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redhoodinternaldialectical · 8 months

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My Jason Todd Rec List and Character Manifesto! (Edited and updated 28/01/2024)

This is a fuckin mess my ghouls, but I got categories and I got opinions and who can stop me from typing em out? Certainly not @lazaruspiss who is the reason this thing got made!

The format is gonna be

title and page numbers (No #s if I'm recommending the whole title) picture Summary and general notes My estimate of how unhinged he is in this portrayal What his morals are like; note this isn't about whether he's a protagonist or antagonist

Since cream rises to the top, let us start with:

The Creme de la Creme

The best of the best. The most fun, the most compelling, the most interesting looks into his character.

Green Arrow (2001) #69 - #72

This one really does have it all. Jason runs rings around both Batman and Green Arrow at the same time, all the while going after a goal neither of them ever truly figures out in large part because this story wasn't afraid to let Bruce be either wrong or lying about Jason's motives. It also wonderfully leverages the ways in which the Bats and the Arrows are really good foils for each other. I think I'm going to be turning over the ways these interactions went down for a long ass time. I've been really wanting to go page by page for a comparison between the way Jason treats Mia in this and the way Jason treats Tim in the Titans Tower showdown. Bottom line for this one: It's just so good!

Jason's sanity level: Six out of Ten hinges affixed. He's got a solid grip on things, is reasonably level headed, only problem is he might have completely forgotten how to interact with other human beings outside of combat. Love him for that.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Sympathetic Villain. Decidedly willing to mow down some "brain donors", and his goals are pretty morally grey, but he clearly still has a strong code of ethics.

Joker: the Man Who Stopped Laughing

With Jason's return to being an antagonist after a long stint in the Hero bin comes his return to being really fucking dangerous and whip smart! My boy quotes serious philosophy that gives him a real point to make against non lethal vigilantes and cops! I also think the part where he lets himself be arrested just... it says so much and all of it is wonderfully interesting and feels fitting for his character. He's kept deeply human, and just all of this portrayal gels together really well.

At the time of writing, this comic isn't finished yet, so I'm going off of like 12 issues in which he appears less than the Joker, but what is there is phenomenal, even with Gotham War having... Minorly Derailed Jason's role in things, and one or two inevitable scenes where ya just have to accept that he's not as trigger happy as he should be because DC is married to the Joker.

Also I like that he's friends with my favorite, Stephanie Brown :3 and he and Rose's chemistry is nice. On top of all that? It's a fun comic. Like, I generally hate the Joker, but I found myself enjoying watching the Joker do his Joker things in this one.

Jason's sanity level: Nine out of Ten hinges affixed. Level headed, calm, careful, really the only reason this isn't a 10/10 is cause he's obsessively focused, which like, honestly is pretty reasonable I think.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Clearly Justified Antihero. I almost put down Hero on this one, but ultimately he is just far enough over the line with how he treats the less threatening of the rogues like Killer Moth.

Batman (1940) #408 - #411 Jason's debut featuring Ma Gunn's School and his first ever outing as Robin fighting Two-Face

Just LOOK at this PRECIOUS BOY! I wanna pinch him on his cheeks and give him a handful of these bad boys

Jason has a ton of personality to him right out the gate. The first story has Ma Gunn as the villain and she's a lot of fun. The second story in here with Two-Face is also enlightening with regards to Jason's early personality, even if it's not quite as fun.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Under the Red Hood would be next if it wasn't already filed under ->

Foundational Texts

This is the shit that defines Jason as a character. Much is mutable in any given comic, but somehow, someway, all depictions of Jason are impacted and informed by these three stories. Enough has been said about all of them that I'm gonna keep it brief.

Red Hood: The Lost Days

Jason's sanity level: Eight out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. He kills some incredibly nasty people, while also doing some genuinely heroic shit. The only places where his morals deteriorate are in the presence of Batman and the Joker.

Under the Red Hood

Jason's sanity level: Four out of Ten hinges affixed. Remember how his morals deteriorated in the face of Batman and the Joker? Yeah, that's mostly because he's way, way too personally invested to think straight about them. He's strategic as fuck, but this is not a stable man's strategy for dealing with his issues.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Sympathetic Villain. He is a revenant, a vengeful juggernaut, and breaks an awful lot of eggs making this brilliant disaster of an omelette.

Batman (1940) #426 - #429 A Death in the Family

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Joker becoming an ambassador to Iran plotlines count: One too many.

Solid Storylines

These ain't the vaulted heights, but not everything has to be the Sistine Chapel. They're solid, and if you're wanting more Jason I do certainly recommend them.

Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer and Countdown to Infinite Crisis

Jason is in what I like to call his Purposeless Depression Era during this. It's after his plans in Under the Red Hood fail and he's really just got no place to go, no place to be, and in fact is keenly aware that on a cosmic level, he truly does not belong in this world anymore. He's supposed to be dead. There's something I find quite neat about this team up, with Donna Troy and Kyle Raynor and Bob, it's out of the ordinary for Jason, it's not bat related, and the ways he fits and doesn't fit with the other characters are just neat.

I especially recommend Gotham by Gaslight. The plot will be a lil hard to follow if you haven't read the others, but Jason by the end hopes to return to Victorian Era Steampunk Gotham and the moments of him hoping to literally leave his universe behind are both sweet and sorrowful.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's just sad and lonely.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero. Even if only Donna is willing to tentatively try to see him that way.

Robin (1993) #177 and one page of #182 and the front half of #183

Despite how much Jason is known for it, I think this is the only time we see him trying to run organized crime outside of Under the Red Hood (and uh debatably Battle for the Cowl). Short lil string of appearances, but critical for understanding how he's seen by Tim during this era if you care about that, and it really cemented my understanding of Jason being strangely honest and forthright.

I think the major way other Bats fail to comprehend him is that they expect him to manipulate through lying, which just isn't his style. He doesn't lie about his motives; he doesn't obfuscate his tactics; he doesn't hide how he's feeling. Hell, he doesn't even try to lie his way out of prison! I could not tell you why this series of interactions gave me this impression but it is why I have such faith that when Jason says something, he probably just means it, even when characters like Dick or Tim assume otherwise.

Pity this was the lead up to Battle for the Cowl.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's even attempting to pick himself up out of his Purposeless Depression Era slump at the start.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero.

Nightwing (1996) #118 - #122 aka Brothers in Blood aka the One Where Jason Gets Tentacles

COWARDS and KNAVES will tell you "the tentacles are so icky and everyone is so OOC" or whatever but again they are KNAVES and COWARDS because bitch this shit is GREAT

Jason: Wow! My bestest big brother killed someone who deserved it, so now I (the person he's rejecting only because I kill people who deserved it) have a real chance at being his family again!! :D Hooray! :) Dickie-Bird why don't you look happy to see me? :) Dickie-Bird I went out of my way to get us matching outfits and stalked your work and killed people in your name so it's nice and easy to make room for me in your life! :) :) :)

Dick:

Jason's sanity level: Two out of Ten hinges affixed. My mans is off his rocker and I adore him like this. Frankly, the entire storyline is unhinged, and it only feels appropriate that Jason is similarly bonkers in yonkers.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Villain. You can sympathize with him, and he is still trying to carry out justice, but I have to call it for straight villain when he's threatening to bomb a building full of innocent people.

Batman and Robin (2009) #23 - #25

I don't have much to say about this one. It's good. The above page is pretty much the highlight.

Wait actually I do have something to say and it is that I would like to lick Jason's abs, pls & thx, because the other highlight is that Winick clearly believes in redeeming Jason's value as a villain through sex appeal and it is working lmao

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. Certifiably sane, he's passed all his psych exams!

Jason's moral compass bearing: Villain. He threatens to bomb a train station full of innocent people. While he does do that in service of freeing himself and Scarlet, thus making it not completely self centered, I still gotta put him firmly in Villain.

Nightwing (2016) 2021 Annual

In high contrast to the previous two in which Jason acts as a villain to Dick, this one has them working together and the tentative peace and cautious trust they've got going is interesting to me. This Team Z era Jason is interesting to me in general, though I don't know much about him.

Jason's sanity level: Nine out of Ten hinges affixed. He's quite chill, but there's just this little edge to him that says his relationship to violence is a little too casual a little too deep to really be fully hinged.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Edgy Hero.

Your Mileage May Vary

These stories I can't recommend without major caveats or warnings, but I still think are worth mentioning.

Gotham War (It's such a mangled mess that I'm just gonna link a reading guide.)

So, the main problem here is that Gotham War spans five different titles and had three different authors whose renditions of Jason do not feel cohesive or even coherent. The funny thing is though, each rendition has real merits, and while it doesn't go far enough in condemning Bruce's horrifying treatment of Jason for many people's tastes, I have to point out that it's one of the only comics to condemn an instance of Bruce mistreating Jason at all. The fact that the other Robins come to his defense is a HUGE thing! The bar may be in Hell, but it did clear the bar!

Due to how disjointed it is, I'm going to very loosely separate Jason out into two versions of himself. Think of these not as hard lines, but more a spectrum he slides across depending on what author has him that issue.

Jason Primus combines the ideas in Jason's Under the Red Hood speech about controlling crime rather than trying to stomp it out with his more Heroic modern interpretation. He's a chill, funny, smart guy whose protectiveness over the mooks is really charming.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Jason Secundus is much more violent, not used to working with other people, and paranoid and antsy in a way that causes him to take it out on people who really don't deserve it. This is a compelling take on him, though I like him closer to Jason Primus. His trauma has clearly shaped him a lot, both for better and for worse.

Jason's sanity level: Seven out of Ten hinges affixed. Jason's moral compass bering: Anti-Hero, most of this focuses on him antagonizing two former Joker goons which kinda doesn't work well cause they're mostly scarecrow goons actually and also at one point he hurts them in a way that borderline just seems like stress relief. It's nothing worse than what we see Batman himself doing countless times, but it's still jarring because we've been made to strongly sympathize with the goon in question.

Batman: Three Jokers <- I read it while typing this up, so I got a lotta thoughts

Guh, this one is just fucking sad

So, I don't mind a story being blunt with its message as long as the message actually holds up. Unfortunately, this three parter's attempt at the cycle of violence lesson is... bad. Real bad.

Jason in it is neat! This is a good Jason portrayal somehow despite literally everything about the way this comic frames him! The narrative expects us to believe he is a danger to society on the cusp of becoming another Joker, because he *checks notes* shot the Joker dead, shot at a Joker loyal guy, and roughly interrogated an injured child abuser. At no point does he show signs of wanting to hurt innocent people. At no point does he show signs of doing any hurting without premeditation or a need to defend himself. I'm baffled by this.

My kingdom for a fucking CRUMB of nuance, I swear, smh...

I hear a lot of people hate his one sided romance towards Barbara. This is understandable as it squanders the opportunity to have a female character not be stuck as the narrative sponge for man emotions. I like it from the perspective of a Jason fan, and give condolences for the Barbara fans. It's not healthy, and good fucking job on the janitor sweeping away his letter to her so poor Babs doesn't have to deal with that shit, but I do like Jason's desperation to be loved by someone, anyone, who might show him compassion.

Jason's sanity level: Six out of Ten hinges affixed. He's sad, he's lonely, he needs some PTSD specific therapy, he's a bit creepy about his crush on Barbara, but quite frankly he has it together a lot more than the narrative would like us to believe. The way the other characters treat him like he's some kind of monster just waiting to snap and start maiming people indiscriminately makes me really uncomfortable.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. Quite frankly I'm tempted to say Hero out of spite.

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016) #1 - #43

There are three transcendental character moments in this run that I think make it worth reading even if not all of it's your cup of tea. On the other hand though there are some big issues that could very easily be deal breakers. Oh and anything after #43 is a wasteland and #43 is included purely for the implication that being transgender made a woman immortal.

The narrative structure is really heavily dependent on rule of emotional impact/cool/allegorical usefulness. Many events will not make any fucking sense based on petty things like basic logic or the laws of physics, but they do work just fine in the area of what makes the story more fun or the emotional beats hit harder. Stronger than average suspension of disbelief is necessary for the reward of getting a lot of stuff that's, like, just really fuckin cool.

The romantic side plot with Artemis is... odd. Either the author, Scott Lobdell, intended to write Jason as a desperate loser trying to date his uninterested lesbian friend who he co-parents with, or he accidentally wrote a romance so awkward and comp-het that I cannot wrap my head around reading it as reciprocated. This works for me because I have a lot of fun reading Jason as a desperate loser who's not even actually in love with her, he just is desperate to cling to the closest thing he's ever gotten to a nuclear family and in denial about being either aro/ace or gay.

Now, lets explore a lil bit of the whole Jason is a loser angle, cause it's not the whole story, there are many points in which Jason gets to be a badass motherfucker, but he is much, much less of the hypercompetant, highly determined, murderous threat he used to be. Almost none of the newer renditions of Jason are. This Jason in particular though is very soft and cuddly, and fits the archetype of man trying to be the edgy bad boy but who secretly just wants a hug and a warm glass of milk.

If I were to describe my personal Jason in a few sentences I would say that he is someone who loves himself viciously. He feels he has been wronged and is willing to burn down the world to rectify that. He will hold your ass at gunpoint and demand the hugs and warm glasses of milk that he fucking well deserves!

This Jason is about as far away from that as you can possibly get. I still like him though, and I do not count him as being a different character, because when you start with emotional logic that goes like this:

It wasn't my fault + I deserve better = I get to burn the world down in order to get better

It becomes extremely difficult to ever stop burning the world without also deciding "It was my fault" or "I don't deserve better". Jason is meant to have changed a lot, and this is a plausible evolution of the Jason I prefer.

