post-trimax vash meets stampede wolfwood
[ID: Black and white comic of Vash and Wolfwood of their Stampede versions. The comic starts with Wolfwood continuing off a conversation, saying “I didn’t mean t’say anythin’ bad to her. She just took it the wrong way. But anyway...” Wolfwood speaks with a hand gestured flippantly while Vash, who’s seated next to him, just listens. Vash thinks to himself, “Talks more about himself... Honest expressions... Immature, though he was pretty immature too.” He smiles and continues to think, “And yet...”
A panel of Vash’s eye directed now to the sky. He thinks, “Some things are bound to be the same with us...” He thinks of a memory, the version from Maximum of him and Wolfwood, back shown as they chatted underneath two moons, one moon with a hole through it. Vash continues, “Isn’t that right, W-“ His thoughts are interrupted by Wolfwood coming into a view, a close up his deadpan expression. Vash utters out “-olfwood..?” with a nervous expression. He starts to explain, “Um. Sorry if it seemed like I wasn’t listening, I was! So, let’s keep talking?”
Vash smiles and puts his hands together as he says, “okay?” Wolfwood glares at him with gritted teeth and Vash immediately remembers, “Right, he’s more short-tempered...” He continues to think, “Maybe Plan B works with him—“ before he’s grabbed by his coat collar aggressively and changes thoughts, “OK, never mind, brace for impact..!” But he’s surprised when he’s tugged instead, him and Wolfwood flops against the ground. Wolfwood puts an arm over Vash and says, “I don’t need to be entertained, blondie. If yer tired, we can go to sleep.”
Two close up panels of Wolfwood and Vash’s eyes looking at each other, Wolfwood taking off Vash’s glasses as he says, “Am I wrong?” Vash thinks to himself, “Actually... I was being genuine when I said I wanted to keep talking. I don’t feel tired at all. But, I think you know this body more than I do.”
Vash’s thoughts continue, “I can’t deny the me you’re fond of from being taken care of. And I could never deny your kindness. Even though...” Vash finally smiles and says, “You’re not wrong...” Wolfwood smiles back before tugging Vash closer and says, “Then, let’s sleep.” Vash asks, “Should we get a blanket?” Wolfwood asks, “Why?” before kissing Vash on the cheek, “I’ll keep you warm.” Vash puts his face into both his hands and flushes. Wolfwood smiles cheekily and asks, “What?” Vash responds, “I was caught off guard..” Wolfwood says, “You’ve said worse though.” Vash responds, “Did I...” The panel phases out and the dialogue returns to Vash’s thoughts. He thinks, “I want to stay a bit longer. Talk a bit longer.
You’re tired here too. The future is always going to be unfair to you. I want to protect you from it. I want to hold you close so you won’t go far.” The thoughts overlap the scene of Wolfwood now sleeping peacefully against Vash with an arm over him, Vash’s jacket draped against him as a blanket. Vash looks at him and a small thought bubble thinks, “He can fall asleep first...” His previous thoughts continue, “I know I can’t. I already had that chance.” A close up of Vash putting his hand over Wolfwood’s. He continues, “I wasn’t capable once, I can’t be sure I’d be capable a second time. And in a way...”
Vash’s thoughts continue with the back drop of the sky, Stampede’s sky of two moons without holes, “Some things are bound to be the same. But I know you’ll be loved again and again in a way I’d never know.” A split panel, one half contains the sleeping face of Wolfwood from Stampede, the other of Wolfwood from Trimax. In turn, the Vash lying down looking fondly at Wolfwood shifts to the post Trimax Vash while the other versions, Stampede and earlier Trimax, are faintly drawn next to him doing the same. Vash closes his eyes and finally drifts to sleep as the final text reads, “Goodnight, Wolfwood.”
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Tim Drake has a weird fucking function
The thing about Tim that I find unique is that his life became SO MUCH WORSE after joining the heroing thing. Everybody else had a mid-to-shit life before becoming a hero/living with Bruce and mostly everybody (except Jason who LITERALLY DIED) had their life improved by being a hero/being Bruce's kid (or at least it is typically portrayed as such.
Tim had the exact opposite trajectory. His life wasn't perfect before he became Robin, but like...multi-millionaire/billionaire (canon is unclear, but he's within Gotham's upper-strata) kid with both natural intelligence + charisma and a bright future ahead of him and parents who were emotionally neglectful but nothing really beyond that (which is also a form of trauma, but all of the info we have indicates that the Drakes were no Arthur Brown or David Cain) and he still had other people he could rely on outside of them. He went to boarding school, which could be something horrible OR something amazing depending on your own thoughts/experiences. I grew up having a commute where we'd drive past a really pretty and rich af boarding school that literally everybody in our area DREAMED of going to, so to me the idea of going to boarding school sounds incredible but mileage may vary. Tim seems like the type of kid who would thrive in that though. Based on what we know in canon atm, his pre-robin life was fucking amazing.
