be in so much trouble,” as he gets Tim down the hallway to the bathroom.

“Y-You can’t! You’re the oldest! Dami’s supposed to be the tattle-tale!”

“Nu-uh. As the oldest, I can do whatever the hell I want.”

And does he tell on Timmy? You bet your ass he does.

It’s nice when Alfred can look at someone else in the family with extreme disappointment.

Tim comes by the Manor the day Alfred video chats him, shuffles down to the Cave behind the butler and absolutely sticks his tongue out at Dick’s smarmy grin.

**

His apartment is a literal mess and Dick can’t be bothered to do much more than flop on the overstuffed couch with a groan. 

Still in his uni from the day shift, he’s too bruised and battered and tired to even think of suiting up for the night. He’s been running himself ragged for two months, the day and night shifts blending together along with the usual bullshit of daily human life, and he desperately needs a night of terrible television, junk food, and snuggles.

Like he’d been reading the room, Timmy walks out of his bathroom, towel around his shoulder and hair just this side of damp.

“Hey, you made it home in one piece.” Tim’s long fingers in his hair literally pulls a noise out of Dick he can’t ever remember making.

“Yeah, I drove down because you looked like death warmed over when we talked last weekend. Luckily for you I went grocery shopping, did a few loads of your laundry, and cleaned up a little so you don’t have to worry about housework.”

“I love you. Have I told you that recently? Like, so, so much–” is muffled by the couch cushions, but he thinks Tim can probably still make it all out.

“Mmhm, I know,” and the gentle scratching against his scalp doesn’t stop, and Dick goes a little boneless with it. “I even brought my Roku so we can binge watch terrible television while you eat something more substantial than cereal. Alfred is going to be so proud of you.”

A pat to his head and Timmy is off, slinging his towel on the rack, turning on the shower again to make sure it’s nice and hot for all those bruises and contusions.

He’s no-nonsense about picking up his previous mentor and best friend, literally stripping him down and manhandling him in the shower after a low whistle at the span of blue/black across Dick’s chest and ribs, the scrapes across his back and shoulders. 

The first aid kit tackle box makes an appearance because Tim plans for literally everything ever, and Dick finds himself sitting on his sink wearily while his injuries are meticulously treated.

He knows he eats something super tasty with meat and vegetables, his belly full, before Tim pulls him down on the couch and lets Dick lay against his chest, between his legs to sleepily float while watching God-awful B-movies.

It’s the most relaxing weekend he’s had in a while.

**

Dami sneers at Tim, arms crossed over his chest, the expression on his face begging Tim to try to deny it.

The third Robin however, is looking over at Dick with horror that the big secret is finally out in the open.

“Th-that isn’t– it’s not–” Tim fumbles desperately, “he’s been my big brother forever, that’s it!”

“Tt. Grayson may be painfully oblivious, Drake, but the rest of us are detectives. Even Todd knows of your feelings and he rarely even comes to the Manor!”

Tim’s soul literally leaves his body.

Dick blinks, completely taken back, mouth open without anything coming out.

Damian raises his eyes skyward and prays for patients dealing with these two. “What I am saying,” he tries, he really is trying here, “is that you two must cease and desist this pointless–” vague hand wave– “pining for one another. It is getting to the point of absurdity. I demand you two either discuss your need for one another or take this ridiculous mooning elsewhere. The rooftops of Gotham is no place for this,” another hand wave, “utter nonsense.”

Tim’s mouth goes dry, subtly backing away to be closer to the Ducati’s waiting for tonight’s ride. He’s pretty sure he has enough energy left in his shaky knees to hop on one and be the fuck out of the Cave before his face literally bursts into flames.

But, well. Dick was Batman.

His strategic retreat is stomped into the ground by acrobatic leaps and a very well done joint lock to keep him from immediately taking off.

Dami scoffs at them on his way up the winding staircase. He stops Pennyworth on the way and turns the butler to return back into the Manor proper, citing those two needed time to figure themselves out.

**

After several weeks under deep cover, Nightwing wearily hacks into Titan’s Tower and makes his way through the maze of hallways until he hits a hidden panel. 

Tim is sleeping on his desk, only one empty coffee mug at his workstation. Even dead in his boots, Nightwing can take a second just to look, just to sigh, just to enjoy how much every inch of this boy is his.

He journeys down the hall, flips the bed covers up, carries his sleeping partner in and tucks the blankets around him, a quickly there kiss to the top of messy, too-long hair. A shower in Tim’s perch literally makes everything in life a little less awful and exhausting, not enough for him to do much more than crawl in bed against Tim’s warm body and snuggle up close.

He gets breakfast in bed and blue-violet eyes looking at him with fondness rather than awe, gets coffee flavored kisses and a slow-paced back rub that continues down to his thighs and calves and feet. Later, he gets a date night in a nice restaurant and a sweet San Fran club scene for dessert. He gets to let loose and hold Tim’s body against him, to play them both until the gazes are intense and the low key UST between them makes other people on the dance floor give them space.

**

Witty banter is a primary weapon against megalomaniacal bad guys of any flavor. For some former Robins, it’s an art form.

Over the years, they’ve cultivated their dip and distraction to bounce off one another like a well-oiled vigilante machine. 

It should have been a standard take-down because it’s not one of their more dangerous, deadly villains. It’s not one of the Rogue Gallery baddies. It’s not one of the mobster families, not one of the super powered groups come to call. It’s not someone with hordes of thugs and deadly science waiting to take them down.

It’s a simple B&E, just Nightwing talking it up to draw gunfire while Red Robin is creeping up from behind to get the last laugh.

It’s one of a thousand times they’ve done this. 

It’s a guaranteed win.

It’s the last hour of patrol before they get to go back to Red’s penthouse and snuggle together, eat and show, probably have some fantastic sex before passing out.

The .45 shell, however, cuts through the suit, between armored plates. 

Going after the running baddies is automatic, taking them down, zip ties, and viola. They’re ready for GCPD to pick-up, all kinds of gift-wrapped.

When N finally realizes Red isn’t with him, isn’t answering comms, isn’t waiting for him on the roof, he goes back inside. He hits up B for a ride in the big car in case he missed –

– anything.

The pool of blood around Red Robin is more than he can afford to lose, and Nightwing has been in the vigilante life for over twenty years, has been official with Red Robin for a little over two, has personal experience on how his Baby Bird can take a mostly-fatal beating and still keep moving. He’s seen Tim come close with the Clench, with horrifying injuries, with any of the many bad guys they fight holding him hostage.

Nightwing has seen him perform literal miracles.

And tells him so the entire time he’s got Red Robin up in his arms, carrying him through Gotham’s skyline to the waiting car, falling in with Red on his lap when the familiar hatch slides back, the tourniquet already applied before he even shot a grapple. The struggling pulse is enough of a concern to get it together.

And even if they all gather to strip off the suit, and now it’s on to get vitals back to an acceptable range. Even if the Bats cry overhead, even if the equipment is top notch in the Cave, even if Dick is still talking the whole time, and Alfred is keeping a cool head and Bruce is gripping a hand and Damian is standing at the ready to hand implements and Cass is biting her thumbnail while she hovers and Steph is moving from empty space to empty space around the gurney –

The consistent beep of the flatline cuts through it all.

**

The Titans make it for the service. 

Each of them make a point to hug Dick for as long as possible, holding on tightly.

Bruce is silent and stoic, a little boy again when he has to watch someone else he loves being lowered into the cold, unforgiving ground. Another Robin taking a piece of his heart to the afterlife. 

Steph is red-eyed, a ghost moving around to individual circles, listening to stories she might not have known. 

Cass grips the coffin with bruised knuckles, her whole body wound tight as a string ready to snap. She doesn’t move the entire service, is already convinced leaving him to his own devices caused this whole thing. She doesn’t blame the thugs or Dick or Bruce. She blames the boy that never understood how much it all means.

Duke Thomas is back in Gotham, taking leave from the Outsiders to be here for the family that took him in after the Joker drove his parents insane. He hovers in the doorway to welcome mourners, direct them toward the book to sign-in, talks about Tim Drake with regular humans and other metas in disguise, accepts condolences with his throat tight and his eyes watery. He makes sure Dick has a bottle of water after the first hour, pats Damian’s shoulder, grips Bruce’s arm, weaves an arm around Cassandra’s back to give her a squeeze, obediently looks at the old pictures of Tim on Steph’s photo roll when she’s overcome and has to see that smile again.

In the back, Jason Todd wears dark shades and a clean black suit. Roy Harper is beside him, a hand on the broad back to keep him grounded, to keep the Pit rage at bay. If anyone knows how far Tim and Jason had come over the years, it’s the former Red Arrow. If anyone knows how much agony Jason is in at this moment, at another fallen brother, another Robin gone, if anyone had held the Red Hood while he screamed and cried and broke the utter fuck down, it’s Roy Harper.

Damian Wayne hovers right by Grayson’s side, silently supporting his first Batman, his first brother. Whenever Dick’s eyes start going hazy, glazing over, Damian gently grips a wrist to bring him back, allows fingers to lace through his own and tolerates the tight squeeze that obviously assists in grounding the oldest Robin. 

(Later when the night is crowding grief-stricken Wayne Manor, Damian will be the one to open Grayson’s bedroom door, lift the covers to crawl in behind him, to wind both arms tightly. He will be the one to take the onslaught of grief, to be soaked in tears and snot, to listen to the broken, hoarse voice, to make soothing hums that ultimately mean nothing.)

Alfred Pennyworth quietly talks with the funeral director about the arrangements. Of course Master Timothy would want to be laid to rest with his parents, and the family appreciates all the support and ease of process as the deceased was an important part of the Wayne family. 

When he gets a phone call, he firmly verifies the name on the tombstone is Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne Grayson.

**

Exactly four days after the service, the Flash is staring at him helplessly, gripping Nightwing’s arm tight, “please, please, Dick, don’t do this. You can’t think this is the answer!”

He can barely hear Wally with the absolute destruction going on around them, the machine they’d inadvertently stumbled upon (which is a lie, Nightwing had been looking for it and the Flash basically caught him red handed). 

