#BUT ON THE OTHER HAND--zur wants the family out of the way so that bruce will ONLY be batman

[hood-ex]

Having a Homer Simpson "d'oh!" moment because I missed/forgot some pivotal information on the Zur situation that happened a few issues ago.

Zur created Failsafe and erased the memory of how to stop him. He also created a batcave under Bruce's batcave. (Batman #127 / Batman #136)

Bruce literally mentioned that Zur "poisoned the well" and put doubt in Bruce's head and heart. Bruce questioned, "What else has he done?" (Batman #136)

Bruce locked Zur away in his mind, and they were at odds with each other because Bruce didn't want Zur taking over, and Zur wanted out because he perceived Bruce's insecurities and doubts as his mind being "under attack." He wanted out to fulfill his purpose. (Batman #136)

In a flashback, Zur took over Bruce's body without Bruce even knowing. One minute, Bruce was trying to solve a case, and in the next, Zur was doing his own thing. When he gave up control to Bruce again, Bruce simply carried on with his previous thought as if he hadn't been personality swapped at all. (Batman #136)

Zur tried to tell Bruce what to do. Bruce snapped and yelled at him, reminding Zur that he (Zur) was in a cage. Bruce reassured himself, "He's in a cage. I'm in control." (Batman #137)

Now there was a moment in Batman #136 where Bruce started to panic because he couldn't see the future or whatever, so he didn't know how he could save everyone he loved, and he wondered how far he could go before it all burned away.

And then in Batman #137/Catwoman #57, Bruce realized that he no longer owned the manor, and he kinda started spiraling and talking about how even if he lost the manor/his wealth, he wouldn't lose his soldiers.

"They can't be bought. But they can be saved."

Notice the fact that Bruce used the term "soldiers." Because guess what? In Batman #127, Zur referred to Tim and the other members of the family as soldiers, and Bruce angrily corrected him.

"And Tim isn't my soldier! HE'S MY SON!"

SOOO. Do you see where I'm kinda going with all this? Bruce not knowing when Zur takes over? Zur being able to erase memories? Zur using "soldier" in his own dialogue color, and Bruce using the term "soldier" in his own dialogue color? Bruce saying that Zur "poisoned the well."

AND NOW, in today's issue, Zur forcibly took over to try and kill Joker again. And you know what was said?

Bruce: No! I'm in control! I'm--

Zur: You're not in control, we (Zur) are.

BRUCE CANNOT CONTROL ZUR. HE CANNOT. He thinks he can, and he thought he had it under control, but Bruce doesn't have shit under control!

[faytelumos]

Jason Todd

Give Me a Character

How I feel about Jason? I love him. He's my boy. He's a martyr. He's a cautionary tale. He's always been doomed since the day he was born. The very universe itself conspires against him because readers wanted him to die. So he dies. Again and again, in every universe, he dies, and he fights, and he tries to make the world a better place, and he wants to be kind, but he is doomed, always, every time, even when he comes back. It's tragic, and I hate what they've done to him, but without it, he wouldn't be the same person. He wouldn't be my blorbo.

JoyFire (Jason Todd x Roy Harper x Koriand'r) is my OTP for this guy. And I will say it out loud, I also enjoy JayTim and JayDick. I like JoyFire because it's like… the family you choose. Each of them has trauma about getting left behind in some sense. So they'll never leave each other. Even if Jason's a jerk sometimes, he will never, ever leave either of them hanging when it matters even a little. And they're the same for him. I like JayTim because Tim thinks Jason is so annoying, and Jason thinks Tim is so smart and capable, and so there's a little bit of pining in there? Especially in the opposite way one would expect by looking at them. But Tim knows that Jason's smart, and I kind of ignore a bunch of the ugliness that happened right around Under the Red Hood with them, to be honest. Not completely, but some of it. I think that Tim can admire Jason's ingenuity and persistence even when he's rolling his eyes at him, and I think that Jason thinks so highly of Tim, even when he refuses to ever say it out loud. And as for JayDick, maybe some of it is just me smashing my favorite dolls together. I freaking love Dick Grayson. Who doesn't? And I freaking love Jason, and they have a complicated relationship, but they love each other, whether you want it to be brotherly, friendly, or romantic. They love each other, and I'll take that in any flavor I can get it.

