#azrael agent of the bat

[sbd-laytall]

Azrael: Agent Of The Bat (1995) #49

[the-shadows-request-candy-corn]

Thinking about that comic "How Angels Are Made"...

Do you think Azrael is claustrophobic? Not Jean Paul, but Azrael himself?

Do you think that maybe he had to hide that fear from the Order, and maybe turned it into aggression? Did the Order encourage this sort of response, seeing the heightened ferocity that came from backing their programmed "angel" into a tight corner and forcing him to fight?

Do you think this is something that went on throughout the generations, long before Jean Paul inherited the Azrael system?

[eudaimonia3301]

A Rootin' Tootin' Love Story

3k| Gen | Fluff

But he doesn’t immediately bolt, so Barbara considers that a win. As an arm slowly moved to wrap around her, Barbara was even surprised.  She can’t remember the last time she watched a movie snuggled up to another like this–someone she had an interest in. God, it’s nice. 

Barbara looked over from her computer with mild curiosity–she’d give it to Jean-Paul, he absolutely knew how to be quiet while she was working.

Unlike some other men in her life.

||Jean-Paul and Barbara Gordon's first unofficial date||

[read here]

[comic-omniverse93]

DC Tales Of New Earth - Fallen Angel By Tony Harris, Ray Snyder, Rob Ro, and Alex Bleyaert

[tomoleary]

Mike Zeck and Jerry Ordway - Azrael Agent of the Bat #91, 92, 98, 99 & 100 Covers Original Art (DC, 1995)

92 looks a lot like 98.

Source, source, source, source, source

[holy-shit-comics]

[the-shadows-request-candy-corn]

Look at this man

He hurts everyone and everything he comes in contact with because he was psychologically conditioned, tortured, and had a 700-year old consciousness (who was also psychologically conditioned and tortured through dozens of previous incarnations) implanted into his brain. He runs away to a monastery in the middle of the ocean, just so he will never hurt anyone again

But then people come to the island and he has to do the one thing that he never wanted to do again, fight, in order to protect his brothers. When Azrael starts going too far, JP has to drown his thoughts out by thinking of horrible ways to die

Except he went through all of that for nothing, because once again, his mere being around other people has resulted in bloodshed. Because the woman who was seeking shelter at the monastery turns out to also have been conditioned and murdered all of the monks.

Speaking of the weird angel conditioning, all that the Azrael System can remember over 700 years is kill, die, kill, die.

Azrael has a break down and identity crisis after learning that he was created and manipulated by the very "saint" that he idolized

Leading to Jean-Paul Valley to get crushed at least twice by a giant spiked wheel, have to drag himself to the dying husk of yet another one of Saint Dumas' experiment/victims, and kill him in the saddest most pathetic way possible. Then, wet with blood and tears, with multiple broken bones and probably internal bleeding, he wails.

And then there's this:

Really, the special thing about Azrael and JPV is that they're two pathetic wet cats in one body. A two-for-one deal.

And this isn't even getting into what he went through his abuse as a child in "Saved by the Belle Reve", or his psychosis and crippling inferiority complex in Knightfall.

In conclusion, not only does everything he loves either die painfully, use him, and/or cast him aside, but instead of being a whiny sad drunk know-it-all who knows nothing to cope, he has no coping mechanism except to melt into a puddle. This man is sad when he's angry. He's punching someone in the face while crying. When he was Batman's replacement, it wasn't even because Bruce believed in him. Bruce knew that JP was inexperienced and unsure of himself. JPV/Azrael was chosen because BRUCE KNEW HIS FIRST CHOICE (NIGHTWING) DIDN'T WANT TO BE BATMAN, BUT WOULD FEEL TOO GUILTY TO SAY NO.

JPV/AZRAEL WAS THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB CHOSEN TO SUFFER IN DICK'S PLACE, AND HE WAS BROKEN UNDER THE CRUSHING WEIGHT OF THE MANTLE OF THE BAT BEFORE BRUCE WOULD EVEN ADMIT THAT THERE WAS ANYTHING WRONG

[sarahreadstoomanycomics]

Dick's dramatic falling poses will always be funny.

[azrael-core]

Divine madness, autism, and the worst swag known to man. He's just like me fr.

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

This panel is awesome because not only is it one of the like… 2 references we get to JPV post his Azrael #100 death that show anyone else has noted in any way that the guy kicked the bucket

But it’s also like, comically redundant to write a big red “deceased” label over his head instead of Babs just… removing him from her active back up roster.

Birds of Prey #56 (1999)

[desperatecheesecubes]

Something is so funny to me about Alfred and Tim going to watch MMA fights together

[nfcomics]

BATMAN NO MANS LAND OMNIBUS HC VOL 02 • cover art • Bill Sienkiewicz [Sept 2022]

Months after a massive earthquake cut off Gotham City from the rest of the United States, Batman and his allies are still struggling to maintain law and order. When an unlikely savior arrives offering to help rebuild Gotham, their assistance might come at a grave cost.

