#i think the new 52 just ruined characters in general

[constantineshots]

okay so this is just a rant ( long. i am sorry if it is jumbled ) on justice leagu dark but specifically the new 52 run. because i don't have an issue with the rebirth run. but seeing as milligan started off the new 52 run, can anyone be surprised i don't like it.

never really understood how in justice league dark and whenever john is on a team in general. when people know he's a bit selfish when things look like they are not going to work in his favor/look hopeless in general and he gets the fuck out of there or does something to benefit himself. and everyone knows he consistently does this. yet they are like "what the fuck john. we trusted you." after giving him shit because they didn't trust him or didn't want him on the team. like guys.

for example, zatanna. she knows firsthand he's a dipshit from her last experiences and prior to new 52, she's kinda kept away from him. and honestly? you go, girl. get that toxicity out of your life if you find him to be toxic to you. but i don't like the way she's written in the initial jld because it's always "where's john" ( and, vice versa to shove the john/zatanna concept in our faces, john being all up zatanna's ass, which i personally feel does not do their characters justice. if you want to ship them, let them be them. show me why they work. not shove the "they're in love with one another" in my face and give me... dried out, squeezed sponges of their characters with absolutely zero substance. though maybe i just didn't like the writers for new 52 jld ( though the newer run is more enjoyable! zatanna feels more like herself ) because i don't think they wrote anyone well. sorry for the random tangent here ). zatanna is supposed to be intelligent. people look to her. so why would she consistently place her trust in a man she knows is going to hurt her and the team? then get angry with him for acting human even though he keeps saying he's not a hero and he will do anything to save his skin then people keep REPEATING IT AND THEN EVERYONE JUST GETS MAD AT HIM WHEN HE DOES EXACTLY THAT.

no, this is not just about zatanna. this can extend to deadman and everyone else as well, and the others, but i had the image in my mind if her quite literally yanking him from the bathtub and throwing him out of the bathroom and into a wall when she eventually took the house of mystery again because john left them all.... as he typically does.

overall, i think the initial justice league dark run was written terribly. like. astronomically bad. i don't even know why john led that team. i don't know why john was involved. i don't know why it had anything to do with argus. the newer run? with upside down man and stuff? okay, that i'm alright with. but i can quite honestly say that the writing in justice league dark new 52 was absolutely terrible AND OF COURSE IT WAS BECAUSE MILLIGAN WAS FIRST. i think it set the tone for the series and honestly it may be my own personal biases against him that clouds my judgement, but i hated the initial run. i think everything happened too fast, then shit started making absolutely no sense, and honestly, the most interesting thing that happened was whatever was going on with nightmare nurse.

okay, so. necro. unneeded. what was the point of nick necro. genuinely. to get john and zee together when they already have history but instead of allowing them to keep that history, it gets shit on for the sake of john seeing zee on stage and being like "wowza" and then having some weird competition with necro initially, just to lead to necro being? what, upset? at one point? i am so confused. like john and zee are kissing and zee apologizes to necro, and then he's like "eugh. i knew about you two. blah blah blah" like? he's not important to me. i don't care about him. why couldn't john and zee have just been together this guy literally solves very little plot purpose. even when he shows up later on. like dude. who ARE you.

anyways. anyways! that's my rant. just on random things. LIKE I DON'T KNOW WHY PETER MILLIGAN WAS ALLOWED TO PUT HIS GRUBBY FUCKING HANDS NEAR JOHN AGAIN BUT WHATEVER.

is any of this even canon anymore? i hope not.

#john constantine #zatanna #justice league dark #rant about milligan #again #new 52 #i think the new 52 just ruined characters in general #the only things i hate is the writing #the mischaracterization #and peter milligan. #EVERYTHING HE TOUCHES GETS FUCKING RUINED #god. #anyways i have to be done or else i'll implode #but feel free to ask me about it if you want #like specific questions anyway

[damianbugs]

You need to tell us what you think of your favorite Bruce ships. Pls

i should preface by saying i usually prefer bruce (in my own works and others, including comics) to not be in a relationship at all because i can't think of a time he's like ever emotionally stable enough for that. like ever. THAT BEING SAID isn't that all the more reason to throw him into a ship? doomed tragic romance you will always be famous to me

and because i am insane, here are some comic recs to go with my fav bruce ships!!

>batcat

a classic favourite, batcat!!! i will admit i am not the biggest fan of their rebirth stories, and the whole wedding fiasco and most of what tom king wrote about them (and in general) was. not enjoyable. but pre crisis/golden age batcat? MY PARENTS. just. silver and bronze age batcat too. what a refreshing and entertaining couple. the thing that really makes them compelling is at the end of the day they have the same goal; protect the people of gotham. the ways they go about it can be different, and selina especially faces some serious mischaracterisation in order to make bruce look like the "hero" in the relationship, but at their core and simplest expression of love, they share the same dream, and they both know that. it's this selflessness that connects them deeply.

> "The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne" (Batman the Brave and the Bold #197) is, in my opinion, essential batcat reading. a very bittersweet story!

> for a more modern read, "Only Takes a Night" (Catwoman #32) is a delightful read about how hopelessly in love they are. bruce is such a devoted loser.

> ghostbat

every character needs that one irreparably damaging young adult tragic romance that changed their life forever and that is what ghostbat is. khoa is the perfect foil to bruce, in that ultimately, they are two ends of the same spectrum. fiercely stubborn and confident in their own moral code but in the opposite way. this ship is particularly fascinating because even now, the respect and love they have for each other years later is so deeply consuming that it is prevalent in how they interact now. i don't think bruce would have been the person he is without his relationship with khoa pre-batman, in both a good and bad ways. i also really love the hc that khoa is bruce's first heartbreak (refer to: the Snow and Gun incident).

> "Batman The Knight" is like ghostbat religious text. this is all you need. let it destroy you.

> batlantern

no long paragraph about this one because its my silly guilty pleasure. sometimes u need a ship in which they just don't get along except for the times they do. hal brings out such an irritating (said fondly) side to bruce and its even funnier because it works mutually. i think another really wonderful thing about this pairing is that they are really not so different from each other (nothing says romance than being consumed by your guilt and stubbornness), but they both think otherwise, so they knock heads while also begrudgingly respecting about one another in a colleague-friend-crush way. they want to make out so bad it makes them look stupid.

> "Batman: Universe" is a great and short silly story that shows their dynamic really well. amused me greatly. not ship focused though hal is there for like. a single issue unfortunately. but fun!!

> i usually never recommend any new 52 books to get INTO a character, but if you're interested in this pairing and its most 'popular' fanon interation, then "Jutice League (2011)" is the best place to start. you can get to their better stuff afterwards! (there's also an animated movie about it!)

> brutalia

AND BEST TILL LAST. THE BRUCE SHIP OF ALL TIME. ruined my life. CHANGED my life. i wish i could explain how insanely important this relationship is in words. i love my pairings tragic and there is quite literally no other ship quiet as dramatic or poetic than brutalia. talia is often seen as bruce's "one true love" with great reason, and him hers, and despite that they will probably never actually get back together. in a wider lense, the al ghuls and bruce have an insanely complicated dynamic, and this inherent conflict about missions bigger than themselves makes brutalia's forbidden love drama all the more compelling. talia brings out the best in bruce, and bruce respects and loves talia in a way i don't think he does anyone else in his life.

to complain for a moment, it's no wonder that because their relationship (since it's very first introduction) was so irrevocably pure and consensual (they were both so ridiculously obsessed with each other), that Certain Writers had to pull out the most out of character and disgusting stories to make it clear the tone of batman was changing. talia is always a victim to racism, misogyny and just unbelievable ooc writing — most evidently in her stories with bruce, unfortunately.

AND YET. recent comics have realised how truly ridiculous it is to write her as anything but kind and strong, and bruce being anything but hopelessly infatuated. i think my favourite thing about brutalia is that bruce and talia is a relationship that has been separated for actual Decades and so both their characters have been developed to have their own tragic stories and growth. then when we get small moments that bring them back together and letting that past show through the cracks in their carefully constructed walls, it's all the more romantic.

beautiful heartbreaking ship. the kind of relationship historians would cry over. would have the romantic period publishing fifteen books over.

> "Batman: Son of the Demon" is ESSENTIAL brutalia reading. also, if you are insane and delusional enough, it can be the true origin of damian.

> the comic moment that inspired all romance the moment of forever the blueprint even is in the famous "Batman (1940) #244"

> for a more modern take, very recently in fact, is her appearances in Ram V's run of detective comics, starting from #1062. its not brutalia focused, but a great take on how natural and yearning their relationship is now.

#for a guy who is notoriously shit at relationships he sure does find himself in them constantly #but truly is there a single fail loser man that yearns as much as batman #bruce wayne #batcat #ghostbat #batlantern #brutalia #saki comic talks

[zahri-melitor]

I've been thinking about War of the Robins, aka 'Damian challenges the other Robins to prove he's the Best Robin' storyline from Batman and Robin 2011, and what I think worked about it in terms of characterisation. (look I'm reading New 52, you get to hear lots of my ten plus years out of date thoughts about New 52, enjoy)

Because look, I think it was successful in presenting how desperate for approval and validation Damian is, but it also feeds into the narrative you can see percolating during this time that Damian can't cope with just being one of the family, he has to be the best, have the most love and approval, have physical demonstrations of his superiority, because he's grown up understanding being one of the group to be a death sentence. (Dick has to be his Batman, and Damian Dick's Robin, he needs the writers giving him reassurance that they were 'the best' right before he dies, the new timeline cuts off any other occasions Dick was Batman, Damian gets given extra pets right before he dies as a sop for his death, etc etc)

Which is believable characterisation for Damian! It is understandable given the background they're building for him! But also sharply aggravating because nobody has ever accused fans of being reasonable and this just digs people into being more deeply opposed to the character their favourite is in conflict with.

So he 'challenges' Tim and Jason 'at something you feel unbeatable at' in a way that sharply exploits emotions they're sensitive about.

Damian...shows Tim a video of Tim considering killing and pulling back, and implies that that makes Tim a killer just like Damian and "they're the same". Now I think this one is actually pretty weak - while yes it's exploiting a point Tim's sensitive over (and in our world has dealt with twice in the calendar year prior to this story), it's also something Tim's pretty solid on; Tim knows he's not a killer and will pull back, while he's seen Damian kill. I also think that a Damian who's working to be a better person would not refer to the Spook situation as "a bit rambunctious", rather than it being something he regrets and tries to grow from. It does amuse me that Tim gets to smash Damian into Jason's trophy case however this time for the parallel, though being the one who breaks the case generally is framed to make you the one 'in the wrong' in the confrontation. Also as far as I can tell Damian never takes a physical trophy from this fight, which sort of ruins your whole premise, Damian. NB: I see Damian has Tim's bo in his room later, but Tim clearly ended the fight holding it and then left. There's definitely an art issue here.

Jason's fight is even more exploitation of a known weakness. Jason's got every right to be touchy about someone threatening him with a crowbar. Also I really really dislike that Damian's just freely admitting to the time he locked himself in with the Joker to beat him up at GCPD, because honestly that bit of story and its timing has always seemed to contradict the 'he's getting better' narrative that Dick maintains during Reborn. And again the whole conversation is "we're so alike but nobody loves you". At least this time Damian clearly takes his trophy (which is a helmet, which is still displayed in Damian's room during scenes there in the B&R Requiem issue).

Dick showing up at the end to explain to Damian that he doesn't need to try so hard prove his worth and just handing over an escrima stick - look it's sweet and it does impart the moral that Damian needed to learn over this whole situation. But also it does not really help, as it's just deepened the family fault-lines between Dick & Damian as a pair and *sigh* Jason & Tim.

The other thing I get out of it is whether it's just bravado or not, Damian's a lot more comfortable with his childhood violence continuing to come out rather than working to fit the rules of what makes a Robin and a superhero than people want to say he is. Yes, he needs unconditional love and support to grow and learn, and Dick's being used to provide that. But it's also occasion 3000 when I'm sitting here going "is anyone ever going to give Damian actual boundaries and enforce them when he tests them?" because he's once again well outside what is expected. Bruce tries at the start to defuse the argument, and Dick tries at the end to explain why Damian didn't need to do this, he's already won, but I do wonder how much of it sunk in.

#B&R is the wrong place and time to turn around and reassure Tim and Jason over 'Damian has had why this was a bad call explained to him' #but also the takeaway Tim and Jason get from this is Damian just got away with whatever he wanted AGAIN and Dick will just validate that #I can see the background of so many fandom fights in this #z canon read throughs

[kittycat-in-the-dark]

Why i think it is kinda frustrating to love the character of Jason Todd (or just any dc comics character at this point) - coming from a fan

VERY IMPORTANT WARNING: because i like Jason Todd this is gonna be mainly about him. I am gonna discuss certain things in canon and fanon about him that at this point are so tiring, and i just want to rant about them. Also, opinions that you might or might not agree with (lol). So, here comes my rant:

The Mess that is Canon and why it gives me headaches

So, we all know our dearest DC comics, and what a pain they can be. They love being inconsistent, because writers love to write wtv they want while ignoring stuff that came before, change or outright erase characters over night just because "they have their own vision in mind", ruining characters by practicing sexism, racism, classism, all -ism there are, on those characters and through other characters - because why not? And so, most of the times when a character goes to one writer to another it feels like some really do decide to keep their worse traits and add to them and ignore the actual interesting things about that/those character(s) that could make for some more interesting stories and character development. (And i know that most of the inconsistency is not just the fault, or even at all, of the writers, because that is more an issue caused by higher-ups and the decisions and limitations they put on their writers. But, that doesn't mean that writers cannot do better in the writing department, like plenty of writers and creatives have consistently done amazing things even under limitations, actually limitations sometimes showed to be helpful in challenging the creativity of artists,,... thou, i still think that DC needs to give their writers a basic sheet with info on the characters and make their current writers read/get familiar with previous characterization of the characters, at least a bit because this inconsistency is so annoying... also, you guys are supposed to be professionals in writing, like??)

Now let's see what certain writers decided to do with Jason, as an example, i guess, also because i know the most about him. Sorry for still being behind on other characters, aaaaa. So bare with me, please...

