#anti damian wayne

[niiwa-angel]

Me and my friends: can we get some Robin?

DC: NO!!! We have Robin at home!!

The Robin at home:

Before anybody asks, no. I do not fucking like Damian Wayne. And I will not be changing my opinion on that.

#anti damian wayne #damian wayne is the worst robin #damian wayne is a brat #damian wayne is a shit head #tim drake #Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #Stephanie Brown #damian wayne shouldnt be robin #Robin #Batman and Robin

[rubydubydoo122]

I’m just gonna say this, the main reason people don’t like Damian Wayne as a character is the same reason people didn’t like Jason Todd back in the 80s

People don’t like either of them because their favorite Robin (Tim Drake and Dick Grayson) got replaced by them.

Damian and Jason are both really interesting and complex character, objectively more complex than both Tim and Dick, but some people (cough, obnoxious Tim fans, cough, and Dick fans who over sexualize him, cough) don’t see that and just want their little blorbos to never grow into their own character apart from Batman.

#damian wayne #jason todd #tim drake #dick grayson #batfam #this isn’t #anti tim drake #or #anti dick grayson #it’s anti annoying fans who don’t appreciate other characters #or change their favorite characters to the point where they’re unrecognizable from their canon selves #Tim is not some shy innocent insecure little baby #dick isnt some happy go lucky person with sun shining out of his ass #Damian is literally a child with a horrible upbringing #yet certain Tim fans completely villainize him #Jason is shit in canon #but most of his worst actions towards tim were horrible out of character #Jason is written too inconsistently #and not to mention #Duke Steph and Cass go completely forgotten because of this

[punkeropercyjackson]

"We need to normalize kindness!"You guys can't even handle that making fun of eachother isn't a sign of love for everyone because some people can't handle it so it hurts their feelings and instead call them losers for it and prove their point that you're genuinely cruel

#idc about normalcy bro i'm here to break the cycle of abuse as hard as i can #anti percabeth #antijayroy #antitodobakudeku #percy jackson #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #cassandra cain #damian wayne #duke thomas #barbara gordon #roy harper #anti bakugou #izuku midoriya #todoroki shouto #sokka #katara #anti zutara #zuko #aang #pro kataang #azula #antizucest #pjo #batfam #anti rhato #bnha geekery #atla geekery #summerposting

[disco-troy]

Going insane about the fact that the specter of Bruce's parents haunt the narrative so much that when thinking about it both Dick and Damain *know* or believe they know that Bruce would pick his parents over them in a heartbeat

AND DAMIAN WOULD ERASE HIMSELF FROM REALITY BECAUSE HE THINKS ITS THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE BRUCE TRULY HAPPY?!?!

Holy shit Bruce it's not okay for your kids to think dead people are more important then them in your life.

#anti bruce wayne #damian wayne #dick grayson #dc comics

[devine-fem]

THIS NOT A AGED UP JON KENT SAFE BLOG!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!! GO AWAY OR I WILL GET THE HOSE!!!

#damijon #jondami #damian wayne #jon kent #supersons #super sons #jonathan kent #anti jon kent (post bendis) #save

[discowingneckline]

“tim drake is rightfully annoyed and mean to damian because damian tried to kill him several times”

tim can be upset about it and not want to be nice or near him, yes, but have you considered tim ALSO wouldn’t want to be around jason?? noo because you changed tim’s favorite robin to being jason to fit your little world, and they got along in newer comics and stuff. well homie, have you actually LOOKED at the comics where damian and jason try killing tim?? because i’m telling you right now, jason’s attack was FAR MORE SEVERE than damian’s. and personally, if i were a vigilante, and i were almost murdered by these two, i’d be more wary of jason, who beat the living shit out of me, over damian.

like honest to gods, it’s like can you please read comics just a bit or look at some panels or something??? 😭😭 PLEASE

#op #dc #dc comics #batman #jason todd #tim drake #tim drake fanon anti #jason todd fanon anti #damian wayne

[winnieonline]

Elena-Illustration windswept picrews of Jason, Damian, Dick, Tim, Duke, Cass, and Steph! If you know my Twitter you’ve already seen some but I redid Dick and Tim again and I finally like them lol

#dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #cassandra cain #duke thomas #damian wayne #stephanie brown #picrew #Elena illustration picrew #Batman #Robin #batman and robin #robin and batman #anti dni

[welcometothehouseofhades]

anyone got Jason Todd fic recs that are either

1) Jason’s return from the dead, his lost days, his time at the league (I’ll even take the all caste), his “under the red hood” era

2) Jason comes back to the family fics (or even just Jason and Dick, Jason and Damian, or Jason and Bruce or Jason and Alfred or Jason and Duke)

3) Jason leaves the family fics

4) dealing with Jason’s trauma, be it dying and coming back changed, his time on the streets, his death/the joker, the batarang slicing his throat, etc.