Finally, the handling of Bizarro, a mentally disabled character, is a sensitive enough topic that your mileage will vary, even if I can't think of a bad thing to say about it. Jason and Artemis are really pretty good about treating him with respect, giving him help where he needs it and autonomy where he's capable of taking it. They raise him, but don't control him, and he is literally three days old when they find him so this isn't infantilization. It takes the framing of Lenny from of Mice and Men and Flowers for Algernon and rejects them in a way that I am satisfied with. You'll just have to read it for yourself to see if you're satisfied as well.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. I kinda wish he was more unhinged.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero. He even saves a puppy and gives them pats.

Knight Terrors: Robin

Have you ever been in the mood for a syrupy sweet hurt/comfort fanfiction in which Jason and Tim were magically forced to talk about how much they like each other in order to overcome their own insecurities? Do you wish that existed as a lavishly illustrated two issue comic?

If you answered yes to those two questions then congratulations! It does exist, this is it, go have fun!

If you think that sounds like ham fisted garbage turning what should be several long arcs of serious reconciliation and deeply meaningful character moments into two issue fan service schlock then condolences! I wish you all the best in denial, as all comic fans sail that river sooner or later and I shall join you upon it someday.

What category do I fall into? Well I think this is definitely ham fisted, but I won't kick a boar out of bed as long as they ain't a bore, and this little ditty is certainly entertaining.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason't moral compass bearing: Hero.

Batman and Robin Eternal

This is a decent portrayal of Jason in his modern, much friendlier, and much more bat family integrated rendition. He has some fun moments in it, and I like his staby bracers.

I don't like this comic. It commits the most dire of writing sins: Being boring. I think about Jason every second of every minute of every day; if your comic that majorly features a good portrayal of him cannot hold my attention, then something has gone very wrong. Hopefully one of you will like it more than I do.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Suicide Squad: Get Joker! (Content warning for suicide, skip to the hot take if this'll get to ya - also spoiler warning cuz I can't discuss this properly without discussing the ending)

A three issue miniseries in which Jason is inducted into the Suicide Squad on a mission to kill the Joker. He's highly competent as a team leader, grounded, intelligent, and uses measured violence in a way that is satisfyingly tactical. The squad they threw together honestly has some pretty neat chemistry as a whole, and the characters were appropriately messy and quite likable.

This isn't higher on the list because it thinks it earned it's ambiguous ending, and frankly, it's wrong about that. Ambiguous endings live and die by the question they make the audience sit with - It has to be worth losing out on the emotional payoff of a solid ending.

The question of "If you left Jason in a room with the Joker and a gun with one bullet, would he shoot the Joker or himself?" is a really shitty question. Like, did the authors not realize that just on a logistical level, Jason could leave the room and find a second bullet after shooting the Joker? Like, seriously, even if we accept the premise that Joker's speech got to Jason, there are no reasons for him not to choose the "both" option. The only way I can imagine this working is if the Joker is actually the fucking Purple Man from Jessica Jones using mind control.

So we exchanged the validation of literally all our protagonists' struggles/sacrifices paying off for... the vague implication that Jason unforgivably betrayed his teammates, himself, and the entire world because he was so eager to die that he couldn't wait ten fucking minutes. If I loved the Joker I might feel differently about it, but as is, I felt insulted.

This would have been Solid Storylines or maybe even Creme de la Creme if not for that implication. It's not boring though! The rest of it up to the end is honestly pretty damn good, if a bit convoluted, and much of the ending's sour taste can be assuaged by getting out a sheet of paper and doodling Jason opening Joker's head with a handgun and then going out for icecream with the team.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's a sad, sad lad tho.

Jason's Moral Compass Bearing: Anti-Hero, forced to be much more violent than he wants to be.

A Hot Take

I bet you thought the tentacles were the hot take! HAH! MuahahaahhHAHAHAH - Prepare now, puny mortals, to witness me defend Pill Helmet Jason AND his fashion choices!

No, I am not talking about Winick's redo late in the game, we've already been over that one. I mean I will defend Grant Morrison's flop era, three foot head gear wearin, goofy ass, unwashed ass, "how to build ur brand" reading maniac

It's time to talk about Batman and Robin (2009) #1 - #6

The interpretation of one scene makes or breaks this Jason:

If you believe he is being insincere and manipulating her into putting all her emotional eggs in the basket of his crusade, ignoring her wellbeing in favor of his 'brand', then this is probably the worst mischaracterization of Jason ever written.

If you believe he is being sincere, genuinely comforting her in the only way that he's got to deal with his own trauma, giving her real affection and not pushing her to take either option with the mask because he trusts her to make that decision for herself, then this gets Jason very right.

No matter what Morrison might have intended, I choose to believe it's the latter. This is terrible advice to give a trauma victim, but it makes perfect sense for Jason to believe that about his own trauma, and thus to pass that maladaptive view along. He doesn't try to assure her that the mask can come off safely or that he'll get her a doctor because he really can't promise her either of those things. It would be cruel to her to pretend that he's got a solution. Jason can't undo the damage that was done to her any more than he can force a dead Bruce to kill the Joker.

Instead he offers her purpose, and reassurance that she's gonna look badass if she never does take it off, and protects her when she's in trouble.

You can claim this is just him acting out his chosen Hero role, but like, WHY would he have chosen to method act that role 24/7 if he wasn't trying to BE a Hero who protects people like Scarlet? There's nothing in it for Jason to fake this.

I also think if he was being written out of character as a manipulator we would have seen him use a romantic or sexual angle which he absolutely doesn't do.

Dickie, you are such a funny Batman, they never shoulda brought Bruce back tbh.

Instead, he seems to be taking a more parental role, in a near perfect reflection of how Bruce took him in when he was a kid. Just he's doing it his way, meaning that whenever Scarlet goes further with the violence than Jason seems to want to, he backs her up instead of chastising her.

Speaking of violence and morals, Let the Punishment Fit the Crime is a coherent moral position to take, even if you (understandably) disagree with it, or disagree with what punishments fit which crimes. It's basically the same moral position as every other version of Jason there's ever been! Like, is he even killing more people than he used to in stories like Under the Red Hood? No, I don't think he is.

The branding thing is weird, lil annoying too after a while, but ultimately it still makes sense. And brings me around to my promised defense of his fashion choices.

First of all the symbolic importance of the fact that he wears white cannot be overstated in my mind. Will I elaborate? No, this post is way too long already lmao! Second off, it's supposed to be silly. I believe the silliness was a conscious, calculated choice, and the right one to make.

Jason doesn't believe that fear works, he's not trying for pure intimidation, and he knows that he's going to have to appeal to people in his bid to be seen as a Hero. Making himself seem big but non-threatening, a bright patch in the night, makes real sense.

Take a look at this view of Jason from Scarlet's POV when he comes to rescue her from the cops after she kills her dad:

He's got a smoking gun in his hand and he just shot two people dead, yet we're hard fuckin pressed to find him intimidating aren't we?? Cornball dialogue, and the silliest fuckin hat in the universe, because he's not meant to be from this era, he's emulating the Golden and Silver age comics and all their goofiness. He's trying to be the older, happier, sillier batman that used to exist (at least in his head), while doing what he believes is right and necessary.

The costume makes sense dammit!

Also it just doesn't look bad, I can't provide an argument for this, it's just true!!

Also also every one of these fuckers should be wearing a helmet too, this is basic brain safety, if you're gonna go around antagonizing fuckers with guns you need to make your head at least nominally bulletproof, it's that simple!!!

Now... do I recommend you read this? (This section was rewritten on January 28th, 2024)

Yes, with significant caveats. There's a reason I chunked this in with YMMV.

First is the Batman typical ableism of just really fucked depictions of mental illness. I normally wouldn't warn for this because everyone knows most of the rogues and will be aware of what they bring to the table, but Professor Pyg is obscure enough I wouldn't expect people to know, and the way he's written just... hurts. Like there's just something about him that is painful to read as someone that's got several schizophrenic friends who are near and dear to my heart. I would hesitate to recommend it to any of them the same way I'd hesitate to recommend Silence of the Lambs to most other trans people.

Secondly this comic is Extremely Gay (a definite positive!) however it is Extremely Gay in a way that kinda requires some onboarding and analysis to properly parse and that is actually why this post was edited:

The first time I read this comic, my impression was that it was vitriolically homophobic. Considering that at the time I had heard many things about Grant Morrison, and none of them good, I went with my gut. I put here that while I would defend Jason's characterization, I couldn't in good faith recommend something so bigoted, detailed what felt bigoted, and went on with my day.

Then a while later I saw a post that I suspect was talking about this one saying something along the lines of "How the hell could you call Grant Morrison, who gave us so many of our most iconic gay characters, homophobic? The racism and such I can understand but homophobic? No."

To which my initial response was a resounding: Wha??? Like, genuinely how was I supposed to read this and not get homophobia out of it?? But I went and looked Morrison up and yeah sure enough the guy's queer so I dug deeper and mulled it over until I figured out what the fuck I was missing. So, this section is a correction and an apology about that earlier homophobia claim. Sorry about that.

The styling of this queerness are highly akin to that of the John Waters movie Pink Flamingos which I'll let Matt Baume explain better than I ever could. This guy right here is pretty much the perfect example, Hell, he's even literally named The Flamingo.

Essentially it's queerness is all aggressive, unapologetic, and designed to be provocatively shocking, which can be jarring if you're not ready to flow with it. Also he likely had to arrange a lot of things to get around censorship, same as Judd Winick did. For instance the fact that Dick spoke the same circus lingo as the police precinct destroying troupe of Very Queer Freakshow Workers was meant to imply that Dick is Very Queer too. Pretty sure he would've said that in a far less convoluted way if he could've.

So, with the bulk of my initial reservations about this comic disproven... I have no choice but to straight up recommend it to anyone who thinks they can jive with this vibe of storytelling!

Jason's sanity level: One out of Ten hinges affixed. Obsessive, not taking care of himself, possessed of some really maladaptive trauma coping frameworks, completely unhinged. My condolences to his mental health, but I do love to see it.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. It's weird because this is undeniably a much darker comic, and Jason certainly feels darker, but in terms of what he actually does, and what the other characters do, his violence is honestly very tame.

So, cards on the table, here is the core of who Jason is to me:

He's got clear moral motives and a drive to help as well as harm, though violence and harm are the main ways in which he tries to improve the world.

When confronted he does not back down; he does not let himself be overshadowed or silenced. He is confident in his decisions and every bit of push back is already accounted for in his head.

Everything he does is premeditated. He is not impulsive. His plans may sometimes be unhinged but they are methodically planned.

He is painfully sincere, the way fire is painfully hot.

He desperately desires love and connection, but it will take many years of constant rejection and fighting before he is willing to accept any kind of compromise to his ethics for the sake of civility.

Under all the hurt and combativeness, he's a pretty goofy guy! He's got a sense of fun and likes to be flamboyant and silly when he can!

He's a villain, a hero, a protagonist, an antagonist, and everything between the extremes. He exists as a powerful counter-thesis to Batman, and as such DC can't ever fully answer the question of what to do with him. He exists in this waffling limbo state as his morals are debated, stretched, refuted, turned on their head. I think that makes him a wonderfully fascinating character to love.

I hope you enjoyed this and, like, go have fun reading comics!

#jason todd #red hood #comic recommendations #Damian's Tomfoolery #dc comics #dc universe #long post

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catbountry · 11 days

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It's been a year since the premiere of Trigun: Stampede. The series, despite the fears of the fans of the '98 anime, actually turned out really good; Yasuhiro Nightow is a big superhero comics nerd, and wanted to have this new anime adaption be an adaption similar to the adaptions of the MCU, back when those movies were consistently enjoyable, and I daresay a bunch of the people watched Trigun probably were either already anime fans, or they were nomad fans who may have been really into the MCU at one point.

I have a lot of thoughts on an American perspective on Vash the Stampede as a character, with a lot of comparisons to American comic book superheroes. And while Trigun wasn't my first anime, I was hooked on it, as someone who grew up around Batman and Spawn's 90's popularity. During my first Otakon in 2001, I must have seen a dozen Vash's and Wolfwoods. I remember the year there was a Wolfwood cosplayer whose Punisher gun was shaped like the Star of David instead of a cross, making him a rabbi. That shit was amazing. The larger point is that I've loved this character for more than half of my entire time being alive, and I haven't seen a lot of discussion of Trigun viewed from a more political lens, and why it resonates so much with Americans (or at least me, who is an American) in particular

Buckle up, kids, this is gonna be long and rambly.

There was a period of time where I watched nearly every single new MCU movie in the theater. It was exciting seeing adaptions of comic books that would have probably never gotten a movie before the success of The Avengers. And I don't think it's a mistake that the most comic book-y of the movies are usually the best; Guardians of the Galaxy and its sequel remain as probably my favorite MCU movies. Nightow was working directly with the studio making a new Trigun anime and reportedly got the crew to watch a bunch of Marvel movies to set the tone for the anime as an adaption; it's why Vash got a completely new redesign that freaked all us old fans the fuck out. Though it appears that once again, Trigun tried and failed to get that massive Japanese audience that most successful anime have. But boy, oh boy, do us westerners fucking love Trigun, especially us Americans. Nightow's love of superhero comics bled into Trigun, and it just so happened that he was incredibly influenced by Spawn, Hellboy and Batman as much as he was influenced by Akira Toriyama and mechanical art. McFarlane Toys released a Vash figure that is McFarlane'd the fuck up. Nightow loves all superhero comics but especially the Blade trilogy.

Just look at this and imagine being 13 years old and seeing this on a screen for the first time with the instrumental hard rock opening.

