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thecasscain · 2 days ago

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Charting out Shiva's "backstories" (or rather, vaguely implied backstories) throughout the years and how Tate Brombal's new History of Shiva in Batgirl 2024 impacts Shiva, Cass, and their relationship moving forward:

After Batgirl #8's publication today, I thought I'd take a look at what pieces of Shiva's history were previously depicted before now and how Tate Brombal has changed things (or kept them the same)...just to see what he did and didn't do in context of Shiva and Cassandra's history. I have a lot of thoughts on how he's approached this given what little we actually knew about Shiva going in and how messed up Cassandra's own history still is, so let's dive right in!

1975: Denny O'Neil writes Shiva in Richard Dragon as someone who has no backstory. She's here to kick ass, take names, and avenge her sister; her backstory, where and how long she trained for, etc. is irrelevant. Sandra's sister Carolyn is killed by the Swiss in a getaway chase between Richard Dragon and the Swiss, and Shiva comes after Richard because the guy who hired the Swiss convinced her Richard was responsible for it.

The two shreds of Woosan Sisters backstory we do get: 1) Carolyn has an uncle named 'Shiruto', a weapons developer who kills himself rather than reveal his secrets to the Swiss within two pages of his first appearance, and 2) Carolyn goes to school in New York City and is O-Sensei's goddaughter:

"I am Carolyn Woosan...the O-Sensei is my godfather!" -Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter (1975) #2

This is never elaborated on at any point after this comment and Shiva seemingly does not know who O-Sensei is when she and Richard track him down later in the series. Shiva has several adventures with Richard and Ben Turner within this book but is not mentioned again in the pre-Crisis universe after it ends. Within the actual source material, this is all we get of Shiva.

Then we start getting into the additional information and various changes that occurred post-Crisis:

1987: In the Who's Who in the DC Universe 1987 Update, after Denny O'Neil reintroduced Shiva in The Question, we get a Shiva write-up seemingly indicating that the entirety Richard Dragon is still canon and also providing a few new shreds of Shiva backstory:

"After being convinced by criminal industrialist Guano Cravat that her sister Carolyn had been slain by Richard Dragon, Sandra Woosan swore to slay her sister's killer. She studied and prepared, taking the name Lady Shiva." ".....before transforming herself into Lady Shiva, Sandra had a basic knowledge of the martial arts. These skills were then honed to near perfection and she is now one of the deadliest fighters in the world." -Who's Who: Update '87

1991: the next Who's Who write-up of Shiva further implies that Richard Dragon is still canon and somewhat explicitly says that Shiva did not start studying martial arts until Carolyn was killed.

"Life presents many different paths and opportunities to a person. Sandra Woosan's life took a destructive path when Guano Cravat, a criminal industrialist, convinced her that martial artist/spy Richard Dragon killed her sister Carolyn. Motivated by revenge, Sandra dedicated her life to mastering the martial arts, hoping one day she could beat Dragon at his own game. Sandra became a master of many forms of combat and confronted Dragon." -Who's Who in the DC Universe (1990) #10

Both the 1987 and 1991 write-ups are extra-canonical material that are not, to my knowledge, mentioned anywhere in-text, and neither were written or directed to be written by Denny O'Neil. But like. They're there and ambiguously canon.

2004: Chuck Dixon writes Richard Dragon, a maxiseries that de-canonizes all previous information in favor of saying that Shiva met Richard at a fighting tournament in Japan while scouting for students. Richard, Ben, and Shiva's histories are all massively fucked up as a result of this maxi. While nothing is explicitly stated about Shiva's history, she mentions offhand near the beginning of the book that she has "unfinished business in Detroit," which leads us to...

