#AND. AT ONE POINT ALSO TERRY SAID BRUCE MAY BE A FATHER FIGURE FOR HIM HIIII

[eyepatchdate]

watched some adam west and ROBIN put a tracker on BATMAN

[friggsdc]

Title: little delinquent pt iv

part iii | part iv

Warnings: Female!reader (bat!sis), mostly plot with family fluff, AU, hurt/comfort

Word Count: 4600~

Synop: It had Bruce and Dick sharing a look for a moment before the latter spoke up, “It’s not like I’m against continuing to expand the family, but…” he eyed the child you held nervously, “please don’t start bringing home every child you find…” he tilted his head, “he’s bad enough.” Bruce settled a light glare at his first son (that definitely wasn’t what Bruce was thinking), though Dick was stilled by the way your eyes narrowed at him instead.

“His name is Terrence,” that was all you said, brushing past as they were suddenly on guard at the inherited Wayne-scowl on your face.

---

 A/N: ee;;;; enjoy me not knowing what this plot is, idk tbh, but it’s fun to write. It’s more plot than fluff, which wasn’t what i meant to write sighs. I’ll probably write companion pieces to this that’s zero plot all fluff. The plot wasn’t meant to be so deep, but I mean, uhm… enjoy papa Bruce and mama Alfred~ 

---

[bigR] Dad’s upset.

[bigR] He’s talking less than usual, not even grunts.

[bigR] I think he’s ignoring me?

[you] crap

[bigR] Worse, there’s no news.

No news? True, you hadn’t seen the info feeds light up, the networks had been offline all day, but nothing from Tim’s side? If you didn’t hate Luthor before, well…

[you] this is giving me a headache ::dizzy_emoji::

[bigR] No kidding, I think he’s figuring a few things out.

[bigR] Patrol with B, everything’s unlocked, bb @ late.

[you] is typing…

             “You sure it’s okay?”

The taller male gave quite the toothy grin, a large hand coming up to pull the awkwardly fitted shirt collar back to center, admiring your new outfit. “You can just bring it back later, besides, I think it’s cuter this way.” After a few hours and an incredibly long phone call between Jason, Tim and yourself, the three of you combined were able to get the suit to come off. 

Tim said he still had a lot to go over, but that the laptop was actually incredibly useful. Much of what Tim had been talking (and geeking) about had been lost on Jason and you, too focused on Terry and wrangling the alien suit off.

Jason said he’d be jealous of the strange futuristic-like material if it weren’t for the second skin-like fit, happily poking fun at Nightwing’s taste in suits.

Most of the work was done on Tim’s side since he apparently already had the ability to take control of the suit. It was something you were rather… anxious about, but unlike the manor, Jason’s place had the advantage of no Bruce and no cameras.

So now you sat in the same pair of pants you’d come over in, the only pair of flip-flops he had. They were far too large for you, but your toes would have to hang on till home, and a large t-shirt that fit well enough. 

“Muscle up, Buttercup” was written on the front, Superman’s flexed arm between the words.

“Your taste in clothes is…”

“Cheap. Like second-hand cheap.”

“But… why…”

“To spite Bruce? I pay more for job-related injuries than money I actually have, it’s been tempting me to go back to crime, honestly.”

“…you sure that’s not to spite Bruce as well?”

“I mean,” he shrugged, an impish grin on his face as he lightly ruffled the top of your hair, causing you to childishly swat his hand away, “isn’t that what everyone else does? It’s fun, you should try it sometime.”

“Uh-huh…” you were honestly too much of a—

“Daddy’s girl,” he snorted lightly, unimpressed.

Before slipping one of Jason’s unused backpacks on, you stuffed the batsuit in the bottom, and the jacket you arrived in on top. Turning just in time to see him picking up Terrence’s sleeping form with incredible gentleness, you cooed lightly.

“You know, you’re not bad at that,” he looked at you, frowning, ears flushing before his attention went back to the bundle in his arms.

“Not even…” instead of moving to take the child from him, you opted to stand still and just watch the interaction instead, as if a point were being made.

Big boy looked like he was terrified of breaking the child in his arms, like an heirloom British teacup, “You look cute like that, a giant teddy bear and a tiny uh... new bat?” Walking over, he turned his eyes to the side, not a single trace of anger towards the situation in his voice anymore, “don’t get used to it,” he muttered, unsure of himself. “But you could get used to it,” you smiled, taking the giant marshmallow from him, “he’ll be around from now on, you know. You’ll have uncle duties~” Your teasing only increased his rising timidness, “right…”

“Well,” he began, heading to the door once you had everything, “I’m already late for patrol, let’s get you home.”

-

Alfred had greeted you at the door and mentioned putting on some tea, and you gladly accepted, though not before you went up and changed. With the promise to be back downstairs in a few minutes, he took Terrence from you to ready him for bed. Adorable child was actually quite active, having tired himself out at Jason’s temporary housing.

Quickly, you’d headed to Tim’s room to empty the contents of your bag in his faraday cage, hoping that it was secure enough being in his room. Once you’d locked the safe’s door, you headed out of his room and down the hall to your own. Sorry Jay, but the shoes were uncomfortable, and the shirt kept trying to strangle you more than the shirt of a giant should. Pajamas sounded wonderful right now.

The now empty backpack was tossed to the side near where Duke had left the your clothes from earlier in the day, and a few immediate items for Terrence. You figured everything else was probably in the nursery now, hoping it was all waiting for you in the next few days. The awkward clothes you’d worn over the suit had been tossed on your day clothes, and then Jason’s shirt and shoes were dropped on top.

The shower was quick, and having changed into a fresh pair of pajamas, you suddenly felt sluggish, your shoulders now heavy with tightness. Come to think of it, your thighs also felt rather wobbly, like jelly… but the only strenuous activity you can remember doing in all honesty was… base jumping… was it the wings? It’s all you could honestly come up with. Maybe you weren’t used to such a thing yet, and as you rubbed your shoulders, you headed back downstairs to the sitting room. “Nn…”

“Sore?��

It was still too early for anyone scary to be home right now, so…

You nodded, collapsing on the small sitting couch, Alfred going to stand from his seat to fix you a cup of tea from the tray on the table. “I did a dumb thing today. I’m not certain if I regret it or not.” He handed you the tea plate and cup before returning to his original position on a rather regal looking chair, “I’ve already put the Little Master to bed for the evening. The Young Masters went to bed awhile ago, though I suspect, they are not, actually sleeping.” He gave an amused hum at the thought of Damian and Jon and what they were totally not doing. 

He definitely hadn’t noticed when they’d snuck out earlier. Nope, not at all.

It was a long day filled with heightened emotions, anxiety, stress, confusion, and at the end of it, you were just so tired, and Alfred had always been your confidant next to Tim, and—

You tried to keep quiet as you spoke.

“I jumped out of a really tall building. Like… ninety feet up? I’m not certain, I was watching my life flash before my eyes.” He sighed and frowned into his own tea, “Master Bruce has already left for the night, Master Tim is accompanying him, as the boys are… supposed to be here for a night off. I really had hoped you’d grown up to be more intelligent and not as reckless as your brothers.” Or your father, Alfred mused, sipping at his tea, pinky out, the proper macaroni gentlebutler he was.