Also, I wouldn't actually get around to reading Spawn until I was an adult, but you know what? It's pretty good. The writing is definitely weaker than the art, but holy shit, that art goes hard and I still think that shit's cool as fuck.

As stated before, around the early 2000's Trigun was considered peak anime, though it's been more overlooked in recent years in favor of Cowboy Bebop, an anime that has aged gracefully by comparison. But while Bebop has that sort of timeless cool and level of quality that drew the attention of filmmakers like the Wachoski sisters, Trigun has that very specific kind of adolescent sense of coolness that comic book fans get, especially back in the 90's before this sort of thing would be smothered to death by MCU's Joss Whedoning of superheroes. Spawn, Hellboy and Batman are still cool. And Trigun also has a shitton of guns, obviously, given that Vash being an incredibly OP gunslinger in a world where everybody has guns.

And America loves guns.

I think the contrast of Vash's pacifism while still wielding a gun is extremely interesting because it's not something you see very much (I bet if I watched more westerns, I'd have a better idea if this is a trope in them at all). Batman does not use guns and doesn't kill people, which is why there's still discourse around Tim Burton's Batman films to this day still; I don't think Kevin Smith has budged on this. Other more morally grey superheroes will use guns (by this definition I'm counting The Punisher even if he doesn't have any superpowers, unless you count severe PTSD as a superpower). And a lot of them had huge surges in popularity in the 90's around the time Nightow was making Trigun. Vash posed like Batman or Spider-Man looking brooding (like the gif above) happens a lot in the earlier issues even though that's not really his character.

Several years ago, there was an attempt by a conservative thinktank to discredit a bunch of Hollywood actors saying that gun violence in America is a serious issue and contrasted their statements scenes of them shooting guns in movies, but if we're being real here, gunplay in movies can be really fucking cool. Again I invoke The Matrix, or movies by Robert Rodriguez and John Woo. Look at video games, and compare the decline in violent crime that's been happening here since the 70's and 80's, as culture warriors bemoan movies and video games for becoming more violent. Remember when Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the NRA, brought up fucking Splatterhouse as a reason why Sandy Hook happened? Do you know what Splatterhouse looks like?

It looks like this.

You know how these guys constantly say the only way to counter a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun? Usually, the inference is that if the "good guy" with a gun shoots, he's shooting to kill. Deadpool and the Punisher would shoot to kill. But Vash is constantly trying to avoid it. And I remember as a teenager finding that really cool? And the manga and anime don't shy away from how impractical Vash's pacifism is. It's a bit more realistic than Steven Universe's ending, but also Steven Universe was made for children.

I know Avatar: The Last Airbender is often invoked when criticizing Steven Universe's philosophy, but I haven't really seen Vash's similar philosophy criticized in the same way, and I think a lot of that has to do with the presence of Wolfwood, who is the "I think we're gonna have to kill this guy" guy. I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen art of this yet. I may have to get on that. I already drew Vash horrified at the Trolley Problem.

Vash is a character designed with maximum coolness in mind, but also an overpowered being who is capable of killing millions, and in the anime, he somehow destroys July City without killing anyone directly, but the destruction of the city led to a bunch of people dying. He's so deeply committed to not wanting to kill anyone that he's probably killed more people than he would have if he just shot Knives. The best Batman stories acknowledge that Batman's refusal to kill Joker has similarly results in the deaths of people Batman could have prevented if he killed one guy, and this could also apply to Vash's relationship with his brother Knives, who was kind of destined to be a mass murderer with a name like that, let's be real.

Online, we tend to joke about bringing out the guillotines, or justify not feeling an sympathy for billionaires who die in a sub trying to view the Titanic. But if you were given a gun and a real human person begging for their life, what would you actually do? Do you honestly think that you would be the ethical Death Note user?

Vash has guns but he chooses not to kill people; he prefers to not even use them unless he has to, instead opting to run away and look cool doing it somehow.

He really, really doesn't want to kill people. He doesn't become numb to people dying. It hurts him every single time he watches someone get killed. In reality, most of us that aren't sociopaths would be distressed at the thought of killing someone. The only reason armies in real life work is that they become inoculated to the idea of violence and dehumanize the enemy. Vash is no soldier. He is idealistic, he is empathetic, and he sees every human being as a person worthy of life. Batman refuses to use guns, as that's how his parents were killed in front of him. Vash has to use guns in order to protect people from getting killed. He has the ethics of Superman but the tools of a comic book antihero. He's the logical conclusion of an shonen anime protagonist in a world that chews up anyone with that kind of optimism and hope and spits them out. And yet... he still keeps going. He remains committed. He's still cheery, goofy, lovable Vash.

Batman used to kill people, in the earliest comics. With the Comics Code Authority, no superheroes could kill people. In the 80's, comics were getting darker and edgier, taken more seriously. While Alan Moore's Watchmen delved into the moral complexities in a world with superheroes that was similar to ours, Frank Miller was keeping Batman consistent, even as Gotham got darker and uglier.

Batman is a vigilante. The police can be helpful or they can fuck up everything, depending on what's needed for the story. In Batman Year One, there's a scene where Batman crashes a party attended by the elites of Gotham, politicians and mobsters mingling.

Seeing this during the Bush presidency blew my mind. I don't want to get into just how perfectly the members of his administration seemed to resemble a rogue's gallery of sorts with the shared goals of making a lot of money and bombing the shit out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I was extremely anti-war even before the 2000 election as a very opinionated 14 year-old watching, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and feeling relieved that a grown-up was able to see through all the bullshit; it helps when the guy who's against the war and killing people is funny. I remember writing in my diary at 12 years old after Columbine happened that I wanted to take all of the guns and melt them down in a pot, similarly to that scene in Superman IV where he throws the entire world's nuclear arsenal into the sun. But also that same year I would fall in love with The Matrix... and not long after that, Trigun.

Again, we come back to the idea of someone using a gun, a weapon designed to kill people, and using it in pursuit of the exact opposite. That resonated with me. I myself was very idealistic, and the political climate of my teenage years seemed to do almost everything to stamp that out of me. Things feel just as fraught two decades later, but in slightly different ways. Pacifism is looked down upon, as indicated by the backlash to the ending of Steven Universe, and how one crazy lady called Rebecca Sugar, a Jewish person, a Nazi for writing it that way. But for Steven, things worked out. For Vash? Well, he still has hope somehow, despite everything. I think the fact that he strives to protect human life, even when someone is a complete monster, is admirable in that it cuts to the very basic desire to not see people hurt. But we're also selfish, and scared, and sometimes it's hard to conceive of a solution to a problem that doesn't involve violence. Seeing dead bodies on TV or the internet upsets us, but we're often paralyzed by feeling like we can't do anything, and even if we tried, we'd likely perish in the attempt. We desire revenge, punishment for those who transgress by inflicting violence, and we can rationalize using it against the right targets. Vash the Stampede would have a fucking breakdown dealing with the state-backed violence that's been a part of geopolitics pretty much as long as there have been states and geopolitics. Vash would try and solve the bombings of Gaza with an impassioned plea for both sides to stop fighting before he would somehow wind up making things worse and it would eat away at him inside, no matter how brave a face he puts on as he tries to find some kind of hope in a hopeless situation. And... you know what? I kind of wish more people would be like that. Maybe if there were enough people like that, these sorts of things wouldn't happen in the first place. I wish more people could look at human suffering and feel compelled to try and stop it, not discriminating against one side or the other, trying to understand why people are doing what they do. Seeing anti-war protestors in Tel Aviv brings back memories of protests against the start of the War on Terror, and how hated America was internationally during those years, even when most Americans approved of the war. Michael Moore was booed at the Oscars for condemning George W. Bush and the War on Terror. It's terrifying that those in power want us killing each other and have conditioned us to support it. I want so badly for human beings to come together to just stop the violence, but it feels impossible, like we're destined for failure, like we might somehow make things worse or become worse versions of ourselves full of hatred and ugliness. But we should want to try, even if it's hard or unprofitable or we have no idea how to even do it. Somebody actually dedicating themselves to trying to fight our violent impulses out of love is appealing, and if they're more powerful than use, and can do more... well, I want the biblically accurate angel with every mental illness willing to martyr himself over and over again. But it is more fun when he's Bugs Bunny about it.

#political bullshit #trigun #comics #tl;dr #not fanfiction #I am high right now I hope this still makes sense when I'm sober

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annah-kitathryne · 20 days

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It has come to my attention that some are not aware of the double bat teen titans elseworlds run. [Post Here] made by @saturnsickle

So I'm here to explain a bit to everyone.

When was the series?

From September 1st 2001 to March 1st 2005, an elseworlds Teen Titans run started.

The series was 43 issues plus a 2004 annual.

Line-Up

Yara Flor (Wondergirl)

Jackson Hyde (Aqualad)

Cassandra Cain (Batgirl)

Jason Todd (Robin)

Roy Harper (Arsenal)

It was a bit out of nowhere, seeing as the lineup featured two brand new characters, a newly established character, a then considered dead character, and a former teen titan turned titan.

Retrospect

In retrospect, this series can be seen as a world building series as well as a device to introduce more heroes within a similar age group and adding more younger heroes into the mix, bridging the gap between the titans of Dick Grayson and Donna Troy and the younger generation of young justice soon teen titans Tim Drake and Cassie Sandsmark.

This series also reintroduced Jason Todd to a reader base that had known him as dead at this point. Adding new characterization that would be later used in the Batman: Hush storyline and lead into the Batman: Under the Red Hood series.

Interestingly, we see that this series of Teen Titans ended the same month that Red Hood's identity was revealed to Batman in Batman #683.

That is no coincidence. Fans have long since known that the series ended when Jason Todd was introduced back into the main line story.

However, while well planned, this left the elseworld's Teen Titans run to end abruptly and feel incomplete in some places.

Features

Some features of this series were a phenomenal number one cover that would later inspire the cover art for World's Finest: Teen Titans #1, an interesting dynamic between Batgirl and Robin that wouldn't show in mainline stories until New 52, and Roy in another mentorship role that we had been starting to see become more prominent at the time.

The introductory arc in the story (issues 1 through 4), where we were introduced to the characters in their separate contexts and got to see them come together in a way that explained how they got to that point, instead of just showing us them together as a team. It was also interesting to see Joker used as an introductory villain instead of someone else. It really set up the idea of a larger world outside of Joker and the scale of threats that would continue to increase throughout the series.

One of my favorite subplot that continued throughout the series was the character and moral conflict between the two bat characters (Cass and Jason) and their views on Justice, superheroing, and the right way to go about it. Although Jason's characterization is not exactly the same as his pre-death in the family personality, it provided a good sense of transition that got us from PreDitF to the UtRH personality. Cass and Jason often found themselves at odds with each other throughout the series. Cass, who believed in redemption and was stark and steady in her belief that no one should die, contrasted Jason's harsher view on crime and how to handle it.

It was also nice to see Cass on a team of people similar to her age. Although we got to see her work on the Justice League: Elite team, the elseworld's teen titans run got to show her in a more light-hearted run where she got to learn to be herself. Mirroring her then running solo series, we got to see Cass start to form a life and connections outside of the suit, and meet people who tested her belief in the symbol, this time with her peers.

Her growing friendship with Yara was really fun to read even at its worst writing. I especially enjoyed issue 25 and 26, where the two of them teamed up with the elseworld's version of Starfire and Donna Troy in a timeless issue of powerful female heroes.

Some of the negative from the run was the forced upon romantic subplot from 27 to 36, where it took up too much space on the panels and caused unnecessary character drama in a style that hadn't been seen in the run up to that point.

By the time of issue 40, there were three issues to wrap up the plot of the story before the run would come to a close. The story structure was there, but it was rushed and needed a couple more issues to really dive into the plot. The team disbands after Jason Todd/Robin murders one of the lesser villians they were fighting and caused the team to split ways to deal with the events of the arc. It culottes perfectly into the reveal later that month in the main books.

There was a top heavy focus on the two bat characters, which left less room for the other's. That didn't mean that the others didn't have central arcs throughout the run. It is just meant by the proxy of having two bat characters. Their drama was brought up the most.

Arcs

Issues 1 through 4 Jason focused introductory

Issues 5 through 8 was a Yara focused arc

9 through 12 was a Roy centric arc

16 through 19 was a Cass centric arc

20 through 22 was a Jason centric arc

23 and 24 was a Jackson centric arc

25 and 26 was Cass and Yara

30 through 34 was another Roy centric arc

The annual plus 36 was a Jackson arc

37 and 38 was another Yara centric arc

40 through 43 was extremely focused in Jason with Cass as a close second.

Conclusions

It was a really interesting story to read, and it was fun to see what having Batgirl on a team does to the dynamics of a normally Robin only sort of line-uo. It's interesting that Jackson was the first of the two original characters to make the jump to mainline comics (2010) and Yara was later in 2021, having been the last of the team brought into the main timeline. It would be nice to see them come back together for a special crossover again, fill the niche group of fans that follow the limited fan material on this series.