Non-romantic OTP is also Jason and Dick. You cannot tell me these two don't share the braincell when they're in a room together. But also, they can be hyper competent together. If they're both motivated and working together, they can do anything. Including building a heated roof pool out of cardboard, a carbon metallic alloy, and a "borrowed" shop vacuum.

(Also gotta mention that I adore father-son pair Bruce and Jason. The two of them are just so wonderful together, how Jason brings such joy into Bruce's life and Bruce just wants Jason to heal and realize his dreams, ah!)

Unpopular opinion about him? Willis was a good dad. [lifts a megaphone] Willis Todd was a good dad! He was a victim of a broken system and turned to crime because it was the only means he had to provide for his family! Any time he laid a hand on Jason or Catherine was still unjustified, but it was because Willis was a deeply frustrated and scared man who had no system or room to handle his negative emotions or feel accomplishment in his life! [puts down the megaphone] Domestic abuse is never okay, and that goes the same if a woman is the abuser. But Willis was not an asshole, he was a poverty-stricken petty criminal with the most minimal support system. He loved Jason, and he loved Catherine, and he tore himself up to do his best to provide for them all the way to the end. His story is a sad one, he was not the villain, and I hate it when people say Jason is better off without him and didn't mourn him or feel bad about his death.

There's a lot of things I wished hadn't happened to him in canon, but most of all, I hate what Zur En Arrh did to him.* It was absolutely terrible, and then the fact that nobody was left to give Jason any support at all after the fact because they were all chasing Zur really gets to me. The way that one panel just showed him trembling, so small, alone, asking anybody at all for help…. It breaks my heart. Because it's always like that for him. He ends up alone, on his own, because he's the black sheep and he's mad about it, and he defends people who others leave behind. And it breaks my heart in a way that actually very truly makes me sad. Because there are people who think he deserves it. Including the writers.

[mattzerella-sticks]

"You can live a normal life. Fall in love."

I think this scant piece of ranting says a LOT about how Bruce sees Batman. It's not just a duty. It's a curse. Your blessings are also your damnations. Bruce thinks that you cannot fall in love while you are a vigilante (despite COUNTLESS EVIDENCE THAT DISPROVES THIS - Dick and Babs, Clark and Lois, Ollie and Dinah, etc.)

But Bruce has a very myopic viewpoint that leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. He hasn't had success in romance as Batman. It's Batman's fault. He can't give up Batman. Ergo, he cannot 'find love' in the nuclear family, heteronormative sense because of Batman.

Let's look at the three 'greatest loves' of Batman's life according to his and Ghostmaker's trip into his psyche.

Selina Kyle. Talia al Ghul. Poison Ivy.

I'll work backwards. Ivy is a placeholder because she was never really his. She never loved him, and his love for her was chemically induced. But he has her there, why? Maybe to say that it doesn't work out because she chose someone else.

Talia. The mother of his child who is also the Demon's Head. It would never work because of his strict code against killing and her ambivalence towards it. Ironically, they have the healthiest relationship imo that probably was born from necessary co-parenting. While they don't care for what the other does, they respect and care for each other and have deep history. He thinks if he can't make it work with the mother of his kid, who can he make it work with?

Selina Kyle. Probably the closest (at this point in canon) Bruce has ever come to having a relationship that works. But every time it looks like it'll be a sure hit, something gums up the works. Most of the time, it's each other as there are key aspects of their identity that neither are willing to compromise for. And usually, when there is a compromise, it's usually on Selina's part whereas Bruce can continue being Batman. That puts a huge power imbalance in the relationship. It doesn't work out because Selina will always be drawn back to crime, and Batman will have to stop her. Bruce supposes that's what you get for falling for a criminal.

In all three, Bruce creates logical reasons why Batman is incapable of having a relationship and uses that to justify why he cannot have romance in his life. Why having this duty is a curse. Why he is showing love by getting his kids 'out' of the life, through whatever means necessary.