“I mean, I panicked, I was in a batsuit, I had a lot of intel on me, like, literally stole a laptop and backed up something called Project B (whatever that meant, though you had your suspicions having met Conner), there was a ton of guards outside going from door to door… I don’t have the same muscle mass to fight like my militant brothers, I was scared of what would happen if they caught me, like dad’s reputation?, I may have been overwhelmed by the—”

“—batsuit?” Ah, you looked up from your tea with wide eyes to see him staring, uncertain if the twinkle in his eye was worry or mischief. “Yeah, that. Uhm… Please don’t tell dad,” you sat up straight, gave him your biggest crocodile tears, and were about to clasp your hands together like a beggar before he waved your antics off. “I would not, not unless it endangers your life, Young Miss, you know that. Including young Master Terrence, of course.”

“This afternoon I must ponder over, What you did was, how shall I say, not okay,” he spoke, stern.

He stood to walk over, seating himself next to you while smiling gently, “though I must admit, I am quite curious as to the story behind all of this.” You gave your own small smile as you stared at your tea, “Yeah. I still don’t know all of it yet, myself, but… it’s actually really cool…” The two of you spoke in hushed tones.

Bruce may have been your father, but much like him, you were raised by Alfred, and seeing as you usually weren’t allowed out on the field like the others, your disposition was as Alfred’s was; support. It was something your brothers and father relished in when they had any extra time over the years. You loved to spoil them, and they were readily eager for it. 

It was also thanks to Alfred that you’d learned you had a unique knack for espionage.

Your brothers were raised to protect themselves and others, getting to go out nightly on risky (and deadly) vigilantism escapades. More than that, they not only got to be of use to your father, but they were able to grow up around him, their lives dedicated to the same purpose.

To say you were jealous was an understatement, often worrying Dick and Jay at times.

To say you were your father’s daughter and just as like-minded as him was also an understatement. This was something Tim and Damian understood better than your two eldest siblings.

You were determined as heck.

You graduated from avoiding Alfred’s detection to stalking your father and brothers, skills honed even further as you learned how to use their toys and listen in on their coms system. It was your father’s own fault, leaving you alone all the time.

You would never be useless again.

You would never be left behind again.

“So, your brothers are helping you, then? I am glad of that, it means I need not worry as much,” even though Jason and Damian only knew half the truth, it was Tim who knew everything you did. Duke didn’t want to know and apparently Jon’s dad had warned him not to get involved with “bat business,” and Alfred… “If… If Terry’s parents…” how were you supposed to frame this part, exactly? You ere bothered by the truth of it, so... maybe making it sound worse than it was? If that was even possible... “if they were bad people, like really bad people,” as if suddenly remembering the walls had ears, you lowered your head and voice, barely audible for him to hear, “do you think dad would let me keep him?”

The both of you knew that wasn’t the issue, Bruce had no problem with the child staying, but…

There was something about the boy that seemed to be worrying you…

“If there is one thing I take great pleasure and joy in,” Alfred beamed like the proud father he was, “it’s that at least one of you children turned out more like myself than Master Bruce.” No, honestly, he was so glad you weren’t gloom and doom like your father and siblings, “I’m certain you could tame the wildest of beasts.”

His parentage held no ground here, the two of you understood the meaning behind the words, memories of when Damian met you for the first time after arriving at the manor surfacing, “I think you’ll do just fine with the child. I have all the confidence in the world.”

Maybe you were being overly paranoid about the whole situation.

The evening was finished in comfortable companionship between the two of you, and he’d shoo you away to bed long before it was time for the boys to come home.

After cleaning up and assuring himself that at least someone in the manor went to bed properly, he busied himself with the surveillance of the manor.

He made certain you wouldn’t be caught just because of his curiosities.

-

Through part of the night, you’d begun doing as much research into the relationship between Luthor and CADMUS as you had time for, the past few days having been spent going over only CADMUS information. That was until you got a ping on Luthor’s name written on several specific checks, and gathering as much information available. You looked for key phrases in the news cycle over the past day’s incident, as well as dating back several months. You’d even taken the chip out of your work phone and popped it into the laptop sitting on the bed in front of you, allowing network protocols to take over.

There was only so much the news would give you, so you checked in on security feeds from the area, keywords during phone calls used to see if anyone noticed, satellite intel snapshots, everything. Anything.

The time-sensitive channels still hadn’t opened, no information from other informants was anywhere in the Societies channel logs, not even the time-delayed backlogs.

Someone else was cleaning up.

-

Early morning, the best time to avoid anyone in the manor who had a night life, also just in time to get breakfast as Alfred made the first batch of the day. Though mostly for himself, he’d generally make extras as you’d often join. Heading down the foyer stairs, Terry’s barely conscious form bundled in your arms, you beelined to the kitchen, the smell your guide. “Ah, good morning Young Miss! I even made some for the Little Master, just in case,” Alfred smiled down at the boy in your arms, holding up a small bowl of minced and steamed veggies.

The kitchen was large for an older-modeled mansion, constantly rebuilt with minimal changes, but still cozy and incredibly sustainable. Between the door to the foyer and the opposite wall, where the door to the dining room was, there was a large table. Several shopping lists, foodstuffs, and cookware took up a good portion, but there as still enough room for a small few people to sit comfortably at once.

You smiled, sitting down in the chair the older male pulled out for you, then pushing you in, food for the child set on the table. You situated Terry in your arms, finding a nice spot to rest his bottom without worry of him slipping off, and reached over to spoon some of his meal to him.

Strangely, he didn’t resist much, yawning in between bites as you had to scoop up what tried to spill out of his mouth, “so, how old might you say he is? I’ve been thinking about it, perhaps about a year?” you nodded as you looked up, agreeing with Alfred as he sat down, food cooking behind him in the meantime. “I think… if not that, maybe a few months younger… he can stand, and seems okay with soft solids… I think you’re right, maybe a year?” his clothing size certainly seemed to think the same, Duke having gone to extreme lengths to get a perfectly fitted wardrobe for the boy. He even included a few different larger sizes for the coming year as well.

“Hm…” Alfred leaned on his crossed arms, rested on the table as he eyed the boy, “I suppose we could begin early development lessons with him, signing especially, but I think he can do more, words, possibly.” In response, Terry sneezed, food spraying all over the spoon and bowl in front of the two of you, his eyes still groggy as he slumped in your hold. “Oh dear,” Alfred hummed in amusement, standing to bring you a small terrycloth towel to clean up.

Terry gave a small grunt as he pushed at the cloth now cleaning his face.

“Gonna… Gonna have to get used to that…” the suddenness surprised you, you knew it was a normal human function, but you just hadn’t… expected it.

“I think there will be a great many things for you to get used to from now on, even I will have to relearn a few things. It’s been… a very long time since an infant was in this home.” He went back to finishing his and your meal, a nostalgic and wistful look masking his face. Bruce had no idea what to do with you when you were an infant handed over to him, and it amused Alfred to this day.

Thinking about it, you looked down at Terry, your chin coming to hover over his head, almost as if you were trying to nuzzle him, loud enough for only him to hear, “…mama. S… Say mama.” The child just tilted his head and cooed at you instead, reaching up to pull at your hair again ohdeargodpleasestop.

Releasing your hair from the child’s grasp and holding both of his hands in yours this time, you tried once more, “mama.”

“Mmba,” he blew a raspberry at you as he slurred his speech, becoming more fascinated with the bubbles he blew than your inquiries. “Mm… bah.” He let out a giggle, popped his lips at you and then smiled, trying, and failing thanks to your hold, to reach for your hair again. After several attempts, he settled for turning slightly, resting his head on your chest as he watched Alfred and all of the very shiny cookware.

You flushed, wanting to beam but also feeling incredibly self-conscious about the situation still, it was honestly a lot to get used to. Frowning in determination at the snuggly bug of a child, you tried a different tactic this time, “ma.” He was still more interested in the food being cooked, however, and you heaved a sigh into his head of hair. “Mma,” well, it was a start, and you repeated your previous chant of mama to him, your own eyes wide with what felt like pride.

