#anyway... pre-crisis bruce loved jason more you cannot change my mind

[covertblizzard]

the lie bruce tells himself (and others): he recruited jason to save his life

closer to the truth: he needed a robin

the truth: he missed dick

#bruce wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #batman #nightwing #robin #mypost #dc thoughts #to be honest i don't like any of the versions T.T #obviously my most detested version is the lie version #for OBVIOUS reasons #needing a robin is my favourite option i guess it made me think of the post that said how when tim said batman needs a robin #but it's never applied to jason #which is kind of funny reading this because he SAYS SO HIMSELF hahaha #i like the he missed dick version on one hand because dick and bruce's relationship means SO MUCH TO ME #but also i simply do not find the idea of adopting another child because of empty nest syndrome as charming or endearing #as the rest of the fandom seem to sometimes #but also the framing of this whole thing just seems like #he convinces himself that it is FOR jason and but the truth is that it is for HIMSELF and because of dick which is just sad to me :( #anyway... pre-crisis bruce loved jason more you cannot change my mind #probably because so much of post-crisis is written by starlin too but still

[thecomicsnexus]

White Gold and Truth

BATMAN #416 FEBRUARY 1988 BY JIM STARLIN, JIM APARO, MIKE DECARLO, ADRIENNE ROY, BILL SIENKIEWICZ AND ANTHONY TOLLIN

When Jason makes a deadly mistake, Nightwing saves him and tells him he is going to go speak with Bruce the following day.

SCORE: 10

I know that the concept of Batman and Robin being gay has been used in the past as a “negative” thing to say about the dynamic duo, and it is still an open wound from the “Seduction of the innocent” years. But there is a gay sub context here that is undeniable. Which on itself... gets weird.

But I love this story, and I think the “gay” angle makes it even stronger. It doesn’t need the gay angle, you can read it and not pick up on it, but Batman and Robin feel like a couple of ex-lovers.

In this story, Dick Grayson is that ex-boyfriend that was too good for you, and you sent him away because you decided to close your heart, and eventually replaced him with a younger, edgier version.

Now, it is my understanding that the Batman title was doing poorly after Year One. Clearly Max Allan Collins “reboot” wasn’t very popular (and his issues are very hard to read). Jim Starlin wasn’t even a permanent writer in the title. But he did so many fill-ins he eventually became one. And this issue seems to try to correct what Collins did with Jason Todd.

Unfortunately, Jim Starlin would have preferred not having Robin at all, as he view the whole situation as child abuse.

And when you read this story, Batman tries to justify his decision, by saying that Jason would have died on his own, so he technically saved his life... which is very ironic considering it is under Starlin’s pen that Jason would die in action.

Anyway, with the post-crisis reboot, this was Dick and Jason’s first meeting (it could technically fit in Titans continuity as this story happens a year in the past, which would explain Jason teaming-up with them). And in the end, tries to fix what O’Neil or Collins pretty much destroyed, which is the passing of the mantle from Nightwing to Jason, even if Jason is already Robin, Nightwing gives him his uniform (just like pre-crisis). So at least Starlin fixed things around the controversial reboot.

I wonder what Aparo was thinking when he did this issue as well. And I am not sure if it was Adrienne Roy’s idea to alternate background colors depending on who was speaking or their emotions, making that difference between the two personalities even bigger. It’s hard to tell Dick and Bruce apart when done by Aparo. This sometimes happen when Batman and Superman team-up, you have to rely on hairstyles to make them apart.

Oddly enough, around the time, DC was trying to make one character die from AIDS. In a very meta way, they opened it up for a vote, and Starlin kind of stocked the box with “Robin” votes. But editors recognized his handwriting and Robin was never considered (you cannot kill Robin after all, he is in all the merchandising, well, they changed their mind for a while). The winner ended up being Jimmy Olsen, but then they found out that the actor that played Jimmy in the movies was gay and they abandoned the idea. Good!

But still, it is interesting that a writer that hated the concept of Robin so much, did such an emotional issue like this. And you can feel Bruce trapped in his own mind, not being able to reach out and share his feelings. It is Dick Grayson who brings all the warmth and openness. Dick Grayson, after all, overcame his childhood trauma. And now Bruce found another kid who, like him, didn’t get closure on his parents abandoning him (or dying). Although technically, he did put Two-Face in jail, but this version of Jason, I feel, was too traumatized by the time he was adopted. Still, with a version of Robin that was more in tone with Bruce’s trauma, I can understand why Bruce felt comfortable with Jason.

#bill sienkiewicz #jim aparo #nightwing #robin #dick grayson #jason todd #batman #dc comics #comics #review #1988 #modern age #gay #lgbtqi