“You know you aren’t going to be able to stop me.” Standing between the glowing portal and Wally, debris from overhead crashing down on them at intervals, Nightwing is at his peak stubborn, “no matter how fast you are.”

“You don’t understand what’s going to happen,” Wally yells desperately as the vacuum starts pulling at Nightwing’s other arm, pulling him into–

–the Speed Force.

“You don’t have the lightning, Dick, you won’t be able to get yourself out, and I won’t have any way of tracking you!”

The small smirk as the machine’s panel starts going haywire, lights blinking and readings off the charts, makes Wally’s heart clench hard in his chest, makes him try to dig in his heels, makes his stomach tremble.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve already done this, Wally. And I’ll do it as many times as it takes until I change everything.”

The pellet Nightwing palmed before the Flash grabbed his hand goes off the same time the machine hits the highest ratings and a low boom is followed up with an intense swirling suction, pulling the heroes closer to the portal’s surface.

The light grenade goes off without a hitch and the Flash has no choice but to let Nightwing go.

**

They’re laughing like assholes as they climb through Timmy’s penthouse windows. 

[milfzatannaz]

I think you already said that, but we Johnzee truthers do suffer sm

We have Zatanna fans acting like John is the scum of the earth and that she should never settle down for him, if they're not also throwing some biphobic stereotypes as well, and some of them are even batstans who just want Zee to be woman to 'fix' Bruce

Then we have Hellblazer fans who thinks Zee's character is the sole reason John is watered down in DC books

Meanwhile we get decades of innuendo and some nice panels now and then. But I love it here I swear I love them 😌💕

you’ve literally hit the nail on the head. whether ppl personally like it or not, their canon past their first interaction in swamp thing has been tied together over and over again.

i don’t understand the obsession with Zee liking john as if it’s a character flaw on her part. first off, john doesn’t get nearly any scrutiny for who he’s attracted to aside from the obvious biphobia. but zee loving john is some sort of cataclysmic decision dc made? nah.

Zatanna fans who hate john are soooo numerous and I’m like how do you look at my blue suited king and decide that all of their shared history is bad/ooc?

Hellblazer fans usually don’t rlly fight over his love interests nearly as much and most agree that kit is the love of his life in the context of the original HB run. but there’s still the lingering misogyny against zee and blaming her, a literal character, for JLD. Justice league dark is not johnzee as a pairing’s fault; it’s dc’s inability to use their vertigo and magic canon in a worthwhile way

anyway neil said zee still had feelings for him so case closed

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Nightwing 83 Review

guess who isn't weeks late this time. my opinion of the series is going up a little bit. it's still not great, but i'm not actively put off by it anymore the way i was after 81. not going to tag as spoilers, but be warned that they are under the cut

i’m sure you all are well aware of this but now, but dear god i love bruno redondo’s art. like, an unhealthy amount. the pink and blue is getting to be a theme with either him or just this run, but i am definitely enjoying it. the movement in this cover is clearly obvious, but well done. you recoznize right off the bat that the cover was drawn to drag your eyes down the page until you get to the bottom, but you enjoy the whole ride there. 

also, redondo’s way of drawing a character in stages of action so we can see just how much they’re doing in a split second of movement is quickly becoming something i like to see drawn with dick, and any other character that has that sort of ease of movement and body sense, like cass or sin or maybe a super. 

and he’s in action the entire time! there’s shot drawn just to show off a shirtless comic book character, the way nightwing is so often subjected to. he’s shirtless because he’s changing his clothes, and that’s all we see, no more and no less. very practical, very well done. i like it.

he looks so cute right here oh my god. the little squint, the hair curls. it’s adorable.

but also like. unless melinda has specifically outfitted the door spyhole so that the person on the other side can’t see dick looking through it (and in all honesty she might have) then everyone on the other side can see dick looking through that door. 

bringing your attention back to the “i can’t see melinda’s fbi file oh no!! it’s redacted!! whatever can we do!!” stupidity. redacted files are child’s play for oracle, and definitely doable for both dick and bruce. so that’s bullshit.

now, melinda apparently grew up with the maroni family, then took down part of the family from the inside. the maroni family is a large and notable presence in gotham, one that bruce pays a respectable amount of attention to. he definitely would have grown suspicious when two members of the maroni family were taken down, and with some investigation, he would have discovered melinda’s plan. and it should go without saying that the majority of things you see batman doing? dick can do it too.

it’s not so much that i don’t like how clever the villains/antiheroes are getting. i don’t like how dc heroes are increasingly written as less intelligent. they seem to be relying on pure fighting skills or luck, which may be the case for a couple heroes, but has never been the case for most of dc’s big name heroes, the bat family included. it’s irritating to me to see this sort of stuff pop up as a major plot point when i know that, if dick or bruce had been written with the amount of skill and power that they canonically possess, this entire mess would have been sorted out years ago.

unrelated but dick and melinda have the same hair

this may just be me, but i was always under the impression that dick doesn’t really have a “double life???”

yes, he’s talented enough to create enough differences between robin/nightwing and dick grayson’s mannerisms, way of movement, voices, and speech patterns so that it’s very difficult to put the two together.

but nightwing has never been separate from dick grayson, not the way bruce and batman is. he’s always leaned more towards clark in that aspect: his hero persona is an exaggerated, stately, larger-than-life version of who he really is. there’s no second persona, no real “dick grayson identity” and “nightwing identity.” they’re the same person with the same goals, ideas, and skills. one just pretends to abide by the law, and one gives up pretense of that.

oh good thank god. if he’d trusted her right off the bat (hehe. bat.) i would have slapped him upside the head. at least he’s still got instincts.

gosh the colouring on this is cool. the red has enough purple and pink tones to it that it doesn’t abruptly ruin the tone of the artwork. but it’s definitely glaring enough to take the reader outside of this personal moment they had slipped into between dick and melinda, to put them back in the present where they’re reminded that oh yea there are people hunting dick down. 

the next panel keeps this up too, in a less severe way. melinda’s bodyguard shows up (i forgot her name sorry :[ ) and subtly places us in the middle of an action scene rather than a private, personal scene.

laughing so fucking hard have our little vigilantes grown so accustomed to breaking into places that it doesn’t even register as a crime anymore??? tim coming in through the fire escape to pick bernard up for their date and being very much confused as to why bernard is freaking out.

i really like melinda’s shirt and now despite all the work i have to do and the fucking conference i have to host on monday i want to spend hours scrolling through clothing shops online trying to find this shirt. the mock neck/neckline is so cool i want it

so roland just assumes that a very dangerous vigilante who is highly talented in combat and a very dangerous bodyguard who is also highly talented in combat had a fight that ended with this very dangerous bodyguard being tied up and she looks completely fine? roland just assumes that her having no visible wounds or bruises means that they got into a fight and she lost that easily? uh. aight then

dick what are you doing. legitimately what the fuck are you doing. why are you posing oh my god. you are injured and tired and in absolutely no position to go hand to hand with one of main enemies. jesus christ run away or head to lower ground or something. don’t just stand around letting the floodlights show exactly where you are.

i don’t understand what he’s trying to do here??? blockbuster fully bought the story that dick fought them both, won, tried to get info out of them and failed, then hightailed it out of there. he didn’t have to draw roland out for a fight.

but it does look cool. the way the light just highlights his silhouette and the blue parts of his costume does look badass. he does get style points in my book for this.

w h a t  d i d  i  f u c k i n g  t e l l  y o u ,  d i c k ?

very classic superhero line and it does sound like something dick would say in a fit of righteous rage but also it makes me laugh so hard because all vigilantes think they’re so powerful that the law doesn’t apply to them. dick vigilantism is illegal. you’re acting above the law and pretending it doesn’t apply to you. hypocritical much?

it happens so often in superhero movies, tv shows, comics, whatever and it makes me giggle every damn time.

pretty decent comeback but before i start seeing people writing blockbuster as a thug i’m going to remind you that he made a deal with a demon for genius level intellect. if this turns into another bane situation i’m going to be a little miffed. he’s a smart man, which makes him a dangerous and infinitely more interesting enemy for nightwing.

this is so horribly in character i want to scream. (or. at least. it lines up with one of the versions of nightwing i have in my head.) he’s running right towards the bullets, miraculously doesn’t get shot, while making a sort-of pun. i hate this so much. i love him.

this is cool. this art is really really cool.

he leaped from a building right towards a helicopter that’s actively shooting at him, but none of the bullets are touching him. none of the corruption of the city can touch him no matter how hard it tries, because he’s too good to be corrupted. Comic Book Logic Can Be Good Sometimes Actually.

batman’s belt what??? swiss army knife who?? sorry, i only know nightwing’s bright blue escrima.

this is one of my favourite things about heroes with exceptional abilities, even more so if the hero is human. the things they can do are so far beyond the realm of normal human abilities that it’s equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring every time they act.

he just used modified grappling wires to hook to the door of a moving helicopter, swung around the helicopter safely without hitting the blades, gained exactly the right momentum to swing upward again right through the opening of helicopter, then fought and tied up the men before they had any idea what was happening. that’s near impossible to do.

it’s stuff like this where i just sort of sigh in contentment. no matter how many times they leave out dick’s detective skills or conveniently forget that he’s actually a master planner and team leader and make him out to be this forgetful dude who makes everything up on the fly because of his “circus roots,” at least they won’t ever take away dick’s sheer physical ability honed to perfection. 

the art, too! in a few panels, dick’s drawn a little lightened or blurred. he’s moving so quickly and fighting so efficiently that he can barely be seen by the enemy. he’s got perfect form all the way through.

and THIS!

there was a helicopter that had five men shooting at him with what looks like machine guns. most people would be dead. some would run away, and be nimble enough to survive without fatal hits. there are very few people, even in fucking comic books, who can look at that hopeless situation and turn it around so quickly and thoroughly that he benefits from it instead.

i just. love nightwing.

it was funny the first time as a comic reader aware of the meme. it’s really not anymore. why the hell would you, in universe, be wearing a shirt that has a picture of your boyfriend being hit in the face by his father. 

okay that was funny. 

look at lil bitewing, so concerned for her human!!! love her sm. 

also a question as to the timeline of things. is nightwing happening before or after urban legends? 

i was so distracted by dick wearing a robe and briefs and nothing else that i didn’t register the second part until later. he slept for two days?? babs, baby, he recently had a very traumatic brain injury. why do you sound so nonchalant?

