#with regards to having conflicting feelings about Bruce in this arc

[betterthanbatman1]

There’s something so beautiful yet so chilling about this.

We’re so used to seeing Bruce lash out at Jason. It’s always the same thing between the two:

Bruce goes to stop Jason.

Jason throws a punch saying “he deserved to die”.

Bruce retaliates and beats Jason up saying “you don’t get to decide that. You’re no better than the criminals. Get out of my city.”

Jason says something along the lines of “This isn’t only your city. You had Alfred and money to support you growing up but some people (me) had nothing”

Jason ends up leaving feeling like a worthless piece of shit & continues to hate Batman (& associates), as Bruce continues his mission.

What we never get is them talking to each other. Yes they exchange words, but they never talk. It’s always punch first, talk later. (Rhato #25 my beloathed)

In this panel, Bruce kneels down to be eye to eye with Jason (so much different than when he normally talks down to him). He removes his mask to show Jason that this is Bruce and what he’s doing is focusing on Jason and not on the mission.

He explains what he’s doing and reassures Jason of that: “This isn’t punishment, Jason. I love you”.

Now on the other hand, this is really fucked up. Because Jason is so used to hearing about how he’s screwed up big time and how he’s gone off the rails. What he doesn’t expect is for Bruce to say ‘I love you’ twice, whilst Jason is so vulnerable.

Bruce could beat Jason up and he could send him to Arkham or Blackgate. But he chooses to give Jason a new life in a different city where he won’t have to face the harsh consequences of his actions. What Bruce is showing here is love. At least that’s how Jason should see it. Because his dad isn’t fighting him and isn’t locking him up for murdering people. “I love you Jason but you’re a murderer”.

Now obviously Bruce is not a loving father here since he literally poisoned his son. I just thought it was really interesting to see the juxtaposition between ‘Bruce acting/speaking so kind and endearingly to his clearly struggling son’, with the ‘harshness of his actions towards his son (drugging Jason with fear toxin)’. As well as comparing that to the Bruce we’re so used to seeing face off with Jason.

You see this panel and you feel for both of them. It looks heartwarming to see the way Bruce is talking to Jason. But then when you know what Bruce has done, you feel anger, hate, or simply just knowing this is wrong. There’s so much manipulation from Bruce, that this whole story arc just leaves you feeling conflicted.

I just think that this was quite well done from both the writing and the artwork

[boyfridged]

the brilliance of jay's progression in countdown is that it gives you a promise of positive character development, and then it breaks it. and it does so intentionally, in the most diverting way, to emphasize jason's inability to escape the cycle.

or, another post breaking down the series, where i repeat myself a lot but also make a clearer argument.

there are three notable events that happen at the beginning: the subtle showcase of jay's internal conflict considering his approach toward killing (the very first encounter with duela and the monitor), jay reaching out to donna in crisis ("i guess I just wanted to be around someone else who might know how it feels…"), and finally – his helmet shattering. these scenes tell you: jason's direction as a character is changing, and it seems, for the better. he's about to abandon his trauma-based (no matter how ironic, it does remain tied to his trauma) identity, he is connecting with people, and he seems to be on a brink of understanding that his moral standing does not provide easy answers or solutions either.

and for the most part of the series, we see that narrative unfolding (even if a bit non-linear, still innocently convincing way). it is, in many ways, supported by bringing up features of his characterisation from the 80s. jason remains, of course, still unpleasant in ways typical for this era of writing, and is conflicted and disagreeable, which makes sense for his utrh/post-utrh personality. however, there are also details that bring us back to his original robin run and his cameos on ntt – we see him being responsible (e.g. #43 – suggesting to bring in other superheroes in crisis, even though he clearly is not keen on the idea of working with them), determined (#16: “isn’t that your super-power, stupid boy? too stupid to ever give up?” “maybe it is”), sensitive (half of the whole storyline, really), caring for gotham (gotham by gaslight) and people-oriented (as early as #51).

the issue that particularly signals that jason is an inherently good person and externalizes his internal conflicts regarding classic heroic vigilantism vs his cynical approach is #30, where we meet batman of earth-15 –  alt jason, whom our jason attempts to punch in the face.

and on topic of batman – jason is always gravitating towards batman. in gotham by gaslight jay looks delighted to see (the foreign) bruce and suggests checking with the local bat. then, earth-51 arc arrives.

earth-51 arc (#16 - #13) is a culmination of a promise of catharsis for jason. we have already seen him as batman, as a confirmation that a different life for him is possible. and here he has a chance to come to terms with his past and overcome it. he meets a version of bruce who has done exactly what he wanted him to do in utrh: killed the joker and the rest of the rogue gallery. what is most important – he is disappointed with this version of his father. we realise that jason, deep down, has an intimate and intuitive understanding of what batman stands for; and that he shares most of his values. this is a truth that you can't ignore especially since jay is the one to inspire this hollow, cynical version of batman to go out and fight in a seemingly lost battle.

and then batman dies. right in front of him.

this is a central moment of the narrative, for many reasons, most strikingly:

the symmetry:, a premise known from the lost days, becomes literal. this "the father had lost a son, and now the son had lost the father" is a cruel parallel to a death in the family and bruce's grief. jason's death created a gap between them that jay has been desperately trying to close, with no avail – because in bruce's mind, jason remains dead. now that jason is grieving bruce, the connection closes on both sides, and there's no way for either of them to reconcile the mourning with the reality of the other being truly alive. in this sense, the arc solidifies that jason can never come home.

no good deed goes unpunished. as i have mentioned before, so far jason is established as someone good at heart, but confused; and the reader intuitively assumes that his better, honest side will win. yet, the moment jason gives in to hope, it victimises and retraumatizes him. this event, again, brings to mind his own death, when he tried his best to save sheila and ended up paying the highest price for it. so, narrative-wise, jason is always punished for his kindness.

perhaps because of the nonchalant act that jason pulls off, many readers seem to miss that everything that happens after that arc is an upshot that follows logically from it.

jason's immediate determination to leave – and later a short period of indecision that ends up with his dramatic exit, pushing his team away, makes perfect sense when you consider what intense trauma he has just gone through. admittedly, i'm not a fan of the notion that he would give up at all (i think he's always ready to give up on himself, but not on the world), but then on the other hand, if there's anything that would cause it, narrative-wise, witnessing batman dying does sound like a good incentive for that. (it also has to be pointed out that jason seems to be confident that the rest of the team can go into the final battle without him anyway; it's not like he would go back to his earth not even knowing if said earth will exist tomorrow).

it's crucial to notice that following that crisis of faith (faith in fighting for the world) is followed by him raising up for the challenge again, but now... worse and even more confused. in the final confrontation with donna, jason antagonizes the superhero community, and when we see him at the end of the series (#1) his monologue indicates that he believes the capes to be naive. (significantly, he also focuses on bruce and offends the memory of 51 earth-bruce by calling him crazy; an action that can be seen as suppression of his own guilt and invoking, once again, a cruel symmetry considering bruce's engagement in victim-blaming after jason's death). this, once again, is consistent with the "no good deed" reading – jason diminishes superhero values because he has been continuously punished for living by them. (and unlike other superheroes, he doesn't have a support system nor skills in compartmentalization that would help him deal with this trauma) every leap of hope re-traumatised him. hence, it seems to be no surprise that jason decides to abandon the mask, and in the closing scene we see him without it. the promise of the shattered helmet is pushed to an extreme – jason does not get a new alt identity. he denounces the idea of superheroism completely.

and yet, what is ultimately subversive about the ending, is that jay is not truly a civilian and he does not abandon vigilante ways. he does the same thing. we see him without a mask, but he is clearly working a case. he might have rejected the symbolic dimension of the vigilante work, but he still carries the same delusional hope for bettering the world and protecting people that the superhero community does. only now, he is even more isolated and doesn't have any identity to go by (as he is still legally dead).

as such, the ending opens a new question regarding jason's understanding of himself and vigilantism, or rather the lack thereof. is it possible that vigilantism is really at the core of jay's trauma? and why, potentially, is it something that is so destructive for him as a character specifically? (and i have some answers for that, but i'm not going to get into it here, as it's already a very long post)

so, tldr; the genius of countdown is that it establishes jay as sensitive, determined, and fundamentally good (this is what the purpose of seeing him as batman is!), and then it brutally reminds the reader that jason’s tragedy is that on this specific earth, in this specific timeline, his love doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. the story goes on as it did; one way or another, jay is trapped in the cycle of his care ironically creating rifts between him and the others, and bringing him to his own downfall.

[distort-opia]

You're braver than me for mentioning Khoa and Joker parallel in this hellsite that very much hate Joker lol. Im holding myself back from pointing out the same thing everytime i read Khoa story in fear someone gonna attack me. But anyway what do you think are the differences between their relationship (ghostbat & batjokes) since they're quite similar with each other. Cause tbh with you the way many describe ghostbat here feel just like they're describing batjokes instead

Ngl, this is one of the things that both depresses me and pisses me off about the current state of fandom. It sucks to hear you're too afraid of getting attacked over expressing a personal opinion on a literal blogging platform, built for this express purpose... regarding fictional characters and within a fandom, which is supposed to be fun. The block button and the filtering options exist for a reason though; I tag my stuff accurately so that people can blacklist, and I don't mind if people block me (I'm quite liberal with it myself). It's just part of curating your little niche, so I definitely encourage doing the same, Anon. Besides, despite the hellsite having its downsides, I've interacted with very reasonable and fun people as well, who dislike Joker or Batjokes but are fully capable of treating others with maturity and respect.

That being said, I agree that Batjokes and Ghostbat share a lot of similarities. I guess that for some it affords the fascinations of this type of dynamic for Bruce without the baggage Joker's character would unavoidably bring (both within Universe, and within fandom). However, there's definitely some essential differences between Ghostbat and Batjokes. Perhaps the most important consequence of them is that unlike Batjokes, Ghostbat has significantly higher chances of not ending in tragedy.

The thing about Joker is that, despite how seemingly desperate for attention and in love with Batman he canonically is, he also... hates Bruce's guts. And I'm making the distinction between 'Batman' and 'Bruce' because Joker himself makes it. Joker needs Batman on a fundamental level. He perceives his own current identity as having been shaped and defined by Batman, and he sees Bruce, the person underneath the mask, as the source of potential weakness and a threat to the Bat's existence. That's because Joker thinks of his own humanity as useless and weak, having decided to discard it and stomp it out. He then proceeds to try and do the same with Bruce's. This has literally been their main conflict since Death of the Family onwards.

Khoa also takes issue with Bruce being driven by emotion. He also considers it a weakness-- Bruce's need to save people, his vigilantism having revenge at its roots instead of a desire to perfect an art. However, Ghostmaker wasn't a direct result of Bruce's actions (accidental or not), like Joker is. Khoa's identity is much more stable and independent, not irrevocably intertwined with Bruce's Batman to the pathological degree Joker's is; and as a result, he's less extreme about it. Khoa can allow for disagreement without resorting to destroying Bruce's life, whereas Joker (at least of now) cannot allow any compromises, any pause from conflict-- because he needs it. Khoa, however, is able to stop and make peace. He challenges Bruce and his need for control just enough, right up to the point of fully enabling Bruce's darkness and self-destructiveness. Joker never stops. He keeps escalating the trauma, the horrors; a pit of knives Bruce keeps throwing himself into.