2006: Andersen Gabrych writes Shiva in Batgirl as a girl who grew up with her sister Carolyn in Detroit. This is first mentioned in Batgirl #65 and then slightly elaborated on in Batgirl #73, in the process of retconning Shiva to be Cassandra's mother:

"We all knew each other. But there was one time...[Cain and Shiva walk away from a fight. He seems to be telling or asking her something. She shoves him and walks off]...never asked her about it. Me and Sandy weren't tight like that." "Wait. Sandy?" "Oh. Haha! Well, before she annointed herself Lady Shiva, she was just plain old Sandra Wu-San from Detroit." -Batgirl (2000) #65

Sandra and Carolyn are now both martial arts prodigies who trained constantly, fought together, and either a) trounced people on the competition circuit or b) put on fighting exhibitions that everyone came to see (depending on how you read and extrapolate from the two pages of story we get), which is how Cain found her:

"Long ago and far away...in the land of Detroit, lived two sisters. Though as different as night and day, they loved each other deeply. And more than that—they loved to dance. Every moment of the day was spent in lessons. They danced all through the night. They danced so much it became the secret language of sisters. The world had never seen anything like it. People would come from near and far to watch the sisters perform. People like the lonely hunter, Cain." -Batgirl (2000) #73

Cain kills Carolyn to "unleash Sandra's potential." Sandra goes after him in revenge and failed to kill him. Explicit sexual coercion happens (Cain gave her a 'give me a child or die' proposition with a gun to her head), Sandra trains with Cain until she has Cass, and then she goes off to "be reborn" as Shiva.

Batgirl is the first time we get any actual substantive Shiva background in-text post-Crisis. Her time working with Richard and Ben as part of the Kung-Fu Fighter Crew is now extra definitively non-canon, as even beyond Dixon's book there is no way to reconcile Cain killing Carolyn in Detroit with the events of KFF. O-Sensei is similarly not mentioned in any capacity. Carolyn has been slightly revamped from helpless damsel to someone who was theoretically capable but "got in the way." We still see none of it beyond a 7 page fairy tale-esque sequence that does a lot of victim-blaming of Sandra for taking Cain's deal to save her life. Moving on.

2007: Gail Simone writes Shiva in Birds of Prey as someone who may or may not have grown up in an unidentified, purposefully hidden "Southeast Asian village." Regardless of whether she grew up there, that's certainly where she "became Shiva," training under the brutal woman known only as "Mother." Simone implies that the Detroit backstory established in Batgirl is also somewhat true:

"This is the agreement we made. To trade life experiences." ... "Why here, Shiva? I'd heard you grew up in Detroit." "That is only part of the story." -Birds of Prey (1999) #93

However, Simone's new backstory (if taken as true, which is not necessarily the case, because nothing is definitively stated at any point) completely contradicts Gabrych's backstory, as Mother implies that Shiva was raised in the village on multiple occasions:

"Just so you are aware, Tag...at four years of age, she cried out less than you did just now." -Birds of Prey #92

There is also an implied "there must always be a Shiva" element to this backstory, as Sin Lance was being groomed to become Shiva's successor before Dinah dropped in.

Generally, I think a reasonable extrapolation, given the sequence of canon events, is that you can fit this village into Shiva's post-Crisis backstory if you assume it's where Sandra at least partially trained to become Shiva after leaving Cain and Baby!Cass. So Mother credits herself as Shiva's "mother" because it is where Sandra died and Shiva was born. But that's an assumption and not anything definitively backed up by canon.

Fast forward to...

2015-2018: Cassandra is reintroduced into post-Flashpoint continuity during the events of Batman and Robin Eternal. Shiva is not mentioned. When Shiva does finally appear in Tynion's Detective Comics Rebirth run, her backstory and relationship with Cain is not elaborated on beyond the fact that she "had no idea what David Cain did with her daughter" and wanted to see if Cass was "worth her time." We get one tiny tidbit from Ra's taunting Shiva that hints that the Batgirl-era Detroit backstory is possibly canon, but that's it:

"Sandra Wu-San. Searching so hard to find what she lost back in Detroit. But instead losing more and more of herself until there was nothing left. Nothing but Shiva." -Detective Comics (2016) #956

2019: Bryan Hill writes Shiva in Batman and the Outsiders as someone who now vaguely grew up in a village in China. Apparently this village used to be full of assassins but is now a village of farmers:

"As I recall, you were born in a small Chinese village. Once a place of assassins. Now a land of farmers." -Batman and the Outsiders (2019) #12

There is no elaboration on whether it was still an assassin training ground when Shiva lived there or if it was already a farming village by the time she was born. This is a brand new backstory that completely contradicts Gabrych's Detroit backstory (which had been previously hinted at in Tynion's Tec run) and largely contradicts Simone's possible village backstory...and only Detroit is even remotely reconcilable with Cassandra's New 52 backstory. Shiva also does a complete about-face from Tynion's portrayal of her; she now thinks of Bruce as someone who "took" Cassandra from her and seemingly desperately wants to be a mother to her. This portrayal continues into Batgirls and more recent books.