Was this how Alfred felt?

“Mmba.” Well, as you said, it was a start. With a sigh, you went back to shoving food in his mouth, though quickly you had to wrangle the spoon from his mouth each time. “Stop… biting it, Terry…” you wondered how Conner had gotten so smart in such a short amount of time, wondering if Terry had still been too young when you took him from the bio labs at CADMUS.

“Ah, good morning Sir,” Alfred greeted, and your head shot up to see your father standing in the doorway, bags under his eyes and a yawn hidden behind the back of his hand. “Good morning, Alfred,” he stared at the older man with a frown, obviously trying not to say something. Instead, he looked at you and the child for a long moment, giving both of you a morning greeting. And even though Terry couldn’t properly respond, he did give Bruce the same challenging look as the last time.

He was looking for something out of the ordinary, however, the only thing in the room that was new was Terry, nothing else seemed to be amiss. But you could tell, looking up at him from the corner of your eyes, head still downturned, he was searching.

“Morning dad…” you tried to be light as you smiled at him, nothing is wrong.

“Daah,” Terry tried imitating, but it was lost in the rest of his babbling as he grabbed the food from the spoon. He was making another mess as he shoved it in his mouth, fingers fiddling around tongue and mushy carrots. Thankfully you still had the terrycloth to wipe at his chubby cheeks.

Bruce’s footsteps were as silent as his entrance, stopping next to you and squatting down, large hand, warm and gentle, landing on Terry’s head as he ruffled his hair, “I’d like to talk to you downstairs soon, okay?” He studied Terry for a moment, eyes as brilliant as his own, though it seemed like Bruce almost enjoyed the small head of hair in his palm. You couldn’t tell beyond the awkward chill in the air, but the two of them were giving each other knowing looks, both challenging, though Bruce couldn’t understand why Terry looked at him that way.

He made to stand up, pulling his hand away before Terry could do any damage, cheeks puffing out in a pout. “There’s something I’d like you to look into,” he spoke as he headed back towards the door, a morning coffee handed to him by Alfred, “oh, and you’re not allowed to leave the grounds for the time being. The tracker seems to be faulty.”

Considering you broke them often over the years, well, yeah, of course it was faulty.

Again.

The smile he gave you before he left was smug and you weren’t completely certain as to why, and it was making you really really nervous, “the League computers picked up something quite interesting yesterday.”

“Uh…” Ah yeah. Well heck.

Yeah, metropolis was both a huge risk AND your last outing, you were glad you took the chance though, even if your stunt escalated the situation. You were now officially on house arrest by the most observant secret-wannabe cop in the world.

Then again, there was no telling exactly what he knew.

He might be bluffing.

“Maaam… ah…” Huh? Did he just… Quickly as if borrowed from the speed force, your thoughts of Bruce and the problems at hand seemed to flee as you beamed at Terry. “Mama?”

“Mamhh.”

-

[bigR] Was able to give the drive a quick look.

[bigR] I don’t understand villains. I just don’t.

The hell did that mean?

[steph] c u soon <33

Ah, crap.

-

The table before Bruce had only a few pieces of paper and only two photos. You’d come home nearly a week ago with a new addition to the family, from where he still wasn’t certain. He’d checked and there’d been no missing infant reports that matched up with him, both in looks and location. Tim seemed to be in on it, hiding secrets along with you, and holding back when Bruce would inquire about anything even remotely familiar to the situation. Tim had also been keeping busy with something the past few days, and ever since you’d come home from shopping, he seemed unable to stay still, constantly fidgeting.

Then there was yesterday, when Duke took you out shopping with the boys while Batman had been at the Womb at the League’s watchtower, digging up as much as he could. Which, unfortunately, was just the few scraps of confusing ledes in front of him. The annoying part is how well you avoided the cameras, there were only a few times where he had been able to make you out, the rest he had to guess based on your profile that day.

The subsequent events had started stacking up in a rather annoying fashion. Your tracker’d been broken since you gave everyone a scare a week ago, returning with a child in your arms and something akin to paranoia. Even Tim had been clueless (until he wasn’t), and now even his attitude was giving Bruce pause. It felt more unnerving than bad, something making Bruce’s own stomach knot when he kept coming up with dead ends.

The day you’d gone shopping, the Womb had picked up something the news hadn’t, as the news was calling it nothing more than an accident, and it was that that gave Bruce even more pause. The worst part is that he couldn’t just take a deep dive into the LexCorp building’s system, knowing that much was out of their (or his) hands.

If Cyborg found out that Batman was secretly looking into a non-incident on the League system for family-related business, then he’d never hear the end of it from Superman and the others. He’d have to go out of his way to get into the building, and right now wasn’t the best time to do so, security was increased ten-fold. He’d have to wait it out.

LexCorp wasn’t even reporting it as an incident themselves, but the fact that they were being very stringent about the details, the increase in surveillance, Bruce felt it in his gut; an obvious coverup. The problem was why, there was no way what had happened had been anything short of problematic for Lex, and yet they weren’t filing any kind of paperwork.

They did their best to act as if they didn’t care, but Batman saw all the extra measures, and he also saw the information black hole happening.

LexCorp, no doubt, was scrubbing.

What he had been able to do, however, was gather two snapshots of a black blur that sped out of the building before disappearing into the thick of the city below.

About the same area where Damian’s own tracker took a detour.

“I preferred it when you used to use electrical tape to tape a transceiver blocker to your arm to hide the trackers,” Bruce hadn’t looked up as you approached (and you were dang silent too, even Terry was being chill), “It was much less of a headache.”

“Yeah, but that was when I was a kid. Nothing I do now can hide me from you anymore, the technology is different from back then.”

“Except breaking it.”

“Except that.”

He snorted as you stopped at the table, situating Terry on your hip, and looked down at the photograph that Bruce pushed over to you. It took every bit of training not to give anything away as you picked the photo up and gave it a once-over.

“This is…?” you turned your head to see him with that smug smile from before, tapping the image in your hand with his finger, “this is what I want you to look into.” You would have bristled if you hadn’t known your father better, this was some kind of trap.

“The same day you headed off to Metropolis, intriguingly enough, the LexCorp building had a break-in,” he paused to gather more words, rolling them around on his tongue before swallowing them, I’m worried, and you’re the reason.

“A break-in? I hadn’t heard—”

“No, you wouldn’t have. LexCorp seems to be keeping it from the public knowledge.”

“Then the League computers?”

“Was able to take a few photos from another satellite, these two were the best ones I could find. One of whatever broke in as it took off flying, and another of the same building a few minutes after. No police, no fire crews, nothing.” He was watching your reactions like a hawk, unfortunately you’d played this game so often growing up (learning to lie and stay out of trouble was a skill your brothers and you freaking perfected, even if they got into trouble on purpose), that it was really very easy to just—

“Uhm, but… dad, how? You grounded me, remember? That makes gathering any kind of intel like, y’know, hard.”

The smug smile was back as he pointed at the rather established medical area, the two of you heading over together, “you’re the information broker, I’m sure you can find something useful. It’s not the first time you’ve had to gather information from behind bars, after all,” you really hated how he still felt compelled to remind you of that.

It was once, in a country where no one knew you and where records were shoddy at best.

And on purpose, dangit.

You still weren’t certain how he even found out, besides, he and your brothers had done worse by comparison.