5) competent Jason or magic Jason or Jason and the outlaws (this can be Roy Kori Artemis Bizarro Eddie Rose or even his Kyle and Donna days)

6) Jason and Gotham city (so like. The city herself, or the alley kids, the ladies, the people of crime alley, the ppl who work for him)

7) Jason doesn’t come back to Gotham after the pit

8) Jason centric case fics

9) Jayroy or KyleRoy or RoseJay

Any fics that like, fit those would be great!!! All I ask is that they don’t include the fanon Tim Drake characterization who is always so sad and whose canon angsty backstory has been maximized and exaggerated (No hate to ppl who enjoy that btw it’s just not my cup of tea but it’s his most consistent characterization in fics and I find that version popping up even when I filter Tim Drake out!! I’m fine with tim showing up tho just not this version—im sorry Tim just isn’t my favorite 😭)

#jason todd #batman #bruce wayne #dc #fic rec #dick grayson #damian wayne #anti Tim Drake #(tagging that one jjsy in case what I said came off as anti?) #jayroy #Roy Harper #kyle rayner #rose Wilson #jaykyle #hayride

[gonnalosemydougdimmadomedamnmind]

It's literally impossible to read bat fanfiction because it's all based off those ridiculous fanon tropes that spread like crazy and people take as fucking biblical!!!!! Dick was never a jerk to Jason when he was Robin- they got along because Dick is mature as hell and in one retelling- Jason was a jerk to him!! And when he came back as Red Hood he had literally not a single damn reason to treat Dick like shit! Not a damn one! But he did, didn't he? Cause he's the fucking asshole! How dare you make Dick grovel towards that bastard! Dick has only ever tried to help him! Reached out during his Batman run, over and over! Also- Dick never put Jason in Arkham with Joker just a few cells down???? What the fuck! The Joker and all those other fuckers had been broken out of Arkham by Black Mask already for like the whole run??? Jason went to Arkham after losing to Dick, and Gordon put him in there because One he fucking deserved it, Two the literal circumstances?? And at that point!! Arkham was fucking rehabilitated itself!! By Dick!!! Because Bruce had him go undercover there for real, and Dick was actually tortured there before he got out!! So Dick put in the work to get that shit in order to actually help people!!

Dick never chose Damian over Tim- Tim refused to engage with him over his grief, shut him out, and left of his own devices! He never told Dick his suspicions on why Bruce was alive, never! And Tim is not the one to bring Bruce back either, there's a whole team at that point! Dick learns Bruce is alive through tossing his 'dead' body into a pit and the body comes to life as a zombie. Tim didn't tell him shit! Tim is also not a little crybaby- Damian cutting his line was a fucking blip on the page, he was momentarily shocked, that was it! He put Damian on his Hit List, which is why Damian cut his line. And his first attempt at "murder" is just pushing Tim off the dinosaur statue in the cave, he didn't go all assassin on him! Also Dick wasn't even there the first incident and wasn't told about the second incident. Alfred is the one who gave Damian Robin and Dick accepted him because he saw that Damian needed help! He needed guidance! He didn't fucking fire Tim the way Bruce fired him, and fuck all of you for thinking that Tim or Jason or fucking anyone has more right over Robin than Dick Fucking Grayson! He tried to promote Tim and Tim walked off. How dare yall make Dick fucking grovel towards that bastard!!!

Jason did try to kill all three of them!! Why does everyone just gloss over that like what the fuck??? Why does he get a pass for every shitty thing he's done??? "Bad writing" stfu this is the same dude that without hesitation kills random criminals, people who deal drugs, do you know how many random ass people deal drugs??? Jason doesn't give a single shit about being his own type of hero or saving Gotham his own way, nor do the people think of him as their savior!! Are you people fucking delusional?? I saw a post that said citizens would trust Jason over CASS and I cannot Believe the hallucinations yall are seeing???

It is literally downright impossible to find fics about Dick or Damian or Cass or fucking any of them that doesn't include these literal bullshit fanon takes!!! It's impossible!!! This fandom sucks!!!! You don't even need to go buy the comics, all these popular takes have been debunked right here on tumblr!!!! Also Dick can do literally everything!! He's hypercompetent as hell, die mad about it!! Jason doesn't like Wonder Woman???? Where the fuck did that come from??? Wayne Family Adventures is not real!!! Those people could not BE more out of character!!! Look at Bruce for crying out loud!!! Yall know that man ain't act like that!

Edit: leaving this here in case anyone wonders what my hot take is towards this question I was asked: "have you considered tho, that fanon is more fun..."