And then he starts being the sidekick and working towards becoming Robin. His parents immediately get kidnapped and poison themselves through drinking tainted water; his mom dies and his dad is in a coma. This is not the fault of Robin, but Tim himself muses about the idea that Robin and dead parents are linked: to become Robin completely, you must lose your parents. And with how fate/destiny/canon events can operate in comics universes, maybe he isn't that far off. Once his dad wakes up, their relationship becomes strained as the man grieves the loss of his wife and realizes that his son has been doing vigilantism as a hobby. It is unclear exactly how good of a parent Jack was before the incident, but the results of Tim's involvement with the Robin mantle has definitely made things worse between father and son. Jack will also die within quick succession of 2 of Tim's best friends, his girlfriend, and his other father. He will also effectively lose like 1/2 his loved ones in the fallout of all of that mess including: his older brother, his other friends (both civilian and superhero), and the stepmother with whom he shared what I would argue is his best parent-child relationship (Dana also may have died, but it's left unclear). He has stopped pursuing higher education (the moment he even applied for college he 'died', and it seems he hasn't made another attempt since) and if he wasn’t a major focus of the media before he sure is now. He tries to quit briefly (in fact he initially was planning on quitting once someone more suited came along) and cannot bring himself to do so. Even when he does manage to get away for a while, his superhero life impacts the pre-robin life he is trying to go back to. Leaving is an impossibility, this is all there is for him now. He also isn’t allowed to make mistakes anymore, not when lives hang in the balance. The one who enforces that impossible standard the most (besides Bruce depending on who's writing) is himself. He’s got TRAUMA now and people want to hurt him constantly. He is constantly questioning his own sanity and morality and place in the world. He almost dies like every month. Tim grows colder and less grounded, he is becoming both a better and a worse version of himself at the same time. He’s saving lives in the same few issues as he’s setting up a Saw movie plot for the man who killed his father. He is haunted by the ghosts of his past and the looming figure of his future. His life becomes SO MUCH FUCKING WORSE after he becomes Robin. Some of it is the fault of others, some is the fault of circumstance, and some of it is due to his own actions. But basically all of Tim's worst traumas and life-changing moments are either tied to or caused by Robin. Dick's parents would still be dead, Jason would still be living on the streets, Stephanie would still have Arthur Brown for a father and a lot of other things that deserve their own posts/IDK if they've been retconned, and Damian would still have been raised in the eco-cult where death is a constant. Those are life circumstances that occur without the involvement of Robin, the only one who even needs Bruce involved at all in their series of events is Damian. But Tim? All of what is considered his 'worst' moments occur after he assumes the role.
This idea is what I find the coolest and most fascinating about Tim as a character. Being a hero is usually portrayed as either an outright awesome thing or a righteous duty that one must fulfill or (maybe in a grimmer and/or more grounded story) a sacrifice to your interpersonal relationships/mental health that is made for the greater good. For Tim, being a superhero actively ruined his life (both because of the general circumstances surrounding being a kid vigilante and the choices he made as part of that role). It's never portrayed that way in canon because we need to come out of issues going 'wow being a superhero is so cool! I'm gonna buy the next issue!', but when you just look at Tim's life literally everything really bad that we know of occurred after he became Robin.
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Did Tim “kill” King Snake and does Bruce know?
In Tim’s first solo min, he goes to Paris to learn martial arts and get that “edge” he thinks he needs to properly assume his role as Robin. He ends up on the tail of British Lord, Hong Kong-based heroine kingpin, leader of the Ghost Dragon gang, Sir Edmund Dorrance AKA King Snake (who is blind, which will be important later). Tim’s only companions on this world tour are Lady Shiva, who wants to defeat Dorrance to prove herself stronger, and ex-DEA agent Clyde Rawlins, who wants revenge against Dorrance for Dorrance’s reprisal killing of his family.
Robin I #4 -- the dream team, I love them
The trio catch up to Dorrance in Hong Kong, where he’s waiting for them in what seems to be the top suite of his skyscraper, 50 stories up.
In this final confrontation with Dorrance, Tim takes full advantage of a crucial moment of distraction to kick Dorrance out of the window. Dorrance ends up clinging to a ledge, hanging on for dear life.