@TIM X COFFEE SHIPPERS GET FUCCCCKKKKEEDDDDD

ngl i totally forgot about that dude oops

this comic is giving so many reaction pictures. you know how you always use the worst possible picture of your friend for your friend’s contact picture? i’m just getting so many of these.

leslie!!! the titans!!! lucius!!! dick going to go see old friends!!!! the titans!!! this part made me so irrationally happy it really did. gar being the one to just. offer dick solutions with open arms. this was the best

i wish i could just copy and paste this entire scene, but that would take up way too much space, so i’m just going to talk about it instead. 

you gave me my name, nightwing, and you gave me some of the best advice i’ve received in my life: beautiful little throwback to nightwing’s origin. you’d be surprised at the amount of people who don’t know where the name came from, or who don’t know how much clark means to dick. and the fact that dick still looks up to clark as a hero, recognizes that clark isn’t always perfect and yet continues to hold him in such high esteem, and still looks back on advice that clark gave him fondly just warmed my heart so much.

for a man who has fearlessly stood up to darkseid, bruce will do a lot to avoid a conversation: “grrr. i’m the BATMAN. i’m so DARK and MYSTERIOUS. nobody knows the true me. no one ever will. i will be LONELY for the rest of my CURSED LIFE. such is the price of a hero. ignore my farmer himbo husband in the background”

but i don’t think there’s anything heroic about being a billionaire: another nod to how much dick follows clark’s example rather than bruce. yes, this was a very poignant and important criticism, and i think it’s wonderful that this was published in a pretty popular comic book. but the thing is, there is a way to be a heroic billionaire, but only in fictional universes. the way bruce, ollie, t’challa only ever use their wealth to help people. they donate massive amounts of money to charities that they themselves create so they know exactly how the money is being used. they hire people who aren’t likely to get jobs anywhere else and pay them much more than what a base living wage is. they use their power to help push progressive laws and social change. they are helping. 

dick doesn’t fully see it that way. he spent more than half his childhood the son of a billionaire, but still believes that one could be more heroic when one doesn’t have obscene amounts of wealth. whose example do you think he followed to come to that conclusion?

superman looked up to alfred pennyworth?: i mean yea alfred may have been a wildly irresponsible guardian and one hell of an enabler but goddamn if he didn’t love his kid.

you don’t need my input. you’ve thought it all through: ooooooh this line made me grin. for so long, dick’s treated clark as a mentor and a guiding figure. he’s still seen as a kid, an up and coming, snot-nosed titan with dreams of a better world. clark still thinks of him as a kid, despite watching him grow up. but this little line was something i think dick needed sorely to hear. he doesn’t need anyone’s guiding hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t need to ask for permission. he doesn’t need clark to support him the way he did when he was a teenager. he’s all grown up now, and he doesn’t need clark’s help. i imagine it was a bit of a surprise for dick to hear that. 

honestly, i couldn’t think of a better role model: ohhh but it doesn’t stop there. clark just straight up turns the tables on dick. imagine you’re dick, and you’ve looked up to this one hero your entire life, and then one day he turns to you and says that he thinks you’re so kind and smart and worthy of a person that he wants you to mentor his son!? goes to show just how much clark trusts dick.

i swear to god dick probably cries every time he hears clark compliment him because bruce is so rare and sparing with his praise that clark giving him the slightest hint of approval is just a dopamine rush.

also, now deathstroke and superman have both asked nightwing to mentor their kids. the juxtaposition is fuckin hysterical. imagine either of their reactions when they realize what kind of company they’re with

lets talk colours for a second, because i absolutely adore how classic colour tropes have been subverted in this comic, and in this general run really.

warm tones have usually (usually, not always) been associated with light and comfort and friendship and,,,,,well,,,warmth. whereas cool tones are usually used to unsettle, or make a scene seem colder and put the reader on edge. this varies if a comic only uses cool tones, or only uses warm tones, but if a comic uses both, this is generally well-used.

that isn’t the case in this run.

dark red, orange, and other warm tones have been used to symbolize danger, action, attacks. hot pink isn’t usually included in this colour group, but it’s definitely part of it in this case. in contrast, scenes that have cool colours give us the impression of slipping into a comfortable, calm scene with babs, tim, the titans, and other allies. even the beginning scene with superman has this blue, but then it transitions into something more golden coloured. dawn broke over dick, as his new idea came to light, and that was reflected in the art (and the sunrise setting.)

have there ever been times when dick’s longed for the comfort of his mask because he didn’t feel confident as dick grayson? i can’t think of any. i may be wrong, but this struck me as pretty ooc.

am i just??? gay and reading this all wrong??

cause i was under the impression that when someone says they are grateful for your friendship you don’t immediately kiss them. 

or is this like. normal straight mating rituals.

i mean he’s smiling afterward but still babs aren’t you supposed to at least make sure it’s okay first? you guys broke up a while back after you said something along the lines of “i want to be coworkers with you and nothing more because i don’t trust you or feel comfortable around you as a civilian anymore.” like lmao after you say something like that to someone i would assume that you don’t have the permission to just kiss them whenever you want.

show of hands who else got real sad when they realized dick was talking about himself in this.

sure, he could be referencing the things he’s seen blockbuster pull, and the children on the streets. but “i’ve seen money used for enforcement,” sounds a little too close to dick’s entire life being destroyed by one man threatening the circus to pay protection money for me to completely ignore. and “i’ve seen the poorest and most vulnerable blamed and punished rather than assisted” becomes a lot worse when you remember dick was thrown in juvie for a couple months until bruce was able to obtain legal guardianship, and in there, not a authority figure believed him when he told them his parents were murdered.

he’s lived this before.

a. mother. fucking. typo.

fucking why

i mean i’ve stated my distaste for the batfamily groupchat before but like. this is reaching new levels of ridiculousness. jason sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. tim sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. steph sounds like she was written by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about steph and wanted to include her for “family points!!!!!” damian’s supposed to be completely off the grid, and everyone’s searching for him. i do love the way cass texts tho.

well god fuck now i’m crying

dick got a phone call, a sorry, and a thank you out of bruce. i feel so much secondhand happiness for him, if that’s a thing. we’ll just ignore the way bruce looks ugly af and focus on the good parts okay?

and again with the colour symbolism here!

i’m either going to love this or hate this. who knows, we’ll see.

something something hearts something something pink is an evil colour something something. i need to know more about this guy but there’s definitely symbolism there. 

is it just me or does this dude look like the backstabbing traitorous absolutely motherfucking piece of shit villain that killed tadashi hamada in big hero 6?

~~

taggggg list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan  @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption​ @capricorn-stark​ @batshit-birds​ @comics-observer @buticaaba​ 