Decided to guide him to his death instead of continuing to expand on how Jay could heal from his childhood trauma, deal with his emotions and grow into being a better person and hero:

Jim Starlin (one of the writers of Batman comics in Post-crisis) decided to take the sweet boy that loves his family, that has anger issues from his past trauma, but that still did his best to help people and has very resourceful, and decided to completely focus on just how angry he was and the "tragic destiny that always awaited for him", especially because he also somehow deserves it -> which is, unfortunately, something that is made even worse in the New-52 and Rebirth. There is just this over insistence that because Jason was angry in certain situations, that he is and always was "broken" or "improper", and stuck on a never-ending cycle of violence. And in recent comics, every time young Jason Todd is brought up (in discussions, flashbacks and stories happening in his time as Robin) more often than not, the writers decide to put too much focus on Jason's more negative traits related to his anger and arrogance (about this last one, i, personally, don't think he was originally. Like yes, he could be too reckless sometimes and disobey orders from Batman and stuff, but which Robin didn't... also Jason was actually pretty well behaved for the most part of his Post-crisis Robin time).

But ya, this is also generally a problem, that DC still practices to this day, with Jason, Damian, and other sidekick or kid characters. I even remember seeing a post/article about the departments in DC, especially the Batman comics one, having writers or superiors, that didn't like and outright hated the concept of Robin, they wanted to get rid of Dick Grayson at first, but fortunatly Dick was moved to another department when he became a full time Titan and going on his own adventures completely separate from Batman. This is also why Dick is not that present during Jason's years as Robin... which kinda sucks. Like yes, Dick having his development and building his own team and new hero identity outside Robin, Batman and Gotham was great and all, but it's so stupid and frustrating that the actual reason Dick wasn’t a present brother was because of executive stuff going on at DC rather than that much of an in-universe and character reasons - like, i get that it can be justified by "Dick and Bruce were still going through their issues from spliting up and Dick had his own responsibilities as a solo hero and team leader" - but it wouldn't have been impossible to at least have Dick visit Alfred and Jason more than he did in canon, or show him and Jay having or keeping contact more after their first meeting, or even better, let Jason hang out and get closer to the Titans more, so he can spend more time with his new brother and make hero friends of or closer to his age... i mean, there were some panels that showed, for example, Jason and Dick skiing and Jay going on like 2 missions with the Titans, but it would have been awesome if Jay actually got to build closer relationships with them.

Also, from what i understood, many weren't happy with the introduction of a new Robin... plus Jay was Robin in the comics for just 1 year in real world time (from 1987 to 1988 -> yes, i am not joking... the most known and nowadays canon version of Jason, aka from Post-crisis, was Robin for just a year, the other 4 years of being Robin, aka from 1983 to 1986, was with Pre-crisis Jason that was basically Dick 2.0., and that doesn't even make part of the main continuity, as we know it*) and in Universe he was Robin for about 3 years (he was 12 when he met Bruce and died at 15), and considering that most stories during this time were more focused on Bruce/Batman and on the villain of the week type stories, Jay really didn't get that much character exploration before dying. Which kinda sucks...

*a little note about this: so, in 2022-2023 the Dark Crisis event happened, which apparently restored Pre-crisis as being part of canon, which makes no sense considering that Pre-crisis Jason Todd and Post-crisis Jason Todd are completely different, but ya DC doing DC stuff like usual, uffff - but, i still think that the "main/real" Robin Jason is the one from Post-crisis

Thou, even if A Death in the Family kinda started the way of depicting Robin Jason as too angry and violent, i don't think that the way the conflict was depicted between Bruce and Jason is as bad as it is depicted in recent comics - because it was more about Jason and Bruce respectively missunderstanding each other's side. That being that Jason probably saw being benched as a "step" to be fired like Dick was, or that Bruce thought that he wasn’t good enough to be Robin and that his place as Bruce's son, probably, wasn’t "so secure",, while on the other side, Bruce just wanted to bench Jason from Robin because he was indeed becoming too reckless and violent in the field, so he was worried that his son would hurt himself. So, i think it's important to understand that this story, despite it's many problems, at least tried to be more balanced and "realistic"/genuine with the conflict between the characters. But the thing with the "destined to die and to live in violence" still is kinda shitty, because again, it is leaning into the idea that Jason deserved this, even if everything that happened in this story happened mainly because of miscomunication between Jason and Bruce, and DC not giving the chance for Jay to take another path.

The "voting for Jason to die" thing:

Okay, i am gonna be honest with that idk much about this subject. But i remember reading an article and posts were it is claimed that the vote might have been rigged because a lot of people at the time in DC wanted to get rid of Jason and because, well, the call type vote must have been kind of a mess when it happened through the phone back in the 80s. Plus it is also believed that the people that were able to vote, voted for Jason to die probably mostly to see if DC would really do it, ya know just for the fun of it and to see if DC really had the balls to do it, which many seemed to actually be doubting. So ya... but either way, the fact that people at DC thought about this, is kinda weird and unfair imo, because Jay, like i said before, wasn’t even given the chance to developed or to build a different path other than one filled with tragedy and violence...

The erasure and non-erasure of Sheila Haywood:

As we all already know, the actual reason why Jason died was that he tried to save his mother from the Joker, when he discovered that she was working for him. The problem with this arrives when DC always choose to frame it as "Jason died because of his recklessness and disregard for Bruce's authority when he told Jason to stay put". And the problem with this is that it makes it seem like DC doesn't even consider how a kid in Jason's situation might feel and act and that the fault wasn’t his or his temper's or wtv that he died, as much as it was the betrayal of his mother and Batman literally leaving Jason behind, when he could've and should've taken his son with him to do the rescue and to make sure Jay and Sheila would be save. And especially considering that Bruce was aware that Jason can be quite stubborn and reckless, and that he must really wish to save his mom more than anything, that, logically, Jay would've gone for his mother no matter what Bruce said or how he promissed that he would save Sheila. Also, Batman and Robin are supposed to be partners,, how did Bruce think that with such an important and personal mission for Jason that the kid would just stay on the side lines and wait for Bruce to do something. Also the fact that, somehow... huh, Jason made it to the warehouse way before Bruce did, even if he went for it way before Jason, like?? - but either way, 80s writing used to be weird and stuff, but when it comes to A Death in the Family, many people pointed out that the writing makes almost no sense and it is quite goofy with a lot of things, despite supposedly being a monumental story considering that this is the first time a sidekick dies and stays dead, and in such a tragic way... also that shit is so goofy that it ended with Joker as an Middle East Ambassador or wtv... so ya. Too stupid even by "silly simple fun superhero stories of the 80s" standards.

But the problem, like the title of this point sugests, is that some writers in more modern comics, aka Post-crisis from the 2000s, New-52 and Rebirth, decided to outright erase Sheila from the equation. Which takes away from a relatable and sympathetic factor that lead Jason to his tragic end, and instead focus on just how reckless, stubborn and angry Jason is, and that was what killed him. Also, that now, the reason he got involved with Joker was not because it happened that his mom that he wanted to meet and save was working for Joker but that Jay had a very deep insecurity about himself as Robin and Bruce's son and so he just decided to go after Joker impulsively in order to impress Bruce by stopping and capturing him on his own, which ya... way to ruin it guys... like yes, it can be said that Jay went to Ethiopia looking for his mom originally because he and Bruce were having problems, after all Jay did find out about his mom and decided to leave when he heard Bruce and Alfred discuss to bench him from Robin because he was too violent and reckless in some recent cases, more notably the Garzonas one, and so it makes sense that Jay would kinda associate not being a good enough Robin as not being a good enough of a son for Bruce, and thus motivating him to look for his mom when he, basically accidently/by chance, learned that he has a biological mother that is alive and well, and that might want to have him back as a son.

And then, you have writers that, after others chose to erase Sheila completely (like they did in the New-52), decided to write that the reason Jay died was because of trying to save Sheila, like that line Jay says in Task Force Z, "I died trying to save someone I love.", and it creates this annoying back and forth with this fact... like, erasing and/or bringing a character or their importance to the story or the main characters' development is a big deal, and DC writers just played with Sheila around like randomly throwing the ball to see if it lands on the "Sheila exist this week" or on the "Sheila doesn't actually exist the next week or ever did" side of the field.

Being weird about Jay's relationship with Talia because the writer (aka Judd Winick) wanted to be experimental and that Talia and Jay having "just sex" is not a big deal because it's normal for people to just have sex, the context be damned (also the consequences this could bring in how people view Talia's character):

i don't think i need to elaborate on this more than i already did...

The writer of UTRH (Judd Winick again) went too far while depicting Jason's violence:

Okay, before you go at me for shitting on the writing of a writer that is considered to be the best Jason Todd writer, i have to say that he did some interesting and fun things with Jay, but also paired up with a lot of stuff that contributed to a worse perception of Jason's character and falling further into the "Jason was always destined to be violent and murder-y" hole. Like, he even added more to Jason's time as Robin, but only decided to focus on the more negative parts of it, and while i can understand that he probably wanted to put Jason's flaws and conflict with Bruce at center stage for his return as the villain Red Hood, i think he kinda started the trend of refering to Jay as always being the "Angry Robin" and that everytime there is a flashback with Robin Jason since then it is always about his anger and nothing else. Also, i feel like he kinda forgot to show Jason caring about innocents, aka women and children, while writing this, which is kinda weird considering that he did show that side of Jay in Lost Days...

From the Titans Tower fight till the end of Post-crisis Jason's writing was a complete mess:

i feel like DC reached a point by this time where they had no clue what to do with Jason (and nowadays they are still at this point and have been in it since then, if we are being honest). They decided to either make Jason a total nut case full on villain that hurts a lot of people for no good reason and at the same time have stories were he is an ally to the Heroes and where he does the right thing, even if he is still a bad guy. And the thing is: if DC really wanted to make Jay an anti-hero that walked a grey line where he sometimes did his own selfish desires and still antagonized certain heroes he thinks he has a bone to pick with (like Batman and Nightwing), but that still gave a shit about innocents and would help people even when aligned with villains, they could have but they kinda didn't. Like, i know it's a very cut and dry definition of an anti-hero, but like, comics are stacked full with over used tropes and have created some themselves, and with this Jason could be a more interesting story element everytime he popped up because the readers and the heroes would never know if to expect Jason to be against them or helping them. Plus, they could advance from this by developing him from a more "villainous anti-hero" to a more "heroic anti-hero", and doing so by touching/going on Jason's roots as Robin and what made Jason the happy hopeful kid that loved to help people. But no,,,, they decided to do a complete mess!! DC, why... thou, i kinda feel like this transition of Jason from a more "villainous anti-hero" to a more "heroic anti-hero" didn't happen properly for the same reason Jason became more violent and angry as Robin didn't work that well/felt rushed, and that was because this was made in a short time limit. Because, like Starlin wanted to get to the "fated death of Robin because of his issues" as quick as possible, Post-crisis Red Hood Jason seemed (imo) to suffer from this as well, because Post-crisis (as a continuity/timeline) was ending, the next big retconning event was approaching in DC comics,,, like heck, even the story of UTRH was interrupted sometimes because of a timeline/universe altering event... and then the One Year Later event happened, and Jay seemed to have become "more crazy that ever", and the heroic parts that Jason still had were discarded completely. Which tbh i wasn’t a big fan of, at all. So, Jay ended his Post-crisis story as a full on "deranged villain".

RHATO is a BIG mess; YES, unfortunatly, i mean both of them, maybe exept for the first 25 issues of RHATO (2016) - why did DC have to give Jason's main books to Scott Lobdell?! Also, those first 25 issues of RHATO (2016) are kind of a miracle, all things considered:

So... RHATO (2011) was basically Jason's first big "going on his own with a team in stories non-related to Batman"... and it was awful. Because well, DC decided to make Jason, Roy Harper and Koriand'r aka Red Hood, Arsenal and Starfire the Outlaws, and write them completely out of character. Which ya, pissed off/annoyed a lot of fans... and these are the main reasons why (i think, might have missed some thou, but this serve enough to make a point against this book):

First off, it makes no sense for Roy and Kori to agree to Jason's methods and philosophy, so question: why would they join/form the Outlaws and with Jay as the leader?

Why is Jay the leader when he was no previous leading experience at this point, while both Kori and Roy do?

Why tf was Roy made dumb and Kori into an eye candy character, while being stripped off of their inteligence and kindness respectively?

Why are 2 of Dick Grayson's closests friends, one of which is also an ex-lover, hanging out with his little brother, considering that when those best friends first met that brother they were already adults, and Roy even had his daughter Lian, when Jay was just 12?

General answer: the writer decide to say fuck you to anything and build what could be considered a "male power fantasy" through Jason, also sexism, so he ended up ruining everything and everyone.

Long, more specific to each question answers:

Kori and Roy were "given to Jason" as his teammates and friends and made "more violent and outcasted" from their previous teams and friends/family because DC rebranded with the New-52 and wanted to be more edgy and had no idea what to do with these 2 characters so they decided to shove them together just because... and also because they had no idea what to do with Jason either, like i said previously.

Jay is the leader because "power male fantasy" for and with guys without powers, having no idea what to do with him that could be interesting, human characters in DC are often made the leaders to make up for and balance with their more powerful teammates, Jay is made the leader instead of Roy because the Bats are always up in DC's hierarchy of gets to lead the team and be the main face of the team and comic because money. Also,, look, i know it can be said that Jay, just like any other Batkid, deserved the chance to have his role and his experience as a leader, but because of his short time as Robin he didn't even get that much experience working with others or with a bigger team, besides being partners with Batman, and he never got to have a proper leader role before the Outlaws (and no, being a crime-lord doesn't count because he mostly did things solo, his partners and workers worked with him under fear or because the other option was worse than him, and also he killed the guys he worked with or that worked for him a lot... so ya, i wouldn't call that leadership experience). It really was a decision made just based on "the Bats need to be the leaders at some point of any teams we create" DC rule.

Roy was dumbed down so he wouldn't be the logical leader and because Jason needed a "dumb best friend" or something and Kori, well... the boys needed an eye candy sexy alien woman for the comic to actually be interesting... also, they threw away her kindness because she needs to be as rude and angry as her male teammates.