However, with Selina taking a chunk out of crime through a grey method, she is pulling at a foundational aspect of his personality - I'd argue the safety net Bruce created for himself when he was that boy in the alley - and, in turn, making the Batman/Zur persona go nuts. Zur sees her methods not a way to help Gotham but as an attack on him since, if this can save Gotham what is the point of Batman? What was the point of Bruce's vow? What was it all for?

Zur is giving Bruce a reason to keep going, to keep putting on the mask, so he doesn't have to confront what's under the mask when there's no crime to fight. To deal with his personal life and relationships and mhi that need to be dealt with.

And Selina and the Batfamily are right, this shouldn't have turned into a war. They shouldn't be fighting. This is an unforseen side effect of them fulfilling Bruce's wish which is to make Gotham safe when, in reality, maybe thats not what Batman wants because what safe Gotham would need Batman?

Almost like when in Infinite Crisis, Superman of earth one asks his earth two counterpart: "if your earth was perfect, why did it need a superman?"

A safe Gotham doesn't need a Batman and, after all the stress and trauma Bruce has suffered since he put on that cowl, he is not ready to hang it up. It is his burden and his joy. As much as he grouses about the crime and how much work it is to keep Gotham 'clean' he hates sitting on his hands with nothing to do.

Ironically, Batman of Zur En Arrh reminds me of what happened to Robin in Teen Titans Go! in 'Uncle Jokes' when Starfire started acting like Cyborg and Beast Boy, breaking the natural order of how he saw the world and making him go cuckoo. The same thing is happening to Bruce.

He needs to realize that he can still be Batman but he can also not be in control. That Bruce is the one stopping him from finding 'love' in a traditional sense, not Batman. That he has love and a family and he does not need to keep pushing everyone away because he thinks it's better for them and he knows best.

Batman is Gotham's greatest hero, Bruce Wayne's love, but he's also Bruce's greatest rogue. Duality.

[gffa]

Oh. Oh no. For the first time in my life pretty much ever I think I'm vaguely interested in a Batman vs Joker comic. This is a humiliating turn of events for me. It's never a good idea to get pre-invested in the potential of a DC comics storyline, that way only ever lies disappointment and "I don't know what I expected" because I should know better. But I can't help it! I took ten years off and came back to a DC that's better than when I left it! I have hope in my heart! And, for all that Gotham War ended with a whimper rather than a bang, I still can see so much potential. Imagine what a real shakeup of the dynamics in the Batfam would look like! I don't believe for a second that they'd do it, but imagine if they actually had Dick in the role of being the family leader, except as Nightwing this time instead of stepping into Batman's boots. He wouldn't want to be the patriarch in the same way Bruce was, but he's about the same age as Bruce was when Bruce adopted him, so imagine the tasty tasty parallels they could do with Dick suddenly in charge of a feral gremlin charge of his own (Damian), some actual support both emotionally and on the streets (Tim and Barbara), a team he actually would be able to call on for help when he needed it (Jason, Steph, Cass, Duke), that in some ways he has it easier than Bruce did, he's not as wrapped up in his own pain in the same way, but in other ways it's harder, he doesn't have Alfred, he has so many moving pieces that are all clashing and aren't necessarily going to listen to him (Steph and Cass and Duke aren't loyal to him the way he was loyal to Bruce)(and then there would be Jason's *waves hands* everything) and it would be out of his control that he'd feel responsible for and it would be a conflict between setting himself up in Bludhaven versus how Gotham still needs the team, not just Bruce being an asshole out there on his own--and god, running into Bruce, always wondering if he approves of Dick's style of leadership versus "You don't get a vote on whether to approve or not." There is SO MUCH that could be done with it! I can't help kind of being fond of the Gotham War set-up, because I like drama and I like Bruce's up and down character arc, and I like a complicated, sharp-edged Bruce who does inexcusable things because his brain is fucked up and lying to him, even when I know it'll disappoint me. But also. I was reading Batman #139 and oh, oh no, oh noooo, I'm interested in "Mindbomb" as a story--as a Joker story!--because it really is the perfect time for it, isn't it? Bruce has been overwhelmed for months now, he's in such a bad place mentally and emotionally that he's letting his fears of loss win and pushing his entire family away, he's doing horrible things to them because he can't handle loving them like he does, so he's separated himself from them, all while he thinks he's in control, but he's not, his brain is absolutely lying to him, and it's hissing in his ear to strip everything that Bruce loves away from himself and so that only Batman is left. Zur-En-Arrh is right there. "I'm in control!" Bruce screams in his own mind, all while Zur just rips through him and so easily takes over. Bruce has no control, he is so, so wrong about all of this, and oh boy the Joker is getting exactly what he wants, isn't he? No more annoying riff raff to get in the way or for Batman to care more about than him. No more Selina, no more kids, no more friends, no more loved ones--just Zur-En-Arrh, the most "pure" Batman in the Joker's eyes, now it's just the two of them. And that's everything Joker has ever wanted. And I don't want to find that to be an interesting extension of everything that led up to and during Gotham War, but crap yeah okay that's kind of a well-timed story when I look at it through that lens. I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, I'm going to be disappointed in wherever this goes, but dammit. The story kind of got me.