#dc #dc comics #teen titans #teen titans dc #elseworld's teen titans #yara flor #jackson hyde #roy harper #jason todd #cassandra cain #honestly thank you for giving me an opening to talk about the series ever #i never get the chance to #unrelated but the fact that Yara disappeared from comics for so long was such a disrespect #her and Cass did not spend those issues becoming friends just for them to erase it and not even try to bring it over in any way #unreality

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daydreamerdrew · 25 days

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Batman: Turning Points (2001) #1-2

#this is wild to me #the dramatic shift in perspective #the prioritization of a man having a family over any concern for the kid’s well-being #not recognizing Batman as a superhero as something negative that could be perpetuated in a cycle #seeing Batman as Batman so him having a superhero sidekick as the only way for him to have a family #and taking his fear when Robin was in danger as proof that this is ok #also ‘Our rules don’t apply to him. They never have.’#dc #jim gordon #bruce wayne #dick grayson #my posts #comic panels

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gamesception · 3 months

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Sception Reads Cass Cain #33

Harley Quinn (2000) #6 story - Karl Kesel pencils - Terry Dodson & Wayne Faucher inks - Rachel Dodson

Harley Quinn (2000) #10, 11, & 12 story - Karl Kesel pencils - Terry Dodson inks - Rachel dodson

This time we're stepping out of chronological order to cover all of Cass's appearances in the 2000 run of Harley Quinn at once, specifically the issues from May, September, October, and November of 2001. Four issues, but I don't have too much to say about Cass's characterization here.

The Harley Quinn book had a neat gimmick though. This is still pretty fresh off her introduction not in comics but in Batman: the Animated Series, and this book chooses to show Harley's altered world state via an art shift to a more cartoony style using B:tAS's character designs whenever it's showing Harley's perspective, but sticks to more typical comic art otherwise. This is sometimes used for jokes, but more often kind of tragically when people Harley attacks or when members of her crew get hurt (often by Harley), and Harley sees it as no big deal cartoon chicanery only for the perspective to shift and show that the person is seriously injured or dead.

Issue 6 has Harley's Crew and Riddler's Crew accidentally robbing Wayne Manor at the same time. Before the robbery, Harley infiltrates a masquerade party and Bruce clearly recognizes her, but dips out to go Batmanning in town anyway instead of staying to deal with Harley? Or even letting anyone know she's there?

Am I wrong to read this as Bruce actually recognizing her?

Anyway, Bruce dips out, and Harley's team take out the Manor security and surveillance, including knocking out Bruce's beleaguered bodyguard Sasha Bordeaux (another ancillary female character in the Gotham books at the time who would go on to be treated pretty poorly by the narrative) and her team. The only reason they don't get away with the robbery is the Riddler, who is robbing the same place that night, and, of course, tipped off the authorities (and Oracle) to his crime, because he's like that.

As for our focus here, Cass is only in this book for a single panel, part of a list of basically every normal bat person who is too busy or too out of town to come deal with the situation.

Not too much to say one way or the other. Typical 'Cass as spooky silhouette with yellow belt'.

So yeah, not much to say re: Cass in this issue, but it does do that thing I mentioned with the perspective change violence reveal when one of Harley's crew turns on her to collect a bounty and the ensuing fight ends with...

oh, ha ha funny cartoon explosion knocked her out...

yeesh.

Anyway, with no one else to call, Babs sends in Big Barda at the end of the issue, who you'd imagine would be more than enough to deal with both Harley and Edward.

And we'll have to imagine, since that issue doesn't have any Cass, so we're skipping forward a bit.

.....

Issue 10 is part of a mini arc where Harley gets the brilliant idea to impersonate Batgirl.

specifically Bab's Batgirl.

Which Cass, and miscellaneous other Bat crew, take issue with. She's looking pretty good here, training as usual.

The first of the bats Harley encounters is Timm, who she taunts with some sexual innuendos and that late 90s early 00s brand of casual homophobia that certainly hasn't aged like sour milk. Thankfully Cass shows up, and while Harley's no match for her in a fight, she does manage to avoid getting taken down right away, and either dodges in a way that has Cass hitting Tim or misses Cass in a way that hits Tim anyway.

Basically a terrible showing for Tim all round, who's mostly here to take prat falls and be the butt of jokes, but he kind of deserves it lately (we'll get into that a bit next time), so I'm all for it.

But then there's this bit...

Harley catches Cass by surprise by saying her name, only... is that even her name at this point? This is, I think, the first time she's been called that in universe that we've seen so far, though Batgirl issues 15 to 18 came before this and we haven't looked at them yet. So if that is her name... since when? David wouldn't have given her a name. She's just 'Batgirl' to Bruce & company. Honestly, choosing a regular person name should have been a big story deal, coinciding with Cass choosing to put value in having a life for herself outside of just being Batgirl, but I guess that never happens.

And even if we just ignore all that and say her real name was Cassandra all along, how the Heck would Harley know that? Eh, maybe she found out in one of the Harley Quinn issues we didn't read.

Regardless, Harley shoves her off a roof, but Cass pulls her with, and we get this nice panel of Cass smiling through her mask, clearly having as much fun with the fight as Harley is. No stitches in the design from Dodson, I kind of prefer that.

.........

Next issue the fight proceeds into the street, and Dick shows up, recognizing Harley.

Even with Dick there, Cass is still the only one getting hits in on Harley, which is a nice recognition of Cass's skills, though you'd think Dick would also be more than a match for Harley in a fight.

Harley manages to steal Dick's motorcycle and turn the fight into a chase scene, which ends up on another rooftop... there's

there's just so many shenanigans. Lost of shenanigans in this issue. Very fitting for a Harley Quinn fight honestly. And it's fun.

Not a lot going on with Cass character-wise here. But it is nice to see her in an adventure that's fun & silly. A nice break from her more usual dour & depressed stories, especially at this time.

Anyway they all crash into a bar full of criminals and Harley escapes in the ensuing brawl.

Later we get this bit where Cass makes fun of Babs & Dick, though I do have to point out that it plays into the theme of her minimizing the importance of personal connections and lives outside of the job. And this contemplative bit from Babs about what it's like for her to watch someone else essentially living her old life through a computer screen. It's good stuff, stuff we could have done with more of in the Batgirl title, which at this point was imo focusing too much on Cass's relationship to Bruce and not enough on her relationship to Babs.

As for Harley, she's done playing Batgirl for now. Her crew convinces her that between criminals after her for some bounty and the Bat crew mad at her over this fiasco there's just too much heat on her in Gotham and she needs to leave an lay low a bit.

But there's something she thinks she needs to do first, which has her kidnapping one of the two detectives who have featured in earlier issues of her book.

Ivy also shows up at the very end, and everyone always loves those two working together.

Honesly a pretty packed issue all around, and a good bit of Cass this time.

...

Issue 12 is a huge brawl at Harley's hideout as half of her gang turns on her, Oracle finds her base and sends Dick, Tim, & Cass after her, Bruce shows up following an unrelated investigation, and detective guy whose name I don't remember shows up with some backup trying to rescue detective girl. I can't get into all of it since there's so much going on and so little of it involves Cass, but honestly if you like Harley Quinn as a character this run is worth a read.

While there's not as much Cass this time, we do get this moment with her and Bruce:

I really like the posing in these two panels. I also like the 'I absolutely trust my daughter not to let you shoot her, but I'm still going to punch you for trying' sentiment from Bruce.

There's also this bit where Quinn's most loyal lackey, her favorite, the one you as a reader like if you've been following the title from issue one, tries to use the two detectives as hostages to escape and..

and of course the person who shot him is...

Yup, all this mess because Harley shipped the two cops trying to arrest her and thought a kidnap & rescue scenario would finally get them to start dating.

And of course they do the cartoon perspective thing again as he dies.

Harley is captured by the detectives after this, but they hand her off to a mystery bat person...

Who turns out to be Ivy, who had been conspicuously absent since showing up at the end of the last issue, wearing Harley's Batgirl costume.

Thus ends the 'Harley leading her own crew' run of Harley Quinn, with the next stretch being a Harley and Ivy team up deal.

Pretty good stuff all around, and again nice to see Cass included in something at least a ~little bit~ more lighthearted.

#Sception Reads Cassandra Cain #Cassandra Cain #Batgirl #Harley Quinn

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littlebeelife · 8 months

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Daily J2 Breakdown

Day 46

Tom Welling to Jared and Jensen: "You guys, the show is you guys together.”

Smallville @ 20: Tom Welling Opens Up About Nixed Season 1 Suit-Up, Batman Ban and Our 'Best CW Show' Tourney

By Matt Webb Mitovich / October 17 2021, 7:30 AM PDT

As Smallville marks a full 20 years since its premiere, Tom Welling says that he now is in a “much happier” place when it comes to his relationship with the superhero origin series.

Having struggled back in the day with his responsibility as the lead of the popular WB-turned-CW series (and the demands put on him), “As time goes on, I am enjoying Smallville more,” Welling shared in a new TVLine Q&A pegged to this Tuesday’s release of Smallville: The Complete Series on Blu-ray for the first time ever. “I wish I could go back [to my 2001 self] and just say, ‘Take a beat, and appreciate this.'”

In the interview below, Welling also revisits the not-so-super limitations Smallville contended with at the time, reflects on how the series set an example for the eventual Arrowverse, and he has a thing or two to say about how TVLine’s “Best CW Show Ever” tournament played out.

TVLINE | I don’t know if you’ve heard, but TVLine recently conducted a bracket tournament to determine “The Best CW Show Ever”….

I didn’t get the invite.

TVLINE | Readers chose 32 shows to send into a bracket tournament, and Smallville beat One Tree Hill to get into the Final Four—

Thank God.

TVLINE | In the Final Four, Supernatural beat Arrow, and Smallville beat Vampire Diaries.

F–k yeah.

TVLINE | The final was then Supernatural against Smallville. There was lots of drama, lots of voting, and…. Supernatural won, 77 percent to 23 percent.

Yeah, I can kind of…. Unfortunately, I can kind of see that. Is it because it lasted longer?

TVLINE | Could be. You guys had a good run, though — 10 years versus 15.

Yeah. I mean, we were more watchable. [Laughs] No, I love those guys, they’re buddies of mine. I like the way that [tournament] trickled down, though. It made a lot of sense. Especially with, like, [Smallville against] One Tree Hill and Vampire Diaries? Like, come on.

TVLINE | When Supernatural rolled around, did you get a sense that it was going to have some legs?

You know what, I did — probably more than I did about Smallville, to be honest. Because with Smallville, I was in it. I was trying to tread water every minute, every day, trying to keep it going. Nobody tells you that you’re going to be successful, even when you are successful. No one tells you that you’re going to be there for a long period of time, but knowing Jared [Padalecki] and Jensen [Ackles] and then watching Supernatural, from the outset I could see where the two of them made that show. And there was a point in that show where they started separating, and I was like, “You guys, the show is you guys together.” Like, that’s what it is.

It was obviously a different show than Smallville, but you’re right, when I saw Supernatural, I was like, this show’s going to work. I could never look at Smallville that way, only because maybe I didn’t want to let myself feel that way, perhaps. I didn’t want to, like, get comfortable.

The whole interview can be found here.

#DailyJ2Breakdown #j2 tinhat #j2 #jared and jensen

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denimbex1986 · 9 months

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'Cillian Murphy quite literally wandered into acting. At the age of 20, he walked up to the door of the Corcadorca Theatre Company in his hometown of Cork, Ireland, and knocked. He told the person who answered that he’d be interested in getting involved in any upcoming shows, and the man suggested he try out for a new play called “Disco Pigs,” about a pair of reckless teenagers. It was Murphy’s first audition, and he got the part.

The Enda Walsh play was a big success, moving to larger and larger theaters and eventually leading to a film adaptation in 2001 from director Kirsten Sheridan. That film caught the eye of filmmaker Danny Boyle, then looking to cast a fresh face for his post-apocalyptic thriller “28 Days Later.”

The rest is history — or history in the making as, 20 years later, Murphy is continuing to seek out bold projects with some of the best filmmakers working today. That includes Christopher Nolan, who first brought Murphy to supervillain stardom in “Batman Begins” and who directs the actor in the titular role in “Oppenheimer,” now in theaters. It’s their sixth collaboration, and Murphy’s biggest role yet, playing the complex physicist and “father of the atomic bomb” over a course of several years and a three-hour runtime. It’s one of Murphy’s finest performances, which is saying a lot.

There isn’t a genre or a medium the actor has shied away from over the years. And while some films might not always work as a whole, Murphy always shines. He’s also a true actor’s actor, one who understands every role is integral and is comfortable taking on supporting parts. Here’s a look at 10 of his best performances from his career on stage, film and television.

10. 28 Days Later (2002)

This is how most of the world was introduced to Murphy — a pair of impossibly blue eyes fill the screen as his character, a bicycle courier named Jim, awakes from a coma in Danny Boyle’s heralded action epic. He’s been asleep less than a month, but a lot can happen in that time — including the complete collapse of society thanks to a virus called “Rage” that turns its victims into mindless aggressors. (Note that the Z-word is never uttered throughout the film.) It’s a star-making turn for Murphy, only 24 at the time, who not only carries the film but holds his own against such impressive cast members as Brendan Gleeson and Naomie Harris as fellow survivors. Jim is discovering everything at the same time as the viewer, and Murphy makes the perfect audience surrogate, taking everything in with a suitably shocked but level-headed demeanor. He’s not a traditional action hero, and that’s the point: He’s just an ordinary man trying to navigate an entirely new world.

9. Batman Begins (2005)

Prior to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, films adapted from comics were a largely uplifting affair full of primary colors and bright locations. It’s easy to forget how much had to go right for “Batman Begins” to succeed, but it started with finding a villain who was as compelling as his nemesis. Though Murphy originally tested for Bruce Wayne/Batman, it was a stroke of genius that Nolan would peg him as Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka Scarecrow. With a charisma that can be both terrifying and seductive (which would become a Murphy speciality in years to come) Crane doesn’t need to showboat he’s the bad guy. Rather, he exudes a calm confidence, taking his time with methodical precision. Even the way he says the word “Batman,” drawing it out into two separate words, is chilling. It was wise of Nolan to include Scarecrow in the film’s two sequels — particularly in “The Dark Knight Rises,” where he pops up as a judge in a kangaroo courtroom with a smirk (“Exile or death?”) that shows he’s enjoying this almost as much as the audience is.