In a way, shipping Ghostbat is indulging in a dynamic similar to Batjokes, but one that can have a happier ending. Bruce can be a person with Khoa, whereas Joker would tear vulnerability to shreds. The parallels between Joker War and Ghostmaker's introduction arc are so interesting to me also because they showcase this from the start. The final confrontation with Joker, in Batman (2016) #100, has Joker stab Bruce in the back and then almost cut his face off, talking about how he'd then have "to start from scratch." Joker is tearing everything down to have Bruce rebuild it-- alone. The final confrontation with Khoa also includes him telling Bruce he's not enough, he's weak, he needs to become stronger; it also includes being stabbed in the back, but while in a fair fight that has rules. And then Bruce wakes up to Khoa sowing up the wounds he himself inflicted.

That's the crucial difference between the ships, I would say. Despite their disagreements, Bruce and Khoa are on the same side, and Bruce can expect to survive showing weakness to Khoa. Joker is, paradoxically, on the side of Batman alone and also against Bruce. That's not to say it couldn't be different, and that a happier ending is impossible to imagine for them too-- but it's a lot more complicated. Personally, I enjoy Batjokes so much because of how difficult a relationship would be. It inevitably has to involve Joker allowing himself to be human (since otherwise he would not allow Batman to be) and that's such a heavy and complex deconstruction of trauma that's fascinating to delve into.

Hope this was interesting to read through! There's a lot more stuff to say about the differences between Khoa and Joker as characters and their brand of psychopathy, and how that impacts the dynamic with Bruce, but I'm waiting for Batman Inc. and their interaction there to see where DC takes it. (Please let it be good.)

[tobiasdrake]

The final act of this movie is so dark. Darker than the movie thinks it is, and the movie already thinks it's pretty dark.

Again. Confronting Tony's imperialism and reckless disregard for the opinions and sometimes wellbeing of others is what this movie was trying to talk about. In a well-written film, lessons would be learned and characters would grow and change their behavior, and this change in behavior would then be used to challenge and overcome the villain.

What happens in this final act? Tony Stark's rogue super-weapon destroys Sokovia. Effectively, the ending to this film is that Tony's bomb in the Maximoff bedroom ultimately does detonate, and we're just supposed to be happy that it only took out the city block.

The film got lost in trying to be epic and clever, shooting for global stakes instead of personal ones while abruptly unwriting the conflicts surrounding Tony specifically. And the result? The Avengers save a lot of individual lives and the planet isn't destroyed. But Tony's reckless super-weapon nonetheless unmakes a sovereign nation. And we're supposed to feel triumphant about it when Tony vaporizes half of the city to save the world.

Remember when the civilians were throwing bottles at the Iron Legion? Yeah. The deepest this commentary winds up going with its final message is, "Those people shouldn't have done that. The Iron Legion are the good guys. They're here to defeat the terrorists and keep us all safe."

The Sokovia battle lives down to the imperialist themes that the movie was originally trying to challenge.

And nowhere is that more poignant than in Bruce's final betrayal. Through this film, Bruce has been wrestling with being treated as a weapon. The Avengers used him in the first act. Wanda used him in the second act. And now, in the third act? Natasha betrays him and weaponizes him against his will.

Bruce's arc concludes with his fears validated. The idea that the Avengers are no better than Ross with regards to the Hulk? Proven true.

Tony Stark annihilates Sokovia and Natasha proves that Bruce was wrong to have ever trusted the Avengers. What a shitty way to end this story.

[ufonaut]

JSA 2022 #1 THOUGHTS

KYLE KNIGHT. K Y L E KNIGHT. KYLE KNIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!

i literally can’t even tell you how much i love the villain legacies i love all out violence and i love the youngsters (sorry craddock) carrying on the original jsa’s legacy of being trained conflict escalators with each other

i adore selina being her usual complete hypocrite self and claiming that bruce giving her a second chance is completely different from helena giving this generation’s jsa members a second chance. something i’ve actually really enjoyed about modern portrayals of helena wayne (in batman/catwoman 2020 too) is that it seems to be sort of universally understood that helena is her father’s daughter more than anything else and she’ll always be at odds with selina, it’s interesting given that in the original incarnation of helena it’s precisely her mother’s death that gets her to put on the cape & cowl in the first place whereas modern takes always have bruce dying first. i’m all for it, it’s compelling and geoff blends nicely the asc 1976 canon (regarding the why & how of bruce’s death) with what little of helena wayne we know in the present day!

alan featuring in the flashbacks more than any other jsa member is, of course, catering to me specifically thank you geoff thank you for calling alan the main character of the universe in one of your recent interviews

per degaton is expected but used in new and exciting ways, he’s really shaping up to be the jsa’s best longtime adversary and i spy a lot of roy thomas era all-star squadron inspo going into his portrayal

alan looking younger than everybody else in the 18 years from now panel. younger than even dick grayson. is literally killing me i’m in genuine hysterics. the starheart working overtime

VLADIMIR & RUBY SOKOV FOR MOST CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME JUST GENERALLY IMMEDIATELY ON SIGHT NON NEGOTIABLE

vlad taught his daughter love and violence and nothing else. more than alan ever did. i look forward to the vlad/alan content me and the boys on /co/ have been predicting

mikel janin’s art is wonderful and wonderfully expressive, jerry ordway as a guest artist means the world to me (i’d argue his is the definitive jsa). we’ve got it all

THE FLASHPOINT BEYOND/WATCHMEN SNOWGLOBE AS THE CATALYST FOR HELENA’S TIME TRAVEL ADVENTURE SCREAMING AND CHEERING

JOHNNY THUNDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i’m buying three different variants of this issue and they’re all worth it because i’ve never read anything so beautiful in my entire life and the next issue taking place in the 1940s is once again meant for a target audience of me. god bless

wait i’m still going insane over KYLE THEO TEDDY KNIGHT. the fact that he inherits everything from his mother’s side is making me insane in the brain i can’t even imagine what jack must be feeling good god this is the book. THE book.

i fully believe that by the end of the series/first arc this new gen of jsaers will be saved

it does everything, and i mean everything, a first issue is supposed to do. i’m not even kidding this is flawless impeccable writing to me

IN CONCLUSION: EATING IT WITH A FORK AND KNIFE

[cephalog0d]

For the WIP Ask Game: Can I get some tasty details about the Ghost Steph AU, pretty please?

YES ABSOLUTELY this AU low-key consumes my brain in the background all the time. I've rambled about it a little and written a quick drabble for it, but the bulk of it has to wait until I have a chance to do the HEFTY amount of note-taking required for an Extremely Canon Compliant (to a point) fic.

Really this is motivated by my eternal frustration at how much DC dropped the ball with regard to the fact Steph's death occurred DIRECTLY before Jason's whole big comeback rampage. And like. You'd think there might be some things to connect there, with yet another kid getting killed working with Batman, and the overall non-reaction to it, and how much of Jason's whole shtick is being pissed that he got killed and nobody cared. There was a whole-ass news broadcast directly outing her as Spoiler AND Robin and connecting her to Batman! This was not exactly a secret! On top of which the whole War Games thing ties pretty directly into Under the Hood with Black Mask and all that. AND YET. For some mysterious reason that definitely doesn't rhyme with Man Midio it's just totally unaddressed.

Anyway, the general idea is that Steph did actually die during War Games and is stuck in Gotham as a ghost. Nobody else can see/hear her, which sucks, until she happens to run into Jason. Due to metaphysical handwaving (they were both Robin, Jason's been dead and has weird paranormal energy, etc.), he CAN see and hear her, which is great for her and rather unfortunate for him because BOY does she have some opinions on her death, and Bruce, and Tim, and Jason, and his whole plan. And he's going to hear all about it because there's literally nothing he can do to stop her.

And I have a lot of feelings about all the potential interactions there. So many conflicting emotions, and they're sort of stuck together, because even if Steph would rather hang out with other people he's the only one who can see or hear her, and that's better than not being seen or heard at all, and Jason can't just shoot her or lock her out because. Ghost.

(He definitely tries to exorcise her several times. It doesn't take. Steph mocks him endlessly about it.)

So yeah, ONE DAY I'm going to write this, it just requires me to go back and reread a bunch of stuff leading up to War Games and UTH, and those arcs themselves, and take extensive notes to make sure I've got all the canon details right. I'm determined to make it happen, though.

[paragonrobits]

How do you feel about Jennifer’s relationships to Bruce & the Hulk? She tends to against fight him alongside the other Avengers more often than not.

If I'm going to be honest, it bothers me; it bothers me a lot.

The main thing of it is that Jen isn't just Bruce's cousin, she's arguably the person closer to him than any other. Recently I started thinking that she's a case of they're physically cousins but emotionally they regard each other as brother and sister, and that's something that really sums up how they're described as close.

So it's really weird to me when Jen is positioned as fighting him with the Avengers; Immortal Hulk, in the most recent arc, at least handles this well with Jennifer being internally conflicted about fighting with her friends against her family, especially when the Avengers have a long history of being incredibly unfair and biased against Bruce, to the point of being needlessly hostile towards him. I'm reminded of when during the Doc Green thing, when Bruce came to talk to She-Hulk about how he wasn't planning on curing her, all the superhero community was there to defend her and fight him. It's good because it shows that everyone LOVES Jen, but it's mean because it feels like no one was ever interested in letting him talk things out, or explain what he was doing, they just go straight to threatening him.

And there's this unspoken implication now, that it feels especially bad because Bruce is blatantly mentally ill. He's constantly going into self-destructive spirals, he violently has mood swings, and the Hulk is the most obvious show of him going into rages to drive others away because he can't cope with the possibiliy of any potential threat or danger. And it FEELS like the Avengers honestly don't care about him or his problems unless it affects them. They leave him to suffer alone unless it looks like he's a threat, then they come down hard on him, or mistrust him for no reason, and then wonder why he holds a bitter grudge against them all.

(For instance, Susan Storm's inexplicable antagonism towards him feels almost Karen-ish, in a way that's counter to her normal personality. They barely interact, but she's so hostile towards him that it FEELS like someone who's rich and successful turning up her nose at a mentally ill person daring to exist in the same proximity and, i dunno, it's weird. Good fodder for ideas I think about, but it doesn't feel consistent with the rest of her character, though you COULD make the argument that she's a very aggressive, attack-first personality, and the Hulk being unstoppable badly scares her, so she tries to take the first offense, which turns out badly since when you threaten the Hulk, he'll just smash you to save time.)

And then there's Jennifer, who DOES have her share of problems, but hides them fairly well. One thing that doesn't seem apparent to her friends is that she's as much a monster as Bruce is. She's a Hulk. All Hulks, however pretty they are, are monsters; raging, destructive embodiments of metaphorical aspects of a person. Sometimes these are positive. Sometimes, they're not. People didn't care for the big and ugly She-Hulk phase but I liked it, because it illustrated a point:

She is a Hulk. Her friends don't seem to get what that means.

(Also while I was upset that she felt more angry about Bruce's death, when he came back, because of how it affected her, it makes her come off as really selfish and less concerned about him... well, being so bad off that he set up his own death and instead going 'think about how it made ME feel!', but this IS a pretty realistic reaction, especially when family is concerned. It's ugly and selfish, but that's family for you.)

In brief, I think they SHOULD be depicted as closer and more like brother and sister, rather than Jennifer siding against him more often than not.

[whetstonefires]

Hi Whetstonefire. I have a question about the comic where Nightwing cheats on Starfire with Barbara: What happens directly after that? Does Starfire find out that Nightwing cheated on her? And, if so, how does she react? I've read online that (according to Marv Wolfman) Starfire is the opposite of everything Batman taught Nightwing to be and that Batman taught Nightwing to be repressed and cold. What did Nightwing contribute (emotionally) to the relationship between him and Starfire? (Cont.)

(Cont.) From what I can tell, from online, Nightwing was adamant about standards of mercy and monogamy - how do you think, if Starfire were to be written as her own character and not written around Nightwing and his emotional needs, she would handle and react to that? (This bit is an FYI for other readers: this is just speculation, not hate. Sorry about that.) Sorry about the questions! Have a nice day! 