[liedownquisition]

Oh boy. You know, I really love how you've cut some of those panels out. Here's a little more context on Oliver very clearly laying a solid chunk of what's wrong with Jason at Bruce's feet:

And you know what, you're right! No one's ever obligated to forgive everyone or anyone ever! But also guess what! You're also ignoring like... a lot of stuff actually. You think the batarang is the only thing people have an issue with.... as if it exists in a vacuum as the only thing Bruce has ever done wrong to Jason ever? Because most people aren't so much mad over a single incident as we are over it happening again and again and again.

RHATO Rebirth v2 #25

Batman and Robin uhhh Issue 6 I think? Going off the omnibus, sorry

Batman #138* *yes I'm aware that Bruce is being influenced by "Zur-En-Arr" in this, but honestly? I've always felt that this & the Batman & Robin one were some of the more in-character examples of Bruce's flaws manifesting in abusive ways

Or maybe some of these are too recent. Let's talk my personal favorite little beef that I like to contrast with Ollie:

Batman #424-425 The Diplomat's Son & Consequences

Ollie, on the other hand, when his charge commits a murder that Ollie thought could be prevented:

Now there's something to be said for how the writers for these stories had very different opinions of the sidekicks that were responsible, Starlin, for example, fucking hated Jason (Well, Robin in general) and wanted him dead, and it's deliberately set up to be a question of whether or not Jason actually did. Regardless, Bruce pretty cleanly absolves himself of any wrongdoing in his upbringing of Jason, whereas Ollie takes responsibility for Mia being in the position that she even could/would make that kind of call. And at this point, Oliver had Mia with him for a lot less time than Bruce had had Jason.

If it was Just the batarang, then, frankly, I think it's be a lot less controversial. This isn't even everything OR the worst panels from those incidents!!! I'm just cherrypicking, just like you were. And you know what, let me add this:

According to Bruce, Ollie's a pretty forgiving guy, it looks like. And if we're taking more Rebirth into account, Oliver was pretty chill about Cheshire hanging out with his family, and she's definitely caused her fair share of problems for the family and world at large on scales Jason has yet to even touch*, regardless of if she's Lian's mom. *some of Jade's crimes are dubiously canon, but with the reality mashing from Convergence in a way all of it is.

Ollie is a lot of hot air. I love the man, and he'll rip anyone and everyone a new one at the drop of a hat for any godsdamned reason. Pretty sure he's called Bruce and Barry and Hal all fascists before, so he has no hesitation in saying the absolute worst about people while... still having a relatively decent relationship with them in the long run, actually. Hal even used to be a villain for a while and Oliver was forced to kill him and now they're buds again. An alternate version of Hal that is STILL that villain continues to torment Oliver and his family.

Would Jason need to actually work to earn forgiveness from the Arrows? Probably. But he's still friends with Roy now (yes, CURRENTLY. AS HE HAS BEEN FOR OVER A DECADE he hasn't even been features in much w/ Roy lately but it has been REFERENCED), and even if it was small that olive branch of helping Roy and Lian reunite (and their general friendship, actually) isn't something that Ollie would just brush off, just as he wouldn't just brush off the events of Seeing Red.

