your portrayal??? are you not bruce wayne???? i remember many many moons ago when we first interacted and that has stayed with me!!! i always find myself coming back to your bruce because your attention to detail to bruce’s arc and the care you put into crafting something that is so unique to a character that’s massively popular is a TALENT!!! honestly i love everything about your bruce even if he is an ass, but i love the care you put into him and the way you write him. i feel incredibly luckily to be writing with such talent and such knowledge, you are absolutely my favourite bruce to write with!!! (although the kansas ass is lois’ byeeeee)
A scoff is his only retort. Leaping out of the way and throwing three explosives in his direction. One near front foot. The other on the ceiling. And a third one just behind his leg.
[1] Only 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 can whip him and get away with it.
Hey, do you have thoughts on the whole adrenaline-causing-fear thing that Bruce did to Jason in the comics? I’d love to hear them if you do.
Oof. I wish it’s as fun in my head because the thing about me is that a lot of the “bad decisions” writers have Bruce do in canon makes sense to me because a great aspect to Broose in canon is that he is an absolute control freak with a holier than thou attitude and a righteous hero complex that makes him a walking poster boy for main character syndrome. So in that sense, a lot of these “bad decisions” while not acceptable I can find reasoning in my head. With that said, I usually chuck these moments as kind of the opposite of the deus ex machina mechanics where Bruce finds an answer to everything in the sense that these are the moments when writers take it too far. Without consideration to the exact reading of the material nor the impact of it ( e.g. the whole talia-morrison ordeal / jason-bruce-ethiopia nonsense, etc. )
And to me, that’s a fair reading. It’s bad. Bruce is bad. And it lends credence to readers ( or in some case - writers thinking ) that Broose is a bad father. Like I don't agree but I’m perfectly fine with that reading because as much as there is evidence that he isn’t, there is also as much evidence that he is, if you want to accept panel per panel as fact. But the thing with me about that is that it's antithetical to the original intent with the character.
( And like yeah - i’m totally okay with writers evolving and devolving his character in a way cos that’s how stories have to be for them to keep being relevant - what i just want is a little bit consistency - which is irrelevant to this question. But I’m just saying anyway. )
There’s just so much to good storytelling that suffers in service of Broose ─ whether its derogatory or supportive of him. It’s a major issue in a lot of the modern storylines now. Bruce continues to be a plot device in form of a catalyst or a destructor in other character’s arcs WHILE their stories still have to be in service of his main narrative. I think it’s annoying and just an absolute disservice to these other characters too because they’re more than Bruce or Batm.an. Just like the whole D.CU is more than him.
With that said ─ I’m a big fan of Bruce as the problematic father. Not evil per se but imperfect. I think it speaks more to the original intent of the character and moving beyond Bruce as just a vehicle to weird masculine power fantasies. There’s this O’neal story that’s my favorite, I cant remember the tile of it now but at the end of the day Bruce is for the child , not just in him, but for every child. And I think it should be especially important for his kids.
And this is just one of those jarring problems with the current writing runs because there’s this crazy disconnect when you compare like pre-52 comics where Bruce handled his children as soldiers with much more grace and affection than he has now where he’s been allowed to actually recognize them as his own children.