Okay there are so many separate questions packed in here! I may miss some of them lol and I do not want to put in the hours it would take to produce an orderly response to all this, so this post is going to be a mess.

Initial query and important point: the cheating story was out of continuity. Like, literally, not just by ‘being rejected by the fanbase,’ it was just this weird retcon oneshot that seems to have been some sort of fuck-you to Nightwing or his fans or something. So no, it had no in-setting fallout lol. It, in more ways than most comics, didn't exactly happen.

It was just this weird thing where Dick hooks up with Babs before giving her a wedding invitation, which is both out of character for him in general and out of step with where he was leading up to the wedding--he was desperate to get married so they could have some Normal Stable Adulthood Happiness; the choice to recharacterize him as a fuckboy who regards it as a loss of freedom isn’t congruent, on much more than the level of principle.

As far as how Kori would feel about it, if she had learned...that is very hard to say. Apart from how it would require her to reinterpret everything about where their relationship stood at that point, the data is very unclear, and I don’t even have all of it. Gonna back up to cover some of the rest of the ask, get some context here.

So this actually brings up two of my biggest gripes with Wolfman’s NTT--weird Kori characterization and the weirdly negative interpretation of Batman as parent that backwashed heavily into other titles and influenced the character for the worse, in ways we're very much still dealing with today. 😩

The latter is pretty self-explanatory, though Wolfman’s take that the main thing Bruce taught Dick was repression does shed light on some writing choices and make others funnier. But Kori. Oh my lands.

So, item one, I wouldn't say that Kori is overall opposite Bruce, or even of his philosophy? There are just some very major points of opposition. She isn’t emotionally buttoned-down like at all, especially about positive feelings, although considered realistically with all the bullshit they’ve piled into her backstory she absolutely leans on repression to cope and stay positive, which makes her a lot like Dick actually.

To an extent, she was clearly written around foiling Dick’s Batman-derived traits in the same way that Robin was written to foil Batman, bright and glad and aerial. A Flamebird to his Nightwing in theme if not in name.

You could do some interesting stuff with that, and the bildungsroman aspects of this period of Dick’s life, like he has two roads forward in terms of how he’s going to define ‘adulthood’--does it necessarily require becoming more like his mentor-father, for good and ill, or can he make Kori in part a destination, as it were, and create an adult self that is derived from who he has always been as well as the man he’s modeled himself after?

To an extent I think this even was one of the things going on in ntt but like. Only a little bit.

(Given how much like Bruce Babs is in most of the ways Kori isn’t, especially once she’s Oracle, you could make a case for her as love interest being like. Symbolic of his not being in a rebellious phase? That gets weird and oedipal really fast tho lol.)

Okay stepping down one meta level lol, the thing about answering the 'what would kori' question here is that her character is deeply bound up in her culture, about which we are told and shown a great many contradictory things. Any attempt to read her as an independent character has to tackle not only the gender stuff you allude to and these inconsistencies, but how much of the sheer mess of her is rooted in racism.

'Fantastic' racism, technically, because Tamaraneans aren't real, but the 'taming the savage' narrative that kept surfacing between them and the language used in reference to it is just. The existing racism of presumably the writers, placed in Dick's mouth, and it's super gross. I hate it so much.

(I had a faint hope when they cast her for live action it was with a deliberate intent to directly tackle and better that history, but lollllllll nah. At least they didn’t double down in it tho! Can you imagine, with a black actress, in this day and age....)

So to predict and comprehend Kori, you have to make a lot of calls about Tamaran as a civilization. I like to slightly privilege stuff established earlier if there's no good reason not to, so while much is made over time of her inappropriate rage and the violence she was raised to normalize, I think what she says in her first appearance is good to keep in mind: in her culture, kindness is for friends and cruelty is for enemies. She doesn't understand why the Titans seem to have this backwards.

Kori is not a merciless person. She’s very empathetic, as a rule. With people she loves, she is self-destructively forgiving. That's not a trait only Dick benefits from--her family keeps betraying her in new exciting ways, and she keeps letting them.

Her arc of growing away from that habit is however greatly crippled by centering Dick in the narrative and by the awful 'civilizing' overtones that keep coming into it. When she comes back after the 1986 breakup, still married to Karras, she brings with her a commitment to doing things the Earth way--to eschew lethal force as more than a compromise with her friends’ values, but as a deliberate choice.

This deserved a lot more space and time than it got, and the fact that it didn’t get it is only somewhat due to her being subordinated to Dick and to general writing fail; a lot of it’s just the team book problems of everything happening to everybody all at once.

I mean, Dick’s journey later on to deciding he loves her enough to date her even though she’s married and it’s technically against his principles was packed into this absolutely heinous issue where he was inspired by a woman refusing to separate from her husband who’d just threatened to kill her and their kid with a knife, until being stopped by Nightwing. Because he’s apologizing for what he did.

This is his inspiration for accepting Kori’s marital status! It’s supposed to be heartwarming, as far as I can tell! Not heavyhanded messaging that this is a self-destructive terrible choice in which Kori will inevitably harm him somehow! This issue is pro ‘consensual open relationships under certain circumstances’ and also ‘giving abusers another chance’ as expressions of love. Welcome to the 80s ig.

(Notable is that the wife in this issue was black and the husband and son both looked very white, so it’s probably her stepkid and she probably wouldn’t get to keep him if they separated; this is not even vaguely treated as a factor.)

Point is, everyone was getting too little space to actually go through the amount of development they were getting, and it was clumsily handled; it’s not just her.

In an overlapping period Gar processed his issues with his adoptive father with whom he constantly fought and their shared trauma over the rest of their family (the Doom Patrol) having died violently not long ago via a batshit several-issue storyline where Mento went crazy, created supermutants, and abusively mind-controlled them to attack the Titans. It is literally all like this.

Back to the infidelity thing, now. So much to unpack. So like I mentioned above, their first big breakup, while partially driven by Dick’s existing conflicted feelings about their different ideas about things like ‘killing in battle’ and ‘her identity and loyalties being tied up with her home planet,’ is explicitly over different takes on monogamy.

When Dick is breaking up with her, Kori makes it clear she thinks it’s totally reasonable to have both a husband and a love, since Karras also has someone he loves and they’re both fine with it, but the story doesn't really explain how nonmonogamy works on Tamaran, or even if it's practiced outside the context of political marriage. They do do a sort of...soulbond fusion dance...thing, as part of the ceremony, so marriage is definitely serious business. There are so many levels of cultural difference that get poor to no development.

But to return to the weird ooc retcon cheating story: because of this context, no matter what her personal norms are, Dick specifically casually sleeping with someone else would be something for Kori to be mad about, because of the hypocrisy.

Then there’s the Mirage Incident, which I haven’t read through properly and which was very poorly handled by the writers. Kori is upset about Dick having slept with someone impersonating her and there’s a general vibe of this being treated by Dick’s social circle as unfaithfulness even though he was in fact sexually violated by deceit; it famously sucks.

We still don’t learn a lot here about Kori’s ideas about monogamy, from what I have seen, because her focus is mostly on feeling like Dick doesn’t care about her enough or in the right way since he couldn’t tell the difference. Which is an understandable feeling, even if it’s not an appropriate reaction to have at him at this time.

What Nightwing contributed emotionally........hm. This is a mess, honestly; he was all over the map, and not just because of having Brother Blood in his head. I cannot speak definitively on this, it’s too inconsistent.

For most of their relationship, Kori was the more intensely invested one, the one to initiate and the one who was shown at length to be excited to come home at the end of the day to their shared apartment because her boyfriend was there to see and talk to. If we set aside his more egregious white male bullshit, Dick was pretty emotionally available most of the time, though? They were cute.

Since they split up a lot of ink has been spilled making him less into her in retrospect, but he was pretty invested--leaving her coincided with mental breakdowns both times, and it wasn’t even mostly because she was doing his emotional processing for him, because she wasn’t, although it’s fair to say he often fell into using the relationship as an emotional crutch. Kori was definitely doing the same thing though so...it wasn’t the most balanced relationship in fiction history, but apart from slight codependency and the racism, it was decent enough.

She gets more evenhanded development than most superhero love interests, honestly, because she was costarring in a team book. She had her own storylines. She had other friends.

Mostly both of them just needed some space to finish growing up and stop being retraumatized long enough to process some of the existing trauma better, and I think they could have gone on being good for each other for a long time.

[forevercloudnine]

new 52 scarebat ship meme

(I had @heroes-etc​ give me more questions, but for scarebat this time, since we talk about it 24/7 but I never post about it. These are from this ship meme.)

4. Their favorite physical feature on each other?

There’s only one feature of Bruce’s appearance that’s scarier when he’s not wearing the batsuit, and that’s his creepy blue eyes. Especially the way Greg Capullo draws them where they’re sickly pale and have ridiculously constricted pupils.

So his eyes would definitely be in the running for Jonathan’s favorite feature, even if seeing them would require Bruce’s mask to be off, which is something New 52 Scarecrow explicitly avoids. Yes, that character trait only exists to justify why Batman’s identity is still secret after Scarecrow mind controls and subsequently institutionalizes him in “Gothtopia,” but I think it’s interesting so I’m going to pretend it’s not shoe-horned in there for meta reasons.

Actually having to see Bruce without the cowl on would definitely permanently break the illusion of Batman as a nightmarish inhuman bat demon, which I’m sure is a large part of the appeal for anyone as obsessed with fear as Jonathan Crane. But Bruce’s creepy eyes would be a serious consolation prize. 

Bruce’s favorite of Jonathan’s physical features is rough, because Jonathan is famously not great re: physical features. I’m going to say his mouth, because a) that’s where the snark comes from, and b) the New 52 establishes that in one of their earlier encounters, Jonathan had sewn his own mouth shut, so it’s one of those things where a bad first impression turned positive later on leads to more fondness than if you’d made a good impression in the first place.

I just looked up the panel where he does it and I DID forget how incredibly gross his lips look here, which makes the fact that I have chosen it as Bruce’s feature seem really funny in retrospect. But I do think that seeing Jonathan’s mouth healed and unmutilated would be a reassuring reminder of how he’s stabilized since their first encounter, at least to the point that he isn’t hurting himself anymore. Also, Bruce buys him a lot of chapstick.

Bonus alternate answer that did not make it into the Google Doc:

9. How open are they with their feelings?

Bruce and Jonathan are both pretty competent deceivers in the New 52; Bruce always, Jonathan depending on how the writer is feeling (though you could argue that Bruce just has a stronger grip on reality, while Jonathan’s skill at obfuscation varies with how lucid he is).

...I was going to use Detective Comics #23.3 as an example of Jonathan being a good liar, but actually upon re-reading I’m realizing that only 1/4 rogues buy his attempt at manipulation. So maybe he’s considerably worse at hiding his intentions than he thinks he is. Regardless, he doesn’t ever attempt to disguise his obsession with Batman.

Whether or not he’d express romantic feelings or try to hide them is debatable. There’s no Masters of Fear equivalent in the New 52 establishing that he was ever mocked or punished for expressing romantic feelings for someone, though there is a flashback panel in his origin emphasizing that he was always lonely in this regard (and coincidentally doesn’t specify that his interest is in women, which is fun).

In Green Lanterns #17 he has some internal monologue about how fear is his romance and he needs Batman to feel it, but it is an INTERNAL monologue, so it’s not clear if this is something he would express to Bruce or keep to himself. Or if he’s even fully processed it himself, given how incredibly out of it he is in this comic. Most of his spoken lines are just kind of screaming incoherently. Bruce gets pretty snippy with a Green Lantern at the end of the issue for suggesting that Jonathan should be punished for his crimes as if he were in control of his actions. 