Also, weird as shit that they decided to give Jay Dick's best friends (or i guess ex-best friends during this time) because they were too lazy to make new friends for Jason.... also they had to ruin their established relationships because why tf not? - also why is Roy only refered to as Jay's best friend when he was/is Dick's best friend (or one of his best friends)... like?? i mean, people can have more than one best friend, but DC doesn't seem to understand that, so...

in conclusion, this book ruined everyone!! Hurray DC, that was such a great achievement *fucking insert infinite tons of sarcasm here*.

Also, to make a little note/comment about something that comes from fandom about this Outlaws Team specifically: i really really really hate that, because of this book, Jason is shipped with either Kori or Roy or with both at the same time in a poly relationship. And while, yes i get the "let them be shipped" because this is just people having fun with the characters and all that,,, no matter how they put these ships, i will always find them gross because of the reasons i mentioned above,, aka Kori and Roy were adults when they met 12-year-old Jason -> like just this alone should ring alarm bells,, Kori is Dick (Jay's brother)'s ex, which akward,, i mean, overall these relationships just give me the icky... okay?? Sorry about this little detour. Moving on from this now. i just really needed to let it out.

RHATO (2016) actually started better... a lot better. The first 25 issues are interesting and have sweet moments that i really like. i said it before, but these 3 are my favourites together, until DC decided to ruin them as well... because why not. imo, RHATO (2016) did better because, well, despite being written by the same writer of RHATO (2011), this one actually fixed some of the problems of the previous one and the character dynamics between the main 3 were pretty solid (for the first 25 issues that is..). And that is because:

Jason and Artemis have great chemistry with each other either you look at it platonicaly or romantically.

Their banter is amazing and so funny.

Love that these Outlaws, especially Artemis, are more the type of "Jason gives an order like he is the leader, but they ignore it because they have a better plan" - that doesn't mean that Jay doesn't have his own good plans/ideas but him being the "main leader" is not as cut and dry as it was in RHATO (2011).

i like that Jay is the more emotional link of the Outlaws, aka he was the one that kept at first the Outlaws together.

The relationships between Artemis, Jason and Bizarro are just so sweet - like sorry, but they make my heart go mush, okay?

i like that even if the writer tried to write a romantic relationship between Jason and Artemis, that they, and especially Artemis, didn't put that much focus on it, it was something that existed in the background while they were more worried about other things, such as their missions and taking care of Bizarro.

But, after that things became kinda bad:

By the end of issue 25, Jason was beaten by Batman because "he killed Penguin" on live television (which btw Jason didn't actually kill him) and so Bruce beat him up pretty badly, some say even worse than he beats his villains.

Thou, i will give it to the story just the fact that i think it's interesting that things for Jason went to shit the moment he decided to go on his own after Penguin without his teammates, which kinda strenghtens the fact that Jason needs someone besides him when something bad happens to him or finds out something bad (like here when he finds out Penguin was responsable for his dad's imprisonment and death).

But a big problem: making Jason's established abusive father seem as some kind of "martyr for his family", even if he actually hurt his wife and son, at the time, more than anyone else. Also, that Jason actually went for it with believing his dad was a good guy and proudly went after Penguin while claiming to be Willis's son. Like, i don't think it's that unbelievable that Jay still cared for his dad, even if he hurt him and his mom a lot, but... the writing paints Willis too much like "a good guy trying to help his family that got involved with the wrong people" while letting Jason's mom and her importance to Jason on the sidelines or outright ignored - like, i know that in Post-crisis, more specifically in A Death in the Family that Willis was refered to as "a dad that made mistakes trying to help his family", but by this point in Rebirth (and with the New-52) Willis was established clearly as having been an abusive husband and father, and more clearly than ever... so, it's kinda fucked up that at this point the writer tried to kinda "hero-fy" him because he abandoned and abused his family for "the good of his family",, like that doesn't erase all the pain he caused his wife and son, either he meant to cause it or not. Also, they brushed over the importance Catherine had in Jay's life, when she was one of the most important people to him in Post-crisis.

Then Artemis and Bizarro are "taken away" from Jason because their multidimensional spaceship hideout went out of control and transported them to another place, leaving Jason alone with a pissed off Batman that wasn't finished with beating his son up, until Roy Harper appeared to save his friend.

After this, things get worse because Jay and Bruce reunite and easily make-up, without actually solving anything, which keeps them for the rest of Rebirth continuing a never ending cicle of: "we are at odds because of our desagreements -> one of us (mostly Bruce) does or says something very fucked up which causes a big fight -> they separate again -> some shenanigans happen and they are obrigated to work together again -> forgiveness or semi-forgiveness ensues -> part ways again -> cross paths again either intentionally or by accident -> repeat cicle again.

Eventually, Artemis and Bizarro return, but their character design is worse, like way worse, especially Artemis's that is just atrocious, being that she went from a well built muscly woman with a one piece suit to the super skiny woman that looks like she doesn't have organs in her abdomen wearing a top, because why not....

The relationships and dynamics between the main trio became weird and boring. Especially between Artemis and Jason, and Bizarro kinda gets ignored until he leaves to become king of the underworld, lol. Oh, and then Jason and Artemis kiss, reach the conclusion they think of each other as brothers rather than lovers (even if they fucking kissed a lot of times at that point), and when they part ways they are both sappy because "they know that what they said to each other then is not true but cannot be together" type bullshit... and like, what?? - i am gonna be honest, at first, ya know in the first 25 miracle issues, a romantic relationship between the 2 seemed sweet and okay, i actually liked it, even if they were kinda doing the "will they, won't they" thing, and honestly, i wouldn't even have been mad if they reached the conclusion that they work better in a platonic relationship than a romantic one, even if they still have romantic feelings for each other. But not the weird ass bullshit the writer pulled with this...

And the time Jason was solo was just mediocre story after mediocre story, uffff.

So, Jay finally kinda gets his own book (even if they technically aren't, as they are team-up books, but they are the closest thing to a Jason Todd solo book as we can get...), only for both to end up being awful for the most part... if only DC gave Jason a better writer. Like, thank everything that most probably Lobdell is never gonna be his writer again, but that doesn't necessarely mean that other writers that followed did him any better.

**Also,, what is somehow even worse is that these books are the ones that popularized in fandom this idea that "everytime a character is paired up with Jason in a Hero Team, they get ruined by him", which makes the dislike for Scott Lobdell and his writing even worse because this man just managed to ruin everything!!

DC is trying to reintegrate Jason into the Batfam - which is something good and could be interesting, but there are some things that are kinda bad/tiring about how they are going about it:

In the New-52 and Rebirth, DC redeemed Jason, thou with the New-52 it was kinda weird because they didn't exactly redeem the Jason that we knew at the end of Post-crisis, but a more "tone down" version of him, since they decided to change most of the characters' backstories in this new universe. And i can understand why DC did this especially for Jason, considering that by that point Post-crisis Jason has gone a little bit too far, to suddently begin a redemption arc with all the baggage "villain" Jason had. So, they basically started over, erasing all the Post-crisis Jason stories except for UTRH, and changed his backstory. One example of one of these changes, was that they retconned Lost Days and changed that part of Jason's story to him training not just with Talia in the League of Assassins but also with the All-Caste, being that Talia guided Jason to the All-Caste to protect him from her father. And then his redemption comes when, after UTRH, instead of Jason doing all the horrible things he did by the end of Post-crisis, he started working with the Batfam sometimes, even if he still did his vigilante anti-hero business mostly alone, and even if Batman didn't aprove of it and Jay's methods, and so, this is where the "Jason is an on and off member of the Batfam" thing started. And then the redemption continued with Jay founding the Outlaws with Arsenal and Starfire, starting working more with the batkids (even if they still were at odds with each other), appeared everytime there was an emergency,etc.

But, as most know, the New-52 has a lot of writing problems, especially considering that Jay and the Outlaws have Scott Lobdell as their main writer. The thing here, that is pretty frustating, is that these ideas with Jason had the potencial to be great,, i mean i do like that Jay got to redeem himself and get closer to his family, but it feels cheap, especially because, for example, DC really thought that in order for Jason to have, at least, a good relationship with Tim, they first had to completely erase the close relationship that Tim and Dick had as brothers (and don't get me started on Cass and what they did do her during this time)... because why not? i guess the Batkids are only allowed to get along with one sibling at a time now,, especially considering that the New-52 was the one that started the idea in fandom that Jason is Tim's favourite and Damian is Dick's favourite, and so Dick and Tim's brothers relationship is left in the wind to be obliterated.

And then, DC rebooted again, and continued with the redemption path for Jason in Rebirth, which was, like i said before, interesting, but then they kinda ruined it. Also, both in the New-52 and part of Rebirth Jason suffered from this limbo of "being or not being part of the family". And is especially frustating with the ever repetitive conflict that Jason and Bruce have. Like,, it does have some good moments and ideas, but the problem is that after a while they kinda become pretty repetitive with each story of Rebirth.... so, like, it would be nice if DC did something more to advance their characters' development and relationships, just saying... also, so much wasted potential with most of the ideas they bring up,, DC why don't you go with your ideas to the fullest instead of constantly keeping your characters in some kind of limbo, uffff.

Robin Jason flashbacks from the New-52 and Rebirth always being under the shadow of his death:

So, i did mention this in passing before, aka that i am tired of seeing DC canon in more recent comics only show Robin Jason as angry and violent. But the thing is,, i don't think they shouldn't show angry Robin Jason at all, they can obviously show that. But the problem is that they never focus on any other characteristics of Robin Jason. Like, even if the kid was angry and violent, that wasn't all that he was, he was also happy, he was also sad, he was also insecure, he also loved his family a lot,,, plus he wasn't angry just because of "teen angst" or "teen disagreements with Bruce", he was angry because of the injustices he and his parents went through and that other people keep going through in Gotham City. And i think it's also obvious at this point that Jason's anger and violent actions were just a protection mechanism he developed to protect himself on the streets and from his trauma. So like, DC should really tone down on bringing up Jason's anger so much, because he is not the "angry Robin", that is not all he is or ever was. Or, ya know, at least they could stop acting as if Jason being angry is just "senseless"/exaggerated.

And we all know at this point that DC does these "angry and violent Robin Jason" flashbacks because they always write with Jay's tragic ending in mind. Everything about Jason since he died, is about his death and only that, even if he has a lot of other more interesting things to explore and deal with than the trauma from his death and his shitty relationship with Bruce.

Jason just cannot have or keep close positive relationships:

It's just the fact that DC really has a problem in establishing Jay into some closer and definitive relationships, other than always having a "up and down" relationship with Bruce. Like, the Outlaws (aside from being ruined by writing), after they decide to eventually separate their ways, aren't put together anymore, for better or for worse, with the Batkids it's just the "we check on you only when something happens and we need your help or there is the possibility that you are going to go too far on a solo mission, aka if you go back into your killing and violence". And for the rest, even including his Robin years, he is mostly isolated from other people, especially people that belong to "his group" aka people of his age, background, generation, with same philosophy, etc. Just like,, why is this boy so alone,, wasn’t he suffered enough on his own?

Fandom also gives me a headache sometimes

Jason being either a feminist or a misogynist:

I am gonna be direct and say that the "Jason is misogynistic because he hurt Mia Dearden/other girls or women" and "Jason always drinks his respect women juice" crowds are weird and make no sense. And also kinda wrong (imo)... and why do i say this...

Well, the "Jason is a feminist/drinks his respect women juice" belief comes from the fact that Jay, at least as Robin, tended to get defensive of women when they were insulted and/or abused, especially when they were so by men, and because of the love he was for both his moms and the relationship and respect he has for Talia. Now, the thing is, this and other examples such as "how he showed respect for Onyx in UTRH because he worked with her and didn't underestimate her as an opponent, and helped her after he incapacitated her", isn't necessarely feminist, i would mostly call it respectively basic respect for other people, caring about vulnerable women because he is a good kid and a hero and because situations where women are suffering at the hands of men bring up his trauma from growing up with an abusive dad that especially hurt his mom, and not underestimating any opponent you come accross because in vigilantism and the world they live in anyone and anything can be quite dangerous if you are unprepared. So, in other words, Jay is a decent human being (even at his worst) that cares about the well being of others, especially people in vulnerable groups such as abused women, but he doesn't have any beliefs or actions that, imo, "make him feminist". Or an outstanding feminist, especially when other characters, that are both heroes and villains, have shown this type of behaviour towards women. Thou,, and i am about to kinda contradict myself,, just reading Jason's Post-crisis stories until UTRH, saying that Jason is a feminist/cares about women being hurt by men is valid, and especially as he is shown to have empathy towards the victims he encounters,, and even more than Bruce was ever shown to have to this type of victims... so that is an interesting and valid point, imo. So, it seems like a weird limbo that is somehow made worse by RHATO's writing bacause ya know, Lobdell,... but ya, i don't think calling Jason a feminist is that wrong either, maybe it depends on the writing you pick, because, ya know, he really has inconsistent writing (the pain of loving Jason Todd T-T).

The "Jason is a misogynist" side believe this because Jay was had many times, especially by the end of Post-crisis when he kinda went too much off the rails in his "crazy villain persona", hurt and insulted women. Which valid, i guess, some can interpret some of his actions and statements during this time as sexist towards women... but the thing is, or actually 2:

Writers projecting their own prejudices towards women through Jason, like for example in how he behaved towards Donna in Countdown. But in that event everyone was pretty ooc, the story was very long and a mess, and Jay during this time was written as being an ass to anything and anyone, so...

Most of the times Jason fought a woman/girl it had nothing to do with them being women - actually if Jason fighting, hurting, insulting and causing trauma and/or awekening past trauma into other characters is misogynistic, then when he does it to boys/men (like he did to Bruce, Dick, Tim, Oliver, etc.), does that mean he is being a misandrist?? Like, what kind of logic is that? - what Jason is actually doing through his horrible actions is getting revenge and spreading on to others his trauma, his pain and suffering. Is he right in doing it, especially to characters he barelly knows and have nothing to do with his pain, such as Mia, Onyx and even Tim and the Titans? Fuck no! But he is not a misogynist through these actions, sorry to say this, but i really don't think he is.

