#(no wally comments because i have just skimmed the surface of flash stuff)

[bitimdrake]

losing it because the dc curve on bad parenting would actually help Bruce akdslfjaksdlfjkelwajklfjawlkjfwlke

... but also i miss the complex relationships characters used to have with their parents in dc comics and the different ways abuse/neglect was explored. We had Stephanie and Arthur Brown (and Crystal was on pain pills), Cissie and her mom's wild relationship, Cassandra and David Cain, Cassie and her mom (as a good example), Bart and Max, Dick and Bruce (and the others too), Tim and Jack/Dana, Barbara and Jim, Lian and Roy/Jade (the recent dc blasphemy has me so sad still), Wally and his kids, Wally and his bio parents, Wally and Barry, and like... so so many more

idk. i feel like ever since the reboot (and before that even) the complicated and messy family dynamics between characters is just missing and it used to be so compelling. i feel like batgirl 2000 is a great example of that - like David Cain was incredibly abusive, and it was compelling to watch Cass struggle with that, finding compassion - even for him, and letting him go to lead her own life with the family she chose and just ahhhhhhh sorry for ranting in your inbox but dang... the one thing i miss about older comics is characters not being put in the good parent or bad parent category, but rather being more on a scale from 0-100 and having everyone fall somewhere in between and seeing the direct effects of parenting on the children

it's real bad curve! children in the dcu are NOT having a great time! if your standards are, like, trigon and darkseid and vandal savage, suddenly bruce is getting bumped up in the grading.

But yes yes yes. I miss that nuance and complexity so much. I'm only a little ways into the reboot, but so far it seems like a lot of that complexity has been lost because we just don't have most of those parents anymore, but the rest falls away because there's no history or existing material to ground anything on. Every parents has to appear and immediately declare whether they are evil or good, and that's it.

But it was so interesting in the preboot era. There were parents that were flawed and complicated and sometimes hurt their kids, but weren't flatly characterized as Evil Villains either--Jack Drake and Bonnie King and Jade Nguyen (when not being written horribly). And the reader can absolutely judge any or all of them as bad parents, or personally decide their failings in parenting are unforgivable, but that feels like...an actual interpretation you have to make, material you have to engage with, instead of just being spoon fed the answer.

And there are parents who are characterized as good people and parents, but still flawed humans, like Jim Gordon. Or parents who were bad then developing and growing and becoming what their kids need, like Crystal Brown. (And theoretically Jack and Bonnie too, though Jack reached that for 2.5 seconds before dying, and I don't know if I really trust Bonnie's transformation.)

And then you even have unarguably horrific parents like David Cain, who still get nuance in their characters and relationships with their children. I also loved watching Cass struggle to reconcile her compassion with the abuse. And I'll add the other half, that I always thought was a very good writing choice, which is that...Cain loves her too? And at no point does that remotely temper his abuse, or change how awful he is, yet it's clear as day he deeply cares for her and is delighted in her successes. It keeps the character as detestable, but imo suddenly much more interesting to read--and, more important, it adds one more dimension to Cass's difficultly sorting out her feelings towards him.

And we have parents that don't care too! Like, I'm not sure if Arthur Brown ever cared about Steph in the slightest. And that is a very valid story too--and just as interesting in Steph's reactions to it and attempts to process--and I'm really glad we got both.

But then, the inevitable Bruce tangent. Most of the other parents listed here stay as supporting characters to their children, but Bruce is a main character in his books and a supporting character in his kid's books at the same time, so he's being written not just by more people, but for more narrative purposes.

There are obvs a lot of points where Bruce is a horrible parent, but there are also points in preboot where I'm fairly certain we are actually meant to come away thinking he's being a horrible parent. (I don't think we were ever meant to see him as a consistently abusive parent, but whoops dc you fucked that one up and he is; topic for another post before I make this one even longer.) We see him in one of his kids' books, and we understand okay this guy is treating his kid terribly. But at the same time, Bruce is still the lead in, like, 457 of his own books, so we can never stop thinking about him as a person too. And even with Bruce, there were points where preboot was unflinching in displaying his failures to parent...even if they never quite completed the follow up.

Anyway, maybe that--being both a main and supporting character--is why Bruce has (lbr, probably by accident) remained one of the only parents with nuance. But unfortunately, most everyone else seems to have been erased, turned blandly evil, or just as blandly good.