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Soulmarks, Part 20

First part

Previous

~~~

He closed the computer with a snap, startling Marinette out of her intense yoyo-ing session.

They walked to the hole in the floor and peered down. It was pitch black, save for the little beam of light that they’d created when they’d opened it. He was tempted to drop the computer down to see just how far they were about to fall, but he decided against it. They didn’t need to give Hawkmoth any more warning than they already had.

Marinette gave him a tiny grin. “Ever broken your legs before?”

He shrugged. “A few times.”

“I don’t know if that means you’ve never done it before or you’ve done it a million times, but both concern me,” she mumbled, more to herself than to him. She took a deep breath.

She dropped down.

He waited a few seconds for her to roll out of the way and then slipped through.

Tim hit the floor and fought the urge to curse as his legs crunched underneath him. He thanked Kaalki that his suit kept him in reasonable shape and carefully pushed himself up.

The hatch shut behind them, plunging them into pure darkness. It was automated, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t put him more on edge.

Bruce always said that darkness was their friend, and there were times where Tim agreed, but this darkness felt distinctly hostile. It was hiding something other than them.

He could feel Marinette next to him, her hand resting on his forearm to keep track of where he was. He reached the other hand out and started searching around. He touched a railing. Alright, so they were on some sort of walkway...

“What are the chances that they left in the ten minutes it took to get down here?” She whispered jokingly, her nails digging into his suit. Her grip wasn’t strong enough for her to cut through, but it was enough for him to have to fight back the urge to pull away.

And then a light flicked on across the room. He blinked a few times to adjust.

His mouth fell open.

Because, at the end of a walkway, was a glass coffin. The woman inside was unmistakably Adrien’s mother, the resemblance was uncanny even from afar. She was completely motionless and far, far too pale.

But then something pulled his attention away from it. A flicker of green light, a soft shuffling sound.

Tim cursed and fumbled for his phone. He clicked it on and started pointing the screen around to try and see anything.

“They’ll see us!” Whispered Marinette, bringing her hand up to try and block the light.

And then she faltered.

Because the cat was in front of them, his green eyes casting a dim light over his face.

“Looks like they already have.”

They got into fighting positions instantly. After all, the fact that their favorite cat had decided to transform didn’t bode well for them...

He sighed and dropped his baton with a loud clatter, then perched himself on the railing by them. He pulled his phone out of seemingly nowhere and started typing: “I told dad to let me try and reason with you guys first. He’s not here. You can push me off the side of this if we try anything, promise. I just want to talk.”

Marinette mumbled something and a lantern appeared in her hand. She set it down and then motioned for him to go ahead.

Tim wished that he could see more of her face behind her mask, because he could not get a reading on her right now. He settled for just picking up the baton.

“Mari, please, just hand over the earrings.”

“I know that you miss your mom... but we can’t bring her back.”

“But it’s not just about mom!”

She raised her eyebrows skeptically.

He sighed and pulled out his phone. After a bit of typing a robotic voice explained, “I want to make it so mom never died. It’ll be great. No Hawkmoth, no Chat Noir or Ladybug or Cheval. We’d just be normal people again.”

“Chaton…”

“Heck, we can swap mom’s death and make it so Joker died that day instead.” He looked between the both of them, his eyes wide and pleading. “Don’t you want that? We’re just kids, remember? This shouldn’t have happened to any of us. So, let’s fix it.”

Marinette hesitated, messing with her yoyo. He saw her eye the phones in their hands with a guilty expression.

Tim also hesitated, but he wasn’t particularly sure why. Yes, he happened to think it a terrible idea, but this was something else. There was something terribly wrong here, he just didn’t know what.

He typed out a question to buy time: “How do we know your dad won’t betray us?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Cheval. I’ll do it myself, he doesn’t have to be involved.”

She nodded slowly and took off her earrings.

“Thanks, Mari, this means a lot to me.”

Oh. Oh fuck.

Tim covered Marinette’s hand and pushed her arm down. “Hey, Adrien, say my name.”

The cat’s eyebrows knit together.

“What’s my civilian name? Your dad isn’t here, go ahead and say it.”

Tim watched him frown and nodded to himself, extending the baton and pointing it at him.

“Nette, put back on your earrings. I don’t know for sure who this is, but it sure as hell isn’t Adrien.”

She seemed a little confused, but she did put her earrings on and mumble to transform.

They were given a confused frown for a few moments before his face contorted into an ugly sneer. “What gave me away?”

“None of her friends call her ‘Mari’, and you refused to use my name.”

He considered this for a moment. “Interesting. Oh well.”

And then the akuma winked at them and fell back. They ran to the railing, hands out to catch him, only to find he had disappeared. They gave each other wary glances before peering over the side, searching the abyss for him…

And then the lantern between them was snuffed out.

The heroes were plunged into darkness again, save for the dim glow of the cat’s eyes as it peered up at them from below.

~

She hated to admit it, but the idea of giving Hawkmoth her miraculous had been tempting. If he was going to go back and change everything, wouldn’t that just make everything better? Adrien would get his family back, Tim would have never been tortured, all the damage she’d done as an akuma would be completely reverted…

And then Tim had spoken up.

And she had been reminded of one fact: if all those horrible events hadn’t happened, she would have never met him, would never have made friends with Adrien or the bats...

So, sucky as her life was, she was determined to keep the only parts of it that had actually gone well for her.

She and Tim pressed their backs to each other’s instantly, their weapons out as they searched the dark. The only light was from the akuma’s eyes (which they hoped to not get close enough to use as a proper light) and the one beaming down on Emilie Agreste. They could, theoretically, use Tim’s portals for light, but they would probably need those later to get out.

No, the akuma’s apparent night vision was definitely an advantage.

“We need to get towards Adrien’s mom to see,” she murmured. “Slowly, though, don’t want him to catch on.”

Tim didn’t quite respond -- couldn’t, she reminded herself -- but he did take a tiny step in that direction. She hoped that meant he’d heard and understood as she followed after him.

Great, they had a plan in place for the future. Unfortunately, they were in the present. And the present meant pure darkness outside of a pair of creepy eyes that the akuma, unfortunately, had enough sense to keep closed most of the time.

“Where’s the akuma?” She tried. “Your ring? Your bell? Your belt-y thingy?”

The akuma chuckled lowly from her right and she fought the urge to snap her head towards the sound. She had a reading on where he was, at least.

“Where’s Adrien? Please tell me that you didn’t kill your son,” she said.

“I would never!”

She raised her eyebrows slightly. “You’ve been trying to kill us for over a year.”

“Well, I didn’t know it was him,” the akuma defended himself, and she suppressed a cringe as she realized that he was definitely getting closer…

“I’m just saying that it’s not that far-fetched for you.”

“He’s fine. I just tied him up. He’ll see reason soon. Cataclysm.”

Fuck!

She tossed her yoyo in a blind panic at where his voice had last come from, only to hear it knock against the wall uselessly.

She fought to keep her voice level as she spoke next: “And the father of the year award goes to Gabriel Agreste!” She taunted.

But, it seemed that the akuma had caught on to what she was doing, because it didn’t try and speak again. Damn it.

She glanced backwards at where the light was and she cringed. Closer, but still so far away...

She brought her gaze back in front of her and had to fight the urge to scream at the pair of lamp-like green eyes a few meters in front of her.

She gasped and pressed back against Tim to tell him to move, because the akuma was definitely advancing on them, only for the akuma to touch the panel of flooring beneath her.

The floor crumbled at her feet and she screamed as she began to fall. She tossed her yoyo and hooked it around where she knew the railing to be and breathed a sigh of relief when she stopped.

But this was short-lived, because the akuma’s eyes had shut again.

Tim grunted and there was a dull thud as he hit the walkway.

She pulled herself up as fast as she could and listened in for the gasps of pain and the sound of blows.

And then she hooked her arms around the neck of the person on top (it couldn’t be Tim, the person below didn’t have glowing eyes) and pulled back.

She felt hands literally claw at her arms and pain raced through her as her skin was ripped to shreds, but it was fine. She just needed to make him pass out, then they would be fine --.

“Cata --,” began the cat.

But he was cut off. Because a baton had been extended right into his open mouth.

This was great for Marinette, because she wasn’t immediately dusted.

This was also bad for Marinette, because the akuma had stumbled back. And now they were falling through the giant hole in the walkway.

She really could just not get a break from the falling.

The two screamed as she struggled to get a good angle to throw her yoyo and hold onto the akuma at the same time.

A blue portal opened underneath the two and suddenly they were falling towards the walkway. This would still hurt, but…

She flipped the two of them in the air and drove her knee into the akuma’s back as they slammed into the metal.

She tried not to think of the way the akuma’s spine snapped underneath her. At least she didn’t have to worry about fighting anymore. Besides, she had an akuma to find.

She grabbed the belt first and tugged it off, then sliced it in half with her yoyo. No purple light. No akuma.

Then she tried the ring. She crushed it in her hand. Nothing.

Then she grabbed his bell and slammed it against the floor to break it. Purple. Thank god.

She caught the akuma and looked around.

“Cheval, light,” she said. She didn’t wait for a response as they ran to the beam of light. She allowed herself to relax slightly when they got there. They’d have a few second break as the akuma left his system to breathe.

Her eyes traveled down to her scratched up and bloody arms, only to catch on the tiny pin in her hand...

Her mouth dropped open.

No. Way.

“Cheval. Cheval.” She turned to look at him and she gave him a brilliant smile as she held up her prize for him to see. “We won!”

“We…?” He finally took it in and a smile began to break across his bruised and slightly bloody face. “We won,” he breathed.

“We won! Oh my god, I could kiss you right now!”

He nodded eagerly.

She giggled and hooked her arm around his neck despite the fact that it was throbbing painfully and bleeding, pulling him down for a kiss. He responded by wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer.

Gabriel groaned and started to push himself up, only to get beaned by a yoyo and a baton at the same time.

She broke away a few seconds later and sent Tim a smile before turning to where she knew Gabriel to be.

Her smile twisted into something a little more bitter, more sinister. She twirled her yoyo lazily.

“Now, you said Adrien was tied up somewhere. Mind telling me where?”

~~~

Next part

Taglist

@pawsitivelymiraculous @golden-promises @salty-fang @kitsunebell @sassakitty @octobitch @glastwime859 @miyla-lokidottir @onlyabatfan @ira-sairain @2confused-2doanything @ultimatetornshipper @ladybug-182 @laurcad123 @we-want-mini-mini @roguishredaxion @just-reblogs-by-h @futursworld @magic-miraculous @nathleigh @smolplantmum @vroomtaka  @emimar7 @toodaloo-kangaroo @charme-de-malchan @spicybelladonna @fusser90 @indecisive-mess-named-me @rosesgonerogue @celestialsiren @bluesimani @loysydark @trippingovermyfeet @goblinwhoships @kaithehero

[yicruz48]

Unpopular Opinion:  Damian and Deathstroke

To start off, I am going to be real honest here and come to say that I don’t know much about Slade besides the interactions he has had with Damian.

But I am going to jump into maybe unpopular opinion territory. As much as I am very outspoken about Bruce not being written as a good father is the last 4 years...Slade being hailed as a better alternative makes me a bit uncomfortable.

The reason I get uncomfortable is first Slade has become a sort of trigger to Damian in the most recent years. Second, his actions towards Damian have for the most part been negative.

Whenever I think about Damian and Slade, I think about one of their first interactions in Batman and Robin 2009:

-> Here, Talia (I hate talking about Morrison’s Talia)  offers Slade take over Damian’s body through a spinal link in...well...his spine. Slade here doesn’t even second guess taking over a 10-year-old’s body and using it to attempt to kill Dick, someone who had become important to Damian.

-> It is very obvious Damian was terrified of his inability to control his body and even quite taken aback by this event that Slade took part in.

Robin: Son of Batman:

-> I don’t know if it is bluffing or not but it looks like Slade had intentions to kill both Maya and Goliath. Again, both important to Damian. It ended on a “positive” note, where Damian basically throws money at him so he can leave, but still, I don’t think Damian appreciated Slade trying to kill the friends he most values.  

Teen Titans and Deathstroke (2016):

-> Here Slade basically telling Damian that if he kills him he would be doing the world a favor by ridding the world of him...which...honestly...is pretty F*#ked up (Damian’s words to Slade weren’t pretty either but damn that was harsh).

I’m sure Damian has had many death threats thrown his way, so it doesn’t really matter to him but eek...

-> Slade was still working with Damian (despite in the words of Wintergreen he is “a severely damaged boy”), messing with him and lying to him. Telling him he isn't his father then saying he is to mess with him. Damian isn’t very innocent either, but Slade is the adult in this situation.

-> Plus these panels make it pretty clear that one of Damian’s worst nightmares is being Slade’s biological son. I won’t go too much into this, but this ties into why I think Damian is so obsessed with his bloodline (if you want, I’ll elaborate on this in a separate post).

->  I am also uncomfortable at the possibility that Slade likes Damian more than his own children despite the the negative things he has said and done to Damian. 

-> Damian has literally gotten nightmares about Slade killing the people he cares about. 