Shiva then appears to order Tim to kill Dorrance, presumably by kicking him off the ledge. (It becomes clear then that this is how Shiva intends to prove herself stronger than Dorrance: she trained Tim and therefore Tim is her weapon and an extension of herself. If Tim defeats Snake, she defeats him by proxy).
Tim refuses and walks away. All we see is him listen as Dorrance falls to what Tim explicitly assumes is his death, 50 stories down.
Robin I #5
So, while Tim isn't directly responsible for Dorrance's death, he was the one to put him in that position and then left him there to fall.
It’s unclear how Tim conceives of his actions here and how we are supposed to interpret them, especially in light of Tim’s refusal to kill in earlier chapters in this arc (and after).
Robin I #2
Robin I #4 -- I love Shiva
He stopped Rawlins from shooting and killing gang members, but then points to the danger Rawlins might have put them in by accidentally shooting crates containing plague (please read this arc it’s really fun despite suffering from uh. severe written in the 90s syndrome) and then explicitly restates his vow not to kill.
AND THEN, the plot thickens!!!
Dorrance did not actually fall to his death; he caught himself on a ledge below, where he believes Tim came down to taunt him. He came away from his fall with a fear of Tim and an obsession with killing him to purge himself of that fear. (anyway Sir Edmund Dorrance walked so Ra’s could run)
Batman (1940) #468
Batman (1940) #469
Dorrance moves to Gotham with the Ghost Dragons and takes over Chinatown (which. Who decided to put, a British lord, what boils down to an allegory of British colonialism in Hong Kong as the head of Chinatown? I have questions – anyway crimelord Lynx ftw)
In the course of his pursuit of Robin, it is revealed that Bruce believes “it was Lady Shiva that caused Dorrance to plunge to his death”—that Tim told him this.
Batman (1940) #469
This is clarified a bit more later, when Bruce confronts Dorrance.
#469
Dorrance explicitly accuses Tim of murder. He outlines the incident leading up to his fall—that Tim tricked him and attacked him from behind (he did, we saw this), that Dorrance was left dangling, and that Tim then caused him to fall.
Bruce refutes this accusation by claiming that it “wasn’t Robin who left you for dead. … Robin spared you. It was Lady Shiva who threw you to your death.”
From this, we can assume that in the moments after Tim refused Shiva and walked away, Shiva threw Dorrance down, which he didn’t realize because, as Bruce claims, he is blind and was likely traumatized by the incident. We can’t know this for sure, however—that Shiva threw him down—for exactly those reasons. Bruce is working off what Tim apparently told him, but we—and Tim—did not see this happen.
Bruce’s explanation of what actually happened also calls into question what exactly Tim told him about what happened.
It’s unclear what exactly he is refuting by: “It wasn’t Robin who left you for dead.” Does he not count Tim leaving Dorrance hanging as “leaving him for dead” or is the implication that Bruce thinks Shiva was the one who both threw Dorrance out the window and off the ledge? We never actually see what Tim told Bruce.
This leaves us with some possibilities:
that what Tim did by leaving Dorrance to dangle, by leaving him to Shiva, does not count against Batman’s no-killing rule.
Perhaps that Bruce does not feel that he could have expected or wanted Tim to step between Shiva and her target, Dorrance
that Bruce does not actually know what really happened—that Tim kicked Dorrance out the window, which in turn implies that either Tim may have stretched the truth or Bruce misinterpreted (purposefully?) what Tim told him
These all seem inconsistent, however, with incidents further down the line, with Cluemaster for example, and then when Tim rebukes Azbats for leaving Abattoir to die. A core tenet of Tim’s characterization is his sometimes frustrated but dedicated adherence to the no-kill rule (im beating anyone who cites the league bases at me away with a stick). So I don’t know what to do with this. Maybe it’s just comic inconsistency. Chuck Dixon, what are you doing?
If anyone has any thoughts about how to reconcile all this!! Please grant me peace
ADDENDA
i.e. stuff that I can’t possibly expect to be addressed in comics, but that I think about anyway
Related to this arc—a point is made a few issues later that Tim at this time doesn’t really have anyone to confide in. He can't really talk to Batman, isn’t close to Dick at this point, and while he is willing to work with Alfred and ask for help with Bat-related things, they’re not yet emotionally close. This isolation is poignantly demonstrated by him confessing his troubles to his still-comatose father.
Robin II #2
WHOM then would he have talked to about all that happened on his little “world tour”? No one? Besides whatever happened with Dorrance and brutal training and isolation, he also had to deal with the fact that Clyde Rawlins—whom he presumably developed some sort of camaraderie with (it’s tim ;-; he forms connections) was killed by Dorrance while working this mission with him.