Saying that Jason doesn't care about either women and/or children:

This is a tricky one... and that is because i, and many other fans for that matter, said/say that Jason doesn't necessarely have a "special care for women and children" in a sense. But like i said before he does care, a lot. And it's always nice when we have stories where he is shown doing that (Like in Urban Legends: Cheer and Task Force Z, even if these stories have other problems..), because certain writers (like Winick and Lobdell) kinda forgot about this side of Jason. Jason cares!!!! He cares!! And that is important to point out about Jason because, while, like i said before, this is not a "special/unique" characteristic of Jay like some fans make it out to be, it is important and special for just Jason as a character because he was been protrayed as uncaring, an ass and outright villain before, and, unfortunatly, that protrayal is the one that is the most present in most people's minds (mostly because of the popularity of the story UTRH). So ya, even if Jason did hurt people that didn't deserve it at all and that make part of the group of women and children, that doesn't completely erase or contradict the fact that Jason cares and wants to help (plus reasons i said before like shitty writing that makes no sense and that the people he attacked could still defend themselves or had the capacity to, so like he didn't hurt or go after civilians, ya know. Again, it doesn't justify or make it less of an evil what he did to those people, even if they are trained heroes, but it's also not something that invalidates the statement "Jason cares about people" - it's about nuance). Also,, even if i said that perhaps, by how Jay was written sometimes, that "he doesn't have a special mission in protecting women and children", he actually does, but he isn't shown doing that directly, as he is mostly shown just killing and/or beating the guys that hurt women and children,, which i think is what, paired up with him hurting characters like Mia Dearden, Tim Drake and Damian Wayne, and this hurting actually being depicted directly on panel,, leads other fans to find it "unbelievable that Jay actually gives a damn about women and children when he did this to this specific women/girls and children".

Making people that like Jason or want to defend Jason or discuss his wrong doings feel as being held at gunpoint because people aren't allowed share their opinion either against him, favouring him or even a balance of both (this applies to all fans, including Jason Todd fans, obviously):

Okay so... one thing that i noticed is that people cannot seem to be able to have civil discussions about Jason, in a way. Like, no matter what stance people take on the character, there is always someone ready to "shut you up" because they don't agree with your analysis and/or opinion on the character. Also, yes, this happens with fans of other characters too, but, for some reason, Jason is one of those characters that seems to bring up the most heated discussions in DC fandom.

Also, while yes and obviously, people are allowed to and should interact with posts they disagree with and explain why they disagree, there are some people that take it too far. And i also think this problem comes from the fact that people tend to "cherry-pick" the version of the character that they consider canon. For example, there are people that, because they prefer the stories from Post-crisis, the only valid version of the characters for them is that one, other people prefer the New-52 and/or Rebirth, or they actually prefer the headcanons version of the character because canon is too much of a mess to understand. And honestly, i think they are all valid. The problem comes when people seem to not distinguish "serious discussions, analysis and criticisms" of the actual canon and "fun post that can be either based in canon or just headcanon". Plus, not every jab a person does to a character is a serious criticism or an actual critical post about that character, sometimes they are just dumb jokes that actual fans/people that love that character do for fun. Being a fan of a character doesn't mean defending the character 24/7 or that if they make a joke on the expense of that character that they now hate them... like, we are here mostly to have fun with our favourite characters, and that includes making fun of them and their flaws as much as analyzing and defending them. And also, loving a character doesn't mean that you don't see or talk about that character's flaws and mistakes, as they are. Not everything your favourite character does was to have a moral/positive explanation, sometimes characters can just be shitty people and that is fine.

Also, i don't understand why, but some Jason Todd fans literally act as if he is the only character with bad writing, when like all characters have suffered from it. Heck, some characters even outright disapeared for decades at this point, even if they still have fans that talk and make content about them to this day.

And well, if Jay has bad writing that makes no sense for his character, so do other characters as well -> i am specifically pointing this out because sometimes people do bring up certain characters' bad actions from a certain comic where they were written by someone that seems to not know shit about the characters and made horrible decisions such as making them say something misogynist, for e.g. And some of you people really hold on, like, 3 shitty panels from a comic from 2 decades ago to prove "how bad/sexist/racist/etc" a character is, when they are completely ignoring who the writer is, if what that writer wrote makes sense with what is mostly know/established about that character, if it still applies in more recent comics with the most recent version/characterization of the character. Like, i am not saying people cannot talk about these scenes/panels and criticise/complain about them, like they can, everyone can, but first there is the need to make clear the context of the panels, who wrote it/what era is that comic from (sometimes just this explains a lot) and maybe say at the end "thank fuck they don't write that character like that anymore" or something else along those lines - because ya know context matters in this stuff and while, yes, everything that was written and published by DC comics is canon, i think it's also important to understand where the character is at now compared to that "bad writing version of them" and how this "bad version" compares to other writing from the past or same time of that specific comic. Sometimes that "bad version" is just a speck in an ocean of some pretty good or just decent writing of that character.

Jason fans seem to always be arguing and dividing themselves with black and white ideas of how Jason is, and especially on how he was as Robin:

So... just like anything and any other character fandom out there, the fans tend to also separate themselves in groups defined by what they choose to believe about a certain character. Especially with such complicated characters as the ones from comics that have like a billion versions of themselves.

When it comes to Jason, people devide themselves into very specific ways they see him, for e.g. the most known fractions are:

Robin Jason was an innocent happy boy until modern comics came and ruined it by making him angry out of nowhere (which makes no sense when Post-crisis Jason was shown "doing violence" since his introduction. i mean ya, it was in self-defence when he was scared by Batman finding him stealing his car's tires. But like,, sometimes these people act like the mere thought of Jason doing anything violent or being angry is impossible or complete character assassination when it makes sense that Jay would be phycally and emotionally protective of himself with violence and anger due to his trauma, hard time having to survive alone on the streets and dealing emotionally with all he was been through).

Robin Jason was angry and violent 24/7 (okay this is a general exaggeration, but there are people that think that Jay was mostly angry as Robin, when like during his original Post-crisis comic run he had like 4 big "anger and violence" moments and they all had understanding reasons on Jason's part to be angry and become violent with who he did).

The "the fault is on the Lazarus Pit" crowd (or just on anything and anyone else except Jason himself,, which is kinda ironic because Jason in canon, even at his worse, always took responsability for his violent actions, so...).

Jason is the big protector of women and children (i already wrote what i had to write about this).

And like, these examples and many other fractions, aren't wrong about these characterizations, because, yes, these come from canon, but, again, the problem is with people focusing solelly on one of these sets of characterization, to the point where they ignore the other parts of the character - aka they flanderize the character - which is pretty annoying tbh.

DC fans that claim that the only reason Jason is angry when he returns as the Red Hood is because of his death:

First of all, i know that some people just joke about this in the sense that "it is ridiculous that Jason is angry at the world because he died, when so many other characters have been tortured, have died and returned from the dead in the comics, and especially in DC. So, him and his trauma are not that special". And while i get where the joke comes from, and that DC's most recent writing of Jay's trauma just focusing on on his death at the hands of the Joker doesn't help it. But,, Jason's main issues and trauma don't relate that much to his death,, actually it can be argued that since he returned from the dead that he doesn't really care if he dies again. i don't think that "his greateast fear is to die again", as some seem to believe. i said it before and i will say it again,, Jason's trauma relates more to being let down by his loved ones, especially by his parental figures, feeling like he doesn't matter enough to his dad (aka Bruce) and that the systems that hurt him and continue to hurt others are still rolling and going without any significant change. (For not saying that he never, even to this day, got Justice for what Joker did to him,, which is also ironic because, ya know, Batman and DC's stories are all about Justice... i know this is more complex than this, but this is often a point that gets dismissed to a degree in discussions about Jason and why he wants revenge on the Joker and Bruce. It's not about him dying, it's about not having Justice for himself when he has a father figure that could give him that, but as we all know he didn't, at least not how Jason needed/expected it,, and the fact that Joker still keeps hurting people to this day - thou this problem also comes from the fact that for meta reasons, DC cannot kill the Joker to "give Jason some peace", because he is one of the most popular characters, villains and antagonists to Batman, so there is that).

And while, like i wrote before, people are allowed to joke about Jay "being too emotional over dying, when others have died too and haven't done what he did because of it", i think it's also important to understand that, well, that is actually an exaggeration, ya know, reducing/flanderizing Jason to just "a violent crybaby that is angry at the world just because he died", which again, gives a very reduced and wrong idea about the character to people that don't know much about him. Which is kinda ironic, imo, because sometimes the same people that either joke or seriously describe Jason like this will lose their shit on other people's joke posts about the characters they like more, so like??

Just... ya know the saying -> if you are going to joke/shit/criticise/be mad at a character at least do it about stuff they actually did and/or characteristics that are more consistently shown through out their canon writing.

There seems to be a lack of empathy (especially this one)/sympathy towards Jason coming from a meta level (writers and fans) and the in-universe people (aka characters in Jason's story)

i know that this part just by the title alone can come off as a little bit "dumb", because i am basically saying that no one understands Jason Todd,, which is ridiculous because i didn't create him and, tecnically speaking, the ones that know him the most are the people that created him, wrote him and own him, aka DC comics and their writers. Which is funny considering that for the most part of this post and most Jason Todd fans are always criticising and complaining about Jay's writing. But i think that when we say that "no one understands Jason Todd", we tend to refer more to the modern interpretations and writers of the character. Thou, when i say that other characters don't understand Jason in-universe that is totally right.

(Little note here: i am gonna come off as pretty critical of Bruce and his treatment of Jason. Though that doesn't mean that i think Bruce doesn't love his son. Also, Bruce loving Jay doesn't mean he understands his son, and him not understanding his son doesn't mean he doesn't love him. Bruce loves his son, and Jason loves his dad, they love each other a lot... the problem is them misunderstanding each other.)

So,, let's start this section by taking a step back to Post-crisis Robin Jason and keep going from there.

Jason is introduced to us and Batman as a street kid that had "...stones to rip off the Batman´s buggy--". And Jason's first response to seeing Batman is to hit him with the tire iron and run to his hideout. We see he is alone, defensive and that he misses his mother, and he is making everything he can to survive. This is also where we see Jay have a "sense of justice" or at least an understanding that, even if he also steals, there is a difference between him and other people stealing to survive and stealing for more selfish means, like Ma Gunn was doing in Jason's intro story. So, it is made very clear that Jay is not just some punk that enjoys stealing or hurting or seeing people being wronged and used, like the boys that were sent to Ma Gunn's school were (which fair, included Jason at the time, but he didn't have that much of a hard time running from her. For not saying that when he did he still thought by himself to go after her, when he could have just taken his new stolen tire and simply go home, without returning to help Batman). Then he is taken in by Bruce and he is happy being Robin and staying with Bruce for quite a while.

But... the lack of empathy already begins to show through Bruce, that doesn't seem to wrap his head around what Jason needs to heal from his trauma, and comes off more as patronizing when he "teaches Jason about how to do Justice in their Unjust world", which comes off as even worse when you think about the fact that he is telling that to a kid that was seen and lived those injustices practically since day one. And that is because Bruce cannot get out of his own vision of justice and of healing after a traumatic experience. And especially because Bruce doesn't seem to grasp that Jason's trauma is based on a lot of more difficult and traumatic moments than just having a single defining traumatic moment that changed his path in life forever in a big way, like it happened to Bruce and Dick when their parents died (i know that Bruce and Dick suffered through other traumatic events after their parents' deaths and especially as vigilantes, but the point i am trying to make is that, after becoming heroes and having dealt with their biggest trauma through finding ways to do Justice, they eventually "got used" in how to deal with current and future traumatic events, while Jason as just a 12-year-old kid went through too many traumatic things at such a very young age which compiled into his overall trauma, so it's not just dealing with one single defining moment of trauma, it's a colection of more of those from even before Jay became Robin - and that's what Bruce seemed to miss - also, that not everyone is gonna deal with their trauma, even if it is similar, the same way he did, like sometimes he really forgets that, especially when it comes to his children). But,, even with this in mind, i and others actually think that the writing here, including a little after Jay's death, was more sympathetic (at least) towards Jay's situation than next comics and writers were - and that is because at least, originally, despite Bruce lacking some understanding in how to help Jason, he actually did try with Jay and there wasn't that much villainization of Jay's behaviour, either coming from the writing or from Bruce himself,, considering that, at least, Bruce blames himself for Jason's death instead of the blame being put on Jay completely, and Bruce did try to understand and help Jay before, even if he took a while to "try to do something" and he still failed his son. Thou, there is also a disregard towards Jay's situation coming from other characters as well, such as when the Titans, that together with Bruce, would say things that compared Jason to Dick, and obviously more in the sense of "Dick was amazing, hopeful, less angry, etc., than you are as Robin", which obviously contributed to Jason's insecurities.

And while previous writing of the characters makes them "miss the mark" in understanding Jason,, which can just be seen as a character flaw and a indicator of the fact that the Heroes that existed and that Jay encountered at that time just didn't have similar experiences to Jay to make it easier to understand him and that they all were being kinda "narrow minded" because they missed when their friend, Dick, was Robin,, at least the writing of the story and certain parallels between Jason and some victims he and Bruce encountered did give some validity to how Jason feels.

Then Jay dies, the story when Bruce "beats himself" over Jason's death passes, which fine, quite valid, the characters need to move on. But... the next Post-crisis writers decided to turn Jay from a tragic and misfortunate story to a cautionary tale - and this is where the victim blaming of Jason Todd starts to happen.