-> It’s pretty much confirmed Slade has become a sort-of trigger to Damian. We later learn that Slade reminds Damian of his grudge against Talia.

-> This whole “I am going to fix you” narrative hits me in a wrong way. Again, messing with Damian’s thoughts in ways nobody really has done. 

Again, I don’t know much about Slade and how correct his characterization was in these panels but overall its pretty apparent all of their encounters are negative. That's why I get confused at Slade being a “better” alternative parental figure then say Clark or Dick.

This is why I personally don’t like Damian and Slade being viewed in a father and son dynamic. 

Although I do have to admit I like the dynamic of them as enemies, I personally see Slade in a similar light that I see Nobody (Morgan Ducard) in Batman and Robin 2011. 

-> Basically serving the purpose to challenge Damian’s newfound beliefs about killing and also be a literal living example of what Damian could become if he is not careful.

Because of this, some of the most interesting dialogue comes out their interactions giving us more insight into Damian’s mentally.

So to wrap this up, l don’t like(or see) the father/son dynamic between Slade and Damian but find their enemy dynamic more interesting.  

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: "WE ARE ONE" Refreshes One Piece's Most Historic Moments

  In Detective Comics #33, Batman's origin story lasts less than two pages. Fourteen comic panels, to be exact. Included among these, we see Bruce Wayne's parents for a grand total of four (only three of which has them alive), two are devoted to Bruce's decades-long quest to master his body and mind, three are spent with him brooding in his living room over what his costume should look like and the last one sees him as a full-fledged Caped Crusader. Since then, this iconic piece of comic book history has been partially or fully recreated in flashbacks (1989's Batman, 1995's Batman Forever, 2016's Batman vs Superman, The Dark Knight Returns,) grand narratives (Batman: Year One, 2005's Batman Begins,) and every manner in between. 

  But why?

  At a certain point, to its devotees, fiction becomes mythology. The most powerful of these stories are inevitably retold or remixed because their relevance or their sheer emotional impact is far broader than just extending through the moment of their initial delivery. They don't just become great stories — they influence how we create stories. And we return to them with the knowledge that their imagery and arc is so familiar and yet so potent that it's connective in a way. There is indeed something comfortable in the familiar (and there's always a risk of tired repetition,) but there is also shared experience. A shared admittance of the power of storytelling.

    I think that's what makes the One Piece "WE ARE ONE" series so satisfying. Created to celebrate the release of manga volume 100 (in hilarious Eiichiro Oda fashion, his statement about the accomplishment was kicked off with worrying about your book shelf space,) each of the shorts is centered around a drama, one mirrored by certain scenes or themes in the One Piece storyline. For the characters in the live-action segments, the One Piece manga becomes a source of strength and motivation, allowing them to overcome workplace disputes, relationship troubles, childhood anxieties, etc. Capably directed by Mika Ninagawa, they are at their core, ultimate displays of sentimentality. 

  Their centerpieces, however, are the reanimated One Piece sequences. This is nothing new for the series. Whether it's the Episode of Chopper Plus: Bloom in Winter, Miracle Sakura, Episode of Alabasta: The Desert Princess and the Pirates or Episode of East Blue, the franchise often returns to its most hallowed of material. Whether it's to provide a sort of refresher course for new fans or to produce the equivalent of an anime Greatest Hits Collection ranges from project to project. What they all share, though, is that admittance I talked about: The acknowledgment of a story or a moment worth reliving.

    That, in "WE ARE ONE," all of these reanimated segments — including Zoro and Sanji's team-up at the Davy Back Fight, Vivi's Straw Hat farewell, and Corazon's final, uplifting message to Trafalgar Law — are tied to a live-action human drama is doubling down on this message. One of the most delightful aspects of One Piece that I've found through being a fan of it is hearing how other fans became involved with it. You ask about it, and rarely do you get an "Oh, it just popped up and I watched it." Rather, the narrative is so lengthy and so emotionally involving that each, well, One Piece origin story, becomes a testament to how beloved the series is as a whole. Even the most simple tale of discovery becomes, again, one worth repeating. 

    It's something I don't really tire of, just as I don't tire of seeing something like a montage of Luffy inviting all of his crew members, even if I've read it in the manga, watched it in the anime, and seen it abbreviated numerous times in openings or flashbacks. You have Zoro's realization that he can finally become the world's greatest swordsman rather than an aimless bounty hunter or Nami's hidden feeling that she's found someone she can trust or Usopp's joy at the idea that perhaps all of his lies about becoming a great warrior of the sea can become true and many many others. I mentioned Batman's origin at the beginning of this feature because of how recognizable it is — it floats in the pop culture ether. For One Piece fans, these scenes are the same way. 

    Reaching one hundred volumes of a story in an industry that requires such consistent work as manga is undoubtedly a feat. More noteworthy, however, is what "WE ARE ONE" celebrates: The fact that, over the last twenty-plus years, One Piece has amassed copious bits and moments that are distinct enough to remember, powerful enough to retell, and relatable enough to pair with drama featuring actual human actors without it feeling hokey or strained. The accomplishment lies not in the shelf space taken up but in the pages themselves, the declarations of hope, victory, and love. And in the idea of the Romance Dawn, not for One Piece's characters but for us, the readers and viewers who've joined in on the journey.

    _________________________________________________________________

  Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Daniel Dockery

[bluegarners]

If you're taking asks I would love to hear your thoughs about the Ric arc and the current state of Nightwing comics!!!!!!!!!! :))

Oh goodness, where to begin...

To start, I share a lot of the same opinions as @nightwingmyboi and @hood-ex ~~ they have very extensive and well thought out takes on the Ric Arc and the general direction DC has decided to take Dick Grayson with, along with his legacy of Nightwing. I highly suggest you read some of their posts about it, as they are very informative and probably more well versed in explaining opinions, haha!

So, my thoughts on the Ric Arc? Like most fans of Nightwing, I believe it kinda sucked ass. Like, sucked ass in the way where DC kinda just forgot characterizations (again), made it all about Batman (again), and ignored good side characters (Bea). The only thing positive I can really say about that whole arc was the art- I really enjoyed the take on Dick's features in Nightwing #74. I was happy they gave him more ethnic looking features with the fuller lips and the more angular nose. (However, they kinda screwed up with the heights??? Jason was tiny!! Barely 5' 4" it looked like LOL) The colors were pretty as well, Ryan Benjamin is a favorite artist of mine, and most of the scenes were fluid.

Another positive I can say about the Ric Arc is one of the very beginning scenes, where Damian goes to see Dick in the hospital while he's still recovering. It was moving that they let Damian be an impatient child when "demanding" for Dick to wake up, and then follow it up with him essentially fleeing and crying when he's not answered. Of course, Damian isn't really mentioned again after this, but it was still really nice to see this side of his character.

The plot.... where do I start? I don't think I'll get too much into it because it'll only frusturate me more sdfslhf but I'll say this. While I am a fan of Dick Grayson angst, DC made it very... unenjoyable, for lack of a better word. It felt like they just threw in as many villains as possible, what with the introduction of the new "sidekick" for Joker, aka Punchline, the Court of Owls appearing for a very brief time just to screw with Dick's memory more, KGBeast and Bane conspiring to get to Batman through Nightwing BY SHOOTING HIM IN THE HEAD (okay, mini rant here: DC, if you're going to make this comic about Nightwing, please please please actually make it about Nightwing. Make the problem about him, not Batman. I get that Bane is kind of the main motivator here, what with him trying to break Batman by killing his oldest allie and destroying his marriage with Seleina, but surely there are writers at the DC headquarters that can come up with a separate problem that doesn't always involve Batman. Surely that's possible right? Nightwing's whole persona was made so he could be recognized separately from Batman; stepping away from Robin was supposed to free Dick of his restrictive ties to the Bat symbol. By always tying Dick's problems immediately back to Batman or one of his enemies, it defeats the purpose of Nightwing being his own hero with his own villians and his own freakin city with its own dozens of problems!!)

Continuing on with villains, here's what I can remember off the top of my head: KGBeast, Bane, Punchline, Joker, Harely (not really, but I'm going to add her anyway), Talon, and the Court of Owls. Now, this is going to controversial, but I'm also going to add the Batfam as part of that list, and here's why. They didn't care. Plain and simple, they didn't care about Ric, they only cared about Dick and what he could do for them. There were a grand total of maybe three times where the Batfam reached out to Ric to try and reason with him, but before all of that, they re-traumatized an already amnesiac and confused person by showing him get assassinated. Like, Bruce. Wth?? I know a lot of this was mostly character assassination, especially with Barbara, but come on. Barbara was really weird throughout this entire arc, and even after he goes back to "normal", she blames Dick for being mean to her, completely ignoring the fact that he didn't know who she was half the time. And that he was, ya know,

mind controlled by multiple villains for a majority of the comic.

Moving past all of that, since I feel like I could rant for ages about it, I didn't like how abruptly they ended that arc. The crystal being my main problem. DC has many scapegoats, the lazerous pit being their biggest imo, but a crystal? All they had to do was show it to him and BOOM cured??? There was no character development. The build up to it could hardly be called build up, as it was done and over with in the span of a few panels. Nothing felt high stakes anymore, and then after he got his memories back, everyone cheered and was like "yay, he's back to normal! you were a real ass to us, and we're not going to apologize for leaving you homeless and left to fend for yourself against all these villains even though you had no memories! oh, but don't worry! we were watching this whole time, so we just let all that stuff happen to you! wow, so glad you're back- we really need Nightwing, but I guess having Dick back is okay too."

That's a very crass interpretation of what went down, but that's what happened. Bruce's half assed excuse of "I was always watching" was awful because then it just leads to more problems of, oh well, if you were always there, why didn't you rent him an apartment so he didn't have to live out of his taxi? Or get him out of trouble and bar fights? Or stop the Joker from getting him and taking control of his mind? Or any numerous terrible things that happened to Ric? It's just annoying that no one seems to actually try and emphathize with what Dick went through, and it's all getting brushed to the side in favour of, "oh, well, back to work!"