Bruce is a similarly complicated answer, since for all his deceptions and shadowy mystery he pretty much wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to romance. It’s just that his heart doesn’t express or process emotions the same way as anyone around him, which can create conflict. His (seriously underrated) love interest during Scarecrow’s origin arc, Natalya, spent most of her time dating him thinking that he didn’t care about her for this reason. He was trying to express that he loved her, but he mostly did so through complimenting her skills, which she never took as serious declarations of affection because he wasn’t being straightforward and she was insecure.

Jonathan does not himself seem like someone who would be especially secure in the idea of another person having romantic feelings towards him, so I assume that while Bruce might THINK he’s being open with any romantic feelings he develops, he would in reality just be really confusing.

13. How do they react to being away from each other?

I actually think that in general, Jonathan is one of the few people who would have no issue dealing with Bruce’s tendency to unexpectedly go AWOL for long periods of time, given that he himself has a tendency to fixate on his work to the exclusion of everything else.

But New 52 Jonathan specifically probably has pretty serious abandonment issues due to his father putting him in “the pit” and dying before he could take him out, meaning that Jonathan was waiting for his dad to come back for him for God knows how long, until Jonathan Sr.’s employers finally sent the police to investigate. 

So while in general I think he wouldn’t be very clingy, any impression that Bruce had died or otherwise wasn’t coming back for him would probably be incredibly triggering. If Bruce could assuage this reaction by occasionally sending updates that at least indicated he was still alive, then I doubt Jonathan would have any problems with his absence.

(@heroes-etc​: bruce sending like a checkmark emoji once a day. jonathan hears his phone ping, looks at the screen, and goes hm. good. and doesnt respond.)

Bruce meanwhile has no problem ditching literally any love interest at any time if something crime-related comes up, unless he’s considering quitting the cowl for them (as Joker probably accurately fears will happen with Catwoman in Prelude to the Wedding). But I don’t think he’d stop being Batman for Scarecrow, nor would Jonathan ever want him to — he’s interested in Batman, not necessarily Bruce Wayne.

But even though Bruce wouldn’t have an emotional problem with distance, I think he would get similarly paranoid if they went too long without contact, though for different reasons than Jonathan. Unlike some other villains (*cough* Joker and Riddler), Scarecrow has machinations that don’t require getting Batman’s attention, so if he decided to continue with his less legal experiments, he would not feel compelled to get Bruce involved. While the “World’s Greatest Detective” would probably not have an issue keeping an eye on Jonathan while he’s in Gotham, he’s considerably less capable of that in space. And Jonathan is definitely a rogue he would be obsessed with keeping an eye on, even if he reformed. 

Batman & Robin Eternal established that Dick’s first supervillain conflict AND first mission leaving the country was chasing Scarecrow across the world for an entire summer, which is kind of insane considering how early it was in Batman’s career. Like, he did not have an army of children to watch Gotham for him while he was gone. He had one child, and he took that child WITH him. He left Gotham undefended for months, JUST to catch Scarecrow. Sooo that in of itself implies he wouldn’t be great at keeping his distance.

15. Does their view of themselves differ from their partner’s view?

Well, Jonathan occasionally sees Bruce as a giant bat demon, so yes.

Outside of that very obvious differing view, Jonathan in general sees himself and the rest of the rogue gallery as more vital to Batman’s identity than Bruce considers them; the extent to which he’s right varies depending on your interpretation of Bruce’s character, but it’s definitely not something Bruce would ever consciously think or say. 

This is related to something that’s definitely a misconception of his, though, which is that the majority of Batman’s job revolves around supervillains like him. In Kings of Fear, when Jonathan blackmails Bruce into letting him come on patrol with him (which is a whole thing in of itself), he’s shocked at how boring most of Batman’s work is. Which probably goes along hand in hand with sometimes seeing Bruce as an almost mythologically inhuman figure. 

In his defense, it’s not like he has a lot of context for what the minutiae of Batman’s job is like. He’s either fighting Batman, hiding from Batman, or imprisoned by Batman in Arkham, a place where everyone else also spends all their time fighting or hiding from Batman. Which would really skew your perspective.

Interestingly, Bruce and Jonathan are both people who pride themselves on being extremely self-aware. Both of them probably inaccurately. You can rant about how you have a perfect understanding of your troubled mental state all day long, but if you’re still dressing up like a monster at night to indulge the power fantasies you created as a traumatized child by scaring the hell out of people, there’s probably a level of self-realization you haven’t gotten to yet.

Bruce however is at least self-aware enough to regularly be able to analyze his way out of fear toxin induced hallucinations, which Jonathan is unable to do — when he’s not depicted as having become immune to his fear toxin due to overexposure (as he is in Green Lanterns #17), he can be defeated with the same formulas that Batman regularly manages to resist (like his honestly embarrassing breakdown in Nightwing #50). 

Which ties into the difference between how he sees himself and how Bruce sees him: Jonathan obviously visualizes himself as a “master” of fear. He actually has the same internal monologue about fear and trauma that Bruce does in Batman: The Dark Knight #13: “Make it your own... run to what you fear... stare it in the eye... until it whimpers and backs down.” But Bruce doesn’t see Scarecrow as conquering his fear; he sees him as addicted to it, to the point of his own detriment.

Which is interesting, because Jonathan clearly sees his Scarecrow persona as a way to regain control after being victimized by his father’s fear experiments throughout his childhood. I guess Bruce’s perspective would be that Jonathan’s father instead got him addicted to fear as a child, so his attempts at agency as Scarecrow are just a) reliving his trauma over and over and b) compulsively inflicting his own trauma on others. There’s probably some truth to that, even if overall it’s probably an oversimplification (and coincidentally pretty much EXACTLY what Riddler argues Bruce is doing by “funding” Batman in Batman Annual #4, so there’s that).

20. Did either person change at all, to be with their partner?

The obvious answer here is yes, because Jonathan is a supervillain with no regard for human life while Bruce is a superhero who has dedicated his life to protecting people. So presumably one or both of them would have to make serious compromises to be together. HOWEVER. Scarecrow’s primary motivation is to research, understand and inflict fear, while Batman’s modus operandi is making his enemies afraid of him. So despite their contradiction in morals, they’re uniquely positioned to advance each other’s goals, were they to ever join forces.

Bruce never has a problem using fear toxin on Scarecrow, presumably partially out of an “eye for an eye” sense of poetic justice, but also because Batman is practical and it’s a nonlethal weapon that’s always available to him while fighting Scarecrow. If he could have fear toxin customized for his own use, it’s hard to imagine him being unwilling to use it. In Gothtopia he actually advocates for using what’s leftover from Crane’s new formula on all the inmates at Arkham, which seems about as insanely morally ambiguous as it gets. Arguably, putting fear toxin in his smoke bombs would be considerably less wrong than drugging mental patients out of their mind when they’re supposed to be receiving therapy (this is also the issue where he illegally releases Poison Ivy because she did him a favor, which is both morally questionable and relevant to the current topic).

Jonathan obviously already thinks Batman is the most interesting possible case study in fear; it’s why he keeps coming back to Bruce and Gotham despite being one of the more independent villains in Batman’s rogue gallery in the New 52. So though he would have to give up actively kidnapping people (which would be a huge sacrifice, I’m sure), teaming up with Bruce would give him unrestricted access to his favorite test subject. Unfortunately, it seems very possible that he would fall back to old tricks if he ever felt that he’d gotten everything he could out of a partnership with Bruce. Fortunately, that would probably take a VERY long time.

[rwdestuffs]

These guys didn’t make the mom shirt Yang and Summer because they want to make a Raven redemption arc.

Which, while I’m not against it, it’s best to release that sort of shirt after the redemption arc.

It’s kinda inevitable that Raven is going to die and transfer the Maiden powers to Yang, and the only way to make that heartbreaking is if Raven redeems herself. Likely before Yang can forgive her and move on from that whole ordeal.

Or maybe it’s because they are also buying into Yang’s issues in that both the artists and Yang don’t see Summer as her mother.

Or, and this is 99% here as a joke, it’s so that they don’t feed the Summer x Raven shippers.

Like… There is no reason to release this now.

Like… It’s fine and is honestly interesting writing to have Yang have conflicting feelings regarding Raven. Raven was a driving part of her character for the longest time, was the one who gave birth to her, and also got her to start questioning things instead of accepting them blindly. But she’s also a deadbeat, a bandit, and somewhat emotionally manipulative.

Like… Yes. Her whole thing about “You can leave and join Oz and Qrow where you’ll get vague nonanswers, or you can stay and get more answers.” is emotionally manipulative, but it’s far less manipulative of emotions than the Ozluminati’s whole “Become the Fall Maiden and give up your hopes and dreams for us, or the bad guys win” gave to Pyrrha!

I loved that moment! I honestly loved that because the choice given by Raven is far more an even choice than the ultimatum that the Ozluminati gave to Pyrrha, and I was excited to see that play through!

As an aside, why is it that Raven gets the label of “emotionally manipulative” but the Ozluminati’s whole “Become the Fall Maiden for us, or the bad guys win” thing isn’t seen as gaslighting or emotionally manipulative? Is it because they’re mostly men? I see people give way more crap to Raven for her shit than anyone gives to Oz and his group for theirs.

My own irritation aside, this shirt is honestly in bad taste at best, or is malicious at worst. How often were we expected to forgive the “Shitty father” character in fiction? At this point, why not make a Zuko and Ozai shirt? How about Weiss and Jacques? Why not Crona and Medusa? Hell, let’s just do Bruce Banner and Brian Banner. Y’know, Brian Banner. The guy who did this:

We haven’t gotten our inevitable and likely rushed Raven redemption arc that will be made so that we’d be sad™ when she dies and passes the Maiden powers to Yang yet. As of right now, this shirt is shit.

[dynamic-duo-deposit]

Do you think Dick is a BatCat shipper? I loved him in Hush he looked so innocent and cute telling Bruce that Selina is good for him!

Before I answer this, some disclaimers- 

1- I haven’t read Tom King’s Batman Rebirth run with the BatCat not-wedding yet, so I can’t speak to that nor Dick’s reaction to it.  (Though I am aware of the general plot points.)

2- As with all things Batman, we are talking about 80 years of comics here.  Also, while I generally enjoy and appreciate BatCat, I’m a casual shipper at best, so it’s not really my focus and I’m sure some more knowledgeable Selina fans would have more to say on the subject.

3- Oh boy, this is longer than I meant it to be.

With that out of the way- Yes, Dick Grayson is generally pretty fond of Catwoman (perhaps a bit too fond at times) and subsequently, her relationship with Bruce.

Regarding Hush, Dick being pro-BatCat is straight from the comic-

(Batman #615)

But going back in time, I think this question was prompted by these panels from Batman #3, and that is pretty typical of their early interactions.  Basically, Golden Age Robin spends most of Catwoman’s first appearances being profoundly unimpressed by Bruce’s Thirst.  (Likewise to modern reinterpretations.)

However by 1947 in Detective Comics #122, Dick has reached the point where he seems amused by it and teases Catwoman about Batman, even if she denies any feelings.  

(Spoilers: She’s lying.  She’s had a crush on Batman since issue #3)

Most of the time though, while they did interact, they didn’t have much one-on-one time, and any connection between Selina and Dick took the backseat to each of their relationships with Bruce.  Catwoman was also reformed for a while, and went through extended periods where she wasn’t even showing up in the comics.

Here’s where I say that I’m really rusty on the Silver Age, so someone else might have a better memory of good Dick and Selina scenes from that period.  

(I’m also curious about their relationship in the original Earth-2 comics where Bruce and Selina were married, since I haven’t read much of that. Though I know Selina dies and I don’t get the sense they had much of a connection.)

