#I mostly draw mayor Dana

[leconcombrerit]

Still on my sketching business, at that point I just draw whatever comes to mind. Like Dana and Lauren, which comes as a huge surprise to... No one. No one, okay, I know, pretend you never saw it coming

[vamp1r1cjuggalo]

Update about the downfall AU?? I love it already, so I must ask.😭

Hi hi! Yes yes! I’m really glad you like it!

So we do actually a lot of updates! I’ll start off with our status list and then dive into characters!

Status list

Toons:

Flippy: dead rip L

Lord Lowden Clear: Alive, the new mayor

Mata Hairy: Alive, doing well

Good Ol’ Gil Giggles: Alive

Bumpy Bumblebehr: Alive

Rain: Alive and well, chilling with William

Reid Stock: Alive

River: Alive

Barnacle Bessie: Alive

The elders: Alive, old as shit

Timmy: Alive

Rocky: Might be dead, possibly due to an encounter with an odd red cat lawbot

Vinny: Alive but injured, not critically however

Rhapsody: Alive

Moe Zart: Alive, heavily disgruntled

Rose: Alive

Reed: Alive

Coach Zucchini: Dead

Lil Oldman: Alive

Ridge: Alive

Mac Opsys: Alive

Winn Dos: Alive

Elvis Purrsly: Questionable

Ok yeah most of the toons R alive

Cogs:

William: Alive, but fired, bad condition

Buck R.: Alive-ish, stuck in a permafusion w/Dave

Brian: Alive, fired, with Mac and Winn

Alton: Alive

Mary: Alive, on the search for misty, left the company

Misty: Alive but missing

Winston: Alive, very bad condition but alive

Holly: Alive, trying to help finding misty

Prester: questionable

Ben: Alive, forced to stay in the company

Cathal: Alive, the current VP

Allan: Dead, they killed my wife

Belle: Alive

Dave: Alive-ish, stuck in a permafusion w/ Buck

Chris: Alive

Flint: Alive, in the mafia

Cosmo and the inventors: Alive, buisness is kinda going to shit, hence them trying to get more people into the family

The Litigation team: Chimeraed

CLO; Critical condition but alive

Spruce: Alive

Chip: Alive, stuck in override

Craig: Alive

Desmond: A lot better than William that’s for true, Alive

Buck Wilde: Alive

Dana: A bit fucked up mentally but she’s doing ok, propaganda machine

Tawney: Alive

Graham: Alive but kinda starting to not be great mentally and physically L

Thomas: Alive but doin shit mentally

Robert: Alive, doin shit mentally, desperately trying to stand ground

Now for character updates:

Rain and William

William and Rain end up partnering up, the two coming together to survive after William left the company, having to leave for his safety as his age and outdated shell and software led to him beginning to fall apart, not able to withstand battle.

Rain has taken on engineering, to keep him together as best as she can.

Flint Bonpyre

They join Pluto’s crew officially, mostly out of desperation for a bit more money since repairs and stuff have been more expensive as of late due to the rise in them as well as lack of resources

Elvis Purrsly

Looking a little more robotic then usual, but it was found out he is alive. Sort of.

Misty Monsoon

While alive she may be, no one can find them, they’ve gone missing. Though reports have shown heavy and rapid weather changes in certain areas around toontown.

Mary Anna

Mary quit COGS inc, due to both her heavy concerns for the pollution, how awful everything has been, and to make more time to search for Misty. She has been leading the search for a few months now, but no one has been able to find Misty.

And that’s all for now folks!

We do have high roller lore but I still need to draw her ack

But yeah! Here are some updates! Thank you for reading!

[the-schwayest-batman-around]

Opinions on Robin Beyond

So per some mild interest by some followers and my own interest in talking about it. In the effort of spoilers, I’ll be placing a read more for those interested. In addition, I’ll list the pros and the cons of the choices made so far. Finally, these are my opinions about the choices. If you agree or disagree, that’s completely understandable and I respect those opinions.

So let’s get going!

So while it’s been hinted at several times, Matt McGinnis, Terry’s younger brother, appears to be taking up the mantle of Robin. This is a huge shift in the Beyond dynamic as Terry McGinnis has never had a Robin despite several attempts as far back as the television show to give him one. In fact, the execs at Kids WB wanted Matt to be a larger focus and make him go on his own adventures that Terry wasn’t a part of (going as far as having a little motorcycle or Batmobile hidden behind a dumpster outside his window as an idea).