As he began removing the old tracker, you ignored the pain, the lack of anesthetic nothing new to you, too used to it at this point. Not that it was terribly painful. He was precise in skill, second to Alfred, you were too preoccupied with keeping the child still in your lap to notice what he’d been doing prior to your arrival.

All jokes aside, he’d finally gotten ahold of something that could yield actual results.

He looked to the boy again, staring at his familiar features, at his hair, like midnight, “striking how much he looks like us.” You frowned at him.

It was a statement.

The joke wasn’t lost on him.

Or on you.

[justforbooks]

Terry Jones obituary

One morning Brian Cohen, completely naked, flung open the shutters at his bedroom window to find a mob below hailing him as the Messiah. Mrs Cohen, played by Terry Jones, who has died aged 77, had something to say about that. “He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy,” she told the disappointed crowd. It became a classic cinema moment.

The 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a satire about an ordinary Jewish boy mistaken for the Messiah, which Jones directed and co-wrote with his fellow Pythons Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Michael Palin, was banned by 39 British local authorities, and by Ireland and Norway. Jones and his chums were unrepentant: they even launched a Swedish poster campaign with the slogan: “So funny it was banned in Norway.”

As for Jones’s performance as Mandy Cohen, it united two leading facets of the funnyman’s repertoire: his fondness for female impersonation, and his passion for historical revisionism. The latter was evident not just in his work for Monty Python – in which his historian’s sensibility proved essential to the satire of Arthurian England in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), which he co-directed and co-wrote – but also in several documentaries and books in which he stood up for what he took to be the misrepresented Middle Ages.

“We think of medieval England as being a place of unbelievable cruelty and darkness and superstition,” he said. “We think of it as all being about fair maidens in castles, and witch-burning, and a belief that the world was flat. Yet all these things are wrong.”

Arguably, without Jones, Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-74) would not have revolutionised British TV comedy. He was key in developing the show’s distinctively trippy, stream-of-consciousness format, where each surreal set-up (the Lumberjack Song, the upper-class twit of the year show, the dead parrot, or the fish-slapping dance) flowed into the next, unpunctuated by punchlines.

For all his directorial flair, though, Jones may well be best remembered for creating such characters as Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson, Cardinal Biggles of the Spanish Inquisition, the Scottish poet Ewan McTeagle and the monstrous musician rodent beater in the mouse organ sketch who hits specially tuned mice with mallets.

Thanks to the show’s success, Jones was able to diversify into working as a writer, poet, librettist, film director, comedian, actor and historian. “I’ve been very lucky to have been able to act, write and direct and not have to choose just the one thing,” he said.

Jones was a second world war baby, born in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, and brought up by his mother, Dilys (nee Newnes), and grandmother, while his father, Alick Jones, was stationed with the RAF in India. He recalled meeting his father for the first time when he returned from war service: “Through plumes of steam at the end of the platform, he appeared – this lone figure in a forage cap and holding a kit bag. He ran over and kissed my mum, then my brother, then bent down and picked me up and planted one right on me. I’d only ever been kissed by the smooth lips of a lady up until that point, so his bristly moustache was quite disturbing.”

When he was four, the family moved to Surrey so his father could take up an appointment as a bank clerk. Terry attended primary school in Esher and the Royal Grammar school in Guildford. He studied English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and developed a lifelong interest in medieval history as a result of reading Chaucer.

At Oxford, he started the Experimental Theatre Company with his friend and contemporary Michael Rudman, performing everything from Brecht to cabaret. He also met Palin and the historian Robert Hewson, and collaborated with them on a satire on the death penalty called Hang Down Your Head and Die. It was set in a circus ring, with Jones playing the condemned man. He and Palin then worked together on the Oxford Revue, a satirical sketch show they performed at the 1964 Edinburgh festival, where he met David Frost as well as Chapman, Idle and Cleese.

After graduation, he was hired as a copywriter for Anglia Television and then taken on as a script editor at the BBC, where he worked as joke writer for BBC2’s Late Night Line-Up (1964-72). Jones and Palin became fixtures on the booming TV satire scene, writing for, among other BBC shows, The Frost Report (1966-67) and The Kathy Kirby Show (1964), as well as the ITV comedy sketch series Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967-69).

In 1967, he and Palin were invited to write and perform for Twice a Fortnight, a BBC sketch show that provided a training ground not only for a third of the Pythons (Jones and Palin), but two-thirds of the Goodies (Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie) and the co-creator of the 1980s political sitcom Yes Minister, Jonathan Lynn.

Jones and Palin wrote and starred in The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) for LWT. Its conceit was to relate historical incidents as if TV had existed at the time. In one sketch, Samuel Pepys was a chat show host; in another, a young couple of ancient Britons looking for their first home were shown around the brand-new Stonehenge. “It’s got character, charm – and a slab in the middle,” said the estate agent.

In the same year, he became one of the six founders of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. They expected the show to be quickly decommissioned by BBC bosses. “Every episode we’d be there biting our nails hoping someone might find it funny. Right up until the middle of the second series John Cleese’s mum was still sending him job adverts for supermarket managers cut out from her local newspaper,” Jones recalled. “It was only when they started receiving sackfuls of correspondence from school kids saying they loved it that we knew we were saved.”

After Python finished its run on TV, Jones went on to direct several films with the troupe. The first, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, was, he recalled, “a disaster when we first showed it. The audiences would laugh for the first five minutes and then silence, nothing. So we re-cut it. Then we’d show it in different cities, saying, ‘We’re worried about our film, would you come and look at it?’ And as a result people would come and they’d all be terribly worried about it too, so it was a nightmare.”

He had more fun co-writing and directing two series for the BBC called Ripping Yarns (1976-79) in which Palin starred as a series of heroic characters in mock-adventure stories, among them Across the Andes by Frog, and Roger of the Raj, sending up interwar literature aimed at schoolboys.

Jones directed and starred in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which some religious groups denounced for supposedly mocking Christianity. Jones defended the film: “It wasn’t about what Christ was saying, but about the people who followed him – the ones who for the next 2,000 years would torture and kill each other because they couldn’t agree on what he was saying about peace and love.”

In 1983 he directed Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, in which he made, perhaps, his most disgusting appearance, as Mr Creosote, a ludicrously obese diner, who is served dishes while vomiting repeatedly.

During this decade Jones diversified, proving there was life after Python. In 1980, he published Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary, arguing that the supposed paragon of Christian virtue could be demonstrated to be, if one studied the battles Chaucer claimed he was involved in, a typical, perhaps even vicious, mercenary. He also set out to overturn the idea of Richard II presented in the work of Shakespeare “who paints him more like sort of a weak … unmanly character”. Jones portrayed the king as a victim of spin: “There’s a possibility that Richard was actually a popular king,” he said.

He wrote children’s books, starting with The Saga of Erik the Viking (1983), which he composed originally for his son, Bill. A book of rhymes, The Curse of the Vampire’s Socks (1989), featured such characters as the Sewer Kangaroo and Moby Duck.

In 1987, he directed Personal Services, a film about the madam of a suburban brothel catering for older men, starring Julie Walters. The story was inspired by the experiences of the Streatham brothel-keeper Cynthia Payne. Jones proudly related that three of four films banned in Ireland were directed by him – The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life and Personal Services.

Two years later, he directed Erik the Viking, a film adaptation of his book, with Tim Robbins in the title role of a young Norseman who declines to go into the family line of raping and pillaging. In 1996, he adapted Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows for the big screen, giving himself the role of Mr Toad, with Ratty and Mole played by Idle and Steve Coogan. But it was rarely screened in cinemas. “It was ruined by studio politicking between Disney and Columbia Tristar,” he said. “We made a really nice film but no one saw it. It didn’t make any money, even though it was well reviewed.”