However, I have been reading a lot of Bronze Age comics lately and The Lazarus Affair storyline does have some really great Dick and Selina (And Dick shipping BatCat) moments worth sharing. 

Dick goes to Selina for assistance with Talia, because no one else could “help [him] in the same way [Selina] can.”

(Batman #332)

This leads to Robin and Catwoman going on a mission together and eventually discovering Talia and Batman kissing, which upsets Selina.

(Batman #332)

Catwoman has her own side-story trying to prove Talia’s involvement with shady endeavors, and they talk about Selina’s feelings for Batman.

(Batman #333)

Dick and Selina have good teamwork throughout the story though.  Complete with undercover disguises and other shenanigans.

(Batman #333)

While Talia is ultimately cleared, (also- she dies and is resurrected. As it goes with that family.) Dick makes it very clear to Bruce at the end here, that he is very much “Team Selina.”  

(Batman #335)

Dick eventually leaves to join the Titans and isn’t around Gotham as much, and when Dick does start showing up in Gotham again more in the 90′s/early 2000′s I know that Nightwing and Catwoman are both in some of the same big Bat-events, but outside of sharing panels I can’t think of any really memorable interactions between the two off the top of my head?

We do have things like this though-

 (Gotham Knights #10)

And this-

(Nightwing #52)

They also had a couple of nice interactions during the Dickbats era.  

(Gotham City Sirens #7)

Although not without conflict. (Or weird compliments.  Or Selina referring to herself as Bruce’s possession.  Yikes.)

(Batman #692)

Anyways, this is not even close to a complete collection of Dick and Selina moments and as I disclaimed at the beginning, I’m not up-to-date with recent BatCat-related events.

To be fair, I don’t think Dick and Selina have even had much interaction or connection (BatCat-related or otherwise) outside the wedding arc post-new 52 reboot?  Except kinda Forever Evil, which made it clear she didn’t even know who he was.  Which is depressing.

(Forever Evil #3)

But yeah, I really enjoy Selina and Dick’s relationship, and it’s one of the factors that makes me enjoy BatCat.  (It’s nice when your kid approves of your girlfriend.)  

Dick and Selina are both very adaptable, their interactions tend to be lighthearted and fun (when they’re not too cougar-ly), and they’ve worked pretty well as a team when the situation that calls for it.  When Selina’s criminal activity isn’t getting in the way, they seem to enjoy each other.

From a Dick and Bruce perspective, he also likes that she can bring a different side out of Bruce, and it’s also often a fun opportunity for lighthearted banter and for Dick to get to tease Bruce in a way no one else can.  

(Batman #615)

(Because Bruce can be pretty useless whenever Catwoman shows up and Dick is aware of this.)

(Batman #15)

I do have to say that calling Dick a “BatCat shipper” does feel a bit, I dunno, reductive?  He genuinely respects and even likes Selina a lot of the time, and she’s one of his favorites when it comes to Bruce’s girlfriends because of that, but it’s not exactly his character’s focus.  Dick has his own life without worrying about who Bruce is dating.

With that said– Dick is definitely a BatCat shipper and these are some of the highlights from 80 years of comics proving it.  

He’s a fan.

(Batman #615)

[cosmicheromp3]

Hi, I’m kinda new to the fandom, and I wanted to read more about dick Grayson and the batfamily. Do you think you could recommend some comics I should start with?

hi, of course! i actually have a comic recs blog @whatthefuckisacomic, where there’s a batfam tag and a dick grayson tag that you can browse, plus a page dedicated to tips for starting out with comics. the batfam is a bit hard to rec for because quality can vary drastically from comic to comic, and it’s hard to go “you might have to read this because the event is important to understand what’s going on, but it’s a pain because the writer sucks”. for a starting point i’ll try to stay away from those, though.

under the read more i more or less ended up following a timeline for dick, but i tried to give you options in case something isn’t up your alley and you want to move on to something else. i hope it’s still easy to follow, and don’t hesitate to ask me any follow up questions! these are all gonna be pre-reboot recommendations, because dick’s characterization was very watered down with the n52 and i frankly prefer to just stick with stuff from before.

let’s get into it!

a good starting point for dick, because it’s easy to read and quite beginner friendly, would be robin: year one – i don’t like chuck dixon’s writing in general, but this is one of the exceptions where i would recommend it. an enjoyable origin story you can also read is batman: year three, published in batman #436-439, which mixes present time events (set after jason todd’s death) with flashbacks to dick’s origin. it’s not necessary to read batman: year one and year two before to understand what’s happening in year three, but they’re important batman stories, so if you’re interested in bruce i’d encourage you to read those too.

while we’re still on origin stories, if you want a comic that goes straight to the facts, thoroughly but superficially, and is quite useful to get a good idea for how dick became robin, formed the teen titans, then became nightwing, you can check out secret origins (1986) #13. just keep in mind that it details the pre-crisis version of events, so some of it has been retconned and it might conflict with other stuff you’ve read, or will read.

personally, i find that dick’s most enjoyable stories happen when he’s with the titans, so i strongly encourage you to check out the new teen titans, if you don’t mind older comics style.

as for dick becoming nightwing, you should read the original story where it happened, which would be the judas contract, an arc published in tales of the teen titans (it’s collected as a tpb for easier reading). marv wolfman recently wrote a story set during this time in the robin 80th anniversary special and it has great dick and bruce characterization imo. i don’t recommend reading the whole special if you’re not familiar with the robins already because there’s a lot of callbacks to other comics, but after you’ve read the judas contract you can check out wolfman’s story at least. again, these follow pre-crisis continuity, but they’re very much worth it.

then there’s the nightwing (1996) solo which is... a mess, mostly. tomasi’s run (collected under nightwing: freefall and nightwing: the great leap) is usually regarded as the best from that comic. other than that this solo can be mostly boring or plain bad at times. i read all 153 issues of it (it was one of my first batfam comics i read), and i’ll say that while it could be a drag it was useful in that following a comic going from 1996 to 2009 helped me find some important events in batman history when it crossed over – same can be said for the robin (1993) solo. i’d only tell you to check it out if you have a lot of time in your hands and very low standards, but please don’t start there. i’m only saying this cause it was useful for me when i was in a moment when i wanted to read everything. if that doesn’t apply to you, better to stay away.

that tangent out of the way, let’s go back to comics i do recommend lmao. nightwing: old friends, new enemies is a good one where he teams up with roy harper. another one to go with my dickroy agenda is outsiders (2003), but before you read that you need to read titans/young justice: graduation day to understand the context under which the outsiders are formed. dick’s characterization during outsiders is very particular because it’s set at a low point in his life after he’s lost donna troy; he might seem different than in other comics, but it’s very important to understand him as a character.

lastly, dick had a pretty solid stint as batman after bruce “died” – i always say that while being batman wasn’t good for dick, dick was good as batman. for this period in his life, you have batman: long shadows, then batman: the black mirror. for more batfam interactions during this time, you can read gates of gotham, and for his relationship with damian there’s batman & robin (2009).

these should give you a good idea of some important things in his character’s history. just as a reassurance: don’t be intimidated by the amount – he’s a very old character so it’s only natural there’s a lot –, and any of these you could probably enjoy without having read everything before (except i wouldn’t recommend you start with a comic like outsiders without being acquainted with his character first, since it has very specific characterization).

as for more general batfam comics, i know a lot of people point to gotham knights for that, but i personally haven’t read it so i can’t speak for it. and i can’t make this post without recommending batgirl (2000), because it’s just great. you might also want to read jason’s death (a death in the family) and tim’s subsequent introduction (a lonely place for dying) just because they’re so often referenced, and i could go on with other important events... but there’s so many i’d rather tell you to follow another character’s reading list, than read important comics without context for the sake of reading them. this is where i plug in my sideblog again; if there’s any other batfam characters you’re interested in reading more about, you can find them listed in the tags page.

as a final note i feel like it’s my duty to encourage you to branch out to comics other than the batfam, which is what people new in the fandom tend to read the most just because it’s the most popular. i still love them and i still read their comics but there’s a lot of good comics for other characters, a lot of them better than many batfam comics since, like i said, they can be a gamble as to their quality. sometimes there’s dynamics that the fandom demands for batfam comics that can actually be found in canon for other dc families.

if you want to branch out but you’re unsure about jumping straight into another family with zero knowledge, i recommend reading team comics that include batfam members and using those to get to know more characters. i actually recommend doing that even if you’re not trying to branch out yet – reading about batfam characters outside of the gotham context, which can be very isolationist, usually adds a different dimension to them and you’ll find interesting takes on these same characters. for example, some of my favourite characterization for tim happens in young justice (1999) – another very fun beginner friendly comic i recommend –, and i enjoy bruce more when he’s with the justice league or alongside superman than i do in his solo comics.

and that’s it! don’t hesitate to ask me or DM me for anything else, and just remember that recommendations are very subjective. when reading comics what usually happens, to me at least, is that you pick something up, maybe leave it for a while, check out something else, come back to the first thing, and so on. while following a list or something you might find a different character that you enjoy and want to know more about, you might see an event that catches your interest, realize you like a writer and want to check out their stuff, and in my opinion allowing yourself to follow what you like is the most effective way to make reading comics an actually enjoyable experience.

i made it into a list in case you don’t want to read through my ramblings every time, ordered a bit better:

robin: year one

batman: year three

optional before: batman year one, batman year two

secret origins (1986) #13

the new teen titans

the judas contract

nightwing: old friends, new enemies

outsiders (2003)

for context read titans/young justice: graduation day

nightwing: freefall

nightwing: the great leap

batman: long shadows

batman & robin (2009)

batman: the black mirror

gates of gotham

not dick specific

batgirl (2000) - for cass

young justice (1999) - for tim

good luck!

[threewaysdivided]

Hey, I know this is like a billion years from where you are in YJ:DW, but I had this thought strike me: what if Danny could see and talk to Jason Todd's ghost? (assuming Red Hood isn't YJ canon) There's so much potential for angst there, especially if Danny is the only one who can see him, and decides to try and get Jason to cross over. Or heck, what if Danny had a hand in Jason's revival?

That’s a neat idea that definitely has some good angst potential.  Have to admit though, I’m not entirely sure how it would work within the ghost-lore headcanons I’m using for YJ:DW specifically.  

I can write a longer post on this if anyone wants but Basically ghosts in the Deathly Weapons-verse break into 2 unrelated categories that get lumped together for looking sort-of-similar on the surface:  Ectoplasmic (the ones we see in DP) and what we’ll call Shades (DC ghosts like Secret, Deadman etc).  Ectoplasmic “ghosts” are their own inter-dimensional entities so they can’t really “revive” in the traditional sense, and “passing on” is pretty much limited to accepting what they are and chilling in the Ghost Zone forever or straight-up discorporealising/ re-dying.  Shade ghosts are the more traditional original-soul-bound-to-the-physical-world; either because external force is trapping them there, or because they were willful/ powerful/ knowledgeable enough to bind themselves.  These ones can potentially be “revived” more easily, and can “pass on” if they’re released from whatever is holding them to this world.

If Jason came back as a Ectoplasmic ghost he’d work the same way DP ghosts do; most likely everyone would be able to see him unless he had some kind of Young Blood-esque visibility condition (in which case anyone who fit the criteria would also see him), and outside of extreme edge-cases revival would be off the table.  (Throw a ‘plasmic ghost into a Lazarus Pit and they’ll just climb back out,  except now wet and mad at you for giving them a skin condition.)

More likely that Jason would come back as a Shade-ghost (especially since he seems intended to revive in some capacity in YJ canon), in which case he might only be visible to certain people.  In such a case though, I’m not sure it would be Danny who sees him. 