Well of course fanon is more fun if you're a fan of Jason or Tim. Fanon actively caters towards those two pasty white boys. Fanon actively shits on Dick and Damian though. And for Dick? He literally never did that shit! It is all made up! It's literal character assassination?? But by the fans?? And for Damian? He was 10!!! He grew up as an assassin! He was actively trying to grow with Dick's help! How can yall see him as the bad guy?? And not the literal bad guy, (Jason), and the 17 teen year old who literally fought him back btw, (Tim), like old boy did not act victimized the way you people portray. And Jesus for Cass? Cass is just a prop in fanon. So what exactly about this should be fun to me? Like seriously.

#dc comics #batman #batfamily #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #cassandra cain #anti jason todd #anti tim drake #anti batfamily fans #fanon bullshit #bat fans suck #i hate this place!!! #cant read anything!!! #bruce wayne #my posts

[livetimdrakereaction]

there are literally so many things i could say about the fact that in red robin 2009 tim was so set on being tim wayne. and then damian's over here calling him drake at every possible moment. it's damian saying "im a wayne and you are NOT." tim's doing everything he can to stay just a little closer to bruce, and its all being torn away

#my posts #before anyone tries to start shit #this Is Not an anti damian post #i havent read damians comics and therefore have no opinion on him #i just thought this was an interesting observation #tim #tim drake #tim drake robin #tim drake wayne #red robin #red robin 2009 #robin #robin iii #batman #dc comics #comics #batfam #bat fam #batfamily #bat family #damian #dc robin #damian wayne #damian al ghul #robin damian

[thecruellestmonth]

Batfam™ posts are like

What are the BATFAM™'s favorite drinks?

Dick: sparkling hibiscus nectar infused with pistachio honey (bubbly and sweet just like him 💙) served in a World's Best Big Brother mug that was chipped in a hilarious incident when all three of his beloved siblings got into a wacky swordfight and sunshine big bro Dick had to make peace between them because he's a loving mother hen

Jason: vodka mixed with Earl Grey tea—in Crime Alley, street rats only ever drink alcohol because they're uneducated and miserable, but Jason also drinks tea because he's now elevated above his lowly origins (how quaint! He's Not Like The Other Poors) and to symbolize how much he LOVES his rich family

Tim: COFFEE!! brewed from a special blend of extra caffeinated Arabica beans, mixed with hazelnut non-dairy creamer (lactose hurts him just like everything and everyone in his life 😔) and one sugar cube for every hug he's ever gotten from his parents in his entire life (none) and also his tears

Damian: lemonade colored pink with Tim's blood (now Tim is dying of blood loss and it's all evil Damian's fault! how dare Damian be so cruel to Tim in this terrible scenario that I made up in my own head)

Babs:

Cass: water

Steph: water (with a bendy straw lol she's such a character)

Duke: water

#Batkids #Stephanie Brown #Cassandra Cain #Damian Wayne #Duke Thomas #Barbara Gordon #fanon vs canon #anti Batfamily #anti Batfam #Tim Drake #Dick Grayson #Jason Todd #anti Batboys #fandom discourse cw #negativity cw #Like sometimes I wonder why include characters that you are just completely disinterested in. #This blog here is like mostly Jason Todd lol. Not saying that I don't have my own faves and biases. #Even though I don't always personally enjoy WFA--I gotta give it props for not making the Batfamily revolve around the Four Batboys. #I just dislike the forced made-up 'Batboys quartet'. Dick is the only one with a bond with the other three. #Cass and Duke really bonded when they were with the Outsiders. #Jason has a fun dynamic with Duke. #Babs is the best parental figure in Cass' life. Steph is the best menace ever to Bruce and she can read him to filth. #Whatever these are my tags and I'll rant if I want to.

[sputniks-taboo-thoughts]

Everyone knows Dick is blind when it comes to his little brothers.

Jason rarely calls, so whenever Dick hears the special ringtone he set for him, he drops everything to answer. He listens as his brother rages and soothes him through the phone. Whispering kind words and reassurances that “everything’s alright Little Wing” and “of course you won’t be alone forever, you’re a wonderful guy, anyone would be lucky to have you”. Dick doesn’t realise that the huffs and whimpers on the other end of the phone aren’t from Jason crying, but rather him trying to stifle his moans as he jerks off to his big brothers sweet voice.

Tim has always been a fan of Dick Grayson, and so he doesn’t even bat an eye when he hears the click of a camera shutter. To him, Tim is just showing his appreciation in the only way he knows how. Dick doesn’t seem to put together that the noise always comes from behind him. He doesn’t know that his sweet younger brother, his precious Timmy, his little baby bird is using them as spank-bank material, or that almost every one of Tim’s friends have been given pictures of Nightwing’s ass.

