#batman rant

[writing-nothing-but-spilled-ink]

Who's idea was it to make Jasons hair red what the hell someone tell me that it's not canon that he's naturally a ginger please tell me it's not canon I'm begging bc if it is wtf also Bruce I swear to God I will fist fight u really forcing a child u took in to dye his hair to look like your other adopted son wtf... Yes I did start reading the comic runs where dick and Damian are batman and Robin

[anyknotrants]

I just need to rant a little-

I think people forget that Batman is, after all, just a human. And not in the sense that 'fuck, he got hurt, he can get hurt' but more like...

Compared to the rest of the JLA, he's just human. Which- on its own, is fucking impressive; he's on a team with literal gods and aliens, but it's more than that.

He's not just part of the team; he's the leader. They all, beings that could probably destroy Earth if they chose to, look up to him for advice, for protection, for a plan. When it comes to it, they all follow his lead without questions. Because they know he will always lead them to victory.

Than on itself is... beyond impressive, but I remind you again, he's mortal; he's human. He had to work, and work hard, thrice as hard for everything, and he still came out on the top.

Everyone is extremely lucky he chose the path of justice, because if he didn't... it wouldn't be pretty, and they all know that.

Batman is an extremely scary and powerful individual, but when you remember he's human... well, he just gets a hell of a lot scarier.

[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.

[abrakuxas]

I watched the Penguin and it's a cool crime drama and all that, it's just... Not about the penguin. And what sucks is that it's clearly intentional up to this point. Everything I hear from the guys behind it is how much they want to get away from the comic book aspects of this.... Comic book adaptation.

I don't know why the fuck it has become the norm that Batman should not follow the comic book at all?

New Batman cartoon? No batfamily, they are random kids with two lines in a single episode. Every character is either not the character you know or a very diluted version of them (I'll ignore Harley on this one since her creator is the one behind it and I'm not gonna argue with how he deals with his OC)

A series about the stylish Mafia Boss supervillain, famous for his monocle, tophat and umbrella? Well, we kept the Mafia part but everything else has to go INCLUDING HIS FUCKING NAME!! Not only the moniker but the ACTUAL name. He can't be called Cobblepot because that's too much for this adaptation of a supervillain. The most they could do is give him a limp and a purple car. Yay! Let's work now on a prestige tv series about darth vader except he is actually an astronaut and maybe he could hold a red pen at some point so we can show how much we pretend to love the character idk. Maybe if we're feeling bold we might make him breath funny in a scene.

What sucks is that the show is not bad. It is objectively well written, well directed, it is good television, it just never had to be about the fucking Penguin. Just write a show about crime with your oc. Can you imagine if The Bear was sold as an adaptation of Sponge Bob "just more realistic and with less cartoony stuf. We deal with the life of Bob Stevens (we thought 'Sponge' didn't sound too real) dealing with the dramas of working on a kitchen and his traumas after being abuse at the 5 star restaurant 'Krusty's'".

It would be stupid as fuck and it's stupid as fuck for Batman as well, but it has been done so much that we're literally going to watch the second part of a Joker origin story film where Harley Quinn is Lady Gaga. Which is so fucking funny to me because not only the best Joker stories define him as a guy with a very ambiguous past and origin but Harley is very specifically her psychiatrist turned insane by abuse. That's the story. What you are showing me isn't that, it's just a story about a random loser dressed as a clown. Telling me this is Gotham and name dropping people won't make it an actual adaptation. It's not adapting anything, it's an oc, you're just making ocs and telling an original story.

Every single Batman thing has the "Pokémon is just Ashe in a coma" vibe now and I hate it idk.

I loved The Batman it really worked for me as this promise, this big change in the status quo of crime. Things are getting crazier, the quirkiness are showing and now the old face of old crime is busted giving the chance for actual supervillains to show up and take the city giving Batman a need for new partners and shit like that. I really thought it was a story that wanted to jump from that year two, early batman vibe into actual batman vibe. But now with this first episode of Penguin and even knowing that Reeves is involved with Caped Crusader I just lost any hope of it being actual Batman and I guess we'll just get yet another realistic Batman universe with solo Batman dealing with "the Scarecrow", a regular drug dealer who works with "Poison Ivy" she is the one who plants their weed. Don't forget about "Clay Face", a very ugly henchman to "Oz Cobb", the new regular crime boss. Idk, unless this series changes into actual supervillain territory I very much lost any interest in this universe.

[quantifiableme]

i read somewhere some Batman critique that the BatFam can never truly be cannon, because to do so would make Batman happy. And in a story structure, Batman can never be happy because then his story would be over.