They could've gone down so many pathways with Dick getting shot in the head, but instead they gave him amnesia, trauma, bad reception from the fam, and being passed around from villian to villain just to be used over and over again. It felt like this weird dump fest where the writers just woke up one morning and was like, "how many characters can we fit into this arc to get the most amount of readers as possible? How can we become more controversial?"

I know that in the arc after Ric, we're getting some of the aftermath. I'm so so happy they let Dick cry over Alfred's death (he really needed that release of emotions, poor boy has been bottling them up for the sake of others [again, DC, I know he's supposed to be the emotionally controlled one, but please let him be healthy with his emotions and not a shut in with them]) but they still haven't addressed Damian? Like, Dick and Damian were arguably the closest before shit hit the fan, and Dick isn't wondering where the kid is? Or exactly what happened with Alfred and how Damian witnessed it?? A large part of it is the Batfam not telling Dick any of it and kind of just leaving him to his own devices now that the "issue" has been resolved (sound familiar? history repeats itself yet again....). Something else that bugs me a bit is that everyone is telling Dick what he should be feeling/thinking/doing/etc. No one's letting him... grieve. Like, Dick just got his memories back and he's probably grappling with old trauma that's now fresh in his face. Additionally, everyone is assuming he's just going to go back to normal, as if none of what just happened, well, happened. They're erasing this brand spanking new trauma, along with the news that Alfred was murdered, and the fact that Dick is still trying to do his best for his family because it's whats expected of him. I mentioned earlier that Barbara was being really weird, @nightwingmyboi actually already made a post about it, but when Dick tries to apologize and talk to her about what happened when he was Ric, she just kind of... runs away? Dramatically? Didn't even attempt to hear what dick had to say- she was just so consumed with her own hurt that talking wasn't an option for whatever reason. WHICH IS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF HER CHARACTER. It's frusturating because Dick is doing his best to apologize to people when he should have nothing to apologize for- he wasn't under any of his own control and the things he did while Ric or "Dickie-boy" weren't under his own will. If anything, Dick is the one that should get an apology and a hug; he's been through so much and no one seems to be acknowledging that.

All of that to say: I liked the idea of what the Ric arc could've offered, but the plot fell through and just disappointed a lot of people. I'm hoping a lot of the issues presented in the Ric arc that went unaddressed do end up being properly resolved in the newer arcs coming out, but I'm not going to be surprised if it doesn't. Sorry for the long answer LOL

[ginger-snaps014]

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Because I am trying to actually post my art again. Also I need to stop watching dc shows since this is getting out of hand.

Enjoy my random OC I created after rewatching young Justice and Titans. In whatever multiverse she lives in, Greyson is still robin but older (think junior/senior in high school pre-fallout with Batman). And most members of the team are young justice versions. She is a scholarship student at Gotham Academy and is roommates with the daughter of a former ambassador’s to bealya who does not like talking about her mum (spoiler not Queen Bee).

Personality: sarcastic with trust issues galore; she tend to lean into anger and humor as a defense. Despite her parentage (presumably because she never knew her parents), she has a strong moral code despite being able to quickly befriend villains. She likes to call out the hero’s when they are being self righteous picks (especially if she is saving their butts or saving an innocent). Prickly, but overall good.

Episode one: Diamonds are not a Girls Best Friend.

Opening- one year ago

You meet Gwen in school being harassed for her scholarship status and bored as hell. Use this scene to establish personality. Next meet her bubbly roommate who starts talking about being jealous of the Wayne Scholarship dinner that will be held at the Manor, clothing etc. makes Gwen borrow a nice dress because otherwise Gwen would go in casual black jeans (which is all wrong for a cocktail event per the roommate).

Next major scene is in the limo with the other scholarship kids (only 1-3 per grade). Easter egg with atriums. Alfred and Greyson greet the kids at the door, and Greyson leads the group in a tour of the manor. During the tour near the entryway, they pass a large jewel that perfectly matches Gwen’s eyes and seems to slightly glow. Close up of Gwens schooled face looking like she saw a ghost. She asking dick about the gem as if disinterested and asking why it was in the Manor. Dick explaining someone had stole it last year from local gallery, and that Batman had just recently recovered it and handed it over to the gallery’s owner. Who in turn asked Bruce, an old friend, to secure it while the gallery’s security is being upgraded. Next scene is a vaguely uncomfortable dinner scene where Bruce has to leave within 5 minutes of being introduced to the group. He tells Dick to stay. While leaving Gwen realizes she left her phone at the table and leaves the limo to retrieve. She stares again at the jewel and tells herself “it is a coincidence.” She grabs her phone. The limo has already left. Dick finds her at the door and seems annoyed (and like he is in a rush). They call a cab and wait awkwardly in the entryway. Suddenly the windows burst. Smoke bombs and knockout gas are thrown in side. Blurry men in full tactical gear bust in as Gwen collapses. When she wakes up she tried up in a chair next to dick (also tied up and seemingly unconscious though a few panels will show his eyes partially open). Gwen struggles only to hear a familiar laugh. “Isn’t life funny, last we were all together,” motions to himself and and the stone (still in its glass case though the other masked men are trying to break in), “I killed you”. She looks up with disgust. “Missed you too sweetie”. The man lifts up his mask to reveal a teenage boy. And Gwen spits at him. Fun dialog show that they at least dated and she had something to do with the original theft. They finally get the stone and start to leave. “Oh right. lose ends” he aims a gun at her and it clicks. The barrel was empty. Laughing to himself the leader then tells one of the other men to get her up. Smiling. She is coming with us. One of the masked men speak. He sounds older and more mature. “That is an unnecessary risk. Leave her or kill her.” The leader throws a tantrum yelling that he hired the men. “Just shut up and do what you are fucking told”. Gwen has her hands tried behind her back and is forced up the stairs to the roof. She looks over her shoulder at Dick who looks asleep and cooperates.

Next Panel in the background his chair is empty. Gwen is on the roof watching a helicopter come closer. Suddenly one of the men is pulled backwards into the dark. Traditional Batman style fight with henchmen. Only the leader remains. He pulls Gwen to him and holds a knife to her throat. “Come any closer, you fucker, and I kill her!” Gwen smiles. “I’d like to see to see you try.” Suddenly she stomps on leader’s foot, and spins away unscathed. Notably, in the struggle the knife slashed Gwen but there was no blood, only blue sparks. She stands before the leader, her dress cut across the middle (clearly showing her skin … with no cuts). Leader pulls out a gun and Robin’s voice emerges from the shadows telling his to drop the gun… and likely making a joke. The leader starts firing at the shadows. We heard robin curse as if hit. Gwen jumps in and says his fight is with her. She walks slowly towards him and he fires repeatedly. The bullets bounce off with a flash of blue light. Her eyes are glowing. “You!!” He screams “It chose you!!” Gwen clocks him across the face and the leader collapses to the ground. She turns over her shoulder to ask the boy in the shadows if he is ok. He comes out. Intrigued. His leg is bleeding but he promises it was only a graze. She looks down at her dress. “Well this sucks.” Jokes about dry cleaners and coverups. Gwen mentions the Wayne ward passed out inside. And sees her cab coming towards the house. Thanks robin and jumps off the roof. We see her land and walk towards the cab.

Next scene is her getting a package early in the morning with a new dress the perfectly matches her roommates and her phone. And a joking note from robin. She see dick in a nearby classroom and asks how he is doing. He says fine but is clearly in pain. She can see some blood seeping through his pant’s leg where robin had been grazed. She says nothing. And the las scene just says “now. “ Showing robin and Gwen soaring on a roof.

Sad Origin or Juliet should have just Stayed Home: (Notably all covered in one issue as background info to avoid romanticizing pain and trauma) first thing to notice in the first panel. Gwen has brown eyes instead of the normal eerie blue). She thinks she is an orphan being raised by a loving aunt, only to have her home blown up by faulty gas lines (spoilers was not the gas lines). She ends up in the Narrows living in a group home with a hot boy (he is the leader that tried to steal the gem in the earlier episode). She is alone, without a safety net and traumatized. He starts dating her. And is a manipulative and emotionally abusive asshole. He tells her the mob has his missing birth father and will kill him if he does not get a certain stone (that just happens to be on display as of that morning in her dead AU ants gallery). The gem had been brought over by an anonymous buyer who what deemed in breach of the purchase agreement and lot rights to the gem. The aunt’s co-owner/ girlfriend had reviewed the jewel and set it up as displayed in the old 15th century painting, weird writing and all. While stealing the gem, Gwen cuts her hand as her boyfriend fucks around and reads the weird script. This accidentally starts an old ritual. After a clean get away, the boyfriend kisses her and pushes off a roof to her death. She accidentally grabs the gem while grabbing for something to safe her life. She wakes up two days later on the street where her body had landed after the fall, with blood stains in her clothing from nonexistent injuries. She feels strange and disconnected from her past as if looking at her entire history through water. She assumes it is shocks and sneaks back into the group home. She uses her aunts oversized jacket hide the blood. Her roommate try’s to get Gwen to fess up where she has been thinking it was a romantic runway. Gwen turns to go to the restroom and roommate says she likes the new contact lenses. Gwen looks up and realizes that her brown eyes have turned an unnatural blue. last panel "what the hell"

Bullet point of storyline notes:

The Halloween special issue. “Never Trust a Cat.” Gwen has her noticing Dicks Gymnastics and being forced by her roommate to go to a Halloween party. She dresses up as a cat. Roommate is kidnapped by guys in tactical gear and has something injected into her. Gwen runs after and with Dick’s help saves the roommate. Only to realize she has been injected with some neurotoxin that slowly makes her susceptible to suggestion that the JL has recently learned about. Obviously created by the light. He says the antidote is in the bat cave and he will take care of the roommate. “If you think I’m leaving her side, Dick Greyson, you are dumber than you look.” Dick tries to deflect. Gwen says fine. He awkwardly holds the roommate while racing through the street on his bike. He looks over his shoulder at Gwen who has not moved. A blue flash is in the sky. He goes through the waterfall. And administers the cure. Suddenly from behind “so this is what the bat cave looks like…. I’ll be honest. I did no expect the giant penny.”Gwen is floating in cloud of blue light that dissipates as she lands.