But, in the grand scheme of things, kidnapping her, sending him on a wild goose chase across town, "having a talk" (mia's words) then letting her leave unharmed, and blowing up a building behind her is honestly small potatoes in comparison to the Repeated incidents of textbook abusive relationships that goes on between Bruce and Jason. (And I cannot overemphasize how little Mia was injured by this incident.)

Of course Olie was talking shit about Jason in the interim, Red Hood is incredibly dangerous, and he's scared for her safety. You can SEE how stumped he is by her coming out of this completely unharmed. Plus! This is hot on the heels of her return after the Dr Light Incident, and Ollie has every right to be scared out of his fucking mind.

But when it comes down to it, Mia Was Not Harmed. I will not stop saying that. Because in the world of villains and superheroes and red Hood doing significantly worse shit to other characters, this is NOTHING. Even actually within Arrow comics???? This WAS NOTHING.

And oh my god "He did the same thing Joker did" okay so where do I start with this

a) that was the point, obviously.

b) he didn't, actually.

c) that was the worst description of both incidents I've ever read in my entire life. Joker didn't "take a kid from his father and torture him and make him doubt his place in his family" unless you're talking about the fucking Arkham 'verse!

c2) actually let's break down that description: "took a kid from their father figure" Joker didn't take Jason, he was sold out by his mom. "Beat them up" understatement, but go off. "Tortured them mentally about their place in their family" not really. Joker just beat him nearly to death laughing for the most part, Jason's doubts about it came after he came back to life and saw news that Joker was still alive.

d) hmmm I wonder who said it was just Jason messing with Bruce...

Hm. Yeah. Bruce is definitely the most reliable source for Jason's intentions. I mean, was it generally to spite Bruce? Probably, yeah. But Jason's very good at multitasking and layering his intentions.

e) once again, Mia was not harmed. Jason spent most of their sparring match on the defensive, And only hit Her, physically, like, four times? and all of them in retaliation to her getting in close and hitting him first*? (And, trust me, if Jason can pull the hypercompetent bullshit that is "Seemingly shooting wildly but managing to hit nothing but THE STRING OF MIA'S BOW while also accounting for how she'd dodge" he could do sooooo much worse.) Notably, he briefly had her pinned to the floor with his hands around her throat... and then let up just after he held it long enough to make his point *Note: this is not a justification, she had every reason to fight back with everything she had and what Jason does is very fucked up on like...a normalscale. But it's worth noting he was Very Visibly and outright explicitly "teaching" her throughout it and it's soooo much less than any other villain has done to her.

This doesn't read to me "Making her doubt her place in her family" so much as "Emphasizing their similarities" this is the kind of speech the villain gives when he's trying to recruit the hero. (something which, hilariously, he mocked the idea of in UTH) But you know, all interpretations of canon are valid, although...

Funny enough, this also is very much not what Joker Did, actually. I mean, I don't recall Joker letting Jason have ANY agency at all, really. Just started breaking bones.

Now, I didn't post all of them because if I kept going it'd just be the whole comic, but yeah he does very much air out his daddy issues and compare them to her relationship with Ollie. It's clear that while he does know a lot about Mia... he also doesn't know much about Ollie. At least, not personality wise. Not how much genuinely better he is at this whole parenting gig.

This is so, so much easier to forgive, conceptually, than everything that goes on in the Batfam both from and to Jason and from and to OTHER MEMBERS OF THE BATFAM without involving Jason at all!!! (Birthdays, amirite?)

And, honestly, I'm probably seeing a lot of the posts that you are, and the ones making the Jason & Ollie bonding posts? Aren't really the same ones going on about the Batarang Incident. We've moved on to the rest of the, gestures above, Patterns of Abuse. If we discuss anything past post-crisis at all. (Speaking of post crisis, I actually remember Jason doing a pretty big solid for one of Oliver's close friends... hmmmmmm. Oh, yeah, he helped out when Black Lightning was framed for murder by Slade so good that even HE thought he did it! Granted, that was pre-Mia. So he's not going to stop being wary, but it's not like Jason hasn't done good things that affected people close to Ollie either.)