The other critique explains it better, but structurally Batman was created as an antithesis to Superman and other hero’s of them time. The shame involved in the sacrifice of vigilantism, and the idea that things may never get better, but you need to try anyway. Its an important message. And ironically, to ever make Bruce happy would go against this message.

But as a fan, I love my Bat siblings and all of them hanging out. And from the interpretation above, only Bruce needs to make the never-ending sacrifice. The Robins can be as happy as they want.

So, in the event I ever write a Batman comic (I won’t, don’t worry), I think I would lean into this.

Batman adopts the Robins to give these little orphans a second chance at life. Batman is allowed to succeed in this, however Batman himself cannot find comfort in it.

Another critque of the Batfam is how big its getting. (If we include Batgirls and any other Batman sidekick, we get like 12 orphans sitting at that table.) So we lean into that too. Bruce wanted the Robins to have a second chance at life, but he was also the only one able to give them that childhood AND ability to find justice. So he became BatDad.

However, that’s no longer the case. Now, Batman has built a team of vigilantes, a family if you will. The Robins can depend on each other to create that second chance life they want, and in turn the old Robins gain a new purpose.

And now. Bruce doesn’t need to be apart of it. Sure, he’ll fund it and send a birthday card, but he was never good at getting close to people. (Dick always reminded him of that.) His children have each other now. They have their second life with everything they need.

And Bruce can…go back to how he was.

[maximumeffort69]

tw entire vent/rant based around feeling like ive had my special interests stolen from me beware

am i petty for throwing away my step sisters christmas list because it had batman boxers on it and she didnt like batman OR boxers until she found out i liked batman and had boxers that i wasnt even supposed to have. batman is my second biggest current hyperfixation tjat coild be considered a special interest now bc its lasted two years at LEAST and i have boxers to soothe dysphoria. like ya u can do what u want but you didn't care about any of that until you saw that i did :(( sorry for being shitty i just dont like when people do the bare minimum to pretend they like something that i LOVE because it feels like im having my personal purpose be taken away from me by someone who doesn't even care for what it is. like u dont even like batman u probably dont even know about all of the variants n universes. u probably domt even know the riddlers real name. u probably dont know he EXISTS. u probably only saw a preview of the lego batman movie, probably only clips of batman in the regular lego movie. u dont know shit about him. ion even care about the boxers no more its just batman. u only likr him cus i do. let me have something to myself for once. like this is one of the only things making me happy rn please dont take it from me. idgaf if im being dramatic u dont even care about batman dawg. u dont even know his parents names. u probably dont even know his lore. u probably dont know about the different robins. u dont even know. she think her momma got it too 😭😭😭🙏🙏🙏 shit gon be crazy fr

[olailamajnoon]

Bruce, who has a problem expressing emotions because he was teased for them in school as the "crazy Wayne kid"

Bruce, who used to clutch Alfred at night and wet himself due to his nightmares.

Bruce, who got flashbacks till his mid-twenties everytime he walked down an alley.

Bruce, who would hug a weeping Dick Grayson and stay with him until the night terrors were over, humming a soft lullaby that Bruce's mother sang for him

Bruce, who hardened his mouth and his life to keep the anger in check after Jason, because he knew if he didn't every criminal would pay.

Bruce, who sees Damian chopping up shrubbery and thinks "I was far worse as a child inside, it's a good thing he's letting it out"

Bruce, who can't walk by a homeless child in the street without calling his special Wayne Foundation liaison (who he keeps on speed dial) and asking her to find "one more spot"

Bruce, who sees Selina petting kittens and robbing the rich and thinks "if I could have had a life with her, that would have been nice"

Bruce, who looks at Cass' x-rays and sees her knit bones and swears to god he will break the bones of whoever's responsible for her upbringing

Bruce, who gives Tim projects that he himself can do faster because he sees attention-starved Tim trying to please him

Bruce, who looks at Clark smiling and thinks of what he can buy for his birthday to make him smile just like that.

Bruce to his parents in their graves after not being able to catch a criminal: I'm sorry. I've failed you. I'll try harder.

People who don't know Bruce: why is that man so unfeeling.