Jones was also unfortunate with his next film project. Absolutely Anything, based on a script he wrote with the screenwriter Gavin Scott, concerned aliens coming to Earth and giving one person absolute power. Plans were scuppered when a movie with a similar premise, Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey, was released in 2003. Only in 2015 did Jones manage to film Absolutely Anything, in which Simon Pegg, playing a mild-mannered schoolteacher, is given miraculous powers by a council of CGI aliens voiced by Jones and his former Monty Python colleagues. Robin Williams, in one of his last roles, voiced Pegg’s dog.

Jones made well-received history documentaries, including in 2002 The Hidden History of Egypt, The Hidden History of Rome and The Hidden History of Sex & Love, in which he examined the diets, hygiene, careers, sex lives and domestic arrangements of the ancient world, often appearing in the films as an ancient character, sometimes dressed as a woman.

In his book Who Murdered Chaucer? (2003), he wondered if the poet had been killed on behalf of King Henry IV for being politically troublesome.

He wrote for the Guardian, about the poll tax, nuclear power and the ozone layer. He became a vocal opponent of the Iraq war, and his articles on the subject were collected under the title Terry Jones’s War on the War on Terror (2004).

In his 2006 BBC series Barbarians, Jones sought to show that supposedly primitive Celts and savage Goths were nothing of the kind and that the ancient Greeks and Persians were neither as ineffectual nor as effete as the ancient Romans supposed. Best of all, he sought to demonstrate that it was not the Vandals and other north European tribes who destroyed Rome but Rome itself, thanks to the loss of its African tax base.

When Jones was asked what he would like on his tombstone, he did not want to be remembered as a Python, perhaps surprisingly, but for his writing and historical work. “Maybe a description of me as a writer of children’s books or maybe as the man who restored Richard II’s reputation. I think those are my best bits.”

In 2016, it was announced that Jones had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia that impairs the ability to communicate. He and his family and friends spoke about his experiences to help others living with the condition.

Jones is survived by his second wife, Anna (nee Söderström), whom he married in 2012, and their daughter, Siri; and by Bill and Sally, the children of his first marriage, to Alison Telfer, which ended in divorce.

• Terence Graham Parry Jones, writer, actor and director, born 1 February 1942; died 21 January 2020

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[tzigone]

Favorite characterization of Dick Grayson

What's your favorite era or writer for Dick Grayson?  What characterizations do you like or dislike?

Here are my opinions.  I may ramble a bit. Sorry about that. 

You can skip this paragraph if you don't care how I ended up here and which comics I’ve read  - it's not particularly important, I just wanted to share.  First, while previously having seen on-screen versions of Dick Grayson, and read a bit of DickBabs fanfic (Batman: TAS sold me on them before the show went directions I loathe), I never actually read any issues of DC until 2015ish.  Had been a Marvel girl because they didn't do reboots, but then they destroyed Peter Parker's marriage and rebooted the universe, so I abandoned comics for a while.  But then I saw some reruns of Young Justice cartoon.  So I read some fic.  Many fics incorporated comic characters.  There I discovered Spoiler, who I really liked the idea of as Spoiler (someone who works against Batman's wishes and doesn't obey his orders and refused to back down, but isn’t a killer).  So I read the Robin series for the first 100+ issues (quitting when I knew War Games was near because the storyline sounded bad).  But that made me decide to read the Nightwing comic that stared in that era.  Really liked that, and really liked Dick Grayson (on-screen portrayals had already lead me to favor him).  Then Birds of Prey, Dixon-era, too.  Then, because I liked Dick, the Original and New Teen Titans. Original was too Silver Age for me, but really enjoyed 1980-1986ish New Teen Titans (thought it went downhill after that, and abandoned when I reached 1990 issues).  Also read assorted Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age comics.  So I have relatively broad, but very shallow knowledge of most Bat-eras, with more in-depth knowledge of the '90s and much less of post-2000 (mostly fic, which isn't always representative of the comic).

While I have opinions on various Bat and non-Bat characters and storylines, I'm starting with Dick here. He was my favorite. It's so dependent on writing (as is ever character), and right now he’s Ric, and that is something I’m not interested in. 

While I absolutely like aspects from other eras, and I dislike some aspects from these eras, my favorite time periods for Dick are probably 1980-1986ish and 1996-2000.  There’s some good 70s stuff and I like certain dynamics of him as guardian/mentor to Damian (and some stuff with other family), but as whole, these two eras in his titles (Teen Titans and Nightwing) are my favorites.  For his characterization as stand-alone (rather than his relationships with other characters).

Golden and silver age Dick merit a bit less discussion. Characters weren’t as distinct from each other back then.  Nor, really, as consistent.  But Dick was sometimes regarded as quite a mature young man in the golden age.  Responsible, good grades, intelligent, etc.  But so was Speedy - like I said, not much distinction.  Despite some impressions, in the stories I read I did not notice Robin to make lots of puns or be unusually cheery and smiley.

Come to the mid-60s and Dick was so much a teenager. I mean the original Teen Titans fairly scream with it early on (so much slang, really folks). One writer I didn’t like had him behave like an idiot (I’m not the only one who thought so, judging by the letters pages, though opinions were split).  Really, though, in the early original Teen Titans it felt like writer(s) were trying to push the “teen” thing too much, and they sometimes came off like caricatures.  But it was a time in comics when stories and characterizations were shifting and there were, IMO, both failures and successes in trying to embrace new and different.

The ‘70s were okay. Some bits I liked, and some I didn‘t. Dick is usually responsible in Detective Comics stories. He did a little bit of playing the play-boy (with Silver), which isn’t my speed, since I like the idea that Dick, unlike Bruce, doesn’t put on a facade in day-to-day life.  Had a few girlfriends - very normal and not either stunningly celibate or shockingly promiscuous. Though the entire 70s was one year of college for Dick.

I am not at all fond of the "goofy" Dick that seems to have popped up fairly often in the past 20 years.  They often seemed to have seriously dampened his brainpower and detective skills (because Tim is the smart one and the detective and for some reason they can’t both be that).  I’m not a fan of separate out all Batman’s skills and assigning one to each Robin. It makes the Robins all less than Batman and inferior to him and sets that they will never be his equals and that I do not agree with. Now this is by no means a *consistent* thing, but it does happen, and it does irritate me.  I don’t like seeing characters diminished.

I really love old-school Dick.  Back when he was young (late '70s to mid '80s), they showed us how mature he was (probably to contrast his youth and make him a viable peer to older heroes).  Both Wally and Roy commented on it. Roy said how he always felt so much younger (issue where he got custody of Lian).  Wally though Dick was always on top of things (Kory and Donna knew better).  Heck, Terry's (Donna's ex) bachelor party was another fine example how much more of an adult he was than some men twice his age.  He was pretty cerebral, a fantastic detective, a good fighter, etc.  He could hang out and have fun, too, of course. He wasn't a stick-in-the-mud.  He was too closed off and unwilling to talk sometimes (moreso with his team, and perhaps because he thought he needed to project confidence as a leader?).  He was, in a reverse, quite willing to talk about other people's emotional issues.   Sometimes as a friend, and sometimes as a leader.  He behaved most immaturely when dealing with Batman, particularly as their relationship became more difficult - there were times when they brought out the worst in each other. Though it wasn't steady, of course.