8. Red Eye (2005)

It would be easy to dismiss Wes Craven’s tight thriller — largely set onboard a red-eye flight in which a terrorist threatens a fellow passenger in order to pull off an assassination plot at the hotel she manages — because it’s so damn fun. But it’s also a clever, lean thriller buoyed by two actors toward the beginning of their film careers. Murphy is the perhaps too-aptly named Jackson Rippner while Rachel McAdams is his victim, Lisa Reisert. Part of the brilliance of Carl Ellsworth’s script is how the first few minutes play like a rom-com; two impossibly good-looking people meet cute at the airport and sparks immediately fly. Murphy understands that Rippner can’t telegraph evil — this is a man chosen for the assignment because he has deep resources of charm. They engage in a cat-and-mouse game throughout the flight that is so charged, don’t be surprised if there’s a part of you wondering if these two crazy kids can work it out.

7. Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

From the beginning of his film career, Murphy refused to be pigeonholed, seeking out unique projects and interesting roles without much of a concern for box office results. The same year he made his supervillain debut in “Batman Begins,” he pivoted by playing Kitten, the transgender heroine searching for love and her birth mother in Neil Jordan’s adaptation of Pat McCabe’s novel. While the casting of a cis man in the role might raise issues today, Murphy’s portrayal is a loving homage to the tenacity and tenderness of the character. Kitten is charming and determined, and Murphy finds a joy in her life even when things take a dark turn. It’s also a chance for Murphy to reunite with some of his previous co-stars, including Gleeson, Stephen Rea and Liam Neeson – forming a powerhouse of Irish performers.

6. Disco Pigs (2001)

Murphy’s feature film debut is an adaptation of the Enda Walsh play in which he made his theatrical (and acting) debut. Murphy stars as “Pig” and Elaine Cassidy is “Runt,” a pair of teenagers who have been devoted to one another since birth. Pig is all raging id, completely unpredictable and prone to violent outbursts. But Murphy also shows his deep vulnerability and affection for his friend, particularly as their relationship begins to shift away from purely platonic. It’s a stunning debut, and Murphy’s raw talent and potential are on full display. So much so that the film caught the eye of an up-and-coming director named Danny Boyle, who would go on to cast Murphy in his breakout “28 Days Later” role.

5. The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)

Ken Loach is such a perfect fit for Murphy, it’s a shame the two haven’t collaborated on another film since this tale of two war-torn brothers during the Irish War of Independence. Murphy is Damien, a doctor who initially wants no part of the fighting, resigned to the idea that the war is unwinnable. But after witnessing several injustices, he impulsively joins the Irish Republican Army. Murphy portrays the transformation into a radicalized soldier who ultimately sacrifices everything for his cause without ever hitting a false note. It’s a heartbreaking, emotional journey that grounds the film, which went on to win the Palme d’Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and is regarded by many as Loach’s best.

4. Peaky Blinders (2013-2022)

Murphy has always been drawn to the written word, no matter the medium. So after headlining films from the likes of Danny Boyle and Neil Jordan, he made a point to return to the stage and had no qualms about signing up for a television series penned by acclaimed writer Steven Knight (“Dirty Pretty Things,” “Eastern Promises”). The actor is a perfect fit in Knight’s universe of morally compromised men you can’t take your eyes off of. His Tommy Shelby is a war veteran turned leader of the Peaky Blinders criminal organization. His work is all pragmatism: He’s often stoic as he manipulates and calculates. But he’s also haunted — both by what he’s seen in the war and by his deep and abiding love for his late wife Grace. Of course, Murphy is so magnetic, fans of the show often have to be reminded that he is actually a villain. Put aside the mass murder and corruption — I’m still not over him shooting that horse.

3. Oppenheimer (2023)

After five collaborations with Nolan, the filmmaker finally let Murphy take the lead — and it was worth waiting for. Murphy portrays the rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist known as the creator of the atomic bomb. Murphy ricochets through time, portraying Oppenheimer in his young adulthood as a fragile student, his glory heading The Manhattan Project and his later years where he’s fighting the government that once heralded him. These three timelines are usually easy to distinguish from one another, but sometimes they flow together with no obvious way to differentiate –yet Murphy is always precisely where he needs to be. Though Oppenheimer is a mass of contradictions — he can be controlled yet irrational, naïve yet arrogant — he always makes sense through Murphy’s interpretation. He is particularly haunting playing Oppenheimer in his later years: Both physically and spiritually, you feel like you’re watching a man fading away before your eyes.

2. Misterman (2011)

For this tour-de-force, Murphy went back to where it all began – not only the theater but specifically a play by Enda Walsh, whose “Disco Pigs” set Murphy on his journey as an actor. He plays Thomas Magill (never “Tom”) a loner and fanatic on a mission to cleanse his small Irish town of its sins. Murphy is the only actor on stage for the duration of the play, but this is not a staid affair — he literally bounces off the walls, hurls objects and races back and forth — all as he builds his story to a powerful crescendo. It’s exhausting just to watch, and yet you won’t be able to look away. While Murphy performed the role on several stages, it was also filmed as part of National Theatre at Home series for Landmark Productions, who show it on occasion. Keep an eye out, as it’s not one to be missed.

1. Inception (2010)

When citing Murphy’s collaborations with Nolan, it would make sense to favor “Dunkirk,” in which he offers a harrowing depiction of PTSD as a traumatized solider; or “Oppenheimer,” in which he occupies nearly every frame as the star of the film. But for me, Murphy is the lynchpin in one of Nolan’s best, most ambitious and most emotional masterpieces, the byzantine thriller “Inception.” He plays Robert Michael Fischer, the heir to a business empire whose unresolved daddy issues make him the target of a team of “extractors.” Led by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb, the thieves use dream technology to infiltrate the subconscious of a target to access information. Fischer is a man of few words and Murphy is fantastic at quietly communicating his pain and making you care for a character that is, in many ways, intended to be a cipher. Murphy shows that “best” doesn’t need to mean “most” — both in terms of the size of the role and the acting, delivering a sublime supporting performance that the entire movie rests on. Nolan is often accused (wrongly) of being a cold filmmaker. But the moment where Fischer finds closure with his late father is perhaps the most affecting gut-punch he’s ever delivered, thanks largely to Murphy’s beautiful performance.'

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gffa · 8 months

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Hey! Love your blog for the sw content but ngl you have me window shipping dickbabs more and more everyday. I’m not reeeeally a comics person unless it has quality online format but I have been known to enjoy cartoons. Do you have any show recs to get me into the batfam? Sorry if this has already been asked (and answered somewhere else). Thanks again for all your great content! Love your blog!

Hi! Thank you for the kind words and I'm glad to be helping to at least tempt you into this pit, and I wish I had better recs for you, but I've been turning this over in my head for the last couple of days and keep coming back to that I don't know that I would recommend most of the animated series or movies/TV series for DC. Even the best bets would be: - Young Justice 2010 cartoon, which is overall decent, but DickBabs doesn't happen until like season 3, I think? (And I think Dick dates Kory for awhile before that?) And they're a very minor part of the show, even the Batfam as a whole is only one aspect of the show, it's really a multi-fam kind of series. As long as you know that it will have some major differences in relationship and character dynamics (like Superboy in the show and Kon from the comics share certain aspects, but they are also vastly different and I'm not sure you'd recognize Kon as the same character), it's a fun show to watch overall! - Batman: The Animated Series 1992 + The New Batman Adventures 1997 was absolutely, incredibly groundbreaking at the time it came out, but that means it's 30 years old now and a lot of it is going to be incredibly dated compared to current stuff. I do still love it and the Dick/Babs episodes are TOP NOTCH (so much delicious yearning oh my god) and the flashback to when Dick was a kid are also great, but there's a LOT of basic cartoon action stuff that's not that exciting anymore and it might feel like a long haul. Cautiously recommended if you don't mind viewing it through an old-fashioned lens, don't mind that Dick tends to be more in his "angry teenage years" than his more settled 20s, and you're okay with zipping through any parts that bore you. - The Batman 2004 is another series that's pretty dated, but in a way I find deeply charming, because it really leaned into the gothic aesthetic and wasn't afraid to try some new things with the character designs. I usually suggest skipping forward to season 4 when Dick shows up (and I greatly enjoy his and Babs' dynamic, they're kids at the time, it's not a romance here, but it's not hard to see that one day they could grow up into the characters they'll be in other versions) but the whole show is just a good Batman cartoon! Honorable mentions: - Justice League: The Animated Series 2001 which I don't think Dick or Babs ever appeared in, but is still probably THE best DC animated series. It's not super complex, but what it did, it did very well, and is still pretty influential to this day. - If you don't mind reading an online comic, the Wayne Family Adventures webtoon is a very easy intro point, has very pretty art, and will get you reasonably familiar with the characters! (I sort of liken it to LEGO adaptations, it's meant to be light-hearted and occasionally genuinely touching, it focuses on extremes of the characters and memeable moments, rather than the more sharp-edged comics, but that makes it all the better for an entry point imo.) Beyond that, I can't really think of anything I would necessarily recommend to help get new fans into the Batfam characters (I wouldn't recommend the Harley Quinn show as a starting place for them, nor the Teen Titans cartoon, and I don't really personally care for any of the animated movies personally, other than maybe Super Sons, which was absolutely adorable and a great intro to Jon and Damian), because DC has a really weird track record on adapting them into non-comics mediums and I just enjoy the comics so much more. Though, if others have recs or would offer a rebuttal against some of the suggestions, feel free, because I would love to have easier ways into the comics

#lumi.txt #dc #batfam #comics recs

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someoneimsure · 1 year

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“You. I’ll be you. The you you’re supposed to be. If you had killed Joker... years ago... beyond what happened to me... you know what hell you would have saved this world. But no. His murder is a long list of sane acts you refuse to commit. You never cross that line. But I will.” - Jason Todd. UtRH #7

I believe the intended message of UtRH has always been ‘This is what Batman could become if he didn’t have friends holding him back’. This concept is further supported by Red Hood’s appearance in Teen Titans (2003).

“I wonder...if I had friends like those...if I had been a Titan since the beginning...would my life have turned out differently? Would I have been a better Robin? Would I have been a better person?” Teen Titans (2003) #29

The problem is that UtRH is trying to do too much at once thematically and driving me up the wall while doing so. But after looking at a couple of other comics, I realized that it’s more of a part of Red Hood’s earliest characterization. Red Hood is a foil to Batman, but also he’s challenging the status quo and modus operandi of how superheroes have operated.

This is supported by his appearance in the Green Arrow run where Red Hood is challenging the beliefs of Mia Dearden.

“Is that why you find it so hard to kill? Do you think life is so precious? Or do you have to emulate your new flawed ‘Daddy’?” - Jason Todd. Green Arrow (2001) #71

I don’t think the DC universe could handle being challenged in this way. Just look at how it tried to rebuttal Red Hood’s argument:

“Jason never fully understood about what even the most powerful of adversaries feared in Batman. It was never his strength. Or his stealth. Or even his ominous nature. It is, always... his resolve.” - Alfred Pennyworth. UtRH #10

Red Hood is telling Batman his resolve isn��t enough, while the narrative is trying to say that Red Hood doesn’t understand why his resolve is enough. Yet, we as readers understand that the great revolving door of Gotham continues despite Batman’s resolve, which aligns with Red Hood telling us that Batman’s not doing enough. It boils to one simple point that Red Hood is making here:

Resolve in defeating the enemy is no longer necessary if the enemy is already dead.

#I am obsessed with these panels.#dc meta #utrh #i'm not sure if anyone else has pointed out how much Jason's character revolves around questioning hero's methods #but it's a quality of his character i would love to see him bring back #jason: 'did your methods save my life? is it saving other people's lives? what exactly do you believe? or are you just a parrot? a puppet?'#jason todd #red hood #sadly i don't think the narrative of the dc universe can support this iteration of jason todd #also seeking validation for one's own beliefs is such a victim-coded thing to do #batman #long post #my meta

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lyinginahammock · 9 months

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DC - The Reigning King of TV Superhero Animation

Let’s get this out of the way - on September 7, 1992, DC won the battle for TV superhero animation for all time with the premiere of the Batman: The Animated Series season 1, episode 14, “Heart of Ice”. The heartbreaking tale of Mr. Freeze’s origin, it won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program. Honestly, if nothing DC every put on broadcast TV ever again was any good, this episode would still be talked about as one of the greatest pieces of animated TV ever.

But instead of resting on their laurels, DC decided to keep kicking ass. “Beware The Grey Ghost,” “Almost Got ‘Im”, “Trial”, “Mad Love”, “Growing Pains”, “Over the Edge”, “Old Wounds” - all amazing episodes of animated television from Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures.

Then, in 1999, DC decided to go for (and pull off) a Batman hat trick with the debut of Batman Beyond, a series originally designed to sell toys that the writers decided to make kick ass. But still, it eventually had to come to an end, and Marvel breathed a sigh of relief.

Until November 7, 2001, when DC dropkicked them with the premiere of The Justice League, which transitioned into Justice League Unlimited with grace and style and was similarly amazing, but appeared to end that run of successes.

At the same time, DC released the series that sealed their eternal victory and proved them the king of superhero animations - Teen Titans. An anime-infused take on the superhero team of the same name, it featured DC’s trademark complicated storytelling and ran for five years, followed by a pretty good movie. And the theme song fucking slapped, both in English and Japanese.

Also running concurrently was The Batman, another interesting take on the caped crusader which reimagined the origins and appearances of his rogues gallery and had some absolutely heartbreaking twists and turns.