And Damian, oh Damian. Such a brave boy, always knowing how to convince Dick to give him what he wants. He doesn’t know what its like in the League of Assassins, so when Damian tells him that he had slaves who bathed him his entire life, Dick is quick to help him get clean, not even batting an eye when Damian’s little dick gets hard, simply brushing it off as a normal reaction to the warm water. They sleep together every night, but that’s only because “Little D has been having lots of nightmares lately, and he’s just not used to Gotham’s low temperature”.

Dick Grayson, who can’t imagine his brothers as anything other than innocent little angels.

#batcest #robincest #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #dicktim #dickjay #dickdami #dc universe #dc comics #batman comics #actual tags for post #comship #proship #proshipper safe #anti anti #proshippers please interact #proship is valid #tags for correct audience

[mysterycitrus]

Bc I love your thoughts on fandom, how do you feel about fanon thinking that Tim Drake is the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. I personally despise it bc it does so much damage to so many characters imo, but I’m curious about your thoughts on it

short answer - it's dumb. because u mention fanon specifically, i think it's worth saying that the ceo thing is primarily used to demonise dick and damian in order to woobify tim. "woe is me, everyone abandoned me and now i have to pick up the slack," etc. there is no actual care about what the characters would think or feel in this situation.

in rr2009 (beloathed), tim was briefly ceo because it was a tactical decision - he was preventing tommy elliot from gaining access to bruce's fortune. lucius fox remained the actual ceo, and tim always deferred to lucius's experience. that's what annoys me so much about this interpretation of tim - it removes his autonomy and intelligence. tim drake is not a woe is me kinda guy. he has very realistic expectations of his own intelligence and capability, as a result of training with prodigies at the top of their field, like cass and dick and bruce. he does things for a reason. he isn't lying on a chaise lounge, despondent that his family has left him to hold the ship together. quite the opposite, because dick takes over as batman to keep gotham safe and tim has the freedom to do what he likes as a result. keeping him in this role is a disservice to his character.

i also think that tim isn't the sort of person who's interested in that kind of public facing role. ideally, imo, after bruce returns from the time stream dick would get him out of new jersey for a little bit so he can get some seperation from bruce. additionally, the ceo thing props up the idea that smart rich tim is the best possible choice to lead this company, unlike anyone else who isn't as clever as him (dick and damian). i don't think it's difficult to see a trend there.

#tim drake #dick grayson #damian wayne #anti fanon #red robin #dc comics #batfam #the ask and the answer

[punkeropercyjackson]

It's always either 'they're a fucking monster!!!' or 'they don't have any actual mental problems,that's scary so let's make them normal!' or even 'Well actually they're not a kid at all!'.If you'd met me in school you'd have called me a future serial killer

#percy jackson #< kinda have to tag them even though they're an adult they were the og #aang #katara #zuko #anti zutara #miles morales #gwen stacy #hobie brown #margo kess #ghostflower #ghostpunk #punkflower #ghostbyte #punkbyte #tim drake #duke thomas #stephanie brown #damian wayne #timsteph #allura #kallura #legitallurance #anti bakugou #todoroki shouto #todomomo #sasuke uchiha #hinata hyuga #summeredits #summerposting

[michaeljoncarter]

i always thought chris and damian's potential friendship could be a lot more interesting than jon and damian. the fact that the origin of chris did not prevent clark from considering him his son could create amusing dynamic with damian's early life views "blood matters, adoption is not" instead, we've been receiving a narrative "supersons are the only real children of superman and batman" from dc for years 😒

i've been wanting to ramble for an obnoxiously long time about about all the issues i have with jon, especially as he relates to chris, his relationship with damian & just… this whole recent shift toward focusing more and more on biological relationships for a while now, so i'm gonna take this ask as an opportunity to just get it out of my system

this is about to be an absolute BEHEMOTH of a post. like seriously, apologies in advance for how absurdly long it's about to be lol

this was/is my biggest issue with both Supersons & jon as a concept even before i really got into superman comics, and jesus christ. it is SO much worse when you go back and see everything that was scrapped to try and make way for jon, and nowhere is that more true than with chris. the absolutely insane amounts of potential just deleted for seemingly no other reason than wanting to give clark a biological son instead of an adopted one WILL make you want to strangle someone

seriously, i know most people are probably at least vaguely aware chris existed, but i don't feel like enough people know enough about him to realize just how fucking criminal him being replaced with jon really was. i certainly didn't, anyway. all i really knew was that lois & clark already had an adopted son pre-flashpoint, which was already enough to make the optics of deleting him in favor of the biokid not great, but it's sooooo much more annoying than that

not to be dramatic, but having a character of this caliber sitting right the fuck there (with a final appearance pre-flashpoint that was literally just setup to make him as easy as possible for future writers to bring back) but deciding to delete him in favor of a character as painfully generic as jon kent should count as some sort of crime against humanity