We really got to see Dick as a leader in this era. Someone people respected and looked up to.  Not that his team always agreed with him or that he was always right, but that but that he was a person that people did have trust in. And that he usually did a good job of deserving it.  It’s not just other teenagers, though, but the older heroes respect him as well.  It’s also the first time we a real, substantive romance - with Kory.  Saw where he floundered and how he loved, and such.  Which I thought worked well until it reached a point where I thought it needed to end, and it didn’t (or rather it did end, but didn’t stay ended).  Readers who like the ship, though, will likely have a different perspective, if they are like me (I just blame the writing when this sort of thing happens with ships I prefer).

Batman: Year Three - not the best story.  I don't remember most of it, to be honest.  But one thing I really liked was the highlighted difference between Bruce and Dick.  It hits that Dick is more emotionally healthy than Bruce. That Dick had the emotional support Bruce lacked as a child (I don't think continuity had yet settled on the idea of Alfred as a father-figure to Bruce).  That could segue me into changes in Bruce's backstory and characterization, but I'll refrain.  I will say that I preferred Dick with the nice-nuns orphanage to Dick-in-juvenile-facility (though I really, really like Dixon's run on Nightwing).  It makes Bruce less of a "rescuer" of Dick, which I prefer. I do not like the idea that Dick was doomed to end up dead on street (or a criminal) if not for Bruce.  Though I admit to preferring old-school Dick-goes-directly-to-Bruce's-home, no matter how unrealistic.  I dislike the entire Talon thing even more. I hate the back-projecting of more angst and more terrible things, like his parents being murdered wasn't bad enough.

Now we come to Nightwing series. I  really liked Dixon's run.  I'm a DickBabs fan, so seeing them get together was great.  I did read he wanted Dick/Donna, and I'm glad that didn't happen.  Partially because I'm a DickBabs fan, but also because I really, really liked the platonic friendship between Dick and Donna during the New Titans.  And I liked that it was platonic and that a friendship - rather than romance - could be so very important.  I don't think friendships get near the credit they should as important relationships in fiction, and so often fans want them to be romantic.  And the older I get, the more I value good fictional friendships and sibling relationships and so on.  For the record, I also really liked the Vic/Gar friendship. And I still tend to think of Donna, rather than Wally as Dick's BFF. Though he has many friends.

Anyway, I really liked seeing Dick working on his own and having his own city.   He was finding his own path and his rogues were being developed. I liked the idea of him as a cop, and I enjoyed Amy. I liked a lot of his banter with Barbara. But not just the banter, the serious stuff. Dick was looking for a real, long-term, serious relationship.  And Barbara was the hesitant one - for understandable reasons.   It's an everyday reminder of the things they used to do together.  Things he can do that she no longer can.  And she really wants to.

Of course, in this era, he was totally a big brother to Tim, a relationship he never really had with Jason (post-crisis).  Now, Bruce's character was becoming worse and worse in this era, so that provided some conflict for Dick.  Early in the series, Bruce wasn't that bad yet, and he and Dick had some nice bonding/reconciling moments.  And so some of the issues were just on Dick's side.  He has, since at least the Titans days, had a persistent need to prove himself Batman's equal.  To others and to Batman. I was kinda peeved with Donna when she said he'd never be as good. He thinks Bruce thinks less of him on occasions when Bruce doesn't. But Bruce still treats him like an underling a good portion of the time.  He expects Dick to take orders with no questions and doesn't give him full details of plans and doesn't listen to his opinions or consider Dick's needs.  Way too often, Bruce just puts his goal ahead of everyone else.  That's an issue with Bruce.  But Dick feels like it's Bruce not seeing him as equal.  Which it is, IMO, but mostly in the sense that Bruce tends to put himself/his goal above all others in terms of importance (a problem that has only gotten worse with time).

I wasn't real fond back-projection/retconning of the Dick/Babs relationship over the years. Or her de-aging.  I like her at least 4 years older than Dick.  With no involvement when he was in highschool.  Flirtation when he was in college (1970s Batman family issues), sure, but nothing really happening until he's in Bludhaven and in his mid 20s and the 5-7 year age gap doesn't matter because they're both adults.  I much prefer her pre-crisis background with Batman to the post-crisis one, but that's a topic for my post on her.

Then the Devin Grayson era - I don't agree with all the positions of the author, but I do agree about Devin Grayson: http://theflyingwonder.tumblr.com/post/107703923021/you-made-me-curious-and-i-couldnt-resist-it-tell and I think way too many of her aspects stuck with the character.  Which I guess makes her a success, but doesn't work for me at all, because I don't like the character she describes at all and he is not Dick to me. I've read her interview on Dick Grayson and her perception of the character was just nothing like mine. She acts like he's not a thinker (even though got called too cerebral in the old days).  She acts like Dick either "fights or fucks" everyone he meets, and totally disregards so many other types of relationships. Now, the Mirage-rape had already happened (and was horribly handled), plus the Raven-mind-controllish thing (also didn't work for me), but Grayson made Dick the sleeps-around type.  That was specifically contradictory to earlier characterizations where Dick was the committed-relationship type - something he actually discussed with Roy at one point.  I liked Dick being a relationship-only guy, it was a big contrast with Bruce (particularly post-Crisis Bruce).  I don't like Dick being Batman-lite at all.  

Not Devin Grayson, but Nightwing Annual #2 - ghastly. So incredibly out of character for who Dick was back then.   Another not-my-review at http://theflyingwonder.tumblr.com/post/93534635531/can-you-explain-the-nightwing-annual-2-thing. Though I would go further in that it's  reason I don't like post-Kory’s-political-wedding Dick/Kory.  It felt like a lot of build up to "love isn't enough" and then he basically chunked his beliefs to stay with her, which makes the relationship a bad thing to me. Here's my less-well-worded thoughts when I read the wedding. http://tzigone.tumblr.com/post/170389768364/nightwing-and-starfire

So, Dick's life in Bludhaven was destroyed.  His life as independent hero was destroyed.  I enjoyed Dick with the Titans, but him in Gotham is a no-go to me.  Because he goes back to being an appendage of Bruce.  He's working in someone else's city, he's a subordinate (at least with Bruce is actually there).

I haven't read as much of the Dick/Damian relationship as I maybe should have.  While interested in their dynamic, I'm not keen on Dick's wider characterization.  I do not like lothario-Dick.  And I do not like Batman-lite Dick.  So I deeply disliked him taking Robin from Tim and giving it away without discussing it, just like Bruce did to him.   Yeah.  To top that off, I unlike many, did not like the first 12 issues of Red Robin, so there wasn't even pay-off.  And then later we'd get Dick faking his death and hurting his family for the sake of the mission (Batman's mission).  Too Batman-like. I do get incredibly frustrated with that no matter how badly he treats them, Bruce's "kids" keep coming back and following his orders.  I didn't like his non-masked storyline, in N52, either. Sadly, at least Barbara (who I don’t like being a student of Bruce’s), Dick, and Tim have all adopted some of Bruce’s worse traits in regards to secrets and manipulation at one point or another.

But my biggest thing is that Dick all to often (not always, but even once is too often) gets treated like a joke. He's the lovable brother, and that part is okay. But he's all cuddles and cartoons and Disney and most of his maturity is just gone.  This is heavy in fic, but it's present in the comics, too.  At 19 he was man, and now he's a man-child. Not when he's working, I mean, but in personal life.  Lex Luthor says he's not a big thinker and some people agree. And that is just totally wrong to me.  For me Dick, while far from perfect, is a person that has earned and has respect not only from his peers, but from the first-generation heroes.  And it just gets worse later.  Late Pre-Crisis they de-age him and he's 21 in N52 (when it starts anyway). And I hated his de-aging, and Barbara's.  It feels like they're being drug backwards and not allowed to grow up. Even though Barbara *started* grown up and Dick had pretty much been a man even during his endless year at Hudson.  I don't like the idea of Dick as someone people don't take seriously. Bart or Booster, maybe is someone villains don't take seriously, but should. But Dick, at least as he reaches his adult years, should be someone that people (villains and colleagues) do take seriously and respect.  Thought without the intimidation Batman has, at least with criminals.  I will say I do think it was done partially to keep Batman from getting too old to do the job, but I still don’t care for it.