After that came Batman: The Brave and the Bold. I’ll die on this fucking hill - the show is better than people online give it credit for. It focused on the campy elements of comic books of yore, but also gave us the amazing episode “Chill of the Night!”, an examination of what it means to be the Batman.

Then came Young Justice, a wholly original take on a number of DC heroes and villains and marked the TV premier of fucking Superboy. The first season is, in my mind, damn near perfect.

Of course, you have stuff like Teen Titans Go! but that isn't conducive to my point, so I'm ignoring it.

Finally, we get to the present day with programming like The Harley Quinn Show and My Adventures With Superman, the former of which has gained a strong fan base and the latter of which shows amazing potential.

So, why does DC's animation devision have so many absolute fucking bangers under its belt while Marvel doesn't have nearly the same track record? Well, I have a theory.

Marvel hit it big with the MCU and thus have a sort of cannon and, as such, the characterization of their characters has to be pretty consistent across mediums, even animation. DC, however, doesn't have anything like that and can reimagine their characters any way they want. That and their animation department has been kicking ass so long they've proven that, left to their own devices, they'll pump out quality material.

So, yeah.

#dc animated universe #dc animation #teen titans #young justice #batman the animated series #new batman adventures #batman beyond #justice league #justice leauge unlimited

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johnvenus · 2 years

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How To Fix The Justice League

It’s been almost 17 years and no JLA roster has managed to reach the critical and financial success of the 1997 JLA run kicked off by Grant Morrison and followed up by Waid and Kelly (unless you’re a fan of Meltzer’s run). No JLA title has managed to run as long as ‘Justice League of America’ Vol 1 (1960-1987 with 261 issues) and no JL adaptation, be it animation or live action has managed to match the long lasting success of the 2001 Justice League cartoon that later morphed into Justice League Unlimited.

In fact, the League has been in a flux long enough for someone to have been born and gotten their drivers license. You could argue the last 10 years hasn’t been good for any of DC’s team books but JL has had it especially bad.

The problems are self evident, the JL is a team compromised of the world’s greatest heroes, most of whom have their own titles so nothing major can happen to them in the JL book and whoever is writing JL is usually beholden to the whims of whoever is writing the character’s solo title. Attempts to fill the roster with lesser known characters has rarely proven successful. There is also the matter of the scale of the threat the League faces. Once you go from planetary threats to galactic threats to universal to multiversal to omniversal threats, where do you go afterwards? After all, too many back to back existential crisis can diminish the potency of such stories.

So how do you fix the League and make it sustainable for long term? Well, here are a few suggestions as I try to build my own JL roster.

Step One: Ditch the Trinity

I’m serious, the Trinity may have been a cool concept once upon a time but the concept is now past the point of diminishing returns.

The Big 3, or really just Superman and Batman get the most books, the most media attention *and* is often the main focus of JL as well?

It doesn’t do these characters much favor either as the Trinity themselves had to be changed in order to accommodate them on the League. Batman is at his best when he is a noir/gothic inspired hero doing street level stuff but to fit on the Justice League, he had to be turned into an ubermesnch who can beat anyone and every other character has to be scaled down so he can look good. Superman who is a paragon and a boyscout in his own title often ends up either taking a back seat to everyone else so they can be useful or his story arcs revolve around the possibility of him going evil and misusing his powers. Poor Wonder Woman who is a more proactive character in her own title ends up being a more passive one on the League. She is often ‘just there’ or worse saddled with a romantic arc with either Superman or Batman. Of the three, she’s the only one I would still keep around on the League since she rarely gets her due. Despite the promise of being part of the ‘Big Three’ she rarely gets the same level of attention and love as Superman and Batman does.

For the Trinity, I suggest that they’re better off leading their own teams. .Superman can run the Authority, LoSH, Superman Squad or maybe a present day version of the Science Squad. Batman has either the Outsiders or Batman Inc that he can be in charge of. Wonder Woman can be in charge of a modern day version of the Holiday Girls or Justice League Dark.

However, while building a team, having three core characters and building the rest of the team around them is a good writing trick and imo, it’s fundamental to the League. But in this case, I will choose characters who have some commonalities with each other, so for my League, I would go with: Martian Manhunter, Aquaman and Wonder Woman as the new trinity.

Arthur and Diana are both royalty with two different approaches to situations. Arthur is usually more stern and hard headed while Diana is more diplomatic and J’onn would be the mediator. With just Diana and J’onn at the top, neither of them would have to take a backseat to either Superman or Batman and Arthur can have a more active role on the team without feeling like a glorified guest star. IMO, the relationship between these three characters is often overlooked even in the comics.

You also have the theme of earth (Diana), air (Martian Manhunter) and water (Aquaman) plus they have enemies that they can share with each other. Old school Wonder Woman comics was a kitchen sink fantasy title where it was possible for any character based on any genre could show up. It was never just limited to Greek Mythology, you had other mythologies in play as well along with aliens and Atlanteans. A character like Queen Clea could just as easily be a villain for both Diana and Arthur while the Saturnians, Queen Desira of Venus and Badra could be enemies for both Diana and Arthur as well as flesh out the different alien civilizations within the solar system.

Step 2: League Members: New, Old & Unexpected

Now that we’ve figure out the Trinity, lets fill in the rest of the ranks.

If you look at the older JL comic books, even though the Trinity were the figures heads Green Lantern and Flash often like the real heart of the book. Even though the popular characters are what draws us in, what really drove the book was the drama between Hal, Oliver, Barry, Katar and Dinah. The team needs to be a mix of old and new characters that builds on existing relationships while also having them meet new characters.

For the modern day, I would go with Wally West as the Flash. For Green Lantern I choose Sojourner ‘Jo’ Mullein. Wally’s been in several incarnations of the League already and has earned his spot. Jo has been in Far Sector and in the main GL title so now it’s time to make the leap into the main JL title. Jo would be the field leader while Wally would be second in command. Wally would be the impulsive, hot headed one who is best at improvising on the fly while Jo would be the thoughtful strategic long term planner.

To round out the cast, I would have Cyborg/Victor Stone as the teams resident engineer and tech specialist. I always thought it was a missed opportunity not to build on Vic’s Titans history and have Vic and Wally on the JL together. Especially since they have both teamed up in Wally’s own title.

Then I would add in Atom/Ryan Choi as the team’s biologist plus medic, Dr Fate/Khalid Nassour as their magical specialist and Big Barda as the team’s heavy weight. Initially I thought of including either Zatanna or Raven as the magical specialist but I think it’s time that Khalid branched out and interacted with new characters. To round out the team, I would add in Armando Ramone who was the brother of the original Vibe and Beast Boy since he has never been on the JL before.

I would set the League’s HQ in Guy Gardner’s Warriors Bar in New York. Guy and Bobo/Detective Chimp would be serving drinks at this bar. Linda Park would be there as well with Jai and Iris. Guy wouldn’t be an active member, he would be on reserve alongside Mr Miracle/Scott Free whose a stay-at-home-dad with his and Barda’s kid, who would hang out with Wally’s kids. Guy’s presence also means we can fold in Ice/Tora as his partner and co-owner of the business plus reserve member.

But I wouldn’t limit the League’s new HQ to Guy’s Warriors Bar, I would also have this be the place where Justice League Dark The Keepers of Magic would congregate as well.

For this team I would go with Zatanna as the leader (and have do some actual leading), Ray Palmer/Atom back in his Sword of Atom look as the team scientist/explorer, Detective Chimp/Bobo would still follow her on missions, then I would add in Vixen/Marie Jiwe McCabe (her powers are magic derived so it’s weirder that she has never been in JLD), then I would add in Raven, Zachary Zatara, Billy Batson/Shazam (as the understudy/proteges), Donna Troy (for the Wonder representation) and Blue Devil/David Cassidy as the team’s muscle, Aztek/Nayeli Constant who would serve as the team Brick and also opens up Aztek mythology just as Vixen’s opens up West African mythology. This would serve as the core team. Each member representing either a different aspect of the magical world or Ray’s case, a different perspective. The team will cross over and meet various characters throughout their journey like Eve Eden/Nightshade and her quest to rescue her brother or Enchantress or Ralph and Sue Dibney as ghost detectives or Dr Mist.

Then I would have Deadman/Boston Brand act as back up/support while Madame Xanadu serves as mission control like she did in Volume 1. I don’t want the book to just be about horror or rehash Books of Magic again. I want something akin to Greg Pak’s ‘Incredible Hercules’ where you had this hodgepodge of different mythologies mixing and interacting with each other.

I actually like the idea of JL and JLD having the same book with JLD as back up but I didn’t like the latter having too few pages. Still I would keep the two teams more intertwined with the Wonder Woman and Aquaman often going back and forth between JL and KoM with Zatanna often asking WW for guidance when it comes to leadership.

But for this scenario lets imagine that they are separate books with their own separate plot lines but characters can move freely from one book to the other. I would give them the JL one a back up title called JLA Reserves. The back up will spotlight characters who don’t appear in the main feature which will address the problem of readers not seeing their fave get any focus in the main feature. I’ll give a similar back up to JLD which will spotlight individual characters (setting them up before they join the team without interrupting the main story line) or stories set in the past that will flesh out members of the team or spotlight a cool magical character who is not a member of the team.

As for plots, well, for the JL I want mix of work place comedy and superhero action. The A-plot could Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter investigating something on Mars while the B-plot could be something like the League at homebase having to contain an runaway alien microbe from Choi’s lab that’s wrecking havoc.

Or Wally and Linda go on a date to explore NY while leaving Jai and Iris in the care of Khalid and Vic but babysitting two kids with superspeed (or super punch in Jai’s case turns out to be more difficult than expected).

Or Zatanna agrees to do Guy and Ice a favor by holding one of her shows at Warriors Bar but because neither Guy nor Zatanna can stand each other or agree on how the show should go leading to disaster.

Or on JLD side where Donna attempts to put together a portfolio or enough photos to get a book deal in between regular superhero stuff. Maybe even has Zatanna and Vixen model for her. Even Blue Devil could be her muse.

Or Zachary, Raven and Billy go on their own side trip but ends up landing in more trouble than they initially realized.

But a superhero team can’t just be about sitcom hijinks, you also need:

Step 3: Villains

The problem with modern iterations of JL is the lack of an iconic rogues gallery for them. Historically the League has fought White Martians, Starro the Conqueror, the Royal Flush Gang, Felix Faust, Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor and the Injustice League.

But the Leagues needs villains that are unique to them. Villains like Luthor & The Injusitce League often makes the League feel more like an extension of the Superman mythos whilst aliens like the White Martians and Starro end up being the faceless horde most of the time.

For this iteration of the League, I think it’s important to utilize villains who are connected to the heroes. Especially villains whom the heroes have in common and could lead to more world building and mythology.

Like Queen Clea for instance is a WW villain, she was the ruler of Atlantis in the original Martson run. However she could be a shared enemy of both WW and Aquaman and her kingdom could just be one of the many Atlantean colonies.

There is also Queen Desira who is the queen of Venus and the slave culture of Saturn lead by Eviless (who would need a name change) from old WW comics. Exploring these cultures and how they might connect to the Martians from J’onn’s comics. Ryan Choi also dated Giganta (another WW villains) so there is opportunity for hilarity here.

For the ‘Keepers of Magic’ Madame Xanadu has Morgan Le Fay, Donna has the Dark Angel, Raven has Trigon, Vixen has Mustapha Maksai and the Orisha’s, Raven has Trigon and Zatanna has a few enemies that should be dusted off especially Allura. I think that’s enough villainous fire power to challenge the League.

I left out Dick Grayson/Nightwing because Dick has joined an lead the League before and I didn’t want to include too many Titans characters or create the false impression the Titans are JL Jr who are meant to ‘graduate’ to the League. If you look at their enemies, the Titans ones are just as dangerous as any JL enemy. Dick should be with the Titans (I like the Titans Academy as a concept if not the execution) along with Roy Harper or he has to lead a team he’s never lead before like the Suicide Squad or Gen 13.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

TL;Dr: Make Wonder Woman, Martian Manhutner and Aquaman the new Trinity. Wally West, Jo Mullein, Cyborg, Ryan Choi, Beast Boy, Dr Fate, Vibe and Big Barda fill out the roster. They’re all set up in Guy Gardner’s Warriors bar where Guy, Detective Chimp, Ice, Scott Free and Linda Park also hang. The JLD operate from there as well, but now they are rebranded as ‘Keepers of Magic’, with Zatanna, Vixen, Donna Troy, Blue Devil, Aztek being in charge along with Zachary Zatara, Raven and Billy Batson.

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androxys · 5 months

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Androxys' 2023 Comics Wrapped

Happy end of 2023! To celebrate the turning of the year, I wanted to take a quick view back through the comics I read over the last twelve months. Turns out there's... a lot of them.

This isn't 100% perfect, mainly because I'm basing this off the metadata of when comics were added to my computer... I do think there are some comics I added at the end of 2022 but ended up reading in 2023. However, in the interest of being fair, this list won't count those, and is instead only the comics I can confirm I read in 2023.

By my tally, I read 977 comics in 2023 across 78 unique titles. If we assume each comic is 22 pages long, that's 21,494 pages of comics! Of course, some stories are shorter than 22 pages (as if they're splitting with a backup) and some are longer (prestige formats or one-shots). Based on some quick (and quite unscientific) math, I estimate that I spent around four days of my 2023 in the world of DC Comics. And you know what, I'll do it again.

Breaking down my Top 10 single titles, this year I read...