So, from this point on the writing starts to look at Jason more as a failure that all young heroes need to avoid becoming. Then this is made even worse when Tim Drake comes around, as the new and cooler Robin that is also more relatable, with some comparisons and jokes made at the expense of Jason and his tragedy, which makes the perception of Jason as a failure even worse. Like, DC was really so stupid that they thought that putting emphansis on Tim's perspective on a kid that he knows next to nothing about was the best and correct way to look at Jason in their overall writing... they didn't even try in making other characters that actually knew Jason, like Dick and Bruce, correct Tim on his assumptions - and why is that?? Well, obviously, because DC really wanted to drive home to the readers that Jason was the "bad angry Robin that got himself killed because of his recklessness"... like it can even be said that Tim showed more respect to Jason's Robin memorial than he did Jason as a person. And while Tim making wrong and bad assumptions about Jay is okay, and again, something that can be seen as a character flaw to explore,, the fact that the writers just chose to reinforce Tim's vision of Jason through other characters is just so stupid and makes it look like no one really knew or even cared about Jason Todd, because they needed to focus on "Jason being the bad Robin" narrative. And again,, the fact that characters that knew and were close to Jason, aka Bruce, Alfred and Dick, didn't correct Tim and contributed, and might even given this idea since the begining to Tim viewing Jason as being too "angry and reckless" and that this is what got him killed, could have been used to explore this flawed vision of Jason that these characters had of him as something that was the result of grief, and perhaps of denial that they failed him (especially in Bruce's case that was there when Jay died)... but naw DC just decided to make everyone seem like assholes towards Jay's memory, a 15-year-old kid that died trying to save his mother (which wow, how tf did no one realize how this came accross when DC wrote and published this...).

Thou, as ironic as it might sound, after Jay digs himself out of his grave (because this poor boy can never have any rest) and spends one year in a coma and then waking up and walking catatonic through the streets of Gotham all alone for almost another year, the person that ends up showing him the most understanding is Talia al Ghul, even if at first she might have just cared about her own plans. So, she is the one that shows and gives affection to Jason, trains him and actually gives him the tools to start his path of healing, even if it is filled with more violence than ever before and revenge. And this is where Jason is finally able to "let loose" to show the world his anger towards it's injustice, where he goes after horrible people that hurt innocents and ends their torture of others once and for all, and he actually gets to show and tell Bruce and the Heroes that they failed him and that their methods might not be as good/effective as they think.

But, this is where people also start (both writers and especially readers) not liking Jason even more or to outright hating him, which fair, he did do some actions towards certain people that, no matter how you look at it, always will be wrong and outright horrible. Which might turn Jason into a little bit of an hypocrite himself, just like Bruce and other Heroes. And while it's not a problem, at all, to critique Jason’s actions when he returned as the Red Hood, this is often used to downplay or outright dismiss Jason’s pain and at least the sympathy that he should still have (or even actually have to begin with) from the writers, audience and in-universe characters. Even as he redeems himself and shows regrets about his actions that he did during his worse time, in more recent stories, people will never forget or forgive and stop holding over his character what a "horrible person he is for his mistakes", even if in the real world it was been 12 years since he started his redemption and in-universe, for a couple of years (at least around 2 years, not sure because comics timelines and ages are a mess, but for quite sometime now either way) he has been putting in the effort to respect his father's wishes and become a "better vigilante" that doesn't kill.

But either way it is put,, Jay doesn't seem to have the right to be right in any capacity anymore, to have valid reasons to still be mad but move on from it just being about his death, and going back to being about the other trauma he went through, which almost everyone seems to have forgotten about, especially because the newest writers or DC superiors forgot about it or outright erased it. So, the parts that gave a "clear reason" to feel for and understand Jason were thrown out of the window so they could just make a back and forth between Jay and Batman, where Bruce is mostly the one in the right, despite being the one that failed so many times at helping his son, and a lot of times being the one that caused Jay more pain than anything or anyone else.

And, honestly, the people that use the "Pit Madness" excuse/explanation aren't giving Jason understanding either, they are just giving him an out so the character can be "redeemed" without actually having anything to redeem himself for,, after all it isn't his fault, so why would he need to take responsability or have a valid reason to do what he did, he simply doesn't have a reason, it's just the Pit controling him and his anger or something. Like a puppet... which comes off more as "fake sympathy" because these people seem to only be capable to empathize/sympathise with Jay if he wasn't in control of his violent actions.

Also, maybe he doesn't need/deserve to be forgiven for the way he hurt people that didn't deserve it (such as Mia, Onyx and Tim), but he does deserve at least some understanding, and understanding doesn't mean you agree to his methods, to how he went about "warning Batman and the Hero community of their errors". And it's a damn shame that this seems to be a hard concept for some writers and fans to grasp.

Plus, it's also such a shame that nowadays writing decided to "corrupt" the little that Jay had as Robin by painting him as an angry and violent punk with no good reasons for why he is like he is. Where is that understanding for that kid that went through such a hard life, that just continued and continues to give him nothing but hardships and pain.

So,, i just wanted to conclude that i think Jason had enough of people (both in meta and in-universe) only painting him as if he is "one of the worst people there was/is", that he deserved the pain he went through, claiming that he had no way to have it better, when that couldn't be further from the truth, if he was properly given the chance to grow out of the cycle of violence and pain, that he still wasn’t fully able to move away from even to this day.

Ending my headaches with this post

Generally, i think it's so funny to think about how much our generation gets attached to fictional characters in such a personal way. And while it is valid to feel and express either positive or negative feelings towards a character and their actions, i think that these need to be more balanced and about things that are true about the character, aka coming from canon, as much as canon gives us so many shitty ideas and some really questionable writing choices. Like, at this point i am so tired that DC keeps doing this to Jay... DC, just please make up your mind once and for all in either or not you want Jay to be part of the Batfam and give him something else to do besides always being at odds with his family and going back and forth in working with and not working with them... just find some basic consistency with him, we ain't asking for much.

And again, just because i love Jason and i did defend him more than criticised him during this post, that doesn't mean that i agree or defend everything he did and/or believed/believes in,, i just enjoy his character and some stories (or really the potential that he had/has) and to discuss about it. But sometimes the writing and some fan opinions really annoy me so much, so i feel the need to camplain about them... so, this is why i made this rant on Jason Todd, one of my favourite characters, despite all the shit he gets.

Anyway,, thanks for coming and reading another one of my Jason Todd rants.

#jason todd #robin #red hood #dc critical #fandom critical #dc meta #dc comics #dc #alexa talks here

[kevlarninja]

Batgirls is Good, Actually

I haven't just posted thoughts about a comic I've been reading in literal years. And I wanted to post a bit about the recent Batgirls series.

I first heard of it when I heard that Cassandra Caine was Batgirl again along with Stephine Brown. But I also heard that the book was "cringe" and "poorly written."

Now, of course, I have learned over the years that when something is called "cringe," especially if the leads are on the younger side of things, especially if those leads are female, it's often people being performatively mad at something they didn't even read half the time. That and, frankly, I have just had enough of social media discourse around "X piece of media is TERRIBLE" because half the time it's overblown and people just join in on a bandwagon or have the worst takes. Just exhausting. Anyway, I just saw "Cass Caine is in a book with really cool art. I have to see this.

I did not regret it.

Now, I will say, unlike a lot of recent comics I've seen a lot of people online get mad at, I can't really say it's for overtly bigoted reasons. Which is surprising (and kinda sad really) to say about a book where the three main leads are female and one is non-white.

I don't even think the criticisms are invalid, really. But I think to call the book "terrible" is too strong. I thought it was a fun time and thought I'd bring up some of the issues people bring up and my thoughts.

The Narration

Now this is something I generally agree with folks on. The narration was too much at times. In the above page, you can see the narration captions describing what's plainly obvious like this is a comic from decades earlier.

Now, this is a more comedic book, and while comedy is subjective, there are also rules of thumb for understanding it. And I feel these captions either try way too hard at times to shove in jokes, or ruin the joke they are trying to make by not just stopping and adding another line that ruins what could have been a nice sly line.

That said, this one panel was great and actually what made me want to track down a trade of this.

2. The Characterization

I've seen people talk about the characterization of the characters being wrong here. And, listen, I get it. Babs is kind of dumber than usual in this book.

But I see people talk about Cass being out of character and....

...well, I feel conflicted..

Cards on the table, I follow Marvel more closely than DC (or used to anyway, before the pandemic caused me to fall off comics for a few years). And I'm more familiar with Cass's character pre-New 52/Rebirth. So I don't know how her characterization differs in that sense.

But generally? For a book with a more comedic slant, so everyone's characterization is more broad? I think it works. It feels right (especially with my head canon of reading Cass as Autistic) that Cass is kind of blunt and socially awkward.

*Nodding intensifies*

But yeah, I think Batgirls is enjoyable for what it is and frankly a little over-hated online.

That said, one thing I did roll my eyes at, dirty pinko that I am, was the villain of the first arc, Tutor. It's basically the whole MCU Flag-Smashers "what if all the people rebelling against the status quo are actually evil terrorists?" kind of plot. This isn't a great look when you already are setting up a team of villains who are part of the police state. But it's not enough to kill the book for me either.

#dc comics #comic books #appreciation post #batgirls #cassandra cain #stephanie brown

[fantastic-nonsense]

Do you have any post about didio's hatred of legacy characters? I forget if that was an actual stated thing or if it was just assumed. I vaugely recall him hating Dick Grayson specifically.

I don't have any posts, but here's the shorter version of a better-sourced post I might make about it some day:

Dan Didio notoriously disdains legacy characters, particularly ones which have eclipsed their earlier gen mentor figures in popularity (see: Wally West). He USUALLY will not say this outright in interviews; you have to read between the lines between what he's saying and not saying. But the sentiment is obvious for anyone who does read between those lines, and people around him have talked about his general dislike of legacies on multiple occasions.

The long-and-short of it is that he feels that legacies, particularly ones who were allowed to grow up and become their own independent heroes like the Fab 5, make the "originals" look old and outdated. He doesn't like that legacies inherently age older heroes and make them more mature, and he doesn't like that the story of a legacy is inherently about growing up and either accepting or rejecting what your mentor has taught you. A fully grown, independent, and successful Nightwing makes Batman look old, which he can't stand. Likewise, a Wally West who has taken Barry's place as Flash and eclipsed him in pop culture popularity makes Barry irrelevant in his mind.

He also has very weird and frankly wrong conceptual issues with legacies taking over their mentor's mantles; he thinks it makes them "too similar" to their mentors and unable to stand on their own as characters (this is his core issue with Wally, for some reason). He has a special dislike of Dick Grayson and is notorious for wanting him killed off in Infinite Crisis, which writers like Mark Waid and Geoff Johns have talked about before and Didio himself has commented on:

His dislike of Dick in particular exists for a lot of reasons, but there are two main issues that pop up again and again during interviews: he thinks Nightwing ages Batman too much (which he hates)...and he thinks a "happy Batman is the end of Batman."

Dick tends to be the focus of his ire because he was the first legacy hero, the first of Bruce's children, and has been the second most successful breakout legacy character at DC Comics (with the first being Wally), but there's a part of me that thinks he hates the concept of the Batfamily more than he dislikes any singular legacy Bat hero given his various editorial edicts (not letting Batcat get married, not letting Kate and Maggie get married, erasing most of the Batfam during the New 52, ordering Lobdell to write the Ric arc, etc). He doesn't think heroes should have happy personal lives (Batman least of all) and to Didio, having grown and successful children who have succeeded beyond Bruce's wildest dreams counts.

Ultimately, he's a 62-year-old fanboy who does not want to move beyond the Silver Age. He wants his heroes and favorite teams to remain just as they were in the 70s, when he was a kid. He doesnt like characters to mature and grow as adults, he wants teen characters to stay teenagers forever, and he wants his heroes to have sucky personal lives and ruined relationships because he thinks it makes them more relatable. Happy hero families with successful legacy characters undermines those desires. I'm glad he's no longer in charge of DC Comics.

#dan didio #anti dan didio #dc fanwank #asks #dc comics #batman #dick grayson #nightwing #wally west #I have......a LOT to say about Didio that I am very consciously and pointedly not saying in this ask #(namely: BARRY ISN'T EVEN THE ORIGINAL FLASH HE'S A LEGACY TOO...BUT NOOOO WE CAN'T MENTION JAY GARRICK IN THIS HOUSE)

[personasintro]

Mimi ch 53 was a rollercoaster ride like my mind can’t absorb what was happening. But first let me thank you for working so hard on this and every other one of your story and sharing this with us 🫶🏼🫶🏼 Anyway some of my thoughts…

1. Its good that jk told his family about what happened. Sometimes we do need time on our own to process and accept what happened and him feeling like it is okay to share the burden now, somehow feels like he is finally ready, really ready to let go and move forward with his life. 💝

2. Ohhh them finally doing it raw is like the sexiest smut I have ever read. The teasing, anticipation then finally going at it is like okay. Yn riding his face and her squirting omg she’s so hot like dude give her to meeee 🫠

3. Yn moving out and Jimin calling them out on their situationship.. I kinda feel like there’s something more out this and it will affect how the rest of the story will pan out which leads me to my next one

4. Jk inviting Ester and missing on the communication like he suddenly brought this up a few days before the trip itself. I dunno but when yn was still living with him from ch 46-52, they never really argued. They communicated the best and now that they did the deed, and yn out of his apartment, it kinda feels like jk doesn’t care anymore and he can do whatever he wants. That is just me though. Yn might have overreacted a bit, but jk calling her selfish and childish and saying ester is his friend too like her and yn are on the same level is.. uncalled for I guess. Can we just go and inhale the Busan air back?? 🥲

5. When they were in Busan, jk acted so clingy and so boyfriend to yn. Which makes me think like finally, things are looking up and these two might fall in love with eo. But after this chapter it seems to me that jk only ever sees her as a bestfriend and that all it is is just fun and casual sex with him as what they tell their friends that they are JUST hooking up- for him it might be what it is. I cant say the same for yn because it seems like she’s falling for him even if she’s not yet aware about it.

Anyway sorry for this long ask. I thoroughly enjoyed the story even its giving me a a bit of anxiety hahaha excited to see what Yoongs will bring to the table. If his and ester character will bring the positive - yn and jk realising they like eo more than friends. Or not so positive as in yn and jk starting a relationship with other people. Either way I just hope they don’t actually ruin their friendship. You did such a good job of portraying the characters like readers genuinely love them or hate them, that’s how great you are as a writer!! Also, you keeping us on our toes all the freakin time is genius! I swear I don’t know where the story is leading us for sure but we’re here for the sweet long ride 🫶🏼

Thank you for reading this chapter and sending this in!! 💗

1. It does feel oddly freeing, doesn’t it? It would be completely fine if he decided not to tell them. Partly, he did tell them because he saw they see a few changes in him. But he told them when he was ready and that’s the most important thing 🫶

2. 🔥🔥🔥 that’s all I’m saying hehe glad you enjoyed those moments!!