Don’t get me started on Dick and what he thought was Bruce’s body and the Lazarus pit.

I thought the entire issue with Dick and Bruce after Bruce’s failed wedding was bad.  Dick tries to be the goofball. They try to redeem it at the end, but it falls flat because he was stupid enough to think it would help in the first place.

Some people seem to think it's the sweetest thing ever if Dick moves back to Gotham and lives in the manor and Bruce takes care of him, and that's just a no-go to me.  It's infantilizing. He's grown up and should be allowed to grow up.  I see a lot of infantilizing of Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian.  I get why it's done (to see Bruce the dad), but dislike it intensely.  It's demeaning to me. I like Bruce the dad, too. But he can be a dad to adult children and treat them like adults (well, the grown ones). And yes, like equals, but that it what I think the relationship between adult parents and children should be.  Though it’ll be a long time before Bruce gets to a point where he’ll consistently do that.

Side note: the comments on Dick's body get a little old.  I totally get that he's stunning.  I'm cool with Kory or Barbara or his current girlfriend enjoying his body or complimenting him on it.  But sometimes it seems like various characters (usually female) are discussing him like a piece of meat. Particularly frustrating when his hero colleagues do so.  I know a good bit of this comes with me binge-reading, making it seem more often than when issues are read a month apart.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Before Spec Spidey Batman Beyond was called the best Spider-Man cartoon ever, more or less as an insult to all other Spider-Man cartoons, but more specifically the 1994 Spider-Man animated series.

 Frankly in thinking about it...that’s really just superficial and ignorant.

 The point of view stems from the following commonalities between Batman Beyond and Spider-Man, though I’m sure I am missing some.

 1)      They are both about teenage superheroes

2)      The protagonists are both being raised by single mothers

3)      Both have a blonde/ginger jock rival at school

4)      Both have corrupt industrialist businessman villains who’re untouched by the law and believed to be perfectly innocent

5)      Both have villains who have inky black bodies and shapeshifting powers

6)      Both have friends who turn into villains

7)      Both have villains who are urban hunters

8)      Both have love interests who are morally grey, black and white clad costumes thieves

9)      In one scene the protagonist of the story comes home to find police outside his house and informing him his father figure was murdered , believing that the killer’s actions had something to do with them, thus facilitating feelings of guilt within them

 Let’s go through those points and discuss why Batman Beyond whilst a great show is really NOT the best Spider-Man show ever exempting Spec Spidey.

 They are both about teenage superheroes

 Spider-Man invented the archetype of the teenage superhero but it doesn’t inherently mean any teen hero equates to him.

That would be like saying every superhero ever equates to Superman.

Specifics of personality and life situation matter.

Peter Parker is a wholesome nerdy kid whereas Terry McGinnis is a modestly popular ex-juvenile offender and punk.

 The protagonists are both being raised by single mothers

 See above. Noticeably Terry doesn’t have to support his mother the way Peter supported Aunt May and she is neither elderly, sickly nor doting.

  Both have a blonde/ginger jock rival at school

 Sure, but whilst Flash Thompson was a jock with some semblance of redeeming features and adored Spidey, Nelson Nash was indifferent to Batman Beyond and generally seemed like an arrogant jerk and nothing more.

More poignantly while Flash was a bully and bullied Peter Parker specifically Nelson was not a bully to Terry McGinnis . They competed, were rivals but they ultimately hung in the same social circles whereas Flash was very much higher up the High school hierarchy than ��Puny Parker’.

 Both have corrupt industrialist businessman villains who’re untouched by the law and believed to be perfectly innocent

 Derek Powers and his son Paxton Powers could be compared to Norman Osborn or Kingpin.

 However Kingpin is more or less akin to Spider-Man in so far as he spawned an archetype of businessman criminals of which even post-Crisis Lex Luthor would fit. Does Kingpin own the franchise on this type of character and nobody else can play on it?

 And whilst Derek Powers/Blight is a better analogy to Norman Osborn/Green Goblin due to their secret identities as villains (and green colour schemes) their personalities, motives and overall relationship are wildly different.

 Derek Powers is more or less a ruthless and mercenary businessman. He breaks the law and hurts people, even kills them, but it’s all to simply protect his interests or make a profit.

 Whilst Norman would definitely do things like that, for him the money is just a means to an end. That end being power. And unlike Derek who will kill and attack someone if you antagonize him, Norman is outright sadistic. He doesn’t seek to simply kill his enemies who’ve really gotten to him so much as destroy and torment them.

 Finally for Derek Powers, being Blight is a frustrating illness he wants rid of and tries to not to spend too much time in that identity. For Norman it is the route he truly desires to seek power from. He loves it and feels complete when in costume.

 Both have villains who have inky black bodies and shapeshifting powers

 Again this is profoundly superficial.

 Putting sex aside, Venom and Inque are very obviously completely different characters.

 Inque’s powerset makes her a living blob.

 Venom is a solid pack of muscle who uses said muscle and very physical force to attack with.

 Inque is a mercenary and saboteur in it for the money and at most a little payback.

 Venom is a delusional, obsessive stalker bent on revenge.

 Inque is a at the end of the day just a villain to Batman Beyond.

 Venom is a terrifying dark reflection of Spider-Man who preys upon his personal life.

 Both have friends who turn into villains

My how utterly exclusive to Spider-Man and Spider-Man alone that is.

 And of course vulnerable drug addict and abused kid Harry Osborn going over the edge and becoming a bad guy out of a desire for post-humorous paternal approval is just like Charlie Bigalow.

 I mean he was a troubled punk kid who pushed the law with our hero when they were kids and wound up in prison before getting out and mutating.

 They are the exact same thing.

 Both have villains who are urban hunters

 Kraven the Hunter is not the only example of a character like this. Merely the most famous.

 Both have love interests who are morally grey, black and white clad costumes thieves

Ten is obviously Catwoman more than she is Felicia Hardy.

More poignantly Ten and Terry’s relationship plays out excluisivly in their normal identities and is about genuine young love. Ten also doesn’t honestly want the criminal life she leads and does so out of family obligation.

Peter and Felicia’s relationship begins in their costumed identities and is about Peter trying to turn her away from villainy and her thrillseeking ways making that difficult. Felicia is an adventurer because it’s who she is and wants to be, a decision she made for herself not out of any obligation.

 In one scene the protagonist of the story comes home to find police outside his house and informing him his father figure was murdered , believing that the killer’s actions had something to do with them, thus facilitating feelings of guilt within them

 Yeah but the Terry’s guilt is resolved by the end of the first 2 episodes when he learns his father’s death had nothing to do with him.

 When the death of your teen hero’s father had nothing to do with their own actions and doesn’t teach them a lesson about how and why to be a hero then fundamentally you are not telling a Spider-Man story.

 I could go on and on about other deviations between Spider-Man lore and Batman Beyond but instead I want to focus upon the stones thrown against Spider-Man the Animated Series by comparing this show to Spidey.

 I’m not suggesting Batman Beyond wasn’t INSPIRED to some extent by Spider-Man but the idea that it was honestly a Spider-Man show in even an abstract sense or that it was the ‘best’ Spider-Man show until Spec came along is utterly boneheaded and superficial.