Pros:

A Brand New Dynamic: We’ve had several Robins and several different with dynamics with each of them. The most common is the father/son bond with Batman and Robin (Bruce and Dick/Jason/Tim/Damian being the most straightforward). There are exceptions, such as Stephanie, Duke and Carrie. However, this one is between two brothers. Once again, one can draw a comparison to Dick/Damian for a Batman and Robin that were brothers, yet Terry and Damian have known each other far longer. This is a unique approach to a Batman and Robin dynamic that (to my knowledge) has not been seen in other Batman media.

Character Development: This may seem surprising to have this big change only 14 issues into a series, but Matt’s evolution as a Robin candidate has actually been going on since the DCYou era of Batman Beyond (2015). Compared to the animated Matt McGinnis, who mostly served as a bratty little kid who would mess with Terry when he got home, this Matt was more active. When we were first introduced to him, he and several others were battling a Brother Eye controlled hellhound before saved by a time displaced alternate version of Tim Drake (it makes sense in context). Since his reintroduction, he has helped defend the city against an invasion of Brother Eye robots, helped rediscover and save the Justice League Beyond, made his way to Metropolis after it was highly dangerous and filled to the brim with Cuvier’s splicer army, was trained briefly by Tim Drake, saved his brother from Spellbinder’s mind control when Tim and Barbara couldn’t, repeatedly ran into Jokerz controlled territory to help his brother and several other things. In this arc alone, we’ve learned he’s been spending hours watching training videos on Damian (but likely the other Robins as well). For several years now, Matt has been grooming himself to become an ally to Terry. Going back to Tim, even he took a while to be groomed into his role as Robin.

Fan Favorite Choice: This may not be a surprise for most people, but fans have been using Matt as the ideal candidate for Terry’s Robin. Doing a quick image search on Google, Deviantart or even tumblr with Robin Beyond or Matt McGinnis Robin yields plenty of results and ideas of what Matt would be like. Fans have wanted Terry to have a Robin for some time and Matt has repeatedly been the main choice. There is a precedence and several fans may be excited to have this finally come true.

Effecting the Family: Matt’s introduction as Robin is going to yield a lot of big story potential. This has been hinted in the solicitations that there’s going to be several people unsure of letting Matt into this life is a wise choice. Whether or not the events of Return of the Joker occurred in this new DC Comics universe is up in the air (Terry and Matt’s parentage has changed according to current writer Dan Jurgens). However whether or not this is the case, how will Barbara, Damian, Dick and Tim, former sidekicks of Bruce, react to Terry finally getting a Robin? Will Bruce justify it? How will Terry react to finding out his flesh and blood brother wants to join in the battle? We saw a lot of push back from Terry when Max began to be a larger part of the Bat-family life. The Bat-Family in Beyond is growing and changing and this could lead to several conflicts and disagreements in the future.

New Audience Surrogate: In the 1940s, Dick Grayson (Age 12) was created to be Batman’s sidekick to attract new readers. In theory, Dick would serve as an audience surrogate to imagine life as fighting as Batman. Young boys who wanted to be Batman but were too young could suddenly put themselves in the pixie shoes of Dick and imagine themselves fighting crime against the Caped Crusader. This was a smash hit and a massive influx of child sidekicks flooded the market and are still around today. Matt may serve as a new audience surrogate. Terry, while originally a good audience surrogate when he started off, has now grown. He is out of school, living an apartment and has been Batman for several years. It may be seen as a way to bring new readers in to have Matt serve as this new window into the world of Batman Beyond. If it worked in 1940, it would suddenly work well in whatever year Batman Beyond takes place.

Cons:

Too Many Rookies: A draw for several people to Batman Beyond was a very unique pitch to the series. Terry, a young novice Batman, was trained by a much older, wiser Bruce Wayne. This was something very unique and Terry fit into an interesting in between. He was older than most of the Robins we had seen but still had the sass and charm of Dick, Jason and Tim. Yet he was what many little kids wanted to be: Batman. It’s been almost 20 years since the beginning of Batman Beyond, and we know several years since Terry has taken up the mantle of Batman. However compared to several of the Robins, it appears he’s still learning and refining himself. More than once, he has needed support from Bruce on the field (look no further than the previous arc where Terry had to be rescued from a smack down by Damian). Adding someone new to the table, someone who still needs to be trained, may make people uncomfortable.