And if Jason's emotions aren't an excuse, than, well, Bruce's aren't really an excuse either, are they?

Jason's not even the only one who gets abusive treatment from Bruce. And regardless of your personal interpretations of whether or not it's a valid Batman characterization, after multiple writers have written this kind of thing across multiple continuities, there comes a point when you have to accept that this is a genuine flaw that Bruce carries and find a way to reconcile it with everything else.

And if we're going off of canon-gospel, Jason's own behavior has steadily trended towards more and more fangless, more palatable, in a way that given exposure Oliver would probably tolerate, considering all the others that he tends to tolerate. He still seems to regard the Batclan in general as a dumpster fire, "None of my kids would take a shot at me" he says, completely correct, while Batman's kids wouldn't even hesitate. He rolled up with unsolicited advice about Batman's relationships multiple times, all correct, and gotten shot down or ignored as if his significantly fewer incidents of being a shitty parent that he's very self-aware about somehow make him unqualified to speak at all!

Sometimes the reason that people are writing this, is because they like Ollie more than Bruce, because he knows how to actually apologize and actually do better. And trying to ignore canon in favor of making "good dad" Bruce stories, can wear you down when you just keep seeing Bruce depicted worse and worse and worse, and so maybe you want to start seeing the people trapped in Bruce's vortex move away from that.

And among those in that vortex, Jason has it the worst. Like, this isn't a competition. Some of the shitty stuff that Bruce does to him could be argued to be just responses to what he does himself (victim-blamey, but you know what let's pretend it makes things okay) like uth, or RHATOv2#25 But... Batman & Robin? "Oh Bruce was upset about Damian."

What was it you said? Oh, that's right: "Your feelings being valid don't excuse the harm you do, guys."

Gotham War? I'm sure you'll make excuses for Bruce there. I mean, maybe implementing it was Zur, but, frankly, that "Failsafe"? That has "Bruce genuinely thought this" written all over it. Hypocrite. Considering what his response was to the last time someone messed with his mind.

Oliver... kind of is the canon version of fanon's "good dad Bruce" tbh. And sometimes people make that connection, see those parallels, and want to play with that. It's just a what if.

You know that thing about tragedies about how if anything happened any differently it could have been prevented, that someone could have been saved? Ollie fucks up, but, fundamentally, if Ollie had been in Bruce's position, he would have saved Jason, not by doing the impossible of making it there in time, but by putting Jason first and having healthy communication lmao. Because Bruce very explicitly didn't! He didn't want to talk about it because he was scared of the truth! Or, he was scared of what he believed to be the truth, which would be that Jason had killed. And that it wasn't Bruce's fault. Because it's never Bruce's fault if he failed to raise Jason in that way that took that instinct out. It's not his responsibility to have realized, as the adult in the situation, that Jason maybe shouldn't have been exposed to so much rape and murder at an impressionable age. It's not his responsibility to keep better track of his barely teenaged son who's going through severe trauma right in front of him because they failed to enact justice on someone.

And Bruce had a lot to say about what he thought about Jason that varied and, honestly, rang more as projecting his own issues onto Jason than matching up what was actually happening on the page. Better meta-writers than I have discussed how rarely we get Jason's POV in these situations, that we're TOLD a lot about Jason by everyone else who has an agenda to frame Jason in a certain way.

If you hate Jason Todd, or hate jayroy, then block the damn tags & add it to a content filter bcs generally the latter is always marked. if it's someone on your dash reblogging them and it's not tagged/hiding it then ask them to tag it so you can filter it or stop following them idc. Don't pretend your cherry picking of canon and willful out-of-context misinterpretations is any better than anyone else's.

I have seen many posts and fanfics who are going "Oliver works with Jason to annoy Bruce!", "Oliver protecting Jason from Bruce!", "Oliver deciding to annoy Bruce by being like a father figure to Jason!", "Oliver being so happy for Roy and Jason being together!", and etc, but in canon, Oliver HATES his guts.

Here is a compilation of Oliver thinking or talking about Jason from Seeing Red, which is the first Red Hood's story after Under The Red Hood, and the one time Oliver and Jason interracted in canon (if I'm not mistaken, they never did since):

For the last one, he is talking to Bruce and Jason is one of the "every damned manner of sociopathic fruit fly".