2022-2023: Che Grayson explicitly names this Chinese village as 'Duoyishu Village' in Batman: Urban Legends #3:

[Location stamp stating 'Duoyishu Village, China'] -Batman: Urban Legends (2021) #3

We have no idea how long the girls lived there with their parents, what their life in the village was like, and no clue what happened in between then and now other than the tidbit that Shiva has very few memories of her childhood and loved her mother's pork belly:

"Memories...you know, I don't remember much from when I was a child." -Urban Legends #3

Grayson also continues the throughline established by Hill in Outsiders and Cloonan/Conrad in Batgirls of Shiva seeing Bruce as someone who "took Cassandra from her" in both this story and the "Memory Lane" Birds of Prey story in Urban Legends #14-16.

Then Kelly Thompson reintroduced Sin Lance in Birds of Prey (2023), largely wholesale; this means that Dinah and Shiva's "life experience swap" arc from Simone's BOP run is canon again...and implicitly, Simone's potential Shiva backstory. We also have Alyssa Wong, who wrote Spirit World (2023) and effectively re-canonized the entirety of Batgirl (2000) in the process. So both Detroit and "Asia" are both actively on the Shiva multiple choice backstory menu; any pre-2004 conceptulization of Sandra as a "normal girl" who never really knew martial arts before Carolyn died? Seemingly off the table.

By this point, the events of Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter have not been canon since (generously) at least 2004. Shiva now has four largely contradictory origin story hints, three of which are ambiguously canon and none of which have been expanded upon enough to actually say anything useful about Sandra, Carolyn, Cassandra, their relationships with each other, or their collective past. Cass's own backstory is also still a royal mess with all of the contradictory nonsense that happened between 2006 and 2023.

Cue Batgirl 2024 and Tate Brombal, who for the first time sat down and told Shiva's story in her own words. In this new interpretation, we get a solid mixture of old and new that's been put into a blender:

Ming-Yue and Mei-Xing's parents were a forbidden romance from rival sects, the Blood and the Unburied. They lived as nomads in China, including in Duoyishu Village, until they were killed by Wu Feng (leader of The Blood and the father's brother) in the Himalayas. They were then raised and trained by Akhu and a group of monks, hidden away in "a small village in the Himalayas."

After leaving the village post-Blood attack, Mei and Yue traveled the world for a few years, mastering various combat forms and martial arts, and finally landed in in Detroit, where they took the American names Carolyn and Sandra and started putting on exhibition fights. We then get the Batgirl-era backstory of them continuing to dance, fight, and perform for crowds as a travelling act and being seen by Cain.

Brombal then does some timeline shenanigans, making Sandra and Carolyn crimefighters once they meet Richard Dragon and Ben Turner, adding Carolyn to the Kung-Fu fighter team and fully re-canonizing everything from the 1975 Richard Dragon series post-Shiva's introduction (for the first time in 20 years+) so they can all work and chill together before everything goes to shit.

Cain, who has been stalking Sandra for some time, makes a creepy af proposition to her in a dark alley. She refuses. He states that he knew she would, which is why he's already removed Carolyn from the equation. She rushes home, and together with Richard and Ben finds Carolyn dead and left for her to find. And this is where we've left off, with the final part of the story (Shiva and Cain) seemingly left for the final part of this three-part arc.

So. Where does this leave us with Shiva? Well, let's start with a look at what Brombal seemingly took from Shiva's various other canon lore drops:

Shiva was born and at least partially raised in a Chinese village as a young girl before their parents' deaths (Batman and the Outsiders, Urban Legends),

Sandra and Carolyn were raised and taught by Akhu, implied to be the O-Sensei (the man who trained Richard and Ben in Kyoto, Japan), in an unidentified southeast Asian village located somewhere in the Himalayas (possibly calling back to Simone's potential backstory in Birds of Prey). They call him "practically a godfather," calling back to Carolyn's lore drop in RDKFF #2

Sandra and Carolyn lived in Detroit for some time (re: Batgirl #73),

Sandra and Carolyn danced and fought together for years, to the point of being able to work together seamlessly (Batgirl #73)

