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laufire · 3 months

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repeating last month's reading meme, with the stories I completed this month (many of them started waaaaaaay before though. thus is the nature of comics).

list and some thoughts under the cut.

NOVELS

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. As with every other Discword novel, I practically devoured this one. Very enjoyable, especially Granny's plot, which did hit close to home for me lol.

Dare Me by Megan Abbott. This is proof that, despite having aged out of the YA bracket, some of it, the really good one, still holds up. Still, I know that if I had read this as a teenager, I would've made it my whole personality for at least a while xDD. Nonetheless, it was a great read. It's a pity that the show was cancelled before it covered the entire story, because I would've loved to watched an adaptation :/

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Of the Austen novels I've read so far, I would probably put it in the last place, but I did end up enjoying it. I had a good laugh with the Ferrars family drama, and I enjoy how... anti-karma Austen can be. Sometimes shitty, selfish people behalf shittily and selfishly, and that works out perfectly for them, lbr.

COMICS COMICS COMICS

Arsenal. And absolutely great mini (four issues long) in Devin Grayson's melodrama era. Vandal Savage collecting body parts of his descendants to replace his rotten ones is A Concept. And I loved the cameos by Dinah, Oracle, Connor... perfect.

Robin (vol. 1). Tim goes to Paris to train a bit more after Bruce decides he's ready to be Robin. There he ends up in between mob complots and gets trained by Shiva for a little while. My main takeaway is that Tim should have a musical staff in more stories.

The Cull. I kept waiting for this miniseries to go somewhere and... eh. The ending is a bit open so it might continue, but unless I hear something really solid I wouldn't pick it back up.

Batman: City of Madness. The concept of this story ended up being far grander than its execution, and I think I would've liked a longer, more involved, riskier storyline... The art is still amazing, though. It's given me some proto-ideas, though.

Dark Spaces: The Hollywood Special. I could literally copy-paste the last paragraph here lol.

Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood. Amazing. Perfect. 10/10. One comic I'm going to recommend.

Robin II: The Joker's Wild!. This should've gone harder with the Jason-haunting-the-narrative concept, IMO, but I am NOT an unbiased party lol.

All of Jason Todd's New 52 (2011-2016) appearances. There is... so much I could say about this. Not much would be good, because yes, I still rage against the reboot xD. RHATO vol. 1 ends up looking even good after Red Hood/Arsenal (which improved a bit at the very end, admittedly); Lobdell is the worst, either way. Batman Incorporated/Wingman... too little effort put on it. Appalling, poorly thought-through characterisation all around, really, alongside a lot of choices I'm still baffled by (chessmaster Joker by beloathed). Batman & Robin Eternal got on my nerves, and not just for Jason. Robin War, Grayson... all of it needed a lot more development for me to be sold on it. The cameos in Deathstroke were... fine, but forgettable, when they shouldn't have been.

I did use the cover for Supergirl vol. 6 #35 because that's the ONE Jason appearance I can say I fully enjoyed! Jason is competent (aided by some "venom" which was an arc that amounted to nothing, but whatever), he is a MENACE, he seeks a team up with Supergirl but is a fucking asshole about it despite clearly wanting to be friends xDD... it felt as if I was almost reading new earth!Jason circa Green Arrow/Outsiders, which I really enjoyed! The stupid uncanny valley helmet makes an appearance but I just ignore that xDD

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress. Tim and Helena meet for the first time and team up! It was all right.

World Without Young Justice. I read the Tim-centric issue as it was one of the firsts in Lewis's run, so I decided to read the other four issues in the arc. Tim's is my favourite, though: it has Steph as the original Robin, in a story that really caught my eye and I might use at some point... honestly, I think superhero!Steph/civilian!Tim is a DELICIOUS set-up for the ship that I know I'll revisit in some fics where I don't have Tim donning a mantle (or at least, not in a traditional way).