And like, Oliver and the Arrowfam are 100% justified in their dislike or hate. He literally pulled the same shit Joker did on them: took a teenager away from her father figure, beat her up, torture her mentally about her place in her new family and her usefulness, make her and her guardian think he was going to kill her, explode the building she was in in front of her father figure to make him believe he was too late... And all of that to get to Batman. He doesn't give a shit about Oliver or Mia, it's about Batman, it's about Bruce. Just like when the Joker killed him, it wasn't about him, it was about Batman.

And it doesn't matter that Jason changed, because others aren't obligated to forgive someone because they redeemed themselves. I do not believe that Oliver is fine with Jason, he is probably not very happy he hangs around Roy, and does NOT want him near Mia ever again, and certainly not his granddaughter, Liam. That's the man that kidnapped his daughter because he was mad at his own father, nope. He knows how it is to be annoyed with the Bat, and it doesn't justify this.

I can hear y'all seeing disregarding canon is fine, and yes, sure. But also, folks, you are such hypocrites if you want to keep in that Bruce threw a batarang at Jason's neck, and erase how it was an accident ("Batman doesn't make mistakes!" Firstly, he does, canonically, make huge mistakes sometimes. Secondly, the man was an emotional wreck, his son had come back to life and had been killing people and his other son, Dick, was maybe dead because his city just exploded. He is human, not a machine! Thirdly, it is simply fucking stupid for a character who is against killing to willingly inflict such a mortal wound.), but Jason being a huge asshole to others is either erased or excusable (your feelings being valid don't excuse the harm you do, guys). Talk about favoritism.

[angstandhappiness]

Interesting

Having a Homer Simpson "d'oh!" moment because I missed/forgot some pivotal information on the Zur situation that happened a few issues ago.

Zur created Failsafe and erased the memory of how to stop him. He also created a batcave under Bruce's batcave. (Batman #127 / Batman #136)

Bruce literally mentioned that Zur "poisoned the well" and put doubt in Bruce's head and heart. Bruce questioned, "What else has he done?" (Batman #136)

Bruce locked Zur away in his mind, and they were at odds with each other because Bruce didn't want Zur taking over, and Zur wanted out because he perceived Bruce's insecurities and doubts as his mind being "under attack." He wanted out to fulfill his purpose. (Batman #136)

In a flashback, Zur took over Bruce's body without Bruce even knowing. One minute, Bruce was trying to solve a case, and in the next, Zur was doing his own thing. When he gave up control to Bruce again, Bruce simply carried on with his previous thought as if he hadn't been personality swapped at all. (Batman #136)

Zur tried to tell Bruce what to do. Bruce snapped and yelled at him, reminding Zur that he (Zur) was in a cage. Bruce reassured himself, "He's in a cage. I'm in control." (Batman #137)

Now there was a moment in Batman #136 where Bruce started to panic because he couldn't see the future or whatever, so he didn't know how he could save everyone he loved, and he wondered how far he could go before it all burned away.

And then in Batman #137/Catwoman #57, Bruce realized that he no longer owned the manor, and he kinda started spiraling and talking about how even if he lost the manor/his wealth, he wouldn't lose his soldiers.

"They can't be bought. But they can be saved."

Notice the fact that Bruce used the term "soldiers." Because guess what? In Batman #127, Zur referred to Tim and the other members of the family as soldiers, and Bruce angrily corrected him.

"And Tim isn't my soldier! HE'S MY SON!"

SOOO. Do you see where I'm kinda going with all this? Bruce not knowing when Zur takes over? Zur being able to erase memories? Zur using "soldier" in his own dialogue color, and Bruce using the term "soldier" in his own dialogue color? Bruce saying that Zur "poisoned the well."

AND NOW, in today's issue, Zur forcibly took over to try and kill Joker again. And you know what was said?

Bruce: No! I'm in control! I'm--

Zur: You're not in control, we (Zur) are.

BRUCE CANNOT CONTROL ZUR. HE CANNOT. He thinks he can, and he thought he had it under control, but Bruce doesn't have shit under control!