Cain finding Shiva through Sandra and Carolyn's exhibition matches in Detroit, seeing potential in Sandra and thinking Carolyn holds her back, and killing Carolyn and leaving her body for Sandra to find (Batgirl #73)

The entirety of the events of Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter (1975) post-Shiva's introduction, excepting the specifics of Carolyn's death (which he takes largely wholesale from Batgirl #73 while changing the timeline so it occurs during the time Sandra was working with Richard and Ben rather than before),

Richard Dragon's name, look, and general pre-O-Sensei backstory from Dixon's Richard Dragon run, with the caveat that all of the nonsense about Ben training Richard got thrown out the window in favor of the OG Richard Dragon interpretation of both Richard and Ben being trained by O-Sensei

……also the Richard/Shiva implications from both the 1975 Richard Dragon run (where it was mostly a couple of jokes Ben makes at Richard's expense) and Dixon's 2004 Richard Dragon maxi (which makes Richard kind of obsessed with her)

And now a look at what's new: Sandra and Carolyn Wu-San not being the girls' birth names, the family history with the Unburied and the Blood, the defined adolesence in the Himalayas, the nomadic life post-China and pre-Detroit, Carolyn being part of the Kung-Fu Fighter crew (+her relationship with Ben), and the timeline shenanigans to re-canonize RDKFF while also keeping Shiva's Batgirl-era backstory intact. Also new: Carolyn having a personality, Sandra and Carolyn's rather complex familial relationship, and Sandra's hunger for vengeance pre-dating Carolyn's murder.

So. What are my thoughts on all of this?

First off, I really love the reinvention of the Kung Fu Fighter crew. It solves a lot of timeline issues, leaves the door open for someone to truly update those stories for the modern day, and fixes 3.5 characters in one go (giving Richard and Ben their proper histories and personalities back, giving Carolyn something to do outside of die in Richard's arms, and giving Shiva her crimefighting era back, inserting the moral ambiguity back into her history rather than making her a flat villain like she has been so often for the past 25 years), so I'm not mad about it at all.

I'm happy Brombal is giving Shiva a life, voice, and perspective outside of 'Shiva The Mother' and 'Shiva the Villain.' Shiva the daughter and Shiva the sister are not things that have ever been explored before! I also genuinely love the work being put in to make Carolyn an actual character, especially the page-time dedicated to showcasing Sandra and Carolyn as two women who have a complex relationship and long history outside of Carolyn's fridging and Sandra becoming Shiva in response. It gives us a real look into why Carolyn's murder was the catalyst for Sandra becoming Shiva, and I think it's a very effective one.

Mei has opinions that put her in conflict with Yue; she's more peace-loving and disciplined in general than Yue, but less willing to keep her head down and look the other way when injustice is happening. She doesn't like combat as much as Yue even though she's better at it. She clearly feels parentified by her mother's last charge to look after her younger sister. She likes boys more and wants to proactively help people and move on from her past in a way that Yue is simply incapable of thinking about. It's a really fascinating glimpse into Carolyn as a person and her relationship with Sandra.

I'm also a huge fan of Brombal seemingly doubling down on unpacking the implications of Cain's "proposition" to Sandra in Batgirl #73 when she tracks him down for revenge and fails to kill him:

"I want what you want. Perfection. To help you meet your target. The power and ability to put the world in its place...vengeance against the man who killed your parents. All I ask for is one thing. For years, I have been developing the perfect weapon, the perfect...killer. But failure after failure has only proven [he touches Sandra's stomach] the importance of good stock." -Batgirl (2024) #8)

He previously implied that Shiva hated Cain and the entire situation surrounding Cass's birth, but that one was a lot more ambiguous:

"I know what I am, and I know you hate it. But that old woman, Ba Bao, she said that there is soft and there is hard. Well, somewhere along the way, I lost my soft, and I now realize it was when I had you. You took all my soft, daughter. I held you in my arms, and I saw it. I saw my sister, too. And perhaps I hated you for it. Perhaps I wanted to hate you for it. To make it easier to leave you with that—that man." -Batgirl (2024) #4

Personally, this is a fantastic and very welcome change in my book. The only time we've ever gotten the story of Shiva and Cain was a victim-blamey 7 page sequence in the last issue of Batgirl (2000), where Shiva implies that she appreciated him "unlocking her potential" as a fighter and "setting her free" from Carolyn despite also explicitly stating that she still missed Carolyn every day. While I don't AGREE with the interpretation that Shiva actually genuinely loved Cain at all and think it's an incredible simplification of what Shiva actually told Cass, it's very easy to walk away with that vibe if you don't dig into it much, so I'm super happy to see a writer willing to actually unpack all that.