Batman started avoiding Gwen after only a few sessions

In the same episodes she learns her mother is alive and abandoned her for a life of crime, she learns that her aunt faked her death and left. Apparently, the aunt killed some guy that had been hitting her. He was part of the mob. “It’s not safe for you” crap.

Finds out mum is alive after seeing a picture of cat woman on the bat computer. Turns out Batman had only even given her the maybe scholarship after learning he could be her dad. He grew distant when he learned who was the dad. Oh the abandon meant issues and trust issues I mentioned above.

Turns out robin knew about her parents and had been lying to her for over year. He is also the only person to know her secret so she feel especially betrayed. Needless to say the budding relationship is crushed after their first kiss. She is pissed.

Mum is cat woman. Who had an unwanted pregnancy and gave birth under a fake name. She faked her death in a car accident. And never appeared to look back.

Gwens auburn hair is from her dads side of the family. That’s right cat woman and lex hate fucked after a successful mission. Lex doesn’t know about Gwen.

When Gwen learns who her father is and that Batman and robin have known since testing her DNA (without her consent) a few weeks after meeting her. She is pissed. So she gets drunk underage. Kidnapped by none other than her ex. He had hired Icicle Jr. to guard her. She just wants to avoid the bats at all costs and know she is off the grid. So she spends the next few hours joking with Jr and bonding.robin breaks in. As other henchmen are being beat up, Gwen asks jr if he wants to make a deal. Give me a place off the grid to crash and I will get you out of here. Screams. Jr shrugs and says the money wasn’t that good anyway. Gwen blasts the ceiling creating a hole and grabs jr to fly out. They crash at one of his hideouts and get take out. At some point a group of his friends (probably Easter eggs) come to try to get Jr to come partying. A little bit later. Gwen is at a club in central city with a bunch of villains and having the time of her life. She is flirting with one of the guys that came to Jr’s. And jr is dancing with his own man (is apparently gay in this universe go with it). Gwen is joking and being extremely vague about her “co-workers”. Suddenly green arrow and Artemis crash the party. Artemis says to put down the shot glass. Gwen stays she is just drinking and to chill (she is dealing with some shit and may not be perfectly sober). Artemis fires an arrow that breaks the glass. Small fight and Jr drags Gwen out. They arrive at the apartment laughing. A panel showing days of the week and then hanging out (video games, baseball, etc. just friend shit). Later the same friends at before some over with Jrs new man. They are all hanging out when the others start talking shop. Namely Batman has been captured and will be killed on live tv. They are laughing at how the hero’s won’t find him despite him being just a few bloating away. Gwen excuses herself. And leaves a note to jr thanking and apologizing to jr. she saves Batman. Fight scene. And tells him to never contact her again. It’s snowing when she leaves.

One of the Episodes right after robins betrayal. “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble”. Bus of kids with Gwen on it gets highjacked. Before highjacked, see a football player ruin gwens chem book. The kidnappers make their demands and decide to wait it out at there boss’s place…. Which also happens to host an illegal fighting league. The men joke that they will make someone fight. If you win the whole ransom amount we will let you go. Gwen volunteers. The men laugh. A football player volunteers and gather his friends money to place the bet. He gets knocked out in record time. The b Gwen worked on her school projects volunteers her money up so long as it gwen in the ring. The rules are simple. Step out of the ring, you lose. Get knocked out, you lose. Die, you lose. Gwen first fight is against a larger guy who comes swinging. She dodges and trips him. He lands out of the ring. She wins without throwing a punch. She sees lex in the box. She wins several rounds of increased difficulty. This includes a two on one and blockbuster. Gwen next fight is against bizaro.When he is flying she asks if that counts after stepping out of the ring. No, you have to touch the ground. Gwen does not want people to see her powers. Instead she tumble and flip jumps off the ring tops to reach the lowing rafters. She proceeds to fight and dodge bizaro before jumping on mercy greaves shoulders and asking Lexi if he could spare what he had hidden in his ring. Curious and intrigued he gives her the sliver of kryptonite, which she slide under Bizaro’s skin when she tackles his form. He collapsed in the ring. Comedic scene of her dragging her out of the ring slowly since he is so heavy but technically still awake. She removes the kryptonite as soon as his hand touches the ground outside the ring. It’s the final fight. Makes a joke how she has definitely repaid the ransoms after this this. At this point the kidnappers are impressed and joking with her. She jokes about chem book. They promise to give her 300 bucks for a new one if she beats the next guy. A cage comes down on the ring. A guy smaller than most she has fought is tried up with a hood covering his face. Kids wonder what monster could be worse than Bizaro. The announcer starts going on about this interloper trying to shut the fights down. It’s robin duh. Gwen turns to the kidnappers. “I’m supposed to fight robin. Fun” robin is half to see Gwen and tells her they just need to fake the fight for bit since KG and his other new teammate are there. Gwen says not a problem and punch the lying sidekick across the face and into the bars. She makes a cryptic joke how this will be over In a flash. Just give her five minutes. Cue fight. Robin is good at dodging. But gwen is coming for him. Crowd comments that she seems way more into this fight. Robin ends up tied up and hanging from the top of the cage like a Christmas turkey with one shoulder dislocated (but nothing permanent). He struggles and Gwen asks if he was looking for these. And pulls out his batarangs. Chaos occurs as the young hero’s make their move. An arrow is fired but Gwen blocks it with a batarang saying she still has 20 seconds on the clock. She waits as she counts down then jumps out of the ring as KF comes up. “What they hell” Gwen smirks. “We both know he deserved worse. After I didn’t cause any permanent damage.” She starts walking away. “By the way, don’t worry about taking me home with other hostages. I will find my own ride.” See her ride off on a bike. Artemis walks over to KF “isn’t that Robin’s bike”. “Yep”. Next scene Gwen in bat cave returning the bike when Alfred walks in. “I did not expect to see you here again for a while.” “I needed to return something after all. I’m not a thief.” Alfred looks at the bike and notices some stu wires. He raises an eyebrow. “You found the trackers” Gwen smiles “so will robin. I left them in some interesting places”. Alfred asks if she needs a ride home. She says she fine and has a few errands to run. A chem book to buy” “ miss Kyle, I believe most book stores will be closed at this hour.”

[abbyilr1967]

Out of Time

Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Summary: Peter and Y/n have been together since the events of Spiderman Home Coming. One day while on a field trip Y/n and Peter are called into action as strange aliens claiming the be the “Children of Thanos” begin invading New York. (Takes place during Infinity War, Thanos already has the mind stone)

Warnings: Violence, swearing, some fluff if you squint, and ANGST.

~

The morning had begun the same as usual that day. When you got up you had a good morning text waiting for you from Peter, little did you know that today was going to be way out of the ordinary.

You and Peter were sitting together on the bus during a school field trip when his spidey senses told him that something was very wrong. You both start frantically looking out the bus windows to find the source of the distress.

“Y/n,” Peter tapped you to get your attention. “Over there,” he says pointing at the giant ring-shaped ship floating above New York.

“Oh god,” you reply. You turn to Ned and start tapping him to get his attention. “Ned, we need you to cause a distraction,”

“I’m on it,” He replies. “We’re all gonna die!” he shouts.

As everyone moves to the back of the bus to get a look at the space ship, Peter flings himself off the bus to put his suit on, while you jump out the bus window using the jet booster your father Tony put in your shoes to fly towards the city, while the watch your father also built you is reconstructing your iron suit onto you.

You and Peter both arrive downtown as your Dad and Bruce are trying to fight off this massive alien that looks like it came straight out of a sci-fi novel. The creature backhands your Dad into next week and before you can react, Peter is already there to block the next blow. Next thing you know, a flash of blue and red flies past you.

“Y/n!” your Dad calls to you. “That’s the wizard, go save him!” he shouts.

“We’re on it,” you say as you and Peter race after him.

You catch up to the wizard and latch onto the metal bars that are tied around him, and use your jet boosters to keep him from being sucked into the space ships tractor beam. Peter uses his webs to latch in as well, but the beam was too strong and pulled both you and Peter towards the ship.

“Mr. Stark, we’re being beamed up,” Peter said through the intercom in his mask.

The tractor beam closed before you and Peter had the chance to enter.

“Let’s find way in,” you say.

“On it,” Peter replies.

Using your suit you fly around the exterior of the ship, while Peter starts searching along the inside of the ring.

“Peter we’re too high, you’re running out of air!” you exclaim through your intercom. Flying back around towards him.

“We need to save the wizard,” he replies sounding short of breath. You stop and anchor yourself to the ship.

“Pete, let go I’ll catch you,” your Dad says.

You watch as Peter slowly has no choice but to let go due to lack of oxygen, he falls, and a part of you wants to scream and fly to his rescue. As Peter is falling he is hit by something, you watch as something begins to coat his suit. It seems to be some sort of metal.

“It smells like a new car in here,” he says excitedly.

“Alright great, F.R.I.D.A.Y. take them home,” and just like that both you and Peter are swept away. But not before Peter had a chance to web him and yourself to the side of the ship.

“Let’s find a way in,” you say.

~

“What are you two doing here?” Tony asks in his angry Dad voice.

“We were just trying to he-”

“Nope. Your mother,” Tony says pointing to you. “And your Aunt,” He says pointing to Peter. “Are going to kill me if they knew you were in space,” he says cutting of Peter in the process.

“This is too big of a fight for you two to be apart of, I don’t know what I’d do with myself if one of you got hurt,” he says concerned.

“How can we be friendly neighborhood heroes, if there’s no neighborhood?” Peter asks.

You and your Dad both look at him weirdly.

“Ok that was bad, but you get what I mean,” he said.

“Peter’s right Dad,” you say as your masks retracted from your face. You look straight into your Dad’s eyes, and he can see that you are not gonna give in easily.

“Fine,” he starts. Your dad motions to knight both you and Peter. “You’re Avengers now,”

You and Peter both look at each other and smile. He wraps his arms around you and lifts you into the air, planting a kiss on your lips after setting you back down.