(and this is all without even getting into arguably the worst part about him being erased (and then brought back but evil & with a different name), which is that chris was co-created by richard donner & named christopher as a tribute to christopher reeve. dc what the fuck is wrong with you)

but it's ESPECIALLY frustrating since one of jon's main claims to fame is being the super to damian's bat. you could not have created a more perfect counterpart to damian wayne than christopher kent if you'd tried

this character was made for damian, and i really might mean that literally. after spiraling down this rabbit hole, i'm pretty convinced damian & chris were originally created as a set. like... did you know they were introduced at the same time? because, again, i know i certainly didn't

but we'll circle back around to that in a minute because all the weird connections & suspiciously convenient timing aside, intentional or not, they were an absolute goldmine of potential, plotwise and thematically

either dc just made characters that perfectly mirrored each other by complete accident & missed a hell of an opportunity by failing to notice it OR it was intentional and they just decided to throw it all out in favor of replacing chris with creativity void that is jon because... a biological son seemed more appealing? and/or easily marketable/adaptable? i'm honestly not sure which is worse lol

these two were perfect foils. seriously, there are so many little details about chris's character that are just damian-but-backwards. they mirror each other so closely that even their literal births reflect, with damian being a human grown in an artificial womb like a kryptonian and chris being a kryptonian born naturally like a human, and they so easily could've had such an incredibly unique & complex relationship

but, yeah, probably the most important contrast between them was the (initial) fixation on genetics & bloodlines with damian vs chris fully rejecting his biological parents & considering himself 100% a kent. this has been a problem with damian's character for a while now, but jon & Supersons really took it to the next level, and i hate it

in the interest of not letting this spiral into a 20k+ hatepost, i'm gonna try to not get too in the weeds about the specifics, here, but in this post-Supersons world we live in, i've seen quite a few people (including, most recently, tom king) talking like this shift away from focusing on adopted family in favor of blood started with damian's introduction. and... i really couldn't disagree more. if anything, damian was kind of the anti-jon kent

i famously hate a LOT about morrison's batman era, but their handling of damian's integration into the batfam is the one area where i feel like they (and the other writers of this era) absolutely stomped just about every other writer that's come after. it really seems like they were well aware of just how bad a biological kid could end up being for a story where adopted/chosen/non-traditional family is such a core component, and they were very careful about how they went about it

say what you will about morrison era batman (and believe me, i know there is plenty to say), but there was way less of this weird friction between damian's character & the chosen family aspect of the batfam

i'm not about to sit here and pretend i prefer morrison's damian as an individual character over tomasi/gleason's. damian's character arc in Batman & Robin (2011)/Robin: Son of Batman blows what little, incredibly subtle character development he had pre-flashpoint out of the water--not exactly surprising, seeing as tomasi/gleason tend to be more character-focused & morrison really just loves their huge, complex plots, with character work tending to take more of a back seat

he's a much more solid, fully formed, just overall better character now, but specifically in terms of handling him in relation to the capital-T Themes of the batfam, morrison was very focused on pushing back against the idea that being the "blood son" made him more legitimate than the other batkids, which is something that writers since have largely not really cared about and/or seemed to actively disagree with

i'm gonna come back to this weird shift toward bruce-centrism with his character in a minute, but it's just pretty wild to me that "SON OF BATMAN" has basically become the zero-negative-connotations tagline for his character & how he introduces himself 99% of the time when that was originally something that was framed like this

(Batman #657)

Supersons definitely didn't cause this issue, but it definitely didn't help

damian & jon are both characters whose concepts are pretty heavily based around the same ideas of like... bloodlines & inheritance & all that, but jon's entire character is based around just accepting the inherent value & importance of who your (specifically biological) parents are at face value with ZERO interest in taking any sort of critical look at how important genetics are to just about every aspect of him

a character like damian shouldn't even be allowed in the same zip code as a character like jon, let alone given a teamup book dedicated to making the fact that they're the blood sons of batman & superman the basis of their entire relationship, and equating damian's place in the batfam to jon's place in the "superfam" (which didn't/doesn't even really exist anymore because literally everyone else was deleted in favor of jon), and hurtling right past just failing to push back against the dicey subtext right into just kinda… endorsing it

not to be calling out this random person, but i feel like this comment under one of the issues from the Last Son arc on a website i've obviously never used kinda sums up the problem with the unintentional messaging of Supersons, and it makes me want to actually die every time i see it

there's nothing inherently wrong with stories that center around biological family, obviously, and there's nothing inherently wrong with the concept of a character popping out a kid of their own that grows up to be like them, but the problem is these stories aren't happening in a void