We've also never gotten any attempt to deal with the implications of Cass knowing that history, as Cass spent most of that issue fighting Shiva and leaving her for dead dangling over the Lazarus Pit and then the Evil Cass arc happened...so absolutely nothing in that last arc about Cass finding out Shiva was her mom and the origins of how she came to be got unpacked or dealt with. And then her backstory was fucked over during the New 52 (something that still hasn't actually been fixed and dealt with), so she didn't know about it all over again!

Overall I'm mixed on the various childhood stuff, specifically the inclusions of the Unburied and the Blood. It's always fun to see new cool secret warrior groups, especially ones unconnected to the League of Assassins (which modern DC loves to use as an umbrella assassin group instead of 'one among many'), and their inclusion in Shiva's backstory is very obviously a set-up for one of the things that Brombal wants to have Cass deal with moving forward. This is his way of expanding Cass's world beyond Gotham and beyond Nyssa's League of Assassins sect. I think I'm withholding full judgement until I see where he goes with it, and whether my theories that a) the groups will be used to explain Shiva's odd capacity for healing and b) Wu Lin (the Bloodmaster introduced in Batgirl #4) will be revealed to be Shiva's cousin—and Cass's second cousin—actually pan out.

What I'm not a fan of: Sandra having a hunger for vengeance prior to Carolyn's murder, having dream premonitions of Carolyn's death and becoming Shiva, and brazenly dictating all of this history to Cass via a post-mortem diary and saying she trusts her with her life and her vengeance. I do think it defeats the purpose of "Shiva" for it to be an inevitable conclusion for Sandra instead of an avoidable tragedy, and I dislike the concept of Shiva being anything other than in love with danger and in love with living life on the edge during the Kung-Fu Fighter era. While the rest of it certainly has its place in Shiva's life, the jaded perspective and Batgirl-era death wish should have come later, after Cain. I also think she trusts Cass far too much considering their history up to that point, but I'm willing to give some grace on that front since it's a plot device.

Generally speaking, I find that Brombal's Lady Shiva is a Sandra that generally follows from what we've seen of her since 2006, a Lady Shiva that's clearly couched in an attempt to deal with 50 years and three universes worth of history, and a Shiva-and-Cass relationship that encompasses basically the totality of everything that's been done with them since they first met in Batgirl (2000) #7, including the work done since the 2019 Outsiders run.

While that's not necessarily my preferred interpretation of Shiva or her relationship with Cass, it's also not one that Brombal is inventing out of thin air for the sake of a story. He's obviously very well-read on both Shiva and Cass and is trying to reconcile all of the various contradictory aspects of what's been handed to us in canon regarding Shiva's history and her behavior towards Cassandra. This is very difficult considering that 50 years and three continuities have happened since Richard Dragon #5 and Brombal clearly has his own story that he wants to tell with both Shiva and Cass.

I think just like all other previous attempts to tell both Shiva's story and Cass's story....some of it worked; some of it didn't. But overall I generally loved the issue and think it was pretty well done considering what Brombal had to work with. I'm super interested to see how he tackles Cass's reactions to all of this and what impact it has on her perspective of her mother moving forward. The whole 'Mother' arc, after all, was ultimately about Cass trying to reconcile who she thought Shiva was with who Shiva actually is in the context of her own life and history with her, and then setting up a new emotional status quo for both women. And we're finally past the set-up, so I'm really looking forward to the payoff.

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thecasscain · 8 days ago

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Duke and Bruce: A Question of Definition

When re-reading Cursed Wheel, I was struck by this exchange. Suspicions around Bruce's motive for taking in Duke is a running thread in their relationship, but what fascinates me about this moment is that Duke is using this suspicion against Bruce. He knows Bruce will be hurt by this accusation. More than hurt - Bruce's "maybe" suggests uncertainty, a lack of faith in himself. In this exchange, Duke and Bruce are both uncertain of what they mean to each other, and both troubled by that uncertainty.