Bad DC writers: idk just that way i guess

[milesofstars]

dick grayson in fanon: sweet silly older brother, pretty but stupid, favourite child, happy robin, basically batman 2.0 but a nice person, his brothers are more skilled and could outpace him but they love him anyways, goody-two-shoes, good relationship with batman, responsible eldest child, mentally stable and supportive

dick grayson in canon:

became robin so he wouldnt commit first degree murder

like all of his appearances young justice season 1 are about how hes a maniac and a genius

leader and strategist of the teen titans

actually Murdered the joker

considered an equal by the worlds most dangerous and deadly mercenary

was literally fired by batman and only really continued working w him because of jason and babs

managed to keep up with angsty new-to-the-job batman

has had so many arguments with bruce its a miracle he hasnt cut him off forever (hes tried though)

can take down the entire teen titans if he wanted despite being the only one of them with no superpowers/abilities

was the definition of angsty teenager

inherits his insane paranoia from bruce

a thread away from breaking the no-kill rule, give him a rest

hes literally feral guys i mean cmon

[arkangelo-7]

Bruce, to the Justice League after a botched mission: You deliberately disobeyed me! And worse, you put Clark in danger!

Clark, who is legitimately indestructible: :(

[acid-ixx]

a loving family, an unpalatable desire

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

a/n: would anyone hear me out if i ever wrote romantic yan! bruce (ft. platonic yan! batfam AND romantic yan clark kent alongside the superfam ofc) with a neglected spouse reader... because uhm, i've been thinking about it lately just yk... so anyways PLSPLSPLS send in asks about this, ive been thinking about it so much lately.

imagine wanting to raise a family so badly with a man who adopts problem children as a side hustle. you're not some invasive spouse, you've always been good, always been loving, so... so accepting, never questioned where or how he picked them up from the side of the streets, never once complaining about the hickeys on his neck or the once neat tussles of his hair now tangled accompanying lipstick stains on his white suit.

you love your children, you tell yourself all the time. you love them, you love bruce— even if he doesn't love you. you said it in your vows, despite it being scripted, despite your family finally sighing in relief in the sidelines at finally being able to sell you off to one of the wealthiest man in the world, rather than being wasting off under their care— your vows are real.

you wanted someone to love you, unconditionally, so viscerally eternal that it eats you up.

really, all you wanted was to play that fantasy life of trophy house spouses. all you wished for was a loving, healthy relationship. the american dream: the picture perfect family frames, your husband kissing you on the cheek as he leaves for work, your children bickering at the dining room, with the scent of homemade meals wafting about the vicinity. all you wanted was the warmth in your chest to flicker like candlelights. all you dreamed about was that domestic life, an escape from the abusive household you were raised in.

yet the manor is too cold, too unforgiving for a soul such as yours.

the longer you stay inside claustrophobic, yet oh-so large hallways, the quicker you drown in a neverending pool of self-hatred.

but you're not allowed to show them your sufferings. they've been through much worse, you tell yourself. they've suffered more, and as what good spouses do, as what you're taught, you stay silent, enabling them to turn you into their own emotional punching bag.

you only allow yourself to cry at the dead of the night, under the sheets of your too-cold blanket and your too-hot pillows. when the manor is filled with deathly silence and a looming sense of dread and ill fitting thoughts of ifs and when they'll come back in one piece, will you grant yourself temporary respite; worry for a family who never even called you their parent.

yet you've always been so considerate. despite the pang in your chest every time bruce flirts with anymore potential love interest at a gala, you chose to instead monitor your chaotic children, who have always never bat an eye on you despite you always gazing lovingly at them.

you know of their interests, they don't know yours, yet you still give them extravagant gifts on their birthdays, with tired, yet glinting eyes, and a silent excuse to return to your room; one separate from bruce.

you know of bruce's hardships, but you don't push too hard, don't force him to talk, only provide him your silence and an offer to serve him dinner; all the time he refuses without looking at you. you give him comfort only if he ever allows you, only if he allows his walls to crumble— but not even his spouse can amount to a warm, crackling fireplace. to him, you're probably only a matchstick under the deadbeat glaze of the snow in a winter night.

maybe that's why you're such a ghost in the manor, stalking through the hallways, looking out for any of your children in case they come across you with any injuries. maybe that's why eventually your resolve weakened.

and maybe the absence of familial love led you to find comfort in another man's arm.

''til death do us part,' is such a tragic saying in your case, because you know it in your fragile heart that bruce's love for you was never alive in the first place. and yet you allow him to play you like a fiddle, allow him to slowly allow you to slip away from his nonexistent grasp.

and now, you're a stand-in parent for clark's son, jon, after the tragic loss of his wife. now, your world seems a lot less bleaker, as you play the fantasy of a loving house spouse, fully abandoning the life you left behind, a life you've never been gifted with until now. you want to feel guilty, you want to feel absolutely terrible but the heartache of neglect has become too much and all you do was allow clark to warm you up each night, kissing away your tears and spooning your deep-seated anxieties away.

you don't let the past eat you up, not when the present is too perfect, too freeing, too delusionally beautiful.