 And I’m not talking about simplistic differences like the names, costumes and power sets of the leads being different or any of the deviations I listed above.

 I’m talking about the spirit and core concept of Spider-Man vs Batman Beyond being intrinsically different to one another.

 Batman Beyond conceptually is about a punk teenager who becomes Batman in the future, learning from Bruce Wayne and trying to redeem himself for his past as a punk. It’s dark, it’s edgy, it’s about legacy and helping a city which is in desperate need of the hero they lost long ago. A better analogy would be to say it is the Mask of Zorro to regular Batman’s Mark of Zorro.

 Spider-Man conceptually is totally different. To begin with (and putting aside the futuristic setting) Spider-Man isn’t ABOUT being a teen hero. He merely started that way. Spider-Man is about one man’s life as he juggles the responsibilities of heroism alongside the normal life responsibilities most of us deal with at some point and the complications thereof. The point of the character is for him to be relatively speaking a relatable albeit nerdy guy and to examine the themes of responsibility, specifically in relation to the power one has in one’s life.

 This is ignited by an origin story of a kid shirking his responsibilities and learning the harsh price of doing so. Batman Beyond much like Batman himself is a story not about someone becoming a hero because they saw the ramifications of them NOT being one but becoming a hero because the forces of evil took someone they love, so they resolve to try and prevent such a thing from happening again. Peter’s story is an aesop’s fable where he is shaped by his own mistakes whilst Burce and Terry’s stories are about cruel chance shattering their lives. They are innocent victims in the tragedy of their origins, whereas Peter is not, he could have prevented calamity.

 It goes without saying Spider-Man the animated series got this right so I don’t see how on this count anyone could say Terry is Peter and therefore Batman Beyond was a better Spider-Man tv show.

 Furthermore a vital part of the core concept of Spider-Man was his status as a independent, self made man. This again was captured in the 1994 cartoon whilst Batman Beyond hinged upon the student/teacher relationship between Terry and Bruce Wayne. This would be a categorical betrayal of Spider-Man’s story if done in a Spider-Man show.

 Tonally Spider-Man the Animated Series captured the vitally important grey area Spider-Man typically occupies as a series. Spider-Man stories can fall somewhere between light and fun, dark and serious. Usually they mix the two together so that there is bombastic colourful superhero action alongside more grounded real life human drama. Spider-Man the Animated Series eloquently captured this vast range with dark stories like the Alien Costume Saga, goofier episodes like the Spot spotlight episode and the ‘somewhere in between’ like the debut of Mysterio which generates pathos for our hero whilst showcasing the over the top character of Mysterio, having Peter and Mary Jane flirt over the phone and have her later dump him. Batman Beyond meanwhile was appropriately dark and edgy most of the time with occasional ventures into the light and the fun.

  Microcosm of this can be seen in the characters’ divergent senses of humour. For all the one liners and jokes Terry McGinnis dropped, his style of humour was akin to a James Bond ‘cool one liner’ or Ali’s trademark disses. Spidey in the 90s cartoon much like in the comics, was more of a witty banterer, prone to mocking the absurdity of a villain, a situation and even his own lifestyle.

 Some examples to illustrate the differences.

 In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker Terry McGinnis confronts the Jokerz gang and says:

 It's a school night, boys and girls. I'm gonna have to call your folks.

 Cool. Bad ass. And one of the few things Terry says in the proceeding fight, let alone one of the few jokes.

 In the episode Doctor Octopus Armed and Dangerous, Doc Ock says

Spider-Man! You're making a career of interference!

 Which then prompts our hero to say:

  Some career! No salary, no vacation; and talk about on-the-job health hazards! 

 Later in the same episode this exchange happens:

 How does it feel to know that you could change things, Spider-Man, but be helpless to do so?

 Not as bad as I'd feel if I had a name like Doc Ock! 

 See what I mean. Terry has a sense of humour but it functions totally differently to Spidey’s.

  In terms of story structure Batman Beyond followed the typical DCAU standard of making mostly self-contained episodes which were mini-movies in a sense. Now it DID have one notable subplot which was Derek Powers’ medical condition which ran during the first season. But really that was it. Beyond that whilst some episodes exist post certain shifts in the status quo a lot of episodes are interchangeable in their viewing order. Typically any given episode is just a day in the life of Terry McGinnis .

 And I’m not insulting the show for that, it worked beautifully. But it is totally not how Spider-Man’s comic book series nor Spidey TAS functioned. Although one could shift some episodes around in the first season of Spider-Man the animated series the majority of the show demanded you see the episodes on sequence to get the full story.

 Peter’s life much like the comics wasn’t a series of day in the life adventures, but rather a forward flowing narrative wherein events of one day might impact upon the next and so on and so forth.

 Spider-Man in episode 10 of season 1 is casually interested in Mary Jane Watson and Felicia Hardy. By the concluding episode of season 3 he’s very much in love with Mary Jane and debating ending his career as a superhero to be with her. By the final episode of season 5 he’s come to complete peace and acceptance in his life despite the absence of Mary Jane, whom he is determined to find and be with. These events run in conjunction with shifting developments and subplots in the lives of the supporting cast. In season 1 Norman Osborn gets in debt to the Kingpin whom Spider-Man is unaware is Wilson Fisk, meanwhile Felicia Hardy is casually dating Flash Thompson. In season 3 Norman becomes the Green Goblin and seeks to kill Kingpin to free himself of the debt, whilst Felicia is trying to move on from her lost love Michael Morbius with Spider-Man himself and Jason Macendale who is in fact the Hobgoblin who was originally created by Norman Osborn to kill Kingpin to free himself of the debt. In the course of the season Spidey learns Kingpin’s identity, Kingpin pressures Norman to reveal Hobgoblin’s identity prompting Norman to become the Goblin again and reveal Macendale’s relationship to Felicia whilst also trying to get rid of him and Fisk.

 Which brings me to my next point. Whilst Batman Beyond did have a supporting cast they didn’t get half the play that Spider-Man’s did, which is appropriate because the supporting cast is a vital part of Spider-Man’s lore. To underuse them or not have them is to most definitely be screwing up Spider-Man. In this regard if we were judging the two shows as a Spider-Man adaptation Spidey TAS crushes Batman Beyond as the supporting cast is large, present and has their own subplots beautifully intertwined with one another and the main plots overall. And often times these sorts of entanglements are romantic in nature, far moreso than in Batman Beyond.

 All of which is VITAL to the spirit of Spider-Man the comic book series but is mostly absent from Batman Beyond.

 I could go on but to start wrapping things up lets ponder the question of WHY anybody in t he face of these incredibly obvious deviations ever claim Batman Beyond is the best Spider-Man show ever or in fact a Spider-Man show at all?

 Because...it had better production values.

 Honestly that is the real reason. Batman Beyond had better animation and used less stock footage, therefore it was better as a Spider-Man show than Spider-Man the Animated Series.

 And I won’t deny it’s better quality production values, nor will I dive into why the production values were different.

 But I will say this...it’s superficial. I’m not saying good animation isn’t important to an animated TV show but good lord surely the story and the characters themselves are at least AS important if not moreso. In that regard Spider-Man the Animated series as a Spider-Man show is egregiously superior than Batman Beyond.

 It is truly an honest and heartfelt interpretation of the Spider-Man mythology as it existed at that time.

 Batman Beyond is not. It’s just an incredibly awesome show unto itself that took cues from the same lore but was it’s own thing.

People need to stop being superficial morons and saying otherwise.