This uncertainty runs throughout their time together. I'm going to try to track Bruce & Duke's dynamic through the years; basically, this post collects my disparate Bruce-Duke thoughts from my full Duke read. So warning that this is a LONG post.

I will probably contradict takes I've had in the past but you live and you learn 😭. Also the Bruce-Duke dynamic shifts a lot so this is not definitive or 100% correct - lots of these moments can be interpreted differently! But with all that said, let's jump into Zero Year!

The Beginning

Duke and Bruce first meet during the disaster called Zero Year, where Riddler blacks out and floods Gotham:

Batman (2011) #21

At its core, Zero Year and Endgame are about Bruce's relationship to Gotham. Duke says "He thinks you're dead[...] ever since he killed the city." Batman's death becomes intertwined with the city's death; in the reverse way, Duke in Bruce's mind will become intertwined with Gotham. This exchange sets up their relationship as reciprocal: Bruce gives Duke his fish, and Duke gives Bruce information. From the beginning, they have equal need for each other.

Batman (2011) #30

After Duke's parents rescue Bruce, Bruce tries to persuade Duke to leave Gotham. Duke replies: "No. We're here." Duke's decision to stay in Gotham directly influences Bruce to stay as well - here, we begin to see Bruce linking Duke to the city. This issue establishes that their relationship in some ways revolves around the city itself.

Batman (2011) #38

Then, Joker arranges for Duke and his parents to star in a re-enactment of the Wayne murders. Bruce manages to rescue Duke only, and then Bruce asks Duke to help him find a first aid kit for Jim. This scene parallels their first meeting in #21 (see the fish panel above!), with one handing something to the other. Their positions are flipped: this time it's Duke handing something to Bruce. The flipping nods to the 'reciprocity' aspect, and also to the way they parallel and will continue to parallel each other (particularly in Snyder's writing).

But this is also the first moment of genuine connection between the two of them! Bruce asks Duke to be a "friend," and they fist bump. Nowhere near familial, but a bit more intimate - this intimacy is more on Bruce's side than Duke's though. Duke still sees Bruce as primarily Batman, but Batman begins to think about Duke as an individual. This one-sided growing intimacy is a core tenet of their dynamic.

Symbols and People

Let's address this 'one-sided intimacy'. To Duke, Bruce is Batman first and foremost, and he criticises Bruce whenever he's not:

Batman (2011) #47

To Duke, Bruce is just anybody, but Batman? That symbol "inspire[s]" people, and "no one could be [Batman] but you!" His faith in Bruce is entirely tied to the Bat symbol. Concurrently with his growing understanding of the Robin symbol in We Are Robin, a large part of Duke's early story is about symbols as markers of community and hope. He prioritises Batman's relationship to the city over any relationship he personally could have with Bruce.

Bruce's view of their relationship has shades of this too. He tends to describe Duke in terms of his effect on the city:

From Batman & The Signal #3 and Batman: The Secret Files: The Signal respectively, both of these are about Duke's potential to benefit Gotham. The latter in particular shows Bruce idealising Duke as the 'perfect' Gothamite, a "represent[ation]" of the city's best.

This kind of idolisation skates close to early Bruce-Cass, particularly the idea of Duke being the 'best' (analogous to Bruce calling Cass 'perfect'). But Bruce does not go as far as he did with Cass. Other Duke fans have said this, but in a lot of ways Bruce is actively trying not to fall into previous parenting/mentoring failures. So he tamps down this symbolisation with lines about Duke as a specific person:

Batman & The Signal #1

"Something independent of the past, and... of me." The wording here is so careful, so constructed to highlight Duke's agency and to separate Duke from Bruce's previous relationships. Bruce also separates Duke from himself, avoiding the projection that was characteristic of, yet again, early Bruce-Cass. I'm Cass-brained so I'm mostly using Cass but these pitfalls occur for his other kids as well. Bruce does see Duke as a symbol of Gotham/hope, but he also knows the importance of seeing Duke as an individual with agency.

Bruce's struggles drive him to differentiate Duke from the other Robins, to cover him in bats but allow him to work during the day, to constantly show how important Duke is to him personally but only verbally acknowledge Duke's importance to Gotham. He ends up simultaneously pulling Duke into the family (offering him the manor, giving him a Batsuit, working alongside him in All-Star) and accepting Duke's distance (allowing him to work in the daytime, giving him his own cave, putting him on the Outsiders).