169 Superman/Adventures of Superman/Action Comics issues

128 Batman/Detective Comics issues

104 JSA issues

56 Suicide Squad issues

52 Birds of Prey issues

51 Manhunter issues

38 Harley Quinn issues

33 Aquaman issues

31 Azrael issues

27 Martian Manhunter issues

Here's the full breakdown of my reading, for those interested:

Arsenal (1998) #1-4 [4]

JLA/Titans (1998) #1-3 [3]

Knight and Squire (2010) #1-6 [6]

Monkey Prince (2021) #1-12 [12]

Poison Ivy (2022) #1-6 [6]

Shadowpact (2006) #1-25 [25]

The Question: Pipeline in Detective Comics (1937) #854-864 [11]

Trinity (2003) #1-3 [3]

Tempest (1996) #1-4 [4]

The Atlantis Chronicles (1990) #1-7 [7]

Aquaman (1994) #1-20 [20]

Aquaman: The Becoming (2021) #1-6 [6]

Azrael (1995) #23-46 [24]

Sword of Azrael (2022) #1-7 [7]

Batgirls (2022) #14-19 [6]

Batman (1940) #401-401 [7]

Batman: Cacophony (2009) #1-3 [3]

Batman: Death and the Maidens (2003) #1-9 [9]

Batman Chronicles (1995) #1-23 [23]

Batman: Gotham Knights (2000) #33-74 [42]

Batman: Turning Points (2000) #1-5 [5]

Batman: Killing Time (2022) #1-6 [6]

Batman: Urban Legends (2021) #23 [1]

Batman Beyond: Neo Year (2022) #1-6 [6]

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1994) [1]

Batman Incorporated (2011) #1-8 [8]

Detective Comics (1937) #469-479 [11]

Birds of Prey (1999) #22-55, #113-127 [49]

Birds of Prey (2023) #1-3 [3]

Infinite Crisis Aftermath: The Spectre #1-3 [3]

DC Festival of Heroes (2021) [1]

DC Power (2023) [1]

G'nort's Illustrated (2023) [1]

DCeased (2019) #1-6 [6]

Green Arrow (2001) #69-72 [4]

Green Lantern (1990) #76-77, #92 [3]

Green Arrow (1988) #104, #110-111, #125-126 [5]

Harley Quinn (2000) #1-38 [38]

JSA (1999) #1-87 [87]

Manhunter (2004) #1-38 [38]

Manhunter in Batman: Streets of Gotham (2009) #1-13 [13]

Martian Manhunter (1998) #0-17, #1000000 [19]

Martian Manhunter (2019) #1-12 [12]

Nightwing (1996) #107-124 [15]

Nightwing (2016) #100-107 [8]

Tim Drake: Robin (2022) #5-10 [6]

The New Champion of Shazam (2022) #1-4 [4]

Suicide Squad (1987) #31-66 [36]

Suicide Squad (2007) #1-8 [8]

Superboy (2011) #1-11 [11]

Superman: The Man of Steel (1986) #1-6 [6]

Superman (1987) #1-44 [44]

Adventures of Superman (1987) #424-467 [44]

Action Comics (1938) #584-658 [75]

Superman: Son of Kal-El (2021) #7-18 [12]

Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow(2023) #1-6 [6]

World of Krypton (1979) #1-3 [3]

The World of Krypton (1987) #1-4 [4]

Batman/Superman: World's Finest (2022) #1-11 [11]

World's Finest: Teen Titans (2023) #1-4 [4]

World's Finest (1990) #1-3 [3]

Swamp Thing Giant (2019) #1-7 [7]

Swamp Thing (2016) #1-6 [6]

Punchline: The Gotham Game (2022) #1-6 [6]

Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing (2023) #1-6 [6]

Wonder Girl (2021) #1-7 [7]

Nubia: Queen of the Amazons (2022) #1-4 [4]

Galaxy: The Prettiest Star (2022) [1]

Spirit World (2023) #1-6 [6]

Salvation Run (2008) #1-7 [7]

JSA All Stars (2003) #1-8 [8]

Dr. Mid-Nite (1999) #1-3 [3]

Animal Man (1988) #1-26 [26]

Solo (2004) #1-5 [5]

The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016) #1-9 [9]

JSA Returns (1999) #1-9 [9]

Teen Titans: Year One (2008) #1-6 [6]

Suicide Squad (2001) #1-12 [12]

#chit chat #androxys reads comics #androxys comics wrapped #dc comics

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dcmultiverse · 8 months

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hi! my fyp on tiktok has recently been just full of nightwing content and im very interested!! ive never watched much, if any, dc content before.. can you help me figure out where i should get started? im mostly interested in nightwing but willing to watch anything. i gather its mostly animated shows/movies on hbo? thanks!!!

Hi! I'd say the best of the character is in the comics (of which there are various starting points but for the sake of ease any Nightwing #1 is fine enough).

If your preference is purely something to watch, however, he's a main character in the animated series Teen Titans (2003) and Young Justice (2010), and the live-action series Titans (2018). He's a significant supporting character in Batman: The Animated Series (TV), Batman: Under the Red Hood (movie), and a series of connected animated movies that start with Son of Batman.

If you're interested in DC shows and movies in general, there's... a lot. I'll recommend the animated series Justice League (2001) and sequel Justice League Unlimited (2004). It explores more of the wider DC universe and was personally one of my first introductions to DC.

If any of our followers would like to offer help and further suggestions, replies on our posts are turned off but our ask box is open. If we get any responses, I'll add them here for you, anon.

#answered #from lily

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daydreamerdrew · 20 days

Text

Comics read this past week:

DC Comics:

Legends of the DC Universe (1998) #10-11

These issues were published across September 1998 to October 1998, according to the Grand Comics Database. Both issues were written by Kelley Puckett. Issue #10 was penciled by Terry Dodson and inked by Kevin Nowlan. And the layouts of issue #11 were drawn by Terry Dodson, which were finished by Kevin Nowlan. This was a Batgirl story, taking place when Barbara was 18 and just at the beginning of her superhero career.

In this version of events, its portrayed that Jim Gordon could tell that Batgirl was Barbara as soon as he learned of Batgirl’s existence. In the first issue we see Barbara out fighting as Batgirl interspersed with a flashback to the senseless death of her parents, then Jim’s conflicted emotions as he drops Barbara off at college. He is both proud of and made afraid by the “fire” in her and what it could bring, and this ultimately makes him awkward with Barbara, unable to properly talk to her. Bruce as Batman approaches Barbara to tell her to stop being Batgirl, citing both the danger to her and the feeling that he owes it to Jim, but she convinces Bruce to train her instead. It’s after Barbara has started working with Bruce that Batgirl’s existence comes to Jim’s attention, and he’s horrified, but there’s no implication of him ever confronting Batman over it, just him trying and failing to bring it up with Barbara. But this doesn’t have the same amount of tension as is implied in the references to conflict between Bruce and Dick when he was around this age in other stories I read this week.

In the second issue Barbara happens to be part of a hostage situation at a bank, because it’s Gotham, and Jim rushes in alone to try to handle it, afraid of Barbara trying to do so all by herself, since he knows she’s Batgirl. He gets shot and taken prisoner, which Barbara witnesses, leading to a flashback from her perspective of Jim taking her in after her parents’ deaths. Her first attempt to handle the situation as Batgirl doesn’t go well and she is also captured. But it’s, maybe counterintuitively, while they’re imprisoned together and Jim is seeing Barbara as Batgirl up close that his fear is overpowered by his pride in her and he accepts that she is actually capable of being Batgirl, and he frees her to that she can save the day. This change of heart is expressed not through dialogue or even that much internal narration, but largely through his expressions. At the end of the story the two of them are still not seriously talking about their feelings, his about her future and for her what seeing him seriously injured dredged up, but are interacting cordially again.

Batman: Turning Points (2001) #1-5

These issues were all published November 2000, according to the Grand Comics Database. Issue #1 was written by Greg Rucka and drawn by Steve Leiber. Issue #2 was written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Joe Giella. Issue #3 was written by Ed Brubaker, penciled by Dick Giordano, and inked by Bob Smith. Issue #4 was written by Chuck Dixon and drawn by Brent Anderson. Issue #5 was written by Greg Rucka, penciled by Paul Pope, and inked by Claude St. Auben. This miniseries was about significant moments in the relationship between Batman and Jim Gordon.

Issue #1 took place early in Bruce’s career as Batman and working relationship with Jim. At the beginning of the issue Jim's wife leaves with his son, and then there's a hostage situation at a wedding caused by a man whose wife and child just died. Jim trusts Batman to handle it, and he does, despite his inexperience. Afterwards Bruce goes to Jim's cleared out apartment to try to talk to him as a friend, which Jim rejects. Jim tells Batman, “That’s why you’re here? Because you feel sorry for me? Who do you think you are, anyway? You come to my home and you say you’re sorry to me like you’re my friend? We’re not friends. Are you married? Do you have children? Did your wife or partner or whoever walk out on you?” And after Bruce’s silence, “So don’t tell me you’re sorry. Right now I’ve got more in common with with Corbett [the hostage-taker] than I do with you. So unless you know what it’s like to lose your family, I don’t want to hear it.”

I was really surprised to see Bruce attempting to be a genuine friend in his Batman identity. My perception of him has been of him being really emotionally closed off and formal.

Issue #2 is about Jim reacting to Bruce taking Dick on as his sidekick. It has the intense title "From Generation to Generation Like Cancer." It's also drawn with an old-fashioned art style, which the rest of the issues in this miniseries weren't, and it's handled like it too, with Mr. Freeze having a goofy costume and weapon. At first Jim thinks that Batman must be “insane" for taking on a teenage partner. He believes that Bruce is putting Dick to the path to getting killed. But Bruce argues that he’s “helping him not get killed,” refers to what he’s doing as “not training him so much as I’m guiding him,” and makes an argument that wasn’t convincing to me that Dick needed an outlet for his anger, so, “I’m just trying to stop a cycle we’ve both seen too many times.”

Jim is swayed by this, and is also convinced to release one of Mr. Freeze’s captured henchmen despite not understanding the reason why. Upon seeing Batman and Robin together Jim is amazed, views them as “In a whole different world,” and then thinks, “What was I thinking? Our rules don’t apply to him. They never have,” which was shocking to me. What follows is Batman and Robin having a “conversation in the dark” with the henchman, taking the opportunity to intimidate or even torture him for information about Mr. Freeze. That was also surprising to me, both for this story that's early in Dick's career as Robin and with this art style. The information leads them to a hideout at a warehouse for large props for an old children’s show, which I assume was meant to evoke the 60s Batman show specifically.

During the following fight Mr. Freeze briefly has Dick in a perilous position, and also several police officers are killed. Counterintuitively, Batman being afraid that Dick could die and the deaths of the police officers makes Jim feel more confident in this arrangement, because he approves of Bruce and Dick's relationship and he thinks that Dick could die even if he wasn't a sidekick. It seems that the most important factor, over the evidence of Dick's skills as a fighter, is that Jim thinks having a partner is good for Batman. He ends the issue with the question: "how can I deny him what everyone wants, if I am his friend? How can I deny him a family?" The idea that he could have a family that isn't a partner to him as a superhero isn't considered. Bruce had raised the possibility that Dick could become a criminal without the outlet of being a superhero earlier, and the now fatherless families due to Mr. Freeze killing several police officers is also evoked by Jim as an example of "handing our troubles down from generation to generation." He also considers his relationship with his niece Barbara, which is made even more significant since he lost his wife and son.

This all is a striking departure from the first issue of the book where Jim did not yet consider Batman a friend, still thought of him as a strange but skilled person and wasn't caught up with the persona of the Batman, and didn't think of him as a person enough to consider that he could have lost anyone important to him. Note that in the "Prey" storyline read last this past week, it's emphasized how well Jim understands Batman including understanding the extent of his grief.

Issue #3 took place after Jason's death in the "A Death in the Family" storyline, published in 1988, and after Barbara was disabled in Batman: The Killing Joke (1988). Bruce changes his tactics, going back to being quick-acting vigilante that saves people then disappears, and doesn’t answer the Bat-Signal or otherwise work on solving mysteries. Bruce expressed admiration for Jim that he “is still here, doing his job… persevering.” He considers Jim to be the “better man” because what the Joker said to him during The Killing Joke made him doubt himself. Bruce is also worried about what will happen if he’s the one to bring in the current serial killer operating in Gotham, because it’s through being brought down by the Batman that his enemies become costumed criminals that continuously terrorize the city. In the end Bruce and Jim are affirmed in their friendship and mutual support for one another. Also, Jim tells Batman, “I’m sorry, too… about your son,” referring to Robin’s death. Batman says, “He wasn’t my son… Not really,” to which Jim says, “The hell he wasn’t.” It’s surprising to me that Bruce trying to downplay that relationship and not acknowledge Jason as his son isn’t responded to more negatively.

Issue #4 took place during the 1993-1994 storyline "Knightfall," which I haven't read, in which Bane breaks Bruce's back and then in the aftermath Bruce adopts a more aggressive way of dealing with criminals. Throughout the story there is an emphasis on that Jim thought he understood Batman, and he struggles with whether he's misjudged him and if he's one of Gotham's "psychotics and misfits," thinking that if that's the case, "Then it's my job to stop him. To make up for covering for him all these years." Tim Drake appears as Robin briefly, responding to the Bat-Signal when Bruce won't. Jim questions him about if Batman is all right, but Tim defers by only saying that he's physically fine, which frustrates Jim. I was struck by that it doesn't occur to Jim to be concerned for Robin's safety with Batman, even though there's a scene where Jim is worried about Batman breaking into his office to hurt him. The story doesn't end with a resolution where Bruce changes or Jim is reassured.

