“jason todd should not be such a major player in batfam gotham events,” i say emphatically into the mic. “that place should go back to jean paul valley and helena bertinelli”
the crowd boos. i begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room.
“she's right,” they say. i look for the owner of the voice. there in the back row stands: jason todd himself
talking about cass and jp friendship because i'm thinking about them
their friendship in nml was sweet and they had a lot of interactions and i rotate them in my head all the time
their first time meeting was during the assembly when batman called all his allies to help him take over no man's land. it's also the first time cass meets the whole bat-squad and becomes batgirl so it's pretty important!
(batman legends of the dark knight 1989 #120 look they immediately connect with each other!)
when batman gives tasks to the bat-squad cass and jp are assigned to go fight a rock star who is responsible for nml which is FUNNY. while everyone gets a serious job cass and jp have to go beat up an evil musician because cass is a newbie and azrael isn't trusted with beating up musicians :(
(batman legends of the dark knight 1989 #120/azrael: agent of the bat #56)
cass gets to wear the bat symbol for the first time... i really like this suit because it matches her personality and character and it reflects batman's full black suit too (and also this same design belonged to helena which makes me cryy)
in her early days as batgirl she fruequently appears alongside jean paul :)
(azrael agent of the bat issue #56)
(azrael agent of the bat issue #57 what did they do to you scratch? they're just standing there :/)
batman then sends them on a mission to evacuate hundreds of people because of joker business
(batman shadow of the bat 1992 #93/azrael agent of the bat #60 they speak the same language)
they are goofing around
one of my favorite moments with them is jp realizing that their backstories are pretty similar. they both were born and trained by their fathers to become a weapon. jean paul was saved by batman and adopted his moral code while cass ran away from her dad because her first one and only kill disgusted her and she didn't want to make anyone afraid again. she developed her own moral code that happened to be similar to batman's. i think they're both interesting characters because they show different takes on a similar theme
(azrael agent of the bat #61)
also jp sometimes randomly takes off his mask because he doesn't really care about the whole secret identity thing i guess. he asks if he can see cass without the mask (which doesn't make sense because he already saw her without the mask before but it does make sense thematically because they share an emotional moment and jp has this quirk where he asks people if they can see each other without masks.. that's how he makes friends). also i think both characters have an interesting take on their secret identities because. cass doesn't even have a real name at first she's just called batgirl by everyone until she's given a name. so she's batgirl first everything else second
both cass and jp never celebrated christmas before (jp because of order of st dumas and cass because of her father). oracle explains what it means and gives them gifts :) so sweet
they have a party
jean paul and cass exchange gifts :)
jean paul decides to quit being azrael (for 32824878743st time)
(azrael agent of the bat #66)
they appear together a few times later
(batman gotham knights #5/birds of prey 1999 #27/catwoman 1993 #90)
they don't interact after that which is a shame but i guess not everything is meant to last. their friendship was fun and sweet even if it wasn't long
Anyway, my proposal for a run on Detective Comics where I write a series of one-shot stories showcasing all of the various supporting cast Batman has accumulated with stories, including, but not limited to:
Batman invites Nightwing to Gotham to help him solve a murder. The murder is very straightforward and they dance around the real reason Bruce invited him, until at the end, he finally admits in a constipated Bruce way that it's the anniversary of him adopting Dick and he wanted to spend time with him.
Huntress and Robin (Tim Drake) team up to investigate Killer Croc. It turns out he's turning over a new leaf in the sewers near the Marina. Huntress is dubious, but Robin convinces her to give him a chance, though she says she'll be watching him. We re-canonize Joker: Last Laugh.
Damian and Duke team up to take on a street-racing operation--a mission that naturally requires them to do some high adrenaline racing together.
The Riddler gets on social media with a plot that involves lots of puzzles and clues all over Gotham. Oracle taps into old members of "We are Robin" to take it down.
Batgirl (Stephanie Brown) and Batman end up on the same missing persons case. With the pressure on to find the missing child, they snipe at each other as tensions rise. In the end, after saving the kid, Bruce sort of kind of apologizes in a Bruce way and expresses some measure of respect for her.
Jason teams up with Ghostmaker to take on, idk, one of the Clayfaces. Does Gotham still have one of those? I haven't read any comics ghostmaker's in yet, but from I've heard it sounds like they'd have an interesting dynamic. Jason gets flashbacks to digging his way out of his grave.
Luke Fox recruites Harper Row (She does engineering stuff right? I also need to read comics she has a significant role in.) They take some new tech for a joyride and go bother the Penguin.
Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) and Azrael team up to take down Mad Hatter. He probably has some elaborate Alice in Wonderland theming going on that neither of them get. (I think neither of them should have read it.)
Batwoman and Catwoman team up to steal back some Kane family heirlooms, possibly from Jacob Kane (What's his and Kate's relationship looking like anyway?), possibly from someone else.
Gotham Girl and somebody. Me advancing my Cass & Claire agenda Possibly Oracle trying to rehabilitate her in that controlling yet well-intentioned way she has sometimes? Someday, I will get to being more up to date on what Claire's status quo in current comics is.
A handful of representatives from Gotham's various crime families get together in the backroom of a bar somewhere. They play poker and exchange stories of being busted by the various bat-affiliated vigilantes in which they are very scary and almost inhuman. It ends with Batgirl (Cass) busting in and beating them up.
Helena Bertinelli takes a gig as a substitute teacher at Gotham Academy. She teams up with Maps & other supporting cast when Mr Freeze takes the school hostage while trying to escape the police.
did you know that in scribblenauts unmasked, red hood jason is counted as a villain so the rest of the bat-family will immediately start beating his ass if he's near them
I love that when Cass was first learning how to speak the people she was closest to were Barbara “probably reads the dictionary for fun” Gordon, Batman, and a guy who talked like Papyrus Undertale