3. Jimin definitely thinks this is not a good idea!

4. I mean… he can still do whatever he wants 🫢 in jk’s defense he did tell them as soon as he saw them, maybe he didn’t even consider it as big news or something that should cause an argument. If you look at it generally, it’s not a big deal at all. Only y/n made it a big deal. But yes, you’re right he definitely shouldn’t compare them but jk is still a man, there are a few things he doesn’t see like we do haha 🤭 Busan air is well needed in this situation!

5. Well, firstly they’re friends than anything else. From their point of view, they’re having fun. They have an amazing chemistry 🌪️

Thank you so much for this feedback! There are a lot of exciting things about to happen, I can’t wait to read them!! 💗🫶

#ask #ask: mutual help

[electricprincess96]

I have seen the fucking Muzzle Jason Design in the wild again and the angry eye twitching happened and the only thing that stopped it was reminding myself it could be worse he could be Pill Helmeted Ginger Jason.... its the fact that design is in fact only a tiny bit worse in my overall Jason Todd designs.... think about that, that's how much I despise that Muzzle design on conceptual and SPIRITUAL level.

Because I know actually visually it's significantly better... for anyone not called Jason Todd/Red Hood. Give that design to a brand new character and I'd say its great. It's the fact we had PERFECTION and they ruined it and stripped Jason of all his unique characteristics and made him look so Generic Video Game Character like.

Just please DC give my boy his helmet back (and I do mean his Under the Red Hood/New 52/OG Rebirth Helmet, none of this Used Tampon looking shit) and his leather jackets. I can live with some of the rest (I will never like the crowbar but honestly I can argue against that one later, the helmet and jacket are more important to me).

It does actually shock even me how angry that design makes me because it is just proof to me that DC and to a lesser extent some of Jason's own fans fundamentally do not understand him at all.

For anyone who sees this and wants to argue with me on that design, don't bother I will ignore you.

#batman comics blogging #dc comics blogging #jason red hood todd

[adalance]

I have had this thought,nothing ruined the general perception of Wonder Woman like DCAU!Wonder Woman. The way she was portrayed in that show is why people see her as this warrior first type character, it's why the amazons have such a terrible reputation. That show did it before the new 52, before she killed Maxwell Lord.

That show made them man haters without the full context of their isolation and the reasons behind it. They did not go over the victimization the amazons experienced at the hands of men, it did not delve into that due to that victimization the amazons opted for isolation, and that isolation was due to fear not hate (and themyscira was a punishment). They had hippolyta fucking BANISH Diana for some fucking bullshit. Why not do the "sending a champion" route?

Let me not get started on Diana herself. The key aspect of Diana was that she was not supposed to have the same fear and distrust of Man's World as her sisters, which is why she was so fit to be champion (beyond the fact she won the tournament). She did not face the same oppression and victimization that her sisters experienced, so how they portrayed her in this weird ass misandrist way was fucking dumb.

I know it's an early 2000s show but they handled the feminist aspects of Wonder Woman so terribly. They totally missed the mark on her pacifist nature. Where was her general kindness? She was this strawman misandrist character that dudes would point to and say "see? Feminism is terrible".

I swear they were trying to make it into this "both sides" bullshit with Diana and the amazons. This is something that occurs ALOT in adaptations of the amazons, they are so afraid of delving into the violence, trauma, and victimization women experience at the hands of men and just make the amazons something they are not supposed to be. They are agents of love and peace, Diana is supposed to be the biggest symbol of that.

But the creators of that show did not care about that, they did not care about Wonder Woman. All they cared about was having her have the hots for Batman. They did make her quite the powerhouse in that show, so I will give them that I guess but personality wise, what a total miss on the mark.

P.S.

The mischaracterization of Diana in that show is why I hate wonderbats I think.

#wonder woman #diana of themyscira #diance prince #themyscira #hippolyta #amazons #DC #i have come to really dislike that cartoon #its the reason why this perception of wonder woman being a warrior first exist #it started there

[pluckyredhead]

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

Oh friend, there are SO MANY. Here is a short list of absolutely garbage stories:

Literally anything from the Silver Age with fucking Comet

For the Man Who Has Everything

The Killing Joke

All of the gross stuff with Carol Ferris and the Predator (no, not that Predator)

Power Girl's magical baby

JLA: Created Equal, I just read this last week and it is AWFUL

The Archer's Quest

Graduation Day

Like every single Supergirl storyline from her reintroduction in the 2000s up until the Gates/Igle run

Identity Crisis

Countdown to Infinite Crisis

Cry for Justice/Rise of Arsenal (and to the anon who asked me to talk about why this is so bad, I still have your ask and will answer it when I am strong enough, I promise!)

Justice League: Generation Lost

Superman/Wonder Woman

Anything that incorporates the Watchmen characters into the DC universe - way to have ethics, guys

Heroes in Crisis

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

The Human Target

Actually, just put anything by Tom King on here

...and probably others I'm not thinking of at the moment!

But the ultimate, for me, is Flashpoint. I've never even read it, I just loathe it for creating the New 52, which came very close to ruining comics for me for years. "Let's throw out decades of history for confusing, micromanaged, aggressively same-y grim 'n' gritty stories! And while we're at it, let's fire most of the women working for us and alienate a large chunk of the men!" What an awful idea. I will truly never be over it.

#meme

[bi4bihankking]

okay so uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Kara

I am assuming Supergirl not Power Girl for this one

Sexuality Headcanon: Bisexual Gender Headcanon: ...trans girl supergirl A ship I have with said character: Please I don't know where the discourse traps are, I don't really ship her A BROTP I have with said character: Batgirl! A NOTP I have with said character: Her horse A random headcanon: She still talks to Linda Danvers on the phone every single weekend. General Opinion over said character: I feel like she is interesting in her own comics and I think I read a few (New 52 unfortunately) but she might have been ruined by the show making her just fem Clark

#kara zor el

[ectonurites]

Why are people mad about YJA? Don’t some people hate the Joker/Killing Joke connection to Barbara’s disability and Oracle origin? It’s not like Cass did it on purpose either. I don’t understand how this ruins her character. Why are some comic book purists so annoying?

1. coming onto a blog as focused on the comics universe as mine is and trying to complain about 'comic book purists' is just.... read the room

2. I don't think it necessarily ruins Cass's character (like, I never said that and honestly I haven't really even seen anyone specifically say that about this) but it's a change I actively dislike.

3. The relationship between TKJ and Babs as Oracle is very complicated, and seeing a story have a different take on how she becomes disabled isn't an unwelcomed thing (Shadow of the Batgirl just said there was 'an accident' and didn't elaborate further, which I think worked fine) but this specific way of changing it I dislike.

After spending some more time mulling this over (past my initial reaction, so this has a different take than what I had said earlier because I don't even think what I said there would really have been what I wanted either), here are my general thoughts:

I think the problem with all of this is less about the specific actions that happened and more the implications of them/what they mean for the characters, because this situation as a whole centers Cass's motivation around another separate person entirely.

As it was originally presented before The New 52, Cass had killed one person as a child not understanding what she was doing until the moment it was too late, and she ran off on her own, horrified by her actions. Eventually she wound up in Gotham during No Man's Land, and saved Jim Gordon, which is why Babs gave her blessing for Cass to become the new Batgirl. While Babs plays a big role here and their bond becomes a focus, the narrative of Cass becoming a hero isn't entirely centered around Babs (the aspect that is is Cass taking on the legacy role from Babs, not her choosing to save someone). She's first defined to the Bats (and us as an audience) by her desire to be a hero that she already had when she met them. We learn about her past, and how that plays into her worldview, and it's important, but she came to her conclusion to save people rather than kill anyone again of her own volition.

In the New 52, she was given an assassination assignment to kill Harper Row's parents so that Harper could be used by Mother to become a new Robin for Bruce. After killing Harper's mom, the death causes Cass to have her realization and she lets Harper's dad escape and she runs like before, so she still very actively makes this realization about killing being bad entirely on her own before crossing paths with the Bats. She then makes the choice to go to Bruce and help on her own, too ("You are a hero. Because that's the path you chose yourself." in Batman & Robin Eternal #13). This version of her origin is very often criticized for re-centering Cass' narrative around Harper, rather than putting the focus on Cass herself. But an aspect of it that I do think connects back to her original story is that Cass' action that gets her involved with the Bats is still her making the choice to help, and she came to her realizations that killing was bad on her own first.

This Young Justice cartoon version is far more like the New 52 in terms of 'she was given an assassination assignment, and ends up hurting someone who would become close to her because of it.' Except this isn't something we find out happened in the past before she met the Bats, this is her introduction to them. I personally think it's very important for Cass' realization about 'killing is bad, I will never kill again, I want to help' to happen from her own experience before she's involved with the Bats. It gives her more agency in the situation, because she came to these conclusions herself. Because ultimately... someone else making a choice for her is what happened here. Obviously the Bats have their extreme no-killing rule, obviously they would intervene if they were present. But having Babs 'save' Cass by not allowing the kill to happen... it didn't let Cass learn things on her own.

Even though her two previous origins are pretty drastically different from one another, that was still consistent between them. She killed someone, realized that is something she is going to be guilty about for the rest of her life, and made the active choice to never do it again and help people instead. Here, she attempted to kill someone, someone else stopped her and was injured in the process, and Cass is seemingly now learning from that person ("I wasn't trying to save Joker, I was trying to save you,") that killing is something she should not do. It takes Cass' choice and her realizations coming from herself out of the equation. I think at core that's what I really, really hate about this situation even more than necessarily the specific action of Cass being the one to paralyze Babs instead of the Joker.

Then to focus on Babs for a second, what I loathe the most here is the concept of her injury happening while she's Batgirl. As bad as The Killing Joke is, I've always thought the fact that Babs had already quit being Batgirl before it happened, and was shot while in her civilian identity was an important aspect to the situation. Because having whatever happens to Babs to cause her paralysis occur while she's actively out as Batgirl... It's taking the choice about moving on from the Batgirl role away, having circumstance force the situation. That just changes a lot, imo. That was one of the few bits of agency she actually had in that original situation until other writers came along and reinvented her as Oracle. Joker may have done this bad thing to her, but she had already chosen to stop being Batgirl herself, it wasn't 'taken' from her.

In The Killing Joke, Babs was used as a prop in the conflict between Joker, Bruce, and Jim, she's barely a character there and much more a means to torture her dad. While it's nice to see that route not get re-enacted again, having Babs end up as a sacrifice for Cass' learning moment instead... that still just doesn't sit right with me. It gives Babs more choice in one aspect of the situation, because she put herself in the line of danger rather than being uninvolved in the situation and only brought in to hurt her father, but it's still... taking her choice about being Batgirl away.

Also, this happening while she's actively Batgirl plays into the idea of 'her time as Batgirl being cut short' which I really dislike, (bc again, she had originally given up the role before TKJ!) because that sort of reasoning is often used as justification by people for the New 52 making her become Batgirl again.

IDK I just think there absolutely could have been a better way to connect events/create something unique for the world without altering character motivations and agency this much. That's what bugs me.

But also these are my opinions, not something objectively correct, we still have another episode in this 'arc' that could throw some new pieces into the puzzle, but as it stands right now I really just... do not like this direction and not just because its not 'comic accurate' but because of the changes it means in who these characters are

[blufox234isadumbname]

Las Nevadas and Poker Cards theory

/rp /dsmp (all of the mentioned people are characters of the Dream SMP. not the actual content creators)

---

So this began with a random thought floating in my head about the new characters introduced to the Las Nevadas lore in Episode 3. This sparked the reawakening of my obsession with cartomancy and the meanings behind playing cards. So subsequently, I decided to associate the new four characters to the four symbols of the playing card deck

For a brief intro to playing cards, the standard 52-card deck uses the French suit - which include the diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades. Each suit/symbol includes three face cards (King, Queen and Knave) and ten numbered cards (Ace of ... to Ten of ...) The suit of cards varied throughout history before the French suit became popularised. Most of the derived meanings of the card suits themselves have mostly been very much after the creation of the suits, but I still think their symbolism is still interesting to look back into. The changes to each suit along with each varying meaning will be highlighted in individual sections. So, let’s start with:

Foolish

For the first chapter, Quackity mocks Foolish of being inferior to the tempered god he used to be. Foolish in his current state is a pacifist, a normally non-violent character who doesn’t take the offence. To Quackity, that achieves nothing, backed up by how Foolish was killed off in a selfless act and could not fight back. Quackity mocks the temple Foolish built, saying it is merely an empty shell only made to look pretty. Like Foolish, it is only impressive on the outset, but when it comes to its use it does not serve a function. The magnificent temple is merely for show, like how Foolish appears as a god of undying yet still was able to lose a life. Quackity actively tries to paint a picture of that perception to Foolish, trying to convince Foolish that such a lifestyle has not been beneficial. What Quackity offers to Foolish is a chance to make a name for himself, by doing the opposite. Quackity wants Foolish to cause destruction instead of creation. He wants Foolish to be a cannon, to take the brunt of

Clubs in the French suit have been thought to represent peasants. They are the weaker members of the society, the ones without a legacy to leave behind unlike those higher above them. This is what Quackity view Foolish as, a mere peasant who does not leave his own mark even despite being a god. When it comes to tarot readings, the clubs are seen as the wands. This particular suit tends to refer to calls to action, associated with the element of fire. They represent both aspects of creation to build and cook, and of destruction. It is symbolic of passion, where one’s motivations lie within. Meanings behind the wands deal with one’s own consciousness, what one’s own ambitions, what makes a person create action. It’s also interesting to see that Foolish in the past, brought destruction to a town with lava. So with this suit, Foolish is seen to need to take more offensive action. He needs to take the chance with Las Nevadas to create that action, to create destruction as he did before. To become more than the lowly being he is now.

Charlie

This one is trickier to pinpoint what suit he is since this is the first and currently only time we’ve seen him in the lore. In the time he was introduced, we can still deduce something about his story in the Las Nevadas arc. For instance, his role in Las Nevadas is being a mole for Quackity. Like a more goopy Hercules Mulligan, he can acquire intel and slink out with ease. He is a shapeshifter technically, able to mimic anything. The only seen problem he has is his unawareness of the world around him, basically akin to a child experiencing the world for the first time.