I feel like Danny would be the least emotionally and symbolically connected to Robin!Jason of the Wayne-household residents who’ve appeared in YJ:DW.  As mentioned in this post Danny kind of falls in this weird spot of being Dick’s Brother first and foremost where all the other Bat-Kids are Bruce’s Son/Daughter, and he has some personal qualms about Dick handing off the Robin mantle (and how close he feels he can/ “should” be to Jason) to work through because of that.  Outside of the both-technically-death thing, I’m not sure there’d be much reason for Jason’s shade to attach himself to Danny as an anchor compared to Bruce, Dick, Alfred or even possibly Tim or some location of personal significance (unless Danny seeing him is due to the ectoplasm, in which case other ecto-ghosts should see him too).

Although, in this very specific hypothetical, Danny is probably one of the better people Jason’s ghost could attach too.  We’re about a billion years from the end of YJ:DW right now but Grief and Healing is going to be a major theme of the core emotional arc, so by the time Jason comes along Danny’s going to be much better equipped to deal with even his canon death.  Add to that that Danny’s had to work with ecto-ghosts and therefore tangentially-death-related problems since he was 14 and he’d be less thrown by Jason’s “reappearance” and more likely to think “this could be a ghost problem” early on compared to Bruce and Dick whose first thoughts would likely be “this is an illusion caused by losing my mind from guilt/grief”, especially if Danny can’t also see him.  Plus, by that point Dick and Bruce do trust Danny pretty implicitly and let him take point where ghosts are concerned.

If Jason did appear as a Shade ghost, Danny’s process would probably look a little something like this:

Confirm that Jason is, in fact, a ghost and not a product of him going nuts

Work together to find a way to prove this to the others (while also working through any personal feelings and unresolved communication/ conflict issues)

Call in Bruce, Dick and Alfred and let them know

Family drama/ angst ensues

Collectively find Dr Fate/ John Constantine/ any other amenable magic-spiritualist hero who exists on Earth-16 to figure out how best to Deal With This.

As for Danny helping Jason (or other ghosts) to “pass on”, I kind of feel like that’s…. not really his ballpark.  I don’t see Danny as someone who’d compulsively seek out other ghosts and feel obliged to “move them along” unless they were actively in distress or causing damage/ distress/ fear/ pain to others.  Like, Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt through the streets of a town, terrifying the citizens?  Get in the thermos or get out.  Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt down a long, deserted county road?  Fine, just don’t go into towns or bother other drivers.  He’ll leave them alone so long as they leave other people alone.

In that regard I see Danny as sort of the fixer compared to Jazz’s counsellor - if a ghost is acting up because of some problem (or comes to him for help) then he’ll deal with it so that they can leave, or at least chill out.  And if he can’t fix it (because the solution is harmful, the ghost’s nature/powers are too inherently dangerous or they’re just there being dicks by choice) he’ll capture and send them back to the Ghost Zone (or find someone who can exorcise a Shade) to remove the problem that way.  He might gently float the suggestion, but if Jason wanted to pass on then that would be Jason’s choice to explore unless he specifically asked for help or became distressed/ disruptive enough to force Danny’s hand.

Similarly, I think revivals wouldn’t really be Danny’s ballpark either; it’s not a solution he’d like and he has neither the knowledge, interest, skills or equipment to actually facilitate any of the rare reliable edge-cases methods of resurrection.  Danny prefers to keep to the ‘best left alone’ side of ‘Meddling with dark forces best left alone’ as much as is possible.

Personally I kind of prefer the revival stories where Jason isn’t around until his actual return.  I think there’s more easy gut-punch mileage in most of those versions.  That structure forces the other characters to accept that he’s “not coming back” and try to process all the conflict and pain that it brings, only to then sledgehammer the new status-quo by having him reappear, now changed, at point where his death has significantly altered their dynamics with him, his memory and the other characters.  By comparison, having him come back as a ghost and then revive kind of smooths and flattens that trajectory to one where anyone who can interact with him (even indirectly) gets their emotional healing accelerated, and the status quo eventually slips back closer to how it was (with them mostly just having to adjust to physical limitations of the new form he takes), only to reform fully when he “comes back” for real.

But, anyway, that’s part of larger personal nitpick with the use of “ghosts” in stories.  I find that the meaningful thing about death (and that seems to get weirdly missed by a lot of works) isn’t the moment of impact itself so much as the persisting loss and how the survivors cope.  We are haunted by absence more than by presence.  Most cases of bringing the dead character (or at least their mind/personality) back in some capacity tends to soften the weight of that for me, unless the ghost is meant to function as a some kind of metaphor for the healing/ acceptance/ closure process and “move on” when the other characters do.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this long and somewhat tangential ramble.  It probably won’t be happening in YJ:DW or YJ:DW-EU but in a story which took a more hardline all-ghosts-are-dead-people/ horror approach to world-building, I can definitely see the someone-seeing-Jason’s-ghost set-up having a lot of angst and uncanny potential.  (I know there are a couple of fics like that already out there but I can’t remember their titles right now, sorry!)

[distort-opia]

I think most of us here know that Joker loves Batman very much, but what do you think that really means to him, exactly? It seems like he doesn’t understand/process love in the traditional ways that most people do due to his sociopathic tendencies (ex. he’s excessively selfish, usually enjoys hurting Batman more than he enjoys helping him, and likely would not pursue a traditional romantic relationship with him even if that was an option because he prefers what they have now). However, it’s also obvious that Joker feels something very powerful in regards to Batman - something significant enough that it takes over his entire life and tears him apart on the inside. Do you think maybe Joker does feel love for Batman in a more traditional sense, and that he doesn’t know how to process loving someone who stands for everything he hates, so he deliberately forces wedges between them to keep his worldview intact? Do you think maybe he only understands love through a very sadomasochistic lens because of his fascination with violence and his need for conflict? Or do you think it’s a mix of those things - or something else entirely?

A very interesting question. I've been pondering this ask for a while, and to be honest, I think it's... complicated, hah. It's certainly more of a mix of what you're describing.

I would definitely agree Joker does not understand love in the classical sense. I believe the most accurate way to put it is that he feels something all-powerful, an inescapable draw towards Batman, which he's conflicted about. In his own words, in Batman (2016) #48:

God, here, is Batman. Because I do think this is one of the main reasons why Joker's behavior towards Bruce is what it is: hurtful. Metaphorically, Batman is both his and Bruce's religion, and the way they worship is through violence. Bruce by sacrificing himself to the Bat, and Joker by sacrificing others. (Bruce also equates Batman to God during the Cold Days arc, later on. The religious theme in King's Batman run sure is something.)

Can Joker love in the traditional sense? He was capable of it, once upon a time, but I don't know if that's the case anymore. I don't know if Joker can allow himself to love Bruce Wayne, and not just Batman. And not because he's fundamentally incapable of loving without violence, but because he associates any human part of himself with his past. And he's terrified of his own past. He's proven that he'd rather die than deal with his history, his humanity (as seen in Batman: Death of the Family). Loving the way a normal person would -- allowing himself to be kind, to be protective, to be happy -- is something that's not just foreign to his Joker identity, but it's also a threat to it.

The man Joker used to be survived suicide and continues surviving his despair by not being a person. He's turned himself into a monster, chose to fully lean into his psychopathic tendencies, so he feels free to call what he feels towards Batman love as long as his way of showing it is monstrous. But the inescapable draw, the way he's turned Batman into his reason for living, is still there; and here's where an aspect of punishment comes in, I think. Part of the love he feels for Batman isn't monstrous. It's empathy... Batman is the only other person he feels understands him. He's the only equal Joker can perceive in the world, and that's a human connection. He needs Batman to not feel alone, and that's something he hates himself and Batman for. And that's partly where the sadistic torturing of Bruce comes from, and especially of his Family. Joker hates that Bruce can connect with other people, when he only has Batman.

I could rant even more, but I just realized this is more or less a summary of chapter 15 of REMS :)) That's a pretty good indication of how I view Joker's love for Batman, if you're curious for more. The whole fic is "could Batman and Joker love like normal people??" meta in a trenchcoat, tbh.

[nothingofnotereally]

Unpacking Rebirth!Talia’s Upbringing

Okay so…. Can we talk about Rebirth Talia al Ghul? People who aren’t familiar with her history, her almost 50 year history at this point, and more importantly aren’t familiar with it in depth often have no idea why it is that Talia fans think that her treatment post Morrison, but even moreso post-Rebirth, is a radical rebranding of the character they’ve known for so long.   And I could talk about that, and maybe one day I will, but today I’m going to talk about something different, but related.

I’m going to talk about Talia’s background in Rebirth, how it accounts for her being a dramatically different character than she was in her classic form and whether she’s still salvageable as anything other than a mustache-twirler.

I. The Demon’s Daughter

Let’s be clear: the little we know of Talia’s rebirth childhood is absolutely horrific.  Pure nightmare fuel.  While their traditional dynamic was troubling and problematic, it was also loving in its way, and Ra’s was controlling of her, while also protective of her.  Now, instead, we have this:

This issue has been out for a while, but I haven’t seen anyone really unpack what it is Talia is saying here, because we’re all focused on the stupid swordfight with Selina. But look at what it is Talia is saying and what it means about her upbringing.

Talia is saying that, basically since she was a toddler, she has been physically abused, and forced to fight, by her centuries old swordmaster father.  In fact, her very first memory is bleeding from wounds caused by her father.  From then on, her life is a fight to survive against her own father, which I’m guessing was pretty damn difficult especially when she was an actual child.  And often, when she loses?

She dies.  Or rather, she is murdered.  Repeatedly.  By her father.  

And then he resurrects her and starts over.  

And about those resurrections?  It’s not like he just picks her newly killed body and immediately brings her back - check out that first panel on the second row.   Not only is she killed and revived countless times, he lets her corpse at least partially rot before resurrecting her, so that when she returns to life, she is treated to the sight  of her skin regrowing over her rotted flesh.  And as soon as Ra’s notices she’s alive again… they start again.

How long did that go on? Unclear, but she’s still fighting him as a grown woman in the equivalent of this time period in The Gift...

...so I’m guessing the answer is “it didn’t stop until she left him.”

To be honest, I’m not really sure what the Rebirth version of Ra’s and Talia’s dynamic even was.  The classic relationship doesn’t work at all with this backstory, and we’ve never really seen a lot of what the new paradigm might be since they’ve been out of contact since well before Rebirth.  But what we do know is, she was an active assassin from a young age.

Unlike Classic Talia who was actually never an active assassin at all:

We can also glean bits and pieces of information regarding her Rebirth upbringing from other appearances. Over in Silencer, we find out that despite her brilliance, the fact that she was carrying out assassinations for him, and the fact that she could defeat her ancient swordmaster father even as a child, she was never good enough for him: 

He was dissatisfied with her, and so he created metahumans using his genes to replace her.  Ultimately, this drives her to plot against Ra’s because... who wouldn’t?

It’s not entirely clear what her ambitions were, specifically but judging from this bit of Batman and Robin (New52, but seemingly still canon for Damian’s backstory):

It involved winning Batman over to her side and ruling the world through Damian.  This is further confirmed by her comment to Honor in Silencer Annual #1 here:

Where she indicates that Bruce is family to her, and still features in her future plans. What’s strange here is that she also says later that she intends to kill him personally, which is.  Weird and out of nowhere, but what else is new.  As a sidenote, Silencer is just strange because it ignores everything about Talia’s history not just in terms of changing her personality but in terms of ignoring the timeline of events, but... moving along...

Talia intends to form Leviathan to break free of him and pursue her own agenda.  But, while apparently finding her insufficient, Ra’s cannot let her go.  Not only that, he actively works to destroy everything she is trying to accomplish, including trying to kill Batman just because she desires him.  In fact, he also tries to have Talia herself assassinated:

Another thing is, Rebirth Talia is rather older than she looks, as evidenced by her having been an adult when she met Honor. 