“Alright, keep all the lovey-dovey stuff at the door, we need a game plan,” the Wizard said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m Y/n, and this is Peter,” you say extending your hand out to him.

“Dr. Strange,” he says.

Peter leans over to whisper in your ear, “We’re using our made-up names?” “I guess so,” you say jokingly.

“I’m Spiderman,” he says. You snort as you see the confused expression from Dr. Strange. Peter sees you laughing and shoves your shoulder.

You look over to see your Dad fidget with the control panel of the ship.

“We need to turn this ship around,” DR. Strange said.

“Welp, it’s on auto-pilot, so we are on our way right to Thanos,” Tony says to Dr. Strange.

You and Peter tune out your dad and Dr. Strange as they fight. You pull Peter off to the side as the realization of what you’re about to go through sets in. He could see the distressed look on your face.

“Babe, what's wrong?” he asks.

“I’ve never seen my Dad so worried like this before,” you say nervously. “I think we might be biting off more than we can chew,” you say nervously.

“Hey hey hey hey hey, we’re gonna be fine, when have we ever given up,” he says holding you and stroking your hair.

“You’re right,” you say leaning into his touch. “You always know what to say,”

He gives you a forehead kiss and one last tight squeeze before you go back over to talk strategy.

~

You had crashed onto Titan after a “flawless” landing by Peter and your father. You are awaiting the arrival of Thanos, but when you had arrived on Titan you were ambushed by a group who you thought were working with Thanos. it was only after bickering back and forth that you found out that we were all the same side here. Their names are StarLord, Drax, and Mantis. Your father gathered everyone together to try to work out a plan, to which newbies were skeptical. Once a plan was in place, everyone went to their places, ready to ambush him when he arrived.

That’s when you heard it, the sound of heavy boots stomping onto the planet.

You look over and can see Peter, he locks eyes with you.

“I love you,” you mouth to him.

“I love you too,” he mouths back.

You are waiting for your cue from Dr. Strange who has been talking to Thanos to distract him.

“I’m sure you will find our will much stronger,” and with that you attack.

Your father came rushing in, crashing a building down on top of him. We stood around thinking that he was dead, little did you know, it only made him angrier. He burst out from under the rubble and Peter tries to use his webs to hold him down, but he only used it against him. He pulled Peter towards him and caught him by the throat. Only to them slam him into the ground.

“Tiny insect,” you could he Peter struggling under the weight of Thanos.

“Let him go!’ you shout as you rush toward him with your iron hammer fist ready to punch him.

You go in one punch, but not before he let Peter go, and grabbed your arm instead. Hurdling you across the battlefield. You hit a pile of rubble and struggled to catch your breath and regain your balance. Your vision had gone foggy, but you could see your father in all his rage, fighting Thanos. You got up and could see that they had Thanos is a trance.

“Y/n!” your Dad called. “We almost got it off, come help.”

In an instant, you were right by Peter trying your hardest to pull it off.

That’s when he woke up, threw everyone off of him, and grabbed you.

“No!” you could hear Peter shouting as he took you by the throat.

“So small,” he said. “Barely lived a life, and yet so ready to give everything up to save everyone,” you spit in his face.

“I’d rather die fighting you than sit home doing nothing,” you spat.

“Your wish is my command,” and he squeezed harder. The corners for your vision started to become blurry, and your lungs begin to burn.

“Stop!” you hear Dr. Strange. “I will give you the time stone if you let the girl go,”

“No, don’t” you struggle. “Don’t do it,”

He took a minute to contemplate. “Fine,” he said, throwing you at your father’s feet. Peter comes running over.

“Y/n, baby, your gonna be fine,” he says as he holds you.

You open your eyes and can see just as Dr. Strange is giving the stone to Thanos.

“No,” you sigh.

Just then a wave of power shook the ground, and you saw it. The sheer power that the gauntlet holds. And before any of you could do anything, he snapped.

The world shook. He was gone. And you had a sick feeling in your stomach.

“He’s gone,” your father said quietly.

“It’s my fault,” you said, moving into an upright position. “I should have done more,” you sigh.

“You did enou-” as your father was talking he looks over and Drax, Starlord, and Mantis have turned to dust. This prompted you and Peter to both look over, just in time to see Dr. Strange turn to dust.

“Dad?” you ask panicked.

“You’re going to be fine-,” you Dad started to say. “Peter?” \

“I-I-I don’t feel so good,” Peter said. “Y/n, I-I-,” he stumbled into you. You held him tight, you can feel something in the pit of your stomach.

“I love you,” is the last thing you hear from him before he turns into dust.

“Dad! He’s g-g-gone,” you tried to hold back a sob.

That’s when you felt it. It started in your hands. You looked down with tears in your eyes as you see your hand start to crumble. You look back to your dad.

“Daddy,” you whimper.

And the last thing you saw was the look on your father’s face as his heart broke, and your vision went black.

~

I hope you guys liked this, I know I haven’t been posting a lot, but I got the inspiration for this and couldn’t not write it ❤️

[diloph]

Covers always lie.

Spoilers below the cut.

I know that the full Deathstroke arc isn’t completely over yet, but now that it looks like Clayface was only in the third issue, I’m pretty annoyed that Annie got used as a cover shill for the new BTAS comics when her likeness was used so briefly.

Like two panels, boom, done.

I can understand that her reappearing safe and sound might’ve undermined the tragedy of the episode she appeared in and hell, I would have been okay with what actually happens in the issue; where Clayface tries to pull a fast one on Robin, only for Tim to instantly see through it and hit him back. Keep in mind that Hagan has to do something nasty to get him stuffed in a jar before he resurfaces in Justice League.

But... really? You’re going to put Annie (or “Annie”) on the cover just to make people go “oh damn, I remember that episode, is she back or is it a cruel trick?” and use her for so little? That’s really how you use the character that created so much drama?

It’s even more annoying considering that even when you look at what was done, it could have easily been a full episode in the arc itself. I’d seen others’ suggestions pre-release about how it might’ve went down: Deathstroke hunting Clayface and Hagan ends up duping Robin by pretending to be his errant scout in order to get protection from Batman and the like, only to be outed at the end.

Granted, it’s not my favourite suggestion of how things would go with Annie or Clayface, but I think that it could have fit the tone of the BTAS episode she’d appeared in all the same. Having that further kick in the teeth, considering what happens to poor Tim Drake in the future, is maybe a little too dismal and tragic but it still would have been something I could have seen as a full episode on TV.

Whilst Tim seems to be a larger part of the interactions with Deathstroke so far, it could have been a good lead-in, where we could have gotten a good look at Tim again. We might’ve gotten some interesting character interactions with him caught between “Annie” and Bruce.

It could even call back to the Annie episode in question and give us a chance to see how Tim actually took the whole ordeal, considering in that it was sort of avoided at the end of the episode. It would at least set up a nice opportunity for Bruce and his charge to come to the same sort of empathy and understanding we saw from Dick Grayson when he and Batman came to loggerheads over Tony Zucco.

Of course, this is just me focusing on the Robin side of things because he’s still alive and a main character to this day. What if it had actually been Annie, returned from oblivion? Sent out as yet another decoy for Deathstroke and Batman to chase while Clayface makes a getaway? What if he had, in reference to his original arcs, gave up on becoming Matt Hagan, only for a sudden potential cure to be discovered?

We all know that he doesn’t get cured, but if there was an option to non-lethally neutralise a member of his rogues gallery permanently, I could see the colder and more pragmatic Batman of The New Adventures to seize upon such an opportunity. That in mind, if Hagan wanted to keep his powers, wouldn’t it be a good back-up plan for him to send out the poor, innocent Annie to take the metaphorical bullet of the cure so that he could continue his life of crime?

Or, for the same reasons, he sends Annie out as a smokescreen so that he can get close to the inventor of the cure and kill them so that it couldn’t be used against him? Or if he did want to become human and sent her as a test subject considering his usual luck when it came to chances like that? 

Surely the Caped Crusder would rather give the cure to her rather than a hardened crook like Clayface? How would Bruce react to her? To the plan itself? Would he suspect it from the beginning and argue with Tim over Annie’s involvement in it? Or would his convictions as a good man come through for them in the end and help to save her? He would at least try to duplicate the serum to cure them both first, only to discover it isn’t an option and choose to help the innocent kid. Help her to master her control over herself to make her morphology human enough for the cure to work, that sort of thing.

As for Annie herself, there’s all sorts of things you could do with her. Granted, I don’t think giving her Clayface’s suite of powers and making her a bit-part crime fighter would be... tonally appropriate, all things considered, but there are other options that the reasonably grounded world of the DCAU could go without it going over the top. Something akin to Teen Titans’ ending for Terra.

Being reabsorbed into Clayface might’ve been an interesting way to look at Annie’s character when she resurfaces. Does she consider herself Matt Hagan? Something separate, yet similar? After all that time, would Annie even remember Tim? That could be part of her story, remembering all they went through, setting her up to sacrifice herself again, only for things to go right this time?

Moreover, if they brought her back in full, it would have meant that the strongest point of Annie’s episode would come into play; the relationship between her and Tim. It wouldn’t have to be romantic or anything, good friends are likely just as hard to come by in Gotham city, but I think that it would be good for Tim Drake to have ties to somebody outside of Bruce’s cadre of caped nitwits to fall back on post Joker-brainwashing.

Have Tim fight to help her regain her sense of self, her memories. Have Annie wrestle with the fact that she could end up with a normal life outside of everything she’s ever known. Have Batman struggle between taking a powerful player out of the Gotham crime scene and being human, as is the greatest strong point of the DCAU’s portrayal of Batman. Have Clayface appear in a medium not restricted by animation and do wilder things.

It just seems like such a waste of a good idea.

All in all, I can get why they didn’t really bring Annie back. It would have made the arc that brings in Deathstroke solely about her and/or Clayface, which defeats the purpose of Deathstroke himself acting as a set-up for Jason Todd. The slap in the (Clay)face from Matt Hagan, while not my favourite, would’ve been fine as a straight-up gut-punch to both the reader and to poor Robin, even as that single bit.

But putting her on the cover just seems kinda low to me, man.