So I associate Charlie with the Spades, the commonly associated symbol for nobility. To Quackity, Charlie is not someone too hard to influence while at the same time may seem to have influence with the knowledge he holds. In past iterations of the spade, it was a sword. Even in Italian, the swords suit was referred to as a spade before it became the symbol. Charlie is the secret weapon with the intel he holds. Charlie is the most important to Quackity, the one who holds the most value above all the other candidates. Unlike the others, Quackity doesn’t berate or deliberately ruin what Charlie has, mostly because he has nothing to begin with. Instead, he is praised and gifted a home, like how nobility, when they are born, are simply gifted their titles. As the swords suit in tarot, spades represents aspects of thinking and communication. From his spy job, Charlie might open his eyes to a complicated world in a childlike manner. He’ll learn slowly but surely, whilst slowly having his perceptions being altered by Quackity. He already has shown doing this by lying to Charlie about snow. It is Q’s goal to coerce the easily swayable Charlie to blindly follow him akin to a child following a parent

Purpled

A mercenary after wealth, Purpled is being offered to join Las Nevadas in exchange for money. It is shown he is competent at sticking to what he believes in, but he does still follow the money mostly. However, Purpled is after more than just simple jobs to accrue wealth, which is what Quackity baits him with. He blows up the only thing that gave Purpled a name in the Dream SMP and offers him much more than the original incentive from the Red Banquet job. With the UFO gone, Purpled is given a choice to go big or go home, the final decision still unknown by the end of Purpled’s chapter. It’s interesting to see Quackity’s approach with Purpled, he’s much more confrontational with him than the others. Where Foolish was just insulted and Charlie merely being strung along, here Q deliberately makes a statement with TNT and a weapon. This might have to do with how Purpled is to be hired as a mercenary again, the man to depend on to take out a target. The only difference is the massive gain and utmost loyalty to Las Nevadas

Purpled is the suits of Diamonds. This suit has been thought to be associated with the merchants, the ones who gain most from sales of goods and services. To Quackity, he just has to convince Purpled with money beyond his wildest dreams. It’s quite important to note that Diamonds used to be bells in German suits, more specifically hawk-bells. These bells were used for falconry in medieval Europe, to denote a bird’s location and status. This is like what Quackity wants to do with Purpled, to keep the hunter under his guidance and not have his loyalties lie elsewhere. Diamonds in the tarot is seen as the suit of pentacles, concerning everything material and worldly. Pentacles often do not just concern financial matters but anything of security and practicality. It is all about what is realistic, for Purpled that is what he can own. Quackity knows that, he knows to bait the mercenary with money and to gamble with it.

Fundy

This one is a fun one to cover since this chapter is solely from Fundy’s point of view. Not once does it shift to Quackity and what he sees. Only Fundy and his nightmare. In the dream, Fundy wakes up in the middle of a red desert. It’s been said before, but being in a desert represents loneliness and disconnect. He is isolated and alone at first, except for Quackity. When he brought to the memories of L’manburg and its iterations, he views it all in awe. This contrasts with how he reacted before to the caravan, with anger and panic. In the dream with Quackity, he happily remembers the times of the past with Quackity, even if they were the most tragic times of L’Manburg’s history. The most notable thing about Quackity in the dream is the fact that he constantly makes Fundy feel noticed, make Fundy feel known and present. Fundy is not invalidated for his involvement in L’Manburg’s history. For once, Fundy feels happy. So when it twists around in Eret’s tower, a reminder of countless wars, the scene shifts to have Quackity in control. Fundy is told he does not matter all over again, told he will be as forgotten as L’Manburg’s history.

Fundy is the suit of Hearts, the suit associated with the clergy. This refers to someone with religious duties or more generally concerning what a person holds within their heart. This person is only important due to the group they associate with, similar to Quackity saying Fundy does nto matter until eh chooses to join with him. Besides just solely the card suits, the Heart tends to represent feelings and relationships. The latter part is an integral part of Fundy’s story, how his relationships with others always tend to fall apart. Feelings are important to Fundy too since he’s only attached to many things because of those feelings. He almost gains nothing but emotional support. And really, that’s is just always been something Fundy has been after – someone to depend on. And so, Fundy is swayed by the promise of a stable relationship with others, something that his dream pre-empted to be used by Quackity. Hearts in the tarot is seen as the Cups or Chalice, which represents everything of emotions as well. More interestingly, the suit of Cups deals with the unconscious too, even dreams. Pretty matching.

 So what does it exactly mean for these connections with the poker cards? Well, to use the cards is to play the game of gambling, the game of poker. And that is what Quackity sees these people as, tools to use to win the game. He’s collecting these cards to gain a winning hand. It’s also evident that he’s pushing these cards to gamble as well. He cuts off all attachments they have and force their hand to take a risk. Foolish has to risk being destructive again. Charlie risks confiding with an untrustworthy friend. Purpled risks losing actual money. Fundy risks losing mental stability all over again. It’s all about taking a risk, something that Quackity is taking advantage of to win. The perception of the cards all come down to how Quackity sees what to string all of these people along to join his cause. In the end, Quackity only cares about what benefit it will bring to Las Nevadas, instead of giving sure promises of such high rewards for tagging along. With the parallels between how Quackity views the members to how Dream views others, it’s fun to see how Quackity sees more and more of this project as a game of chance he’s willing to take. So how will the game play out for all these cards? Only fates can tell.

#quackity #c!quackity #fundy #itsfundy #c!fundy #charlie slimecicle #c!charlie #purpled #purpled bedwars #c!purpled #foolish gamers #c!foolish #dream smp #dream smp analysis #las nevadas #dream smp theory #las nevadas theory #/rp #/dsmp #long #mcyt #god me researchign cards for a discord roleplay was worth it #hehehehehe

[anastasiaskywalker4]

MisterLuu

That is actually the best pairing DC can make out of Trinity aside Lois and Clark. Or Bruce

and Clark for that matter. They both fit Bruce well, though Diana is even more matched with

him. In fact she's the best match romantically for him out there. At least so far. Though

number of fanfiction and arts on the net would suggest that that spot is reserved for

Superman not Wonder Woman :D

Except maybe for Silver and Julie - all Batman's love interest are abusive and downright

toxic. Selina, Talia, Adrea, Jet. Because in terms of comics and not relationships it fits

Gotham mold. People just tend to forget it after rebirth run. Yeah the one that made Batman

impotent and unable to do anything without the Cat around. Exactly that one. And tend to

forget how terrible as human beings his lovers really are.

Going back to the point. Both Talia and Selina tried to kill him multiple times in the past, or

those close to him. Whatever right? Who wouldn't like a lover that tried to end you few times

over. Both assaulted him physically and emotionally. Repeatedly. Both scared his body and

his mind. Repeatedly. Both tried to seduce his wards (adopted sons if u like), just to get to

him. In Talia's case that was basically pedophilia. That's just sick and makes you want to

puke. Both are possessive bitches, Cat threatening his flings while they are in bed while

Talia, well Talia can even go as far as beheading (to her credit she was right with this one).

Both makes him a goddamn hypocrite. Both face no repercussions after a cold blooded

murder while at the same time he berates Diana like a dick when she came to look for his

friendship and support after Max incident. Difference is she had no choice while Selina or

Talia most certainly had. Great move Bats, hypocrite much? And most importantly they both

lie and betray him, and leave him. Over and over again. Again, that's a constant with Cat

and miss Al Ghul. Diana never showed any of those traits with any of her lovers.

Get any counselor or psychiatrist to read actual Bat love history throughout the decades

and they would be writing books on how disfuncional they are. For a love-hate dynamics

they work fine. Or for some adrenaline fueled sex, but that's it. Hell, he even banged Dinah

when they were on adrenaline high. It all has a clinical term. Trauma bonding. As opposed

to authentic bonding. Which he could have with WW, had even one of them tried.

They did not though. Out of fear of ruining their mutual respect and deep bond. In

pre-flashpoint it may have been a thing if Diana acted on it. Again, Diana, not Bruce, so cut

the crap on how he was deflecting her. He was in doubt, yeah, but clearly was ready to give

it a go. She was the one that got scared even though she was clearly had over bat hills in

love with him. Even Martian stated this to Supes. Pre Crisis ? Not really. Some flirting and

kissing, nothing more. Post-flashpoint, New 52 and Rebirth ? Also not, though DC like to

tease those two. Forever Evil gets a hint that Bruce feels more than friendship towards her,

much to Selina's dismay. And that goddamn tension when they got to spends decades

together in another realm. Mostly from Diana side again. But no. The real canon love that Diana had for Bruce was during pre-flashpoint, not counting alternative universes. And it

was so strong that it showed her loving him more than her mother and sisters. And her

lasso forced her to admit it when facing Mera. But Bruce was "dead" at that point. So yeah,

never acted upon this. Pity. You could see she regretted it.

Aside their comics history in canon universe, realistically speaking Diana is way more

similar to Bruce than Selina will ever be (or Talia for that matter). Even though at a the first

glance they are nothing alike. She's the light , he's the darkness. She believes in love and

trust, tries to see the good in everyone. He's cunning, distrustful and downright realistic to

her idealistic approach. She's honest and straight while he will not hesitate to lie or to use

violence to get results. And you know what? It makes for great couple chemistry and

tension. It may be a cliche, yeah, but Yin and Yang dynamics work. That's why Clark ends

up with Lois all the freaking time. Even on elseworlds he and Diana are a thing only after

Lois is out of the picture. But that's not the most important thing. Yin and Yang provides for

a tension yes, but it would never last in the long run. For a relationship you need also

something in common. And Bruce has that in spades with Diana.

They might be on opposite side of the spectrum but than you realize how much alike they

really are. They are both kindred spirits. Both born fighters, warriors at heart. Arguably two

of the best in the world. At least Diana is according to Batman. And judging by Wonder

Woman's choices in man that is a highly important trait to her. Both endlessly fighting for

others. Both have utmost respect and admiration for each other. Both tirelessly train to

make themselves physically and spiritually better. Constantly. And to make the other better.

Their sparring sessions are legendary. And heated. Both with a great heart and

compassion. I would argue that Bruce's compassion is even bigger than Diana's. Even

though their methods might differ they share the same goal, which he has with no other

woman. Both have the heart of a warrior and are pushed by the circumstances of their

upbringing to reach for impossible dreams. They are also two of the most stubborn and

obstinate people in DC universe. Both perfectly capable of operating solo, and yet both

performing the best in a team. And yes, Bats is a great team player. Both natural leaders

that other heroes follow without hesitation. Both selfless and able to sacrifice for those they

value, trust and love. None of the other Bat trollups have any of those traits. Not to mention

they emotionally and physically find the other highly attractive. One being a literal goddess

and the other perfect male specimen. As for Batman, his relationships tend to collapse due

to a lack of trust. He's either unwilling to bring his romantic partner fully into his world or he

can't bring himself to trust completely. While Selina got his trust now, it's recent

development. And a mistake judging by latest issues. Again. One would think he's smarter.

When it comes to Diana, he trusts her. Fully. She's not privy like BatClan is to his world, but

they aren't that close in mainstream DC. She's not a psycho with daddy issues or a violent

narcissist. List can go on. Selina on the other hand doesn't have that much in common with

Bruce than she has. Not even close. He loves her, yes. But I don't see Di leaving him

countless times over the choices he makes. Or lying, or betraying, or trying to sleep with

Dick to spite him or... you get the point. Though there is one thing that gives Kyle an edge.

Immortality. Diana won't die unless killed. It doesn't make for a great long term relationship

prospect. But then again, those are comics, and he's a goddamn Batman. He would find a

way :)

The thing is - there is no other woman that fits his world as much as Diana does. And Bat is

capable to loving deeply and going to great commitments with a special woman. He showed

it with Andrea, he showed it with Silver. Problem is he always got burned. Every time he let

his guard down and opened himself. And he would have to do it when it comes to Wonder

Woman. She deserves that. It's hard to imagine with current Bruce, but it is most definitely

possible. It would be harder than with an ex criminal or an assassin though. Because there

would be much more on the line. The other two would crawl back anyway if he messed it

up, Di wouldn't.

There is also another aspect to this outside comic universe. His partners tend to be minor

characters compared to WW. She has her own series, JL, JL dark and every major

crossover/event happening in DC. They don't. And so does Batman. Both are one of the

most popular DC characters.

Besides changes to Bruce writing that are needed to make this work (cough.. pre flashpoint

Bats... cough), it would require fitting it to their distinctive titles. And frankly Diana can easily

function without any love interest and generate money. It's even easier that way. It fits her

as an independent, strong female character. Arguably most iconic of them all. And It's most

certainly easier for DC with a tease here and there than an actual WonderBat in mainstream.

Maisterluu wrote this is a comment on a YouTube video which is dow in the comments. They make really good points for ww and bats. No hate to other DC ships with ww and bats.

#batman x wonder woman #wonderbat #dc comics #dc animated movies #dceu verse

[bistephs]

Thank you for your tags. It always rubbed me wrong when other stan complained "JaSon sTaN aRe alWays cHoosE and pIcK tHe CaNoN tHuS tHeY'rE tHe WoRst" like 1. as if other stans doesn't do that 2. Look at the way Jason is written by canon. He's the most inconsistent character.