Which means, in the end, we have a woman who was abused and repeatedly killed by her father, then thrown in a Lazarus Pit (but only after her body has lain around long enough to partially decompose!) and forced to repeat the cycle for who knows how long, but apparently quite a long time - decades, maybe centuries. Who even knows.  She’s been working as an assassin since her teens.  Despite her excelling and even surpassing him in various ways, he considers her inferior, and begins seeking to replace her with artificially created metahuman heirs.  Eventually, Talia decides she wants to break with him, and he responds by first trying to destroy everything she cares about and then trying to have her killed. 

OKAY, SO.  Nightmare fuel.  I genuinely can’t begin to imagine what it would be like growing up in that environment, and under the circumstances it’s certainly no shock that Rebirth Talia is warped.  

Even so, what stands out to me in the B&R issue is that, initially, even her wildest ambitions required her to exercise power through a man – it’s just her son instead of her father or her potential husband.  This says a good deal about how her upbringing, as well as her father’s fixation on marrying her off, has affected her self-image.  And for those who say Talia evidences arrogance and self-importance… yes she does.  Which is often a symptom of low self-esteem.  In fact even Narcissistic Personality Disorder typically stems from overcompensation for a feeling of worthlessness.

The traditional/original Ra’s/Talia dynamic had some elements of this story, but not all and not nearly to the same extent.  Furthermore, Classic Talia had something else - someone else - to love and look to for hope. Rebirth Talia does not.  Because as far as I can tell, in Rebirth, Talia and Batman’s relationship has very little in common with the conflicted romance they shared in their original stories.  And that’s how we transition to...

II. Beloved of the Bat?

So, Bruce Wayne.  

Again, the extent of their relationship in Rebirth is unclear, but it definitely isn’t what it was pre-Rebirth.  

The original Bruce/Talia story is basically as such:  Talia meets him when she’s kidnapped by Dr. Daark, and falls in love with him.  Bruce is also drawn and attracted to her.  This results in Ra’s deciding to test Bruce for suitability as Talia’s husband and his own heir.  Bruce passes, but unsurprisingly has no interest in running a criminal empire, though he does fall in love with Talia.  This leads to a rather intense on/off romance that ultimately results in Damian Wayne, and continues until Tower of Babylon when Talia finally tires of being stuck between her father and her lover and breaks away from both of them. With Bruce and Talia’s relationship having been called to an end (by her, mind you – one day I may do a writeup on Bruce/Talia and how often what happened between them is misremembered by writers and readers alike), Bruce becomes involved with Catwoman in Hush.  Even so, we see in Death and the Maidens that Bruce does still love Talia.

Meanwhile, Talia’s previously unknown sister Nyssa kidnaps and repeatedly murders and resurrects her (sound familiar?) until she more or less goes mad.  By the end of the ordeal, she can barely speak, and she willing to do anything for Nyssa to avoid being killed again.  This results in Talia disavowing her love for Bruce, which seems to be the catalyst for him to finally move on from her, though not without considerable pain.

Okay this is important to run down, because the Rebirth story has changed everything about their relationship.

Gotta love those evil expressions.  It helps us remember that she’s a heartless monster.

Anyway so, In Silencer Annual #1, Silencer does note that Talia had previously said she was in love with Batman, so we know that she loved him, okay.  But what does love mean to Rebirth Talia?  We can find the answer to that if we go back to Roles of Engagement:

She “loved” him because she considered him a potential equal.  That’s not really a bad basis for loving someone initially – and even Classic Talia’s love for Bruce was initially sparked from a place of admiration.  But while Classic Talia eventually grew into a more complete love for him, it seems like Rebirth Talia is still stuck on objective: seek worthy mate.  In fact, once it’s clear that she and Bruce are not coming back together, she just goes ahead and propositions Slade Wilson because she figures he can give her strong children, too:

Notably, this obsession with strong offspring sort of comes out of nowhere when Morrison takes over, but anyway, from that perspective it’s not hard to understand why Bruce’s feelings for her would also be somewhat muted in Rebirth:

Because while Classic Bruce/Talia was a love story that stretched for over 30 years in our time, and most of their adult lives in canon… Rebirth Bruce/Talia is repeatedly presented as a short infatuation on his end, and a dangerous obsession with genetics on hers. The above panel is from Batman #66, and is part of the Knightmares arc, which is important because while it appears to be Selina saying it… it’s actually Bruce’s thoughts about the women in his life coming out through his imagined version of Selina.  And to him, those women amount to nothing much – none of them even warrant a direct callout.  Everyone besides Selina is a “whoever.”

Interlude and Sum I

So... Classic Ra’s was controlling, possessive and dismissive of her at times, but he was also devoted, protective and genuinely loving.  The relationship was complicated and problematic but affectionate. 

Rebirth Ra’s is an abusive tyrant who repeatedly murders and belittles his daughter and, when she decides to break from him, attempts to systematically destroy everything she cares about and then have her killed.

Classic Bruce/Talia was a complicated romance between two people who genuinely loved each other, but were always separated by circumstances.  He loved her for years, and she loved him unconditionally, and they struggled over that from the day they met until they permanently separated as a result of her being brainwashed.   

Rebirth!Talia went in search of someone she considered worthy of her so they could have a genetically perfect child to conquer the world with.  Bruce briefly had feelings for her in a moment between romantic rounds with Catwoman.

My point is this:  Rebirth Talia has never experienced genuine love or support from anyone in her life, or for anyone in her life. Her relationship with the two men she traditionally loved, and whose love for her has imprisoned, empowered and defined her for much of her existence as a character, was utterly gutted in Rebirth, leaving Rebirth Talia’s life as a prolonged emotional void.  Which makes what comes next remarkable in some ways… and predictable in others.

Because this is where we talk about Damian.

III. Olympias to his Alexander

Now, I’m not going to get into the circumstances behind Damian’s conception because what the whole hell, there is absolutely no consistency there.  Various people are very invested in one or another of the myriad versions of his conception that DC has repeatedly retconned and revised, generally leaning to whichever one fits their preferred personal narrative, and that’s fine but objectively?  Absolutely no consistency, situation unclear.  So let’s just go with “Damian resulted from this mess.”

In Batman and Robin #0 we see that Talia basically raised him the way Ra’s raised her… with some major deviations.  She used his desire to know his heritage and know his father’s name as the carrot to motivate him to succeed, rather than the fear of death and pain as a stick to punish him  for failure. 

Talia does not kill her son, whom she duels with wooden blades rather than steel.  And she is not shown to physically abuse him… aside from the swordfights, which of course is already bad.  

Mind you, I’m not denying that his upbringing is still brutal.  What I’m saying is, placed in the context of her own upbringing we can see that she was trying to raise him with more kindness and greater love than her father had her – an improved parental style, but still reflective of the only style she, herself, has ever known.  

So it’s predictable that he’s essentially mistreated… because she literally has never encountered an emotionally healthy relationship and wouldn’t know how to raise him any differently even if she wanted to.  

But it’s also remarkable because despite that, you can see she is trying to be a better mother than Ra’s was a father, and not let Damian grow up feeling unwanted and unworthy the way she did, herself.

Unlike Ra’s, she never tells Damian he is insufficient – on the contrary, she holds him up as the chosen, a conqueror, and dreams of a future when he will lead with both parents at his back.  Remember, this is a woman who was never seen as worthy of inheriting Ra’s al Ghul’s organization, and she wants to make sure Damian knows the world is his to hold.  The bit about having both parents is important, too, because per Batman Inc, Talia felt deprived of her mother, whom Ra’s had discarded as soon as she was no longer useful to him.

In short, she does for Damian everything she wished Ra’s had done for her.  

But, in so doing, she falls into many of the same traps that Ra’s had fallen into: she doesn’t provide what Damian wants, or even what he actually needs.  Instead, she gives him what he asks for, and what she thinks he needs.  But for someone who grew up without love, trying to understand how to provide it is complicated, and difficult.  

Anyway, when Damian finally defeats her, she fulfills her promise and brings him to meet Bruce.  This involves a last ditch effort to unite their family: she offers to reform.  

But not only does Bruce reject her, ultimately Damian does, as well.   This is, from Damian’s perspective, completely understandable.  Who wants to live that kind of life?  But from Talia’s perspective she has now been rejected by her own child, in addition to her father and the man she hoped to spend her life with.  You can see the raw hurt this causes her clearly, as a woman who had always yearned for family starts having exchanges like this:

And while we’re at it, count Honor as another person who left her.

And to be clear here, I’m not saying they were wrong to leave her.  Rebirth Talia is not a good person, not a kind person, not really anyone I’d want to willingly hang around.  And yes, she’s clearly manipulating Honor with her affectionate words, although I’d argue this is largely because manipulation is all she's ever experienced and all she knows how to do. 

So, what am I saying?

Interlude and Sum II - Why Is She Like That?

Just to catch it all up, we have a woman who was abused by her father, including being repeatedly murdered and resurrected, treated as inferior and insufficient despite being Ra’s’ equal or superior in many ways, who spent her young life performing assassinations and otherwise conforming her behavior to her father’s demands only to discover he was creating alternate heirs because she’s somehow still not enough for him.  She has never experienced love, seemingly has no real understanding of what it is.

When she settles on someone she believes that she loves, she is ultimately nothing to him but a “whoever” - a temporary respite from the yo-yo relationship he has with another woman.  

Then Damian happens and, from her perspective, she raises him with all the love, pride and approval that she herself never had.  In an effort to unite the family, she also attempts to do what would please Ra’s - conform her behavior to Bruce’s preferences - but he still rejects her.  

Meanwhile, she has “adopted” Honor Guest, whom she also shows favor to, but who also wants to leave her, and ultimately does just that, without even saying goodbye.   

And then we have some.  Quirks in her story - some specifics that really bear looking at in greater detail.

Repeated murder and resurrection:  So how bad is that?  It’s bad.  The first time Talia experiences this kind of thing is in Death and the Maidens, which is probably no longer canon.  But okay this was Classic Talia and for comparison, this breaks Talia’s spirit so completely that she essentially becomes Nyssa’s puppet.  

She is literally never the same again, even after Nyssa is killed.  In fact, it’s this that turned her into the monstrous Talia that we meet in Morrison’s run to begin with, so we already know she can be broken by this kind of treatment… but let’s use another example.  

Let’s use… Batman.  

He’s got one of the strongest wills in DC, right?  Well, lets rewind to a story called Emperor Joker, where the Joker attained Mr. Mxyzpltck’s omnipotent powers which he uses to repeatedly torture and murder Batman and resurrect him every day.  

This completely destroys Bruce to the point where the Spectre has to erase his memory of it in order to make Bruce functional as a person again.

So imagine that happening to Talia, as a child, at her own father’s hands.  And not for days, for years. And that’s without even considering the method of resurrection, which brings us to…

Lazarus Madness: Let’s talk about the Lazarus Pit.  It’s a magical mystical ley line-powered bath that resurrects and heals.  We all know that.  But the thing is, that’s not all it does: it also drives the one bathed or healed mad. For a short time, they become superhumanly strong, and also overtaken with violent bloodlust.  The first Lazarus pit was used to resurrect a sultan’s son, who promptly murdered Ra’s al Ghul’s wife Sora.  Since then, Ra’s himself has been the primary beneficiary of its benefits, with interesting results… namely that Ra’s has been slowly going mad for centuries.  

Because even though the intensity of the bloodlust and madness fades, it never completely disappears, and cumulative effect eventually twists a person’s nature beyond recognition.  In his first life, Ra’s was a good-natured doctor, but over the many exposures he has found himself becoming progressively worse. 