And Duke, being the detective he is, notices.

Insecurity

A ton of Duke stories feature people telling Duke he doesn't fit/shouldn't be here:

Dark Nights: Death Metal Robin King // Cursed Wheel Part 2 // Cursed Wheel Part 6 // Detective Comics (2016) 983

Duke brushes some of these instances, but he does internalise some of it. See Batman and the Signal #1 and Cursed Wheel Part 6:

Duke's insecurities are not about Bruce alone. They're about being unable to find community, represented by the Batfam in both cases. But Bruce is a huge factor in the insecurity, and the Cursed Wheel panel in particular is so evocative for me. The way Duke frames it - "They found a way inside with you" - suggests that Duke is expecting Bruce to help him. He doesn't want Bruce's approval, but he does need Bruce to help him through this, in the reciprocal way they've always helped each other.

But I think Bruce's struggle to define what Duke means to him, as I outlined above, is part of why Duke feels Bruce isn't helping him. Duke begins to question Bruce's motives in taking him in:

Batman and the Signal #2 // Dark Days: The Casting

Bruce shuts it down every time (including in Cursed Wheel Part 6), but it doesn't really make Duke feel better. "I chose you because of who you are / I only wanted to be there when you decided what you were going to become." Bruce consistently highlights Duke's agency/individuality as the reason he took him in, but it just doesn't jibe with what actually happens - not Bruce giving him two suits, putting the bat on him, etc. And Duke sees that inconsistency, so anytime Bruce pulls out an 'it's just because you're cool Duke,' it doesn't ring true. They both know that's not Bruce's entire motive.

That brings me to the panel I opened this post with. Duke questions whether Bruce took him in for self-serving reasons, and Bruce pauses before saying "maybe." Duke hits on the reason for Bruce's inconsistent behaviour - Bruce himself is uncertain about his motives for taking Duke in, and afraid they are selfish. This uncertainty in turn sows insecurity in Duke, because he values and desires transparency. As long as Bruce is unsure about why he took Duke in, Duke cannot be fully comfortable in his position in the Batfam.

Parenthood

But what's the root of Bruce's uncertainty? Right before the Cursed Wheel argument, Bruce suggests moving Elaine and Doug away. What Duke says - 'maybe you took me in out of guilt' - is a paraphrase of what a Jokerised Elaine told him earlier. This argument, and Bruce's uncertainty, revolves around Duke's parents.

Bruce is kind of the reason anything happens to Duke's parents anyway (since Joker mimics the Wayne murders), but Bruce also promises Duke everything will be alright:

Batman (2011) #38

Duke doesn't blame Bruce for what happened to his parents or his inaction on finding them - he calls Bruce's amnesia 'selfish', but it's more a general critique than a personal one. But I think Bruce does blame himself for failing to keep his promise. I'm extrapolating a lot because we don't really see any of Bruce's feelings, but thinking of his reaction to Duke's mom's absence in Batman: Urban Legends #18:

Jefferson says Duke is going to make a mistake that he'll "never forgive himself" for, but they "owe [Duke] more than that". This is pure extrapolation but I like to read this as touching on Bruce's guilt for never having found Duke's parents earlier, something he'll never forgive himself for. He owes Duke, which is why he becomes hell bent on finding Elaine when she goes missing again. But if he's guilty at this point, then the guilt could have run through their entire relationship.

Which makes things so complicated!! Bruce feels guilty about not saving Duke's parents; Bruce loves how much Duke loves his parents; Bruce thinks it's not good for Duke to spend so much time thinking about his parents; Bruce also, maybe, a little bit, wants to be Duke's parent. Thinking of this tidbit from Detective Comics #984:

Bruce warns Jefferson about how he should treat Duke, and the very first thing he says is that Duke "won't want another father figure". This shows that a) Duke and fatherhood is a touchy subject and b) it's a subject at the forefront of Bruce's mind. This wording also leaves it ambiguous whether Bruce considers himself a 'father figure'. The next line is nonsense about Duke respecting Bruce too much to 'challenge' him, which is plain wrong, but it does show that Bruce is not very clear what his relationship to Duke is. He's not exactly a 'father figure,' but neither is he a stranger like Jefferson. This in-betweenness is repeated by Duke in Batman & The Outsiders (2019) #1, when he says "You're not my father. And you're not Batman." Batman occupies this nebulous role in Duke's life, orbiting fatherhood but never quite touching it.