Issue #5 called back to the story of issue #1, with the character that held up the church wedding coming back and prompting Bruce and Jim to reflect on their friendship since then. Jim emphasizes how both of their lives are “marked by tragedies,” and says, “You told me that everyone needs a friend. You’ve been mine. I hope to god that I’ve been yours.”

Batman: Ego (2000)

This 62-page graphic novel was published in August 2000, according to the Grand Comics Database. It was written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke.

At the beginning of this book, discussing the Joker’s latest crime, Bruce thinks, “What horrifies me most- is that I seem to be getting used to it. The pain. The death. Not numb, but used to it. Like each new atrocity is the echo of a pistol fired long ago- in the depths of a dry well.” This reminded me of some of the language used in the “Shaman” storyline across Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) #1-5, which suggested that Bruce was fated to be Batman because of what he experienced as a child, that he’s marked and it’s visible in his eyes. The last two panels that that bit of narration was placed over were Batman’s narrowed eyes as he looks at the Joker’s crime scene, and then child-Bruce’s horrified, wide open ones as he sees the gunman shoot his parents.

This book depicted Batman as this other figure that lived within Bruce since he was a child, and as a being that could be in conflict with him. It reminded me of Bruce Wainright from Batman: Creature of the Night (2018), whose Batman was in essence an imaginary friend come to life, a guardian angel that took the form of Batman because of that Bruce’s fixation on the to-him fictional character. Though the idea of Bruce Wayne being mentally ill is invoked very early in Batman: Ego, with presentiment flashbacks to Dr. Hugo Strange saying Batman had “both schizophrenia and a split personality” and Gotham City’s mayor calling him a “total headcase” early on. (The Hugo Strange quote actually comes from the "Prey" story arc, read later this past week.)

What incites the conflict between Bruce and Batman is that Bruce wants to quit being Batman, then the sticking point in their argument becomes that Batman wants to be able to kill criminals. Batman threatens, “If you denounce me- if you try to jam me back into your subconscious, then I promise I will torment you until the day we die! I promise you’ll wake up screaming every night of your pitiful life!” Batman brings up Harvey Dent, the lawyer and friend of Bruce turned villain Two-Face, and says, “Harvey was in a position where his secret self could act freely. Harvey’s condition ensured he couldn’t be held accountable for anything Two-Face did.” He says, “although we share a host body, I suggest we admit that we are separate entities,” and proposes that Bruce go on being Bruce Wayne, but “step aside” when Batman is needed. Bruce believes he is necessary to ‘temper’ Batman’s wrath, but is also unwilling to kill Batman, and so ultimately they continue on as they were before.

Nightwing (1996) #133-137

These issues were published across June 2007 to October 2007, according to the DC Wiki. All were written by Marv Wolfman. Issues #133-134 were penciled by Jamal Igle and inked by Keith Champagne. And issues #135-137 were penciled by Joe Bosco and inked by Alex Da Silva Soare. This story, titled “321 Days,” did take place in the present day of the Nightwing book, but it was heavily based around, and flashed back to, events of the period of time that Dick moved out from Wayne Manor for several months when he was 16 going on 17.

In their argument, flashed back to in issue #134, Dick says, “When we started this you were open and encouraging. You were like my father… But these last few years… All you’ve been doing is trying to control me.” Bruce tells Dick, “If I found you today instead of then, I would never bring you into the fold,” which is what prompts Dick to move out. Struggling to make ends meet on his own, Dick meets Eddie, and his right-hand woman Lui. Eddie tells a group of young people, “You’re being put down like you’re still nine ‘cause as much as they say they love you- You getting older means they’re getting older.” He assures the group, “Unlike your parents, unlike other adults, I’m not afraid of being replaced.” In issue #135 we see that Dick formed a romantic and sexual relationship with Lui, and the Eddie began training Dick (much like Bruce would have) and told him things like, “Good. Really good. But I’ll make you better. Maybe, someday, even better than me.”

Still in issue #135, Dick grows uncomfortable with the worsening criminal activity Eddie is involving the gang in and considers calling Bruce, but changes his mind, saying, “What am I doing? I left to prove I’m grown up. I can’t just call daddy.” Lui proposes to Dick that he help the gang rob Bruce Wayne with his access to him, but Dick can’t accept that they were “using” him and that he was just a “passkey” to them, until he finds out that Lui and Eddie are sleeping together, which is devastating for him. At this point Dick goes back to Bruce and they take down the gang as Batman and Robin, after which their relationship is repaired. Bruce says he can’t treat Dick as an equal because, “I’m older. Smarter. I can still take you in a fight. But I will respect you… as an adult. […] Maybe it just took a while for me to see it.”

Dick is deeply distressed about Lui coming back into his life 10 years later. Though outwardly he acts cordially, his internal narration over the 4 pages of their conversation in issue #133 reads: “Don’t trust her. Don’t trust her. Don’t trust her. Don’t trust her. She looks the same, smells the same. Don’t let her in. She’ll crush you, just like before. Smells like Jasmine, always did. Don’t do it. I want to believe her. Believe in her. Trust her. Jasmine. I can’t trust her. Don’t trust her. Jasmine and sweat. The memory is still strong. Dick Grayson loved her. Robin busted her. I can’t trust her. I shouldn’t. Jasmine and sweat. She still smells the same.”

Dick’s former relationships with Barbara Gordon and Starfire are invoked several times throughout the story. Dick questions in issue #134, “Is she why I’ve never been able to commit? Why it’s easy for me to say ‘I love you…’ But not ‘I need you’? as images of Dick and Kory appear behind him, and then of Lui fighting Robin. In issue #136 he thinks, again with Barbara and Kory appearing behind him for part of the narration, “After her… Couldn’t let myself trust… Couldn’t let myself believe… Couldn’t let myself get close. To anyone. I’m so tired of that. I want… I want… Just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have.” In issue #137, after Lui has been seriously injured in a fight and Dick rushed her to the hospital, he thinks, “Damn you all. Once bitten. Twice shy,” and Barbara and Kory’s reflections in the glass briefly overtake his own.

In issue #137 Dick gives the speech that the title of the story comes from, telling the new Vigilante something he’s never been able to tell the people he’s actually close to before. He describes that after Lui, “I spent most of the next year pretending nothing had happened.” He says that, “Day one was the day I learned the truth.” Then, “when things looked their worst… 321 days later everything changed again.” I haven’t actually read The New Teen Titans (1980) before, so I’m not sure exactly which event from that this is referring to. Barbara and Kory are again depicted behind Dick, and he says, “Only, I had never confronted what was wrong. So I screwed up what I had… And then, later on, I screwed up again.”

Also, Dick running away from Bruce and joining up with a criminal gang that targeted young people reminded me of a similar thing happening in Robin: Year One (2000), though that was a bit different in that it happened very early in Dick’s career as Robin.

Nightwing (1996) Annual #2

This issue was published in April 2007, according to the DC Wiki. It was written by Marc Andreyko, penciled by Joe Bennet, and inked by Jack Jadson. I read this because it's included in the same trade that collects the "321 Days" storyline, so I thought it might be relevant. This issue was about Dick and Barbara Gordon’s relationship over the years, leading up to their present day state in the aftermath of the Infinite Crisis event.

I liked how Bruce hung over their relationship in the story. Early on Barbara sternly tells Dick to get back in bed because he’s recovering from injuries, and he tells her that her “glare” was “like you channeled Batman there.” She tells him, “Maybe you bring that out in people,” to which he says, “Ouch. Now you sound like him.” In the flashback to their first date when they were still Batman and Robin he’s fretting out they skipped patrol. He dramatically says, “Bruce is gonna kill us.” She says, “Kill you, not me. I don’t live with him,” but also, “He’ll never know we skipped patrol.” But Dick thinks, “Yeah, he will. He knows everything.”

Dick tries to confess the extent of his feelings for her back then, saying, “I’m a big boy now,” and, “I love you, Babs- as a friend, as a partner- and I’d like to believe I could love you as a…” but he doesn’t learn until the present day that she heard him. Barbara explains, “You should be grateful I did that. You had so much going on. The Titans had reformed again. And you and Bruce… Remember how tense things were then? You were so angry, you were rejecting all things Batman.”

As part of Dick’s recovery, we see a scene of Barbara being encouraging and a scene of her speaking to him harshly to motivate him. After the harsh scene, Dick realizes that the spikes he pushed himself in order to not impale himself on were only “foam rubber,” and comments, “Bruce would’ve used real iron.” Barbara says, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? But I’m not Bruce. And I’m not here to reinforce your guilty conscious.” Apparently, not risking seriously hurting him during training but still speaking harshly to him is a step up.

When a call from Bruce interrupts their conversation, Dick thinks, “It all leads back to him, doesn’t it?” Dick tells him that Barbara is acting “like a drill sergeant, but that’s what I needed.” Bruce very bluntly drops on Dick that he’s going on a long trip with Tim and wants Dick to come as well, that “I’d like my family with me.” Dick doesn’t even get a chance to respond before Bruce says, “I need a final decision by Friday,” and leaves. And then Barbara ends up leaving to ensure Dick goes with Bruce, telling him in a letter, “We both know you have to go with Bruce. Not because of him, but because of you.”

Of relevance to the “321 Days” story is that Barbara refers to that Dick lost his virginity to Starfire. He asks, “Who said I was a virgin,” and she responds, “Please. The whole ‘I-know-you-better-than-you-do’ thing?” Dick doesn’t correct her, just says, “Right.” (Though, to be fair, “321 Days” was published just a bit after this.)

Also, it was strange to follow up reading that story about Dick being affected by an early sexual manipulation, to the scene in this story where Dick sleeps with Barbara after he gets engaged to Kory, but doesn’t reveal that he’s engaged until the next morning, seriously hurting Barbara. That scene primarily highlights Barbara’s perspective; I don’t really understand what was meant for Dick to be thinking there.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) #11-15

These issues were published across September 1990 to January 1991 according to the Grand Comics Database. All were written by Doug Moench, penciled by Paul Gulacy, and inked by Terry Austin. This was the “Prey” storyline, featuring Dr. Hugo Strange as the primary villain.

This is immediately one of my favorite Batman stories that I’ve ever read; it worked really well for me. I read this simply because it was the next arc in Legends of the Dark Knight, but it paired well with Batman: Turning Points and Batman: Ego, considering the focus on Bruce’s mental state and relationship with Jim Gordon.

In the first issue Jim, Gotham’s mayor, and psychiatrist Hugo Strange appear on a live talk show together to discuss the Batman. Bruce justifies watching to Alfred by saying it’s “free analysis,” but as Strange talks he gets deeply distressed and self-harms by squeezing his glass so hard it shatters and cuts his hand, then continues watching as Alfred tends to his wound. Strange says that Batman is “extremely obsessed- and he craves individual power, indicating a paranoid mistrust of others.” Strange says that he’s, “Obsessed with the night, with darkness. Perhaps obsessed with vengeance,” and pinpoints that it all leads back to a singular trauma that happened during the night. And, regarding that he’s a “rogue who acts alone,” Strange says, “He does not wish to share his victories and accomplishments, yet he insists on remaining anonymous. You see-? He craves fame, wants to be a star, but not as himself- only as the fictional construct, ‘The Batman.’ And, referring to that he uses “the iconography of a hideous, filthy night-creature,” Strange believes that Batman’s motives aren’t “utilitarian” and instead “he exults in the dark power of this terrifying apparition.”

Bruce is comforted when Jim defends him, thinking, “Gordon knows. Gordon understands.” But when the mayor surprises Jim with the announcement that there’s going to be a new “vigilante task force” to take down the Batman, and Jim’s going to lead it, Bruce is distressed again. He thinks, “No. Not him. Not Gordon. Not the only one who understands.” Later, wondering if what Strange said about him being too obsessed and needing to work alone is true, Bruce thinks, “What would it take… for me to trust someone? And who could I trust?” Meanwhile, since Strange is going to consult on the task force, Jim is worried about him being able to figure out Batman’s secret identity. But later, when Strange requests the files on every mugging and murder from the last 5 years, he thinks, “At least he’s underestimated the extent of the Batman’s obsession- a lifetime obsession. He’s also underestimated the time necessary to prepare. In a mere five years, no man could become what the Batman is.” He agrees that Strange will be given the files, “but nothing of my suspicions.”

Strange, it turns out, is deeply disturbed and jealous of Batman. He imagines being like him would feel “omnipotent.” It’s a frustration that he can understand the Batman only psychologically, and he wants to know what it would feel like physically to be Batman. He also hates women, saying in issue #14, “You’re all alike! No man’s ever good enough for you,” as he hits the mayor’s daughter, who he had kidnapped after she spoke positively about Batman. He, in his delusional way, interpreted her support of him as her specifically being attracted to Batman, as opposed to him.

There’s a scene in issue #14 where Bruce is drugged, Alfred tries to help him, and then Bruce hits him before fleeing to the Batcave because he feels safe there. We see in issue #15 that Bruce stays there for several days, comfortable in the dark, and initially refuses to eat even though Alfred was bringing him food. This was the first moment I’ve read that’s made me sympathetic to Alfred’s position and appreciate his loyalty to Bruce. I don’t find him making fun of Bruce for being absurd endearing at all. And I believe his cold parenting holds some responsibility for how Bruce turned out. But this made me appreciate that Bruce is stronger than Alfred, and that Alfred continues to care for Bruce even though Bruce doesn’t always make it easy.

Also, referring back to Jim’s sentiment in Turning Points #2 that “our rules don’t apply to him,” which was about Batman taking on a teenage sidekick, it seems relevant that, prompting by the discussion of Batman’s role is a vigilante and his own inability to disobey the mayor, Jim thinks in the first issue, “in the end, if I’m not above the law… is he? And if he isn’t… Then what is he?”

#comics read this past week #my posts

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