your son, jon provides you every joy a parent could have. parent's day gifts, heartfelt letters at every nook and cranny of your shared bedroom with clark— even reading him bedtime stories, allowing him to sleep in your lap after he slowly nods off, with clark knocking softly on polished wooden doors, greeting you with a loving kiss on the lips and a bouquet of your favorite flowers in hand—

it's everything a parent wants, needs even.

and you're everything clark, and especially jon wants, needs in their life.

so it's such a stupid mistake, really. a slip of the tongue, a too-enthusiastic smile, incredibly bright, shining eyes. it's not jon's fault, you still love him either way. but it's an error still— one a complicated matter at hand, so dreadful for you, that jon accidentally, all-too-suddenly, mentions you as his parent to damian.

a loving, wonderful parent, he says, with a picture of you in his wallet shoved right in front of his friend's face.

[sophiasrant]

hc that no one on the JL (or any of the teams) will let bats do the heavy lifting, ever

Like one day they need to carry an unconscious Flash after a battle and someone else (who has a broken arm) is like “who is well enough that they can carry him” and Batman, ceo of ignoring his injuries™️, is like “I got this” but his mouth starts leaking blood while he’s carrying flash. Superman (who was holding up a building) x-rays him & is like “YOU HAVE THREE BROKEN RIBS AND INTERNAL BLEEDING. WHY ARE YOU CARRYING FLASH?” “…I am well enough to carry flash”

anyway this applies to all bats. Someone asks if someone else can volunteer to help them lift something and, no matter what, Kon puts his hand over Tim’s mouth bc of the broken leg incident™️. Tim will never even be allowed a chance to make a case or attempt to answer the call.

Someone asks if Robin can help to carry something and Jon immediately replies “no he can’t. I’ll do it tho.” bc Damian once tried to conduct cleanup (lifting pieces of broken buildings and concrete) post alien-invasion with a stab wound (it was multiple stab wounds but only Jon figured that out)

Someone asks nightwing if he can carry stuff to the car and all of a sudden you have eight people shouting “NO” bc he once offered to carry someone’s old 60 pound box TV to storage while he had a gunshot wound. They only learned about the gunshot wound after he fainted & the tv fell on top of him.

Jason leaves before anyone can ask him to help with anything

Edit:

Steph and Cass fight over who carries the thing for the other person, but usually neither of them volunteer. They're gone the second the battle is over. Babs never has to carry shit even if it's a loaf of bread because she goes "wow, really? have the wheelchair bound girl carry shit for you, sure" so the person stammers and she gets away with it every single time.

Duke is allowed to carry things. (Other teams have yet to find out about his injuries.) In fact, they compliment him on being responsible enough to not over-exert himself. He smiles back. (He's trying not to laugh.)

[frownyalfred]

people think the other JL members don’t invite Bruce and Clark out because they’re lame or killjoys. actually they don’t invite them because

there are three other fully grown men crammed into that booth and somehow they STILL only have eyes for each other. in their own world. arguing about something, leaning in and forgetting about literally everything else.

[oifaaa]

Ive been laughing at this screen rant headline for like a minute bc if you’ve read the robin lives series you know the line "finally gets the ending he deserves" isn't a compliment and then it ends with "hardcore fans thought they'd never see" Which very much reads as "You thought jasons characterization in the comics couldn't get any worse think again dipshit we've reached whole new levels of bullshit youd never even dream we'd reach"

[megamindsupremacy]

a random child asks Batman “How many times a day do you think about the Roman Empire?” for the meme and accidentally unlocks a 45 minute unskippable cutscene that only ends when Superman physically picks Batman up and flies him away from the enthralled history nerd child

[johnconn]

i know its been 5 plus years and enough people have talked about this enough but i cannot physically refrain from clawing my eyes out every time i come across this panel. Truly one of the most ridiculous things tom king has ever written (and the list is huge). Like why is this character who is almost in his thirties comparing himself to his brothers who are atleast 5 to 12 years younger than him? Of all the things he could have an identity crisis about they actually made him lose his mind over what type of robin am I? Not parents dying in front of a whole ass audience or withstanding the demands of being the perfect soldier in batman's crusade or having to put up with the pressure of being a leader other heroes look up to or his friends and family dying all the time, and man i could go on and on. I assure you he is not losing any sleep over where he stands with a bunch of people he cares for very deeply and ultimately thinks of as kids.

[beetlekermit]

we all know this infamous cover right?

well it’s called the “sweater weather” variant cover and was made by Kris Anka who is bisexual and who definitely knew what he was doing. gay sex 100% happened.