Balancing Failure: Dovetailing off the previous point, a new balance will need to be established and figured out with Matt. As Matt is likely becoming a brand new Robin, he will be judged by his lack of failures or amount of failures. To refresh people, Terry has failed several times and needed help in his time as Batman and has struggled. Some people found it frustrating to see a Batman struggle while others found it sympathetic. The problem with Matt is there hasn’t been many noticeable consequences for his actions. In fact, several times he hasn’t had many failures, instead being rewarded for his actions since the start of his comic appearances. He may end up in a tough situation (captured by the Beast Men, dive into the middle of a battle with Spellbinder, running into Jokerz territory) and end up fine or saved by someone else (saved by Jon Kent Superman, snaps Terry out of his illusion, is unscathed by the end of the story and never captured despite Terry and Dana being discovered and captured).

Wandering Focus: In this 2017 run of Batman Beyond, the Bat-family has actually grown quite a bit. While we’re unsure about the canon of Beyond Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, we have gained Mayor Luke Fox, League of Assassins Leader Damian Wayne and the return of fan favorite Nissa aka Batgirl. This is on top of pre-existing Batman Beyond supporting characters Bruce Wayne, Max Gibson, Melanie Walker, and Barbara Gordon. These are 7 characters and not much time has been spent on some of these characters. With the addition of Matt and his subsequent training will take away from focus on the other characters. For an example, we were introduced to a character that was initially pushed in the first two arcs of the DCYou. Nora Boxer, Matt’s caretaker in the apocalypse and a possible nod to Kamandi at Earth’s End character Ben Boxer, vanished very quickly with the return of Terry McGinnis with no mention or nod to the character. The question remains just how much focus other characters will get with Matt now taking a larger role as Robin.

The Loss of Personal Life: Matt slowly entering this role as Robin is a step towards something that has been growing increasingly rare: Terry’s life outside of Batman. While his animated life got the most attention to Terry going through High School, seeing friends, we still saw snippets of it in the other comics. Several of the original comics had Terry going on dates with Dana, camping trips with Howard, Max and Dana, a field trip and more. Adam Beechen’s run had Terry spend time with his Mom and Dana with integration between the two intersecting. Kyle Higgins run showed Terry going through college and nods of trying to deal with a roommate, classes and being a superhero. However with the Dan Jurgens run, there has been barely any focus on a lot of life outside of being Batman. Dana and Matt served as two bastions of a life outside of superheroics. With Terry’s mother absent, no school and the only interactions he seems to have being Dana, Max and the Bat-family, it appears that Terry’s life may be nothing but Batman. This may again, turn people away from the story, as several people enjoyed Terry’s cast, friends and exploring Neo-Gotham outside of just the lens of a superhero.

My Personal Opinions:

I make it no secret that I am a vocal minority being against Matt becoming Robin. I feel with after the events of Return of the Joker, Old Wounds, and if you want to count them as canon, Killing Joke and Death in the Family, Terry would likely not want to have a kid sidekick of his own, let alone a sidekick on the field. We also saw in the comics the last partner he had, Vigilante, did not go well. While I’m not opposed to giving Terry an eventual partner with proper character development, I felt this would be better suited years after college and distance from the events of Batman Beyond 2.0. In addition, he would likely not follow the same formula as Bruce had and pick a sidekick that was not a child, let alone his brother.

However, I will admit I can see a lot of good story potential with Matt as Robin. Matt can make a very unique Robin and really force Terry and the Bat-family to adapt. Matt is hardly a carbon copy to any of the allies trained by Bruce, especially any of the Robins. He could bring a lot to the table and change the story for Terry in a big way, maybe a good way.

Dan Jurgens writing has been a tough egg to crack for me. There’s several ideas and moments that I feel are perfect. Several of the interactions between Terry, Bruce and Matt have felt on point. Plots and some writing have been very questionable though. The man can be a great writer when he really cares for a project (look no further than his Rebirth run on Action Comics or older examples being his Tangent Universe imprint). I want to hope that these stories are going to get really good because I did enjoy the first arc of Rebirth and several ideas of his second arc (and while not written by him, Nissa’s issue was awesome). So let’s keep our fingers crossed for the future of the Batman and soon to be Robin of Tomorrow.