Batman Plus Arsenal. Great one-shot (Devin Grayson does it again etc.). The moment where Roy gets on Batman's case for how sparse he is with praise was gr10.

Harley and Ivy: Love on the Lam. Another one-shot, by Winnick this time (I have my selected favourites). The dynamics are very clearly inspired by the DCAU despite being a new earth comic, but as those are my favourite versions of the characters involved, that works for me. It's about cycles and how hard it is to break them, of course

Knightfall. I started reading the arc in January. Although I'd read part of it before, this is the first time I really set out to read the complete thing. My veredict is that it focuses way to much on JPV, who I simply don't connect with LOL. The parts with Bruce, with Tim, and especially with Dick, and even with Gordon and Essen, are far more appealling to me, and I would've preferred them to be expanded upon to JPV's detriment tbh.

Bruce Wayne: Murderer?/Fugitive. Amazing story arc, and as far as I'm concerned, a must-read among Batman/Batfam fans. Bruce's reasons for finally getting his head out of his ass were also very poignant and rang very true to him, as did his shitty non-apology about his actions lol. And in the end, Sasha and Bruce-Sasha ended up being a really fascinating part of it all. I might go back and read her older appearances.

Jon Lewis's Robin Run (vol. 2 #100-120). Really fun! A very enjoyable take on Tim Drake, very cute Steph/Tim stories, really good overall! And the plot with Tim's birthday... jail, jail to Bruce for one thousand years xDD. Very sad that Tim can't be allowed to be mad at him for longer than five pages smh.

#reading meme #books #comics #dc comics #my thoughts #dc thoughts #dc #id in alt text #captioned #tag game #dare me #carpe jugulum #sense and sensibility

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fantastic-nonsense · 3 years

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I think if we’re going to tackle the “Dick wanted to send Tim to Arkham” demonizing Dick, woobifying Tim bs we also have to tackle the “Dick put Jason in Arkham at the same time the Joker was there and Jason was traumatized by it” demonizing Dick, woobifying Jason bs, because they stem from the same place with the same goal and they’re both completely non-canon

I mean...you're right and you should say it.

(General Warning for Tony Daniel's and Grant Morrison's shitty Jason characterization that created this situation in the first place. You have been warned)

Okay, so like...every time 'Dick sent Jason to Arkham!' discourse pops up, I always want to remind people of four things:

The Joker wasn't there. Literally. The Joker. Was. Not. There. Jason never interacted with the Joker, he never saw the Joker, he was never once in the Joker's presence during this arc. It didn't happen.

Jason being sent to Arkham rather than somewhere like Blackgate was explicitly for Jason's own self-protection, because he would have been flat-out murdered in a normal prison (and in fact, he nearly was the second he was transferred). Jason being in Arkham was Dick's personal preference because it meant Jason had an actual chance at rehabilitation rather than being shanked the second he walked out of his cell. However, Dick didn’t actually send him there. That’s just where he ended up.

Jason's canonical actions at the time justified his incarceration at a prison facility specifically geared towards working with criminals with poor mental health rather than being left to the 'normal' prison system.

Dick was actively working to improve Arkham's conditions and spent several issues in various comics dismantling its corrupt leadership and practices (though it's not stated, it's implied that he was so dedicated to it because of his own experiences when he was trapped, drugged, and tortured there during Batman RIP). This was explicitly shown on several occasions, and we're also explicitly shown that Jason is genuinely being helped. He doesn't want to be helped and said help is so-so at being effective (because...Morrison), but he was hardly being tortured or shut away in a straitjacket 24/7.

The big things I always want to remind people is that a) Joker was literally never in Arkham at the same time as Jason (he was free and causing mayhem around Gotham during Jason's Arkham arc) and b) Jason was incredibly unstable during this arc. You all have to understand that at the time Dick handed Jason over to Gordon, Jason had JUST been waltzing around as a killer Batman and nearly killed Tim (again) in Battle for the Cowl. In the story where he was arrested, he was casually murdering criminals and uploading pics of their dead bodies to social media with his new teen sidekick. This isn't a situation where Dick was just like "well he's a villain and villains go to Arkham." Jason was doing some incredibly messed up stuff and basically dared Dick to take him on while doing so.