when you have stories that have historically been as focused on these capital-T Themes of found family & adoption as these, you need to be careful with how you handle something like the addition of a biological child. shifting more and more away from focusing on families of choice to fixate more and more on blood & biological relation ends up saying something whether you intend it to or not

the reason this drives me particularly insane specifically re: chris is that his concept could've made up for the exact thematic issues with damian that sticking him next to a character with a concept like jon's has brought to the forefront & shined a giant, uncritical spotlight on

intentional or not, chris was/is exactly the sort of counterbalance a character like damian needs because... i don't know how else to phrase it other than damian is a character that needs to be challenged. he needs someone in the story that he can thematically butt heads with so he doesn't end up just butting heads with The Theme itself

originally, tim was kinda the like... adoption advocate, for lack of a better term, put up against him, but imo this could a bit problematique. making him conflict with someone from the same family unit just kinda makes it come off as weird favoritism

like... bruce deciding damian should stay with dick after he came back from the "dead" and going to team up with tim was very thematically appropriate, so good job there, team, but the way bruce was just like "wow, thanks for raising my kid while i was gone, dick… and keep up the good work! because i'm moving to japan! bye!" and never looked back lol??

there needs to be something there to balance him out & serve as a sort of counterargument to the whole "blood son = real son" idea, but imo it'd work a lot better if it were someone outside the batfam so we wouldn't have to sacrifice the relationships there & make the dynamics all weird in service of Theme

chris could've done all that and then some because it's not just that he considers his adoptive parents his real parents. it's also that the biological parents he rejected were both villains

chris had nothing but "bad" blood. his mother and father were both genocidal maniacs whose goal in life was to enslave and/or wipe out the human race, and he was born & raised in a kryptonian superprison like some sort of alien bane

by all accounts, he probably should've turned out to be an absolute terror, but he DIDN'T because the idea that people don't have to be defined by their genes or the circumstances of their birth is like... the entire point (of post-crisis superman comics, especially. which is one of the biggest reasons why jon is so goddamn annoying, but that's its own 50k+ word post)

and this is the other big thing i find so annoying about the change in narrative around damian's character post-flashpoint. his decision to leave his old life behind & become a hero tends to be framed more like… choosing one biological parent over the other. like everything about him was just as genetically pre-determined as everyone else in this universe, but lucky for him, not all of his genes were evil, so he had a fighting chance!

and this is true not just of him but like... 99% of other "good" characters who have villain bioparents. they almost always have one bioparent who's a villain and the other is good or at least more neutral--damian, kon, (preboot) joey, rose, lian, spoiler, obsidian, jade, jackson hyde, emiko queen, etc, etc, etc

don't get me wrong, i'm not saying i dislike the whole one "good" parent, one "evil" parent trope as a concept. i'm a huge sucker for it when it's done right. that's basically just a list of my faves, and with most of them, this is a nonissue. i'm just saying there are almost no good characters who come from purely "bad" blood

we're getting more and more characters whose entire personality is based around & whose goodness is attributed almost entirely to who their biological parents are, but there's a serious lack of anyone the complete opposite side of the spectrum. we need more characters who reject their families altogether and exist completely in spite of where they came from & who they were born to sort of balance the thematic scales

there might be others that're just slipping my mind, but in current comics, cassandra cain is the only prominent character i can think of who is a "good" person despite coming from from nothing but "bad" blood

(i mean, i guess you could argue all the brainiac descendants still technically exist in current continuity, but like... do they? do they, really?) (EDIT: no, they do not! not in a way that makes them applicable here, anyway. i forgot vril dox ii was brought back in rebirth & retconned to be exactly like his father (thank you, anon who pointed this out). so this is actually just another example of the next point....... l o l)

instead of more characters like this, we've been getting the opposite. kids of villains who were fundamentally good and pointedly nothing like their parents have been rewritten to just be exactly like their shitty parents, actually, because evil is just as genetic as heroism, i guess

this is something that's been annoying me for a while, but i just kinda assumed my super cynical takeaway was just my own personal biases making me read way more into it than was actually there. i'm sure that's definitely a big contributing factor, and this wasn't even something i was really gonna get into, but in the time it took my slow ass to actually get around to answering this, i'll be damned if if tom king didn't go and announce his new, Supersons-inspired character, and just flat out say that the exact same, fucked up message i've felt like i was getting from dc for a while now is exactly what her character is meant to be about

now, i can't judge a character that hasn't even been introduced too much, and to be honest, a character like this seems like much less of an issue (in this respect, anyway) in wonder woman comics, which have tended to have more of a focus more on biological family (with diana and hippolyta and even kinda some versions of donna (and also… y'know... lyta)) than batman & superman comics

this wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue if it were just happening on its own, but it's that this is yet ANOTHER character on the way whose concept begins and ends at "biological child of hero," where it's just kinda meant to be understood that means they'll be a hero, too. just like the shift in how damian's framed, it just seems reflective of this larger trend where the the underlying theme of dc as a whole is increasingly starting to feel like "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