A quote from Denny O’Neil, Ra’s’s creator:

“...we gave Ra’s a benevolent motivation.  You can certainly quarrel with his methods ... But Ra's is a loony bird.  He’s been alive for 400 years and he’s become a maniacal sociopath.”

Dick Grayson concurs, and acknowledges its cause:

Even Ra’s himself is aware of it – this is why he didn’t want Jason bathed in the Lazarus Pit, because he is all too aware of the demons it stirs in a person.

So, what is the impact on Talia, who is quickly and repeatedly tortured and killed, and then resurrected using a method that is known to drive people insane?  I’m going with “not the best.”  It’s frankly astounding that she still resembles a human, psychologically.  

Assassin work at a young age: While there has been a long-standing debate about the effects of exposure to violence on all people and children in particular, in general the consensus is, yes, exposure does cause desensitization.  Obviously this doesn’t mean people are going to generally become serial killers because they played a violent video game, but it does have a numbing effect – just think about how people who watch enough horror films are harder to scare with horror films.  

Now imagine that, instead of watching people murder and commit violent acts on television or on film, a child is instead expected to perform said acts themselves.  How desensitizing would that be?  

Frankly, to see all we need to do is look at Damian, who grew up under similar circumstances and, as a result, initially exhibits what I can only call red flag behavior.

The thing is, Damian isn’t so dissimilar from his mother in this regard.  Like Talia, he becomes morally twisted, emotionally empty and ultimately tethered not to his own sense of morality or self but to other people’s perceptions and demands of him and who he should be.  Before he meets Bruce, he adheres to the League’s expectations, and when he meets Bruce, he instead aligns himself with Bruce’s code of behavior, even though he does not actually believe in it.  It takes a good deal of time and work for him to begin developing his own beliefs and boundaries.  The difference between Damian and Talia is that he had Bruce and Bruce, despite his flaws, loved Damian enough to try for his sake.

Arguably, this is a defining difference between Classic and Rebirth Talia, as well.  Classic Talia also viewed Bruce as her beacon and her path to salvation and hope.

But if, in Rebirth, Bruce never really loved her, and in fact she barely loved him, then there is no catalyst for her to begin seeking another path.  Rebirth Talia didn’t have anything but the League, and even Ra’s barely cared for her.  As a result, she was boxed into her role by fate, which she acknowledges in Teen Titans, as she wishes better for her son than she had herself.

Anyway, obviously, there are no studies on the effect of taking assassin work as a child, but my general guess here is that she has a twisted understanding of the value of life and the significance of death.  Which brings me to another massive issue that permeates the character and may even help explain her choice to put a hit on Damian at one point.

Death as Optional: Death is an inevitability, right? Like taxes. Nothing you do can prevent it, or reverse it, so all you can do is live with it, and make the most of what you have. It’s said that the existence of death is what lends meaning to life, and while I’m not sure I’m quite on board with that, the fact that death is permanent certainly does lend a certain gravitas to it.  It’s also the reason we fear death and what lies beyond it.

Unless you’re an al Ghul.

For an al Ghul, death is opt in.  Because Ra’s is essentially immortal (which is also a new thing, by the way) and because Talia herself has been repeatedly resurrected, as has her brother Dusan (assuming he’s still in continuity post-Rebirth), to Talia death has no weight to it.  No gravitas.  It is easily doled out, and just as easily forced into retreat.  

Given that, it becomes exceptionally easy to threaten death, even to those she loves, because there’s nothing to say she can’t change her mind and take it back.  

Now to be clear, my argument is not that she had the intention of taking it back – she didn’t really intend for Damian to die to begin with for one thing.  It’s just that, because of who she is and what she has experienced, Talia would always act with the knowledge that she can choose to endanger someone’s life and think about whether she’s comfortable with the result (their being dead) later.

This is evident in both Ra’s and Talia, each of whom are willing to use death and resurrection as a tool to restructure people they don’t even want dead, as Ra’s attempts to do with Damian and Talia, and as Talia does with Honor Guest.

…as a sidenote can I just say that the Lazarus Pit’s effects are so weird.  In some stories it can’t resurrect at all, and in others it can resurrect after decades without a problem.  In some it just reduces age, and in some it also heals memories.  Here it’s being used to erase memories, which makes no sense since a Pit his how Jason Todd got his memories back. Also, this is the first I’ve ever heard of al Ghuls having especially strong resistance to the Pit’s corrosive effects on personality.  Considering it’s just a bunch of chemicals on a ley line, I’m not sure how that would work, but now I’m just imagining Ra’s with a book of Lazarus recipes like, Well, I’m needing one that restores memories today so Ima add an extra pinch of ginko.

ANYWAY.

V. “R” Stands for Redemption

There was a time, a few years back, when Damian had his own series, Robin: Son of Batman.  And therein, you see one of the few efforts to explain and redeem Talia’s character.  There, while she was still presented as colder and more aggressive than her Classic counterpart, she was still capable of compassion, protectiveness and love.

It was essentially explained as a result of her being cleansed of the toxin that was Ra’s al Ghul’s influence, via having darkness physically removed from her body.

Now, to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that particular route – I feel like it would have been more honest to have her resurrection heal the Lazarus damage, for example, but it’s a start.  And, in the end, Damian left her with the chance to redeem herself and earn back his and Bruce’s trust.

Aaaand she has failed. Or more precisely, writers have failed to follow up on this thread, and have instead doubled down on her as the evil Dragon Mother.  I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what’s going on with DC’s fixation on evil Asian ninja moms but I’m just going to… pretend that isn’t a thing in order to suggest some paths that could salvage her character.

I’ve seen it said that she’s been too evil for too long to be redeemed, but honestly that’s pretty silly. First of all these are comic books, anyone can be redeemed.  The same writer who wreaked havoc on Talia also had Magneto, a Holocaust survivor, going full Nazi on humans, which was incredibly out of character, and Marvel basically fixed it by saying “guess who that wasn’t? Magneto.  It wasn’t Magneto.”  Technically DC could just Hal Jordan her, or let the rumored upcoming continuity shuffle bring her previous history back.  As for the “been this way too long” argument, I mean she was Original Flavor Talia for more than twice as long and that wasn’t too long for DC to flip her entire motivation and personality.  Catwoman was a villain for decades, and yet here she is, protecting people, making out with Batman on rooftops and leaving him at the alter for altruistic reasons. Same with Ivy, except for the parts about Batman, soooo… you know….

Anyway. I’m going to work with the assumption that we have to use what we have, and that we’re trying to get her to something like her pre-Morrison personality.

The first thing she would need is the experience of love. Someone to anchor her, who won’t judge her or abandon her even when she’s in a dark mood. Even when she’s showing her pain and her anger.  Someone who recognizes how broken she is, but decides to try to help her rather than rejecting her.  Someone who, in essence, will do for her what Bruce did for Classic Talia, and what he does for Damian in his flawed way.

Now, I’m a massive Bruce/Talia shipper, no lie.  However, I do not think Rebirth Bruce and Talia have the kind of connection that could provide her this essential first need. Someone like Superman or Wonder Woman would probably be a better choice, simply because they have greater warmth of character and a drive toward helping lost souls.  

After that, she would need some good old fashioned redemption time.  Maybe a miniseries where she goes Xena on the world: a redemption quest.  Maybe joining a team like the Outsiders or the Suicide Squad where she can earn her way back from the brink.  The Outsiders would be cool, especially, because it would allow Bruce and Damian to monitor her and judge her as she progresses.  

…and I mean, from a character perspective that’s all she really needs.  From a writing perspective, she needs a writer who will nail down things like where Damian came from without going back to the drug-and-rape well, which was a retcon to begin with and has been retconned out and then back in over and over again.   And most importantly, she needs a writer who has the interest in exploring her internal world to the point where they can actually draw these things out of her instead of just ignoring the fridge-horror implications of things like… the way she was raised.

If we could get these things to coincide, then Talia, too, can be saved!

Or we could just reboot the timeline again, whatever.

Anyway, that’s all folks, thanks for reading this far, I have no idea how you did.  If you’re interested in this kind of thing, feel free to drop me a line and ask me… whatever, because God knows I have plenty to say about Talia and about comics in general.  

In closing, something to remind us of the character we’ve lost.

Until next time!

[royal-chandler]

My Thoughts on Endgame

I usually don’t do this and I’m not very articulate when doing a train of thought but I need to expel all of my feelings.

Pros:

- It was truly a Stevetony event. I loved every moment between them, from Steve being the first to reach Tony when he returned to “That’s my man.” Honestly their moments felt like fanfic at times and my shipper heart couldn’t have been more over the moon with how they were handled. I think that the Russos delivered well with regard to their relationship. 

 - Oh Tony. I cried. A lot. Death was the ending that I wanted for him but I was also glad that he’d found happiness before. I’ll never be on the Pepper train but Morgan Stark was beyond precious and lovely (like any child of Tony would be anything but). I loved that Tony died as Iron Man because gosh, I’ll say it forever and always, he and the suit are one. His last moments broke my heart just right. I would’ve liked more with he and Rhodey but it was near perfect. However, as happy as I am with Tony’s ending, I look forward to all of the fix-it fic.

- I did not anticipate that Natasha would also die. It was the only true twist to the movie for me. I thought that it fit and was a good callback to “I’ve got red in my ledger” with her so desperately wanting to reverse the snap. And while pretty much everyone was great in this movie, Scarjo was a standout for me. I didn’t anticipate that and it was a pleasant surprise. It was great to see Natasha shine. Although, I didn’t like the extent to which her death mimicked Gamora’s, however-- the musical cue and them going as far to show Natasha lying in the same exact position kind of undermined the scene.

- Iron Dad and Spider-Son. Ugh, these two really did me in. Like the tears were coming as Tony snapped but the incoherent noises unleashed at Peter’s goodbye. I have conflicted feelings on Tony choosing to go away for five years but I’m glad that Peter was his motivation for returning to the compound.

- Carol. Just everything with her. There wasn’t enough. And god, that haircut is an A+.

Cons:

- Thor and Bruce. They each had moments I liked, Thor with Frigga and Bruce’s reaction to Natasha’s death and then being the first to make the snap. Beautiful and genuinely poignant. However, I felt like everything else was a disservice to their characters and sort of silly. I didn’t terribly mind Professor Hulk but I would’ve preferred more gravitas. 

- The conclusion of Steve’s arc. It was such a huge letdown for me. I whined about it while the credits rolled, I whined in the car, I whined when my best friend bought me ice-cream to make me happier but I’m still upset. As someone who loves this character--his principles, his ability to withstand, his courage--it just broke my heart in all of the wrong ways. Steve returning to the past is the ONE thing that I did not want to happen but I knew it was going down the minute his picture showed up on Peggy’s desk. Which made no sense to me because I thought Peggy had been happily married by that time; I don’t understand why she’d have that on her desk. Like I know Bruce said the past couldn’t be changed and that instead going back would only create alternate timelines but I don’t know, maybe unreasonably, it still felt selfish and OOC to me and I can’t hang with it. I think this will hurt for a good while.  And personal, minor nitpick but I didn’t want Steve to pass the mantle to Sam or Bucky. I know it happens in the comics but Steve Rogers is the Cap of the MCU and I’m pretty unmovable on that.

I don’t know exactly how I feel about this movie and I still need to process but right now, there’s a great energy of negative. What I loved, I LOVED but too much of it didn’t work for me, mainly Steve’s arc and the movie feeling convoluted. And this especially sucks because I bought tickets for a showing tomorrow night as well (past me was so optimistic) but I think I just might get a refund and just not go. I don’t think I want to watch this movie again so soon.

*sigh*