Jason's actions weren't particularly in character during this arc, but Dick had pretty legitimate reasons for thinking so given his words/actions in Battle for the Cowl; it's not like the decision was made on a whim. Also, a lot of people maliciously misrepresent both how much of a say Dick had in where Jason was placed and his perspective on Jason in general. He was both genuinely trying to help Jason and constrained by what he could do with Gordon standing right there:

"Look at yourself, Jason. You're a mess. Everything's a mess. Stop all this...and let us help you." "Help me? It's...too late for me, Grayson. And it was always too late." -Batman and Robin (2009) #6

Dick handed Jason over to Gordon, and the legal system put him in Arkham over Blackgate because of the danger he posed. However, Dick actually petitioned for Arkham over a normal prison not because he agreed with that assessment, but because Jason wouldn't be safe in Blackgate. Dick even says this to Bruce when Jason (who's scheming up a prison break) puts in a transfer request to a regular prison:

"He won't be safe in a conventional prison...there will be a list of enemies a mile long locked up in there with him. Unless he's in twenty-four hour protective custody, all he'll be doing is fending off attacks. Why would he put himself at such risk?" -Batman and Robin (2009) #23

So does Bruce, by the way, though he's uh...characteristically blunt and Batman-y about it:

"You're in Arkham for your own safety." -Batman and Robin (2009) #23

And Dick does try to make sure Jason's in an environment where he can be helped; again, Dick spends a lot of time during his tenure as Batman specifically and explicitly cleaning up the corruption in and around Arkham's administration and making sure the Asylum treats its inmates fairly and with compassion; it's the entire plot of the Arkham Reborn mini, and we also get a couple of Batman issues dedicated to it as he tracked down and turned in Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, the then-Head of Arkham Asylum.

Dick spent basically all of Jason's time in Arkham worried about Jason's safety...and he was right to, by the way; when Jason's transfer request is approved, he does, in fact, spend basically all of his time trying not to get killed (he also killed around 100 people in his prison break scheme so again: this version of Jason was absolutely not in a place where he should have been allowed to participate in general society. This is not post-Flashpoint!Jason, whose story and personality was drastically softened to "rebel with a cause" as DC fully committed to the anti-hero direction; this is full-on Villain!Jason at his worst).

Since Jason basically disappears after his prison break and retrieval of Scarlet and we don't see him again before the reboot, we have no idea if his time in Arkham helped him (if at all); however, it's implied that he still doesn't feel much remorse for his actions and he's ready to continue wreaking havoc on Gotham.

Morrison's characterization was fucked up, but within the context of the story written, Jason's incarceration in Arkham was both justified and a genuine attempt on Dick's part to keep him safe and get him help. Jason's actions were well beyond anything considered moral acceptability and basically put Dick in an impossible situation without a lot of options (said options were "Arkham or Blackgate," not "Arkham or freedom").

Jason wasn't a victim (either of Dick's supposedly unjustified decision to "put him in Arkham" or of any particularly awful treatment while he was there) and Dick weighed in to the best of his ability in order to make sure Jason was safe while incarcerated and surrounded by people who would genuinely do their best to help him. Any attempt to twist Dick's actions to be otherwise is an active misrepresentation of what canonically happened designed to woobify Jason and villainize Dick for no reason.

#long post #dick grayson #jason todd #dc meta #dc comics #batman and robin #jason todd meta #dick grayson meta #tony daniel's and grant morrison's jason todd my beloathed #but anyway: yeah no the eternal nonsense about how Dick is a terrible person b/c he 'threw Jason in Arkham' is bs to the highest degree #thanks for coming to my ted talk #asks

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