(eta from the future to account for king's bullshit ww run: somehow, it's even worse than we could've imagined lmfao. but regardless, my point here was more about this tk quote & how it perfectly encapsulates this whole issue, less about the actual character herself, so i feel like it still stands. she's still annoying as all hell, but just for different (and arguably worse?) reasons than we were originally led to believe... lol)

and again, there's nothing inherently wrong with a character popping out a kid that takes after them. the issue with it as an overarching Theme is that while it makes for a cute little story about makin' ma an' pa proud in some places, it makes for some real bleak, depressing shit in others, and unfortunately, chris is a perfect example of that

when he was "brought back" in rebirth, intentional or not, he was changed to better fit the new theme of post-jon superman comics and turned into just... a mirror version of jon, basically. instead of being a character who pointedly was not defined by his shitty parents & horrible upbringing, he is now, of course, COMPLETELY defined by who his biological parents are. he's just lor-zod, son of general zod & commander ursa, who was just kinda doomed from the start

(Action Comics #997)

(booster being complicit in this arc is one of the worst things that's ever happened to me btw. somebody please revoke jurgens's custody i can't do this anymore)

(and i seriously doubt anyone cares enough to bring this up, but just for posterity, i feel the need to acknowledge that, yes, i'm aware this was an alt future version, but he showed up later in other comics acting pretty much exactly the same as a kid, so... lol)

anyway. i'm not trying to accuse any dc writers of being weird, cartoonesque supervillains sitting around twirling their evil mustaches and like... deliberately including themes of biological determinism or whatever the fuck. i'm sure it's all unintentional, but like i said, when you have a story that's based around one message and you rewrite it in a way that conveys essentially the opposite message, it ends up saying something regardless of intent

this thing where we take characters whose concepts are all about them being fundamentally, pointedly good despite where & who they came from and turn them into supervillains just as bad (or worse) than their shitty parents has always been a problem--the last couple decades of constant character assassination for joey wilson is probably the most obvious example--but it's gotten noticeably worse over the past few years

all this to say i think not just damian but dc as a whole would've really benefited from a character like chris. in superman comics specifically, ignoring everything that's happened post-reboot, he would've been/was a great way to offset some of the issues caused by tt03's lex clone retcon making kon biologically related to clark & turning him into yet another "only half evil" character. execution notwithstanding, i definitely think the new version of kon's origin is more interesting than the original, but it would've been nice if we'd gotten a character to fill the niche westfield clone kon left empty

chris was so fundamentally incompatible with the whole "apple doesn't fall far from the tree" idea, he wouldn't even have really had to do anything. he would've been doing some pretty heavy lifting, thematically speaking, just by existing. fixating on blood & genes to the extent that they have probably would've been a bit more difficult with a character like him standing in the same panel

obviously, just swapping out one character for the other wouldn't fix everything. the issues with jon & all this other mess are just symptomatic of the much larger issues at dc, but it's kinda hard not to wonder when things so easily could've been so different, which is how i'm gonna segue into the WAY less serious part of this post because i'm really not convinced chris being such a perfect fit & counterbalance was just an accident

this is fully some tinfoil hat level nonsense. take everything i'm about to say with a grain of salt, and just know i'm fully aware of how pepe silvia-esque i'm about to sound

so... if we're going by cover dates, Last Son (the arc that introduced chris) started in december 2006, the same month that Batman & Son (the arc that introduced damian) wrapped up. that they were introduced consecutively would already be kinda weird, but the thing that makes it really weird is just how similar the two storylines are

to massively oversimplify, both arcs were about the secret biological son of one of clark/bruce's most dangerous/obsessive villains (and i'm not a fan of morrison's talia, but that is how she was being portrayed at the time) that no one knew existed until one day they were suddenly dropped in clark/bruce's lap as a part of some sort of world domination plot by their villain parent(s), and both end with damian/chris disappearing with said villain parent while trying to help stop their evil plan

and this was right at the beginning of the era of the batman & superman titles running pretty closely parallel. not too long after Last Son ended, the whole World Without/Against Superman during New Krypton also kicked off the same month as Battle for the Cowl

right alongside dick's batman era, superman comics had mon-el (who i always feel obligated to note is nothing like the cw version. please god) serving as replacement superman after clark was forced to leave the planet to deal with the new krypton thing & struggling to adjust and uphold the symbol for clark

there was no real interaction between them or acknowledgement of the similarities there, either, but later on, there was a little crossover comic about the similar states of the batfam & superfam in this era