We know that he had no one to talk to about all that. Did Tim linger on Rawlins????? On the fact that Shiva called him her weapon?? My boy is 13 ;-;
I also love that the whole buildup to Tim’s debut as Robin is Bruce agonizing about whether he should allow another boy to assume the position that cost him his son, and is then followed by plenty of moments after of Batman being overprotective.
Batman (1940) #468
And yet, when Tim is like “I need an edge to be Robin” presumably Bruce?? although this is never explicit connects him with a martial artist in Paris and sends him off on his own. It’s also possible that Tim is the one who comes up with this given that he agonizes a bit over whether he’s doing right by choosing his own path
Robin I #1
Either way, Tim goes to Paris Alone and essentially Unsupervised.
This lack of supervision is further emphasized by the fact that he goes to hunt down a king pin all the way to Hong Kong with Lady fucking Shiva and an ex DEA agent and no other back up. And Bruce presumably doesn’t find out until Tim runs into the hitman Henri Ducard in Hong Kong, who is apparently Batman’s acquaintance. (#5)
I have so many questions. I know that the actual reasoning is probably “oh we want to give this new character a little mini adventure arc on his own!!! To showcase how cool and independent the new robin is” but STILL
(also tim immediately getting himself a little team :’) I lub him)
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On Greta Danesti...
I'm just taking this time to correct a certain anti-Black, (and anti-Romani) sadly typical fandom troll's misogynoir fuckery in the tag and establishing who Greta Danesti is in canon Castlevania animation lore.
This is Greta Danesti's official character sheet:
She's the village headwoman of Danesti a few miles away from Alucard's castle.
This is what her voice actress, Marsha Thompson looks like:
It's pretty obvious her character design took cues from the actress, who is Afro-British.
In show canon, however, her family escaped from the Roman city of Carthage, which today, is located in the African country Tunisia.
Alucard correctly speculated where her people are from while conversing with her, here (s4 e5):
Greta then confirms that her people did escape the Romans, but she now fully embraces her "family" in her village who are "from all over" and the responsibility of taking care of them.
This same troll used the g-slur to insist that she is Romani.
She is not.
This troll used an early character design here, to make her case.:
And though it does have similarities to Romani clothing... It also looks like it takes cues from Tunisian clothing and likely local and non-local European clothing of the era with "fantasy" elements sprinkled in, as well, which would match the fact of her village's people coming from all over:
There definitely should be more Romani rep in media as it is so often whitewashed, but Greta is not Romani.
FYI, these women actors actually *are* of Romani descent:
Fairuza Balk of The Craft, Oona Chaplin who played Robb Stark's wife in GOT (she's also Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter[!]), and Noomi Rapace from the Swedish movie, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo says her father may have been of Romani descent, as well.
And because I can predict it, as people like to find ways of discounting blackness in every way...
Yes, there are plenty of non-Black indigenous POC in North Africa, including within Tunisia.
Another fun fact... Africa has more indigenous human genetic variation among its peoples than every other people on the planet has with everyone else on the planet[!].
All this to say non-white POC AND Black people are indigenous to Tunisia.
I feel I have to say that because there is a lot of anti-Black anthropological fetishization of North Africa. Egypt is a major example of that (see: Rami Malek, an indigenous Coptic Egyptian who self-identifies as African man of color and has likely had to clarify that *often* because people keep wanting to mislabel him as an Arab, but I digress...)
And sadly, there is a decidedly anti-black movement to totally disconnect certain North African countries' identities from a continental African one, and to largely see it as mainly a part of the MENA world (it is both kiddies, BOTH).
Here is an informative article (linked in the image) about that struggle:
So, this got heavy...but between the post insisting that Greta is NOT Black and the one saying she's not bisexual because that same troll is purposefully and maliciously being obtuse about how words go together...
I figured clearing some things up and educating folks might be helpful.
BTW, the fact of those issues in the article makes her blackness all the more resonant as rep in pop culture.
And hey, poly folks have disagreements, just like the het folks do...
-Still bi.
I'm gonna end here with two images from the linked article of anti-racist Tunisian protesters (MENA and Black):
P.S. I also side-eye those keen to make her muscular... I mean yeah she wields a big-ass hammer and shortsword/dagger, but the tendency to masculinize black woman characters deserves a hardy eye-squint.
Especially, given that the show has *no problem* making muscular women look like that and they DIDN'T for Miss Greta.
See: Zamfir and the Berserk-style sword-carrying Vampire warrior, Striga. Both of whom had that flex going on.
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