The epic conclusion to Gotham’s darkest hour includes all of the crossover issues from one of the biggest story events in DC Comics history.

Contains: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight no.122-126; Azrael: Agent of the Bat no.58-61; Batman no.569-574; Batman: Shadow of the Bat no.89-94; Detective Comics no.736-741; Catwoman no.75-77; Robin no.68-73; The Batman Chronicles no18; Nightwing no.38-39; Batman No Man's Land no.0; Batman: No Man's Land Secret Files no.1

Written by Chuck Dixon, Greg Rucka, Dennis O'Neil, and others Art by Dale Eaglesham, Scott McDaniel, and others (W) Various (A) Various (CA) Bill Sienkiewicz

[the-shadows-request-candy-corn]

You know I've been thinking about it and I think there's some definite potential for Malevolent-DC Rebirth Azrael fandom overlap.

Not gonna get too into it but like. Sad little meow meow of a guy just constantly having the worst luck possible. Learning to coexist with the effed-up little alien(okay major spoilers) entity sharing his body. The entity definitely being a dramatic theater kid. The Horrors TM, albeit of differing but still pretty crazy and grotesque nature. Implications of religious trauma

Anyway if you're reading this because one of these two things are relevant to your interests, check out either Malevolent podcast or Sword of Azrael and tell me what you think. I wanna see if my theory is correct.

Edit: okay whichever of you guys chose "already a fan of both" needs to get in touch with me. PLEASE. THERE ARE THINGS I WANT TO BE NORMAL ABOUT WITH YOUUU

[eudaimonia3301]

jpv comic panels that I love (an incomplete list) *SPOILERS AHEAD*

Can you guys tell I love Barbara and JPV…

[fancyfade]

Temptation to re read all of azraels 90s series to refresh my brain on everything vs the memories that I only liked the first 26 issues plus no man's land arc and it floundered a lot otherwise...

[fancyfade]

AAahhhhh this is so cool!

I think the slightly fancy font makes the plain cloth cover look nice! what pen/writing instrument did you use?

anyway I am glad it worked for you, it looks awesome! Have fun with many more comics

(Image description):

photos in post: First is the cover of the azrael comics bound together. it is a creame colored cloth on a book, with the text "azrael" in slightly fancy looking capital letters and in smalelr font: By Dennis O'neil art by Barry kitston, sergio cariello, james pascoe." next shows the interior cover of the book as it has been opened. there is an "azrael may 96 cover date (I think number 17) and a black and white cover showing a man with glasses holding a candle that (the candle is orangea nd in color) has azrael in the flame, holding his gauntlet iwth the attached sword. on the inside cover of the book there is an orange piece of paper glueing it to the cover, and on the top of this there is the label "collects azrael #17-20, Azrael agent of the bat #76-79"

next image shows the book open to a random comic page. then we see the top view of the book, showing the book block in the cover. after this there are process images. first is all of the comics sewn together (but there is no glue or spine) with strips of linen cloth, the next process image shows the comics sewn together with no cover, but now they have mull (white cotton mesh) and a red paper forming a spine. the final image shows the book being compressed under two batman no man's land omnibuses

I took inspiration from @fancyfade and tried out binding some single issues together into a book! My end goal is to bind all of my Huntress comics together, but for a test run I picked up a bunch of issues of Azrael for 50c each on the philosophy that I can give this to my little brother who likes Azrael.

The cover's a little uneven and there's definitely room for improvement where I joined the text block to the cover, but it's a real book and I'm proud of how it turned out.

More pictures/notes on the process below the cut:

I mainly used this tutorial which fancyfade recommended. I knew this first one was going to be more practice/proof of concept so I didn't want to spend a ton of money on it. I did buy the bookbinding ribbon and the PVA glue recommenced, but I used cardboard instead of bookboard for the cover. I did layer a couple types together to make it sturdier though. I had trouble finding/figuring out what sort of fabric should be used for the mull that supports the spine, but I saw some people on reddit suggesting cheesecloth as a substitute so I went with that because it was cheap and I could find it at the supermarket. I sacrificed a old stained sheet my mom had lying around for the cover. (A non-stained portion--the smudges you can see are from the glue.)

Here's the text block all sewn together. I used some extra embrodiary thread to sew them up.

Here's the block after I glued on the mull and some paper to secure the spine. The cheesecloth shed a bit, but it got the job done.

And then here's after attaching the cover while waiting for the glue to dry. I'm putting my No Man's Land omnis to good use! (Though I did end up switching them out for my Sandman omnis later because I wanted read the NML ones.)