(World's Finest (2009))

all this to say seemingly intentionally parallel storylines in the batman & superman titles that went largely unacknowledged weren't at all unheard of around the time chris & damian were introduced. it really doesn't feel like too much of a stretch to me to think that damian & chris could've been part of that trend

…

and also the artist for Last Son, who designed chris, and the artist for Batman & Son, who designed damian, are brothers. i KNOW that doesn't automatically make everything they do connected!! but you can't just find out something like this while digging for connections for your conspiracy theory post and then NOT mention it. this is the kinda shit red string & pushpin people dream about at night

anyway.

just to be clear, i'm not saying think chris was created specifically for a future teamup with damian. he was pretty clearly meant to be his own, standalone character, but it just kinda seems to me like they were conceptualized with each other in mind

but conspiracy theorizing aside, intentional or not, there was a truly maddening amount of potential here

their basic character concepts were so similar. again, to massively over simplify, they were both the sons of villains raised in secret in some sort of Evil Organization, damian with the league & chris with zod's loyalists, both the son or "heir" of the leader of said organization, and both ended up rejecting the way they were raised in favor of joining their respective heroic fathers instead

characterization-wise, though, they were exact opposites. their overall circumstances were similar on the surface, but their actual experiences could not have been less alike. neither childhood was ideal, obviously, and growing up in the league definitely had its downsides, but overall, damian was treated like a prince & kinda spoiled rotten, where chris was treated like dirt & horrifically neglected/abused, and they came out of their respective origins with personalities & outlooks that were just as opposite

i could ramble on about every single little contrasting detail in their characters for days, but jesus christ look at how ridiculously long this post is already

there's just so much that could've been with them!! so many things about their respective characters that could've played off of each other in such interesting ways. you already had a ton to work with just in chris's concept on its own, but combined with some of his later arcs?? the whole nightwing thing could've so easily been reworked into something amazing

chris was so unique and well thought out, he would've been an absolutely perfect fit & done a lot for damian and superman comics and just dc as a whole. he had more than enough staying power, and everything about his erasure is so frustrating. if you haven't read much/any preboot superman, i really can't stress enough just how easy it would've been for them to bring him back. i'm not exaggerating when i say his very last appearance from right before flashpoint hit was literally just setup to make him as easy as possible to bring back after the reboot

(Superman: War of the Supermen #4)

he was re-babified and ready to go. the less savory aspects of his later storyline were already being kinda soft retconned away via phantom zone memory weirdness, so they wouldn't have even had to address that--not that that would've been a valid excuse for not using him, anyway, seeing as nobody's actually given a shit about continuity in years, especially where superman comics are concerned

it's just so disappointing that a character as stacked with potential as chris has been essentially erased in the main universe and relegated to extremely occasional elseworlds appearances in favor of jon, whose incredibly generic, one-note concept really would've been a much better fit for a cute but depthless one-off character from a random alternate universe

he was cute enough as a kid, sure, but he was always much more of an accessory to the other characters around him than a unique, standalone character himself. the past few years have just been book after book after book of writers trying and failing to mine a shred of potential from his shallow concept and find a way to make him individual or unique or necessary in any way (and stomping all over the stories he's meant to be adding to in the process), which is annoying enough on its own, but that it really seems to have happened for no other reason than dc preferring the idea of biological kids makes it so much worse

it sucks, man, but... well, i guess at the very least, we'll always have Multiversity: The Just with its weird, spoiled brat au of damian & chris's supersons on earth-nepotism to give us a taste of what could've been 💔

#ask #anonymous #damian wayne #chris kent #dc critical #and for blacklists: #anti jon kent #LONG POST #god this is ridiculously long lmao #ths is like 6 different half-written posts all stitched into one so. forgive the mess #(eta way later bcs i reskimmed this months after the fact and it's bothering me: #i did a lot of (unintentional but still) conflating of adoption & 'chosen family' #bc i was talking about the batfam ((mostly) adopted family) and preboot superfam ((mostly) chosen family) at the same time/interchangeably #but those aren't the same thing #actually there's a lot in here that i don't like the wording of/don't think i explained very well in retrospect #but given that i was mostly yelling about the de-legitimizing of adopted kids #the fact that i kinda accidentally did the same thing by misnomer-ing especially sticks out & felt like it needed to be addressed lol)

[devine-fem]

I love that Damian’s first reaction to Jay is not “oh, you met someone and made a new friend?” its: “How the fuck you have enough time to establish a relationship with someone?” because he’s so right, till this day I don’t understand how Jon managed to squeeze in time to be seeing him in the middle of the torture and stopping world disasters in his schedule. That plus the way Jon tells Jay his identity, Jay… a person Damian does not know or trust before now knows Damian’s identity and Batman’s by association…

#super sons #damian wayne #jon kent #jonathan kent #dc comics #anti ssoke