Though I think this discomfort around fatherhood is more on Bruce's side, nebulous fatherhood is also a motif for Duke. In Batman & The Signal, Gnomon's presence disrupts a lot of Duke's beliefs about 'family'. We don't have too much on Duke's feelings about Gnomon (recurring thing... sigh) but we do have morsels:

Batman: Urban Legends #18 // Batman: The Secret Files: The Signal

Gnomon makes Duke question Doug's 'father' status; simultaneously, Duke struggles with this idea of 'trading' his WAR family for the Batfamily; then, in Urban Legends, Duke imagines his mom accusing him of loving his dad more than her. All of this shows Duke is deeply troubled by familial replacement - he's terrified of losing his family, particularly Doug and Elaine, because he's found other people he considers family. Bruce figures as both a symbol of the Batfamily and as a possible-father, undergirding a lot of Duke's fears here. So while Bruce more overtly grapples with the way their relationship is defined, Duke also struggles with it.

It's why Duke imagines Bruce under 'family' in Batman & The Signal #3, and then immediately amends it to 'mentor' and 'friend'. In a way, Duke's namelessness in All-Star Batman is a symbolic encapsulation of how neither of them name what they mean to each other.

Our Best Selves

BUT while their relationship is complex and filled with uncertainty, it can also be a really beautiful, really healing thing for both of them.

All-Star Batman #3

Bruce has a long history of shutting people out and being dishonest, which has landed him in hot water with his allies many times. But Duke, who represents honesty and truth, allows him in turn to be honest. Duke knows Bruce needs someone to hear him talk about Harvey, and Bruce knows that Duke needs the truth. And they offer each other what they need, as they have from the very beginning.

Bruce does this for Duke, too, in Batman: Urban Legends #18:

Duke has been working himself to the bone trying to find his mom, to the Outsiders' worry. But it's Bruce's appearance that allows Duke to finally talk about what he's been working on. This panel just really gets me because Duke is talking to all of them but looking straight at Bruce - at a man so entangled with Gotham, with what happened to Doug and Elaine. He wants Bruce to understand. Bruce does.

They are both people who have such a deep love for Gotham, for their parents, who believe in rehabilitation and the goodness of people. And they'll always save each other.

All-Star Batman #5

All-Star Batman #5 // Batman (2011) #50

So actually this section is about the random Duke appearance in Detective Comics #982. Deacon Blackfire tells Bruce that Gotham is cursed, and the issue takes Bruce through ruminations about underserved Gotham neighbourhoods, the role of community, and ends with him watching the sun come up with a little boy. IT'S SO DUKE, like everything Duke stands for, but it's also what Bruce stands for too!! And what's interesting is that when Bruce is told he's alone, he imagines Dick, Babs, Damian, and Duke. Duke says, "we're out best selves because of you."

The Duke-Bruce relationship is a reciprocal one, so Bruce may bring out the best in Duke but Duke also brings out the best in Bruce. And they both believe in the best of people, the best of the city. They are both in love with Gotham, with their families, and they both deeply believe in rehabilitation and promises. They are their best selves because of each other.

Conclusion

In Cursed Wheel Part 4, Duke decides to keep his parents on the premises. He tells Bruce that no matter what his parents say, the truth is that they love him, and he can take it. And Bruce smiles.

Because even though Bruce was the one who suggested moving his parents away - even though he may want Duke to be in his family - he loves Duke because he would never let his parents be moved. Through all of the symbols they make out of each other, all of the slippery definitions of fatherhood, friendship, and mentorship, they are two people who fundamentally get each other. Duke gets where Bruce is coming from with Harvey, and Bruce gets what Duke needs (with the daytime, with the Outsiders, with finding his mom).

The best Bruce-Duke moments are layered with an intimacy that isn't necessarily familial, but is also not strictly teacher-student. They've grown close, but they are also still independent of each other - and though I don't think either of them will ever fully say what they are, that's not so important. They may never be fully free of the uncertainty that underlies their relationship, but they love each other, and the indefinability of their love doesn't make it any less strong.

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