While i don't like how fanon wrote Jason most of the time, can we really blame them? because i belive every Jason's version is canon at this point, i can't even count.

hey thanks for sending this!! i always feel kind of embarrassed after posting one of my tag rants so i'm glad you liked it!

and yeah, comics in general are so inconsistent w/ each new writer just changing whole events and characterizations around that i don't fault anyone for picking and choosing things they like vs dislike. imo that's like... the only way to actually enjoy comics, especially with characters who have years and years of baggage and inconsistent writing. personally i think the original under the hood/lost days jason is the most interesting characterization (and i don't think either story is like 100% perfect or that winnick is the perfect jason writer, just that at least it's an INTERESTING story that sets up an interesting character), and it just sucks how little that's actually carried through with other writers. jason has so much potential to be such a great character and late post-crisis storylines like battle for the cowl or morrison's batman & robin just kind of ruined that by making him a boring one-dimensional villain as a lazy contrast to the "good" robins. like i said in the other post i'm not really opposed to jason being a villain/antagonist, but at least make him a GOOD villain, you know?

i'm hoping we get some better jason stories going forward to shake off some of that (and his new 52 characterization which i'm also not crazy about but that's a whole different rant), but i feel like a) no one at dc really knows what to do with jason as a character rn so they just keep throwing him into different storylines and seeing what sticks and b) his current characterization is pretty entrenched and isn't going anywhere. which is really disappointing.

but yeah definitely fans of Every Comics Character Ever pick and choose their interpretations. ppl who liked original jason are pissed that he was downgraded into Generic Murdering Bad Guy Who Shoots Kids For Attention so other characters could monologue about how he's ""too far gone to be saved"". sue us i guess

#imo it would've been a MUCH better dyanmic between batman dick and red hood jason if jason had kept his utrh characterization #like dick having jason as a sometimes ally sometimes enemy who can be either very helpful or a huge obstacle depending on the situation #and at the same time both of them dealing with their respective baggage about bruce and his 'death' #(which would also be a really good opportunity to show contrast between them that isn't just 'jason evil dick good') #like i wouldn't even want them to get along i would want them to argue and fight with each other #but then in some cases end up working together. and be GOOD at working together #and have a story highlighting their similarities and differences and the different paths they've gone down as bruce's kids #and the way that being robin kind of really fucked both of them up in different ways #instead of. yknow. whatever 'fake evil batman' thing was going on in bftc and b&r #once again my tags have very little to do with the post but please know i've thought a lot about this one #dc hire me to rewrite your entire canon i'll do it Right this time #dc negative #jason todd

[thevindicativevordan]

Any thoughts on Grant Morrison's Action Comics run? Beyond T shirt-and-jeans Superman being great.

That whole run reinvigorated my love of the character.

There have been numerous thoughtpieces about New 52 Superman, how he worked and how he didn't but these two entries really do a great job of summing up why Morrison's take on Superman was great. Morrison laid the foundation for a new generational Superman that DC completely fucked up and ran into the ground. I'll always be bitter about that, even if I had tapped out of reading the New 52 Superman books by the end due to how bad they got. Editorial and their idiotic mandates were what screwed over the potential of this take in my eyes.

Now I get that it wasn't to everyone's taste, but I cannot fathom how anyone could ever claim that Pre-Flashpoint Superman was better. If you liked Byrne's reboot better, your guy already got rebooted after Infinite Crisis. For someone like me who really enjoyed the Johns/Busiek era, that era's potential got spoiled after Johns & Busiek left, with New Krypton imploding and the awful Grounded taking it's place. When you get to the point where the best Superman book is the one starring Lex Luthor, it's time to reassess the franchise and figure out where the hell it went wrong.

Which is exactly what Morrison did. For this new Superman, Morrison mined all the best ideas of every Superman era to really give what I consider the ideal "base" for Superman. They also took pains to address common criticisms about Superman, working to correct his pop culture image. People have been complaining that Superman is "too perfect", "too unrelatable" for a long time, so Morrison addressed that. They gave Superman his balls back, and let him reacquire that Golden Age edge he had originally.

There are a lot of complaints you can make about Morrison's Superman, but I don't see how you could accuse this guy of being "flawless" or "bland". He definitely had a personality that you could describe, love him or hate him. Compassionate, but not a pushover. Clearly holding himself back, but unafraid to occasionally let loose. Flaws that were patently obvious, Clark had a temper here that could get him into trouble. There was a real showcase of anger here, of Superman being furious at the way people were treated by the rich and powerful, then doing something about it that I ate up.

I read this run just as I was coming into my teens and it hit perfectly for where I was in life. Did not want a Superman who would smile and tell me it gets better, I wanted a Superman who looked you in the eye and told you he felt that same anger, and then encouraged you to go out and do something about how you felt. That was what this run delivered in spades, and it expanded what I believed could be done with Superman.

While it totally blew my mind to see Superman acting this way the first time I read Morrison's Action Comics run, in retrospect it really isn't that different from how Superman has acted even under Byrne. One of the few traits I've seen carry across Superman incarnations in the comics is that he has a temper underneath that affable nature. "Don't tug on Superman's cape" as the old song goes. This run simply elevated that to the forefront of the character again, for the better in my eyes given I believe "Wrath" is Superman's Deadly Sin.

In fact, one of the strongest features of this run is that Superman gets actual character development over the course of the run, analogous to what Batman underwent in Morrison's Bat-Epic. While the Bat-Epic was merely Morrison re-canonizing Batman's entire history, and applying a retroactive character development storyline that culminated in Morrison's current Batman work, their Action Comics run had them attempt to craft something similar for Superman from scratch. What that meant was Morrison attempting to draw on the most important traits of every Superman era and incorporate those into this new take. So Superman had the Golden Age temper, compassion for the oppressed, and cockiness. The Silver Age supergenuis, proud scion of Krypton who cherished his Kryptonian nature, member of the Legion of Superheroes, and participant in stories that weren't afraid to get weird. Superman's wrestling with his place in the world, the importance of Clark Kent, and making journalism a key part of the character strike me as all being hallmarks of the Bronze Age. From Post-Crisis we got that Clark views himself as human and loves his adopted parents, considering them as equal to his birth ones.

One of the big frustrations for me with the endless origin stories for Superman, is that so many of them follow a predictable and stale formula where Clark puts on the suit and is essentially ready to go. Doesn't interfere with human affairs, is modest and humble, restrained in usage of his powers, it's like Clark has meta knowledge of what he "should" be, despite that he shouldn't have any foreknowledge of what a "superhero" should look like. He operates the same way at the start as he does in the modern day, and that's really boring to me. This Superman, because of the difference in powers and attitude, operated extremely different from his "present day" incarnation. Dangling Glenmorgan over the edge of a building isn't something a fully powered and mature Superman should do, but it works great to make his early days different and exciting to read about, it makes returning to that era something you can do different storytelling with. This run is the only time where I really cared that Superman is "supposed" to be the first superhero, because figuring out what that means here is a big part of how he develops.

We all know the common complaint that Superman is "too powerful" and that "nothing can hurt him" (funny how Thor never gets hit with those accusations), so Morrison made sure to show that this take on Superman could be beaten even if he could never be defeated. Events conspired to force Clark to use his brains as well as his powers to overcome the challenges in front of him.

Examples include him using his heat vision to fry Lex's equipment and escape the military, using his rocket ship to defeat Brainiac, and rallying the population of Metropolis to banish Vyndktvx. Not to say that Clark never used his brains before to win, but this run was very upfront and in your face about how important Clark's intellect is to triumphing over his foes. Can't take seriously the complaint that Superman is too overpowered when Morrison constantly showcased how even a very powerful Superman could get his shit wrecked by his Rogues.

Another example of Morrison addressing criticisms is Kryptonite. A lot of people poke fun at how convenient it is that pieces of Superman's homeworld follow him all the way to Earth. Isn't that a bit of an asspull? So Morrison made Kryptonite the power source of Superman's rocket, giving it a perfectly natural and believable reason both for it to end up on Earth, and for Lex & the military to get a hold of it since Pa Kent gave the military the rocket. That's still my preferred explanation for how Kryptonite ended up on Earth.

It also provides a better explanation for all the different Kryptonite variants. DC can handwave away the different types as a result of Lex experimenting or the different "forces" on Earth such as magic or the Speed Force or whatever creating the different variants. That to me is much more believable than Kryptonite travelling all across the galaxy yet still ending up on Earth somehow.

There have also been a lot of complaints about Superman's villains, and Morrison diligently set about reworking them. By far one of my favorite aspects of the run, was the villain revamps. Nimrod felt like a clean revamp of Terra-Man, making him into Superman's Kraven the Hunter struck me as a patently obvious route to go, wild no one has followed up on that or used him since. Metallo felt like a good synthesis of Johns take of him as an Anti-Superman weapon, and the sympathetic aspects of Corben's origin that are always there, I liked that Morrison didn't make him a total bastard before his transformation like Johns did. Brainiac got some sympathy added to him in that the collected worlds that were already marked for damnation, thus he was "saving" them in a fashion. Clay Ramses embodied toxicity as a wife-beater even before becoming Kryptonite Man, and I thought his backstory was a great way for Clark to still deal with "real" issues via a manner he could punch. Ramses is still the best take on Kryptonite Man. Vyndktvx felt like the greatest realization of the threat Mr. Mxyzptlk could pose should he decide to get serious since Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, plus I'm a sucker for stories where superheroes fight the Devil. Drekken and Superdoom took the only interesting aspects of Doomsday (his ability to evolve and that he can kill Superman respectively), and were much more interesting characters.

And oh my God, speaking of Superdoom, that part of Morrison's Action run has aged like fine wine. I don't know if they caught wind of DC's plans for the character, or if they were just prescient, but everything that Superdoom is playing on is still sadly all too present. What Superdoom is as a character is a condemnation of what DC keeps doing with Superman: killing him off or making him evil.

When you realize what Superdoom (demand for a more violent and "realistic" Superman) and Vyn (WB/DC) stand in for, it makes the frustration Morrison is channeling much more palpable. Those two plotlines are all DC can think of to do with the character, returning to those again and again. Endlessly attempting to recapture the high of Batman and Doomsday beating the shit out of Supes in The Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman. Overcoming these two obstacles is Superman's greatest challenge as conceived by Morrison, because both are out to corrupt and ruin the very idea of him. It's not just a physical death he faces, but a metaphysical one as well. Sadly it's a threat Superman just can't seem to lick in the real world, with more and more takes on "Evil Superman" coming.

Lois and Jimmy are great here, because Morrison actually made the investigative journalism aspect of Superman important. Lois is an active participant in the story, trying to break in to the base where Clark is being held by her father, competing with Clark for stories (I love how Morrison writes the banter between the two of them), and generally being classic Lois. Jimmy though benefitted from being positioned as a peer rather than as a kid in comparison to the two, something I wish the comics had carried forward. It looks like My Adventures With Superman is going with that interpretation at least, so I hope others do as well. Jimmy being Clark's roommate really adds to their bond, and I wish we had gotten more stories with that status quo.

Investigative reporter Clark Kent was so actively used here that it feels jarring reading other Superman runs where they tend to downplay and ignore it. Following Clark as he travels to different areas of Metropolis and actually interacts with people, instead of hovering above them as Superman, makes him feel human. Watching Clark actively pursue stories aimed at bettering peoples livelihoods, and seeing how those stories crossed with the superheroics, was one of my favorite aspects of the run. It's one unfortunately few other writers seem all that interested in, especially the New 52 writers who followed Morrison (I know editorial probably bears a lot of blame for that though).

Besides all that, this run was a lot of fun! The Legion of Superheroes showed up, their connection to Clark restored, and they got to play a big role in Clark's adventures! Krypto the Superdog! Martian colonies! Memorizing all of medicine, Superman performs a lifesaving operation! Lex using a "bullet train" to knock Clark out! 5-D imps! Rampaging robots from beyond! A Phantom Zone Halloween story! John Henry Irons suits up as Steel and kicks ass alongside Clark! Every Superman Rogue teams up to try to kill him, but Lex Luthor saves his life because that's a privilege he reserves for himself! Showcasing their trademark love for the Supermythos, Morrison took us on a tour of Superlore that demonstrated the depth and width of what could be done with Superman. Meanwhile the backups by Sholly Fisch excelled at giving us smaller, more human stories about Superman (the one where Clark meets Pa again via time travel "after" Pa has died always gives me a lump in my throat to read).

Ultimately this didn't get to be the foundation for the next generation of Superman stories as it deserved. Johns made New 52 Superman the scapegoat in Doomsday Clock for a lot of storytelling choices he did over in Justice League, something that pisses me off to no end. You want to tell me that this guy "didn't relate" to people, didn't inspire "hope"?

Like hell he didn't. This guy was Superman in every way that mattered and he deserved better than to be framed as the scapegoat for all the stupid decisions DC made about what to do with him. Greg Pak was able to do some great work with this version after Morrison, and just like how Gene Yang got a redemption work starring Superman, I hope to one day see Pak return to the character. Would love to read a Black Label Superman story by Pak that follows his take on young Superman.

All wasn't lost however. Against all odds, and Rebirth trying it's damndest to sweep everything under the rug, it looks like parts of this era have actually survived to the current Infinite Frontier era. With Morrison being heavily involved no less, both as an ideas guy and as an actual writer.

Superman & the Authority is explicitly Superman coming full circle back to the attitude displayed by his young counterpart under Morrison. Janin has outright said that the costume Clark wears here is reminiscent of the t-shirt and jeans era of Superman, and this book so far feels saturated with an energy level from Morrison I haven't seen in their work for hire since they left Action. Reaching old age and realizing he never really delivered on the high ideals of his beginnings, it's Superman putting together a team to hopefully succeed where he couldn't alone. Scathing in how it criticizes the superhero status quo, this has been extremely entertaining to read. Wish Morrison was writing 12 issues with this team, and that ultimately it will be up to PKJ to deliver on the potential is a drawback (although I've loved PKJ's Action run so far), but I'm glad to see DC finally treating Morrison and their ideas with more respect than was shown during Rebirth.

Jon meanwhile feels like an even more explicit attempt at redoing New 52 Superman. There's the updated new suit, designed to appeal to a new generation with it's streamlined look. Positioning Jon as a Superman who wants to tackle the "real" issues, with Taylor explicitly comparing him to Golden Age Superman which as I mentioned was an era Morrison tried to reincorporate into their reboot. There's the Legion of Superheroes connection which played an important role in Morrison's reboot. The rumors about Jon's sexuality are interesting, hinting that DC is willing to go outside the box with him in a way they never would with Clark. I'm excited to see what kind of Superman Jon ends up becoming, if he can deliver on the promise of the New 52 Superman all the better.

This run deserves to be remembered and to have the lessons it tried to teach respected. Probably my favorite mainline run on Superman, I hope more people come around to liking it as time goes on.

#superman #grant morrison #action comics #new 52