#beware the bat gran

[meara-eldestofthemall]

As most of you know, my beloved husband Mike passed away a few months ago. To be honest, I'm still grieving him and probably will for the rest of my life. Being a Bat-Gran, I decided to feed into the stereotype and get a fuzzy friend to live with. My intention was to get a kitten, but like most things in my life, it didn't quite work out that way.

This is Freya. She's about three years old and was rescued from a hoarding situation. She spent the first week in the house hiding under the buffet in my dining room, occasionally howling like a Klingon announcing the imminent arrival of her beloved to Sto'vo'kor. Freya has settled in nicely and spends her time chasing the elusive yellow spring...

And a great deal of the time napping.

Being the furry friend of Bat-Gran means she's a little ...odd. For reasons I have yet to figure out, Freya loves to watch an old 1950s TV show called Perry Mason. No matter where in the house she is, once the theme song starts, she comes mewing into the living room.

Freya only watches for a few minutes before wandering off. That's understandable since in every single episode, Perry will prove that his client is innocent by causing the true villain to break down and admit their guilt. She"ll usually return in time for the climax. Freya is surprised by Perry's legal skills each and every time.

I'm afraid to introduce her to Law & Order since only God knows how she'll react to Jack McCoy and his eyebrows of doom. Anyway, welcome home, Freya. May you nap in comfort (while slowly edging me off my recliner) for many years to come.

[7r0773r]

Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker

“Here," I said to gran, and held out the box, "are some bitter chocolate cherries. But keep the box level until they settle down."

"I'll put them in the refrigerator," she said and thanked me quite lavishly for always remembering what she likes best and even what brand. I don't know why this always touches her so, if it does. There's nothing hard about it. But I seldom get praised for the hard things I do, and I do some of the hardest things. Things like waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night, all all alone except when I'm with someone; and it's getting harder and harder for me to be really with anyone. And more or less impossible, on the other hand, not to be frequently with someone. What's left is hardest of all — writing that dumb thesis, between times. (pp. 33-34)

***

I nodded, accepted the soda and the ice and thanked him and told him if anybody wanted me I'd be outside cooling off in the pool. I left by the dining room door, closed it behind me and stood for a moment on the deck where I'd dried Jude's feet for the West Los Angeles telephone call, how long ago? A half hour, three quarters of an hour at the most, but long enough for the world to cave in, what was left of it to cave. I walked down the steps, and across the lawn, and then down the other steps to the terrace. The underwater light was still on, and there was a little cone of moths above it glittering like the crown jewels. I was working hard to think of something besides people, something besides clothes and weddings, and I ended up thinking about bats and how they used to whip over the pool at twilight, weightless and on a fast slant, and scare us, but not much. We always accepted things like bats; they frightened granny, but she never managed to frighten us into being afraid of them. I stood on the coping at the edge of the pool and wished that a bat would skim across this very minute and get right into my hair, which is what granny really believes bats do. It would be very nice, I thought, to have a bat in my hair, and not just to prove that gran was right, after all, about bats, but simply to have something real, something tangible, to deal with. I knew what I'd do if I had one — I'd set this glass down so that I'd have both hands free, and while the bat was flinging itself around up there in my hair, getting more and more tangled up and frightened, I'd talk to it in a low, calm voice, tell it to relax, and trust me, give me a free hand, promise not to panic and bite me, and I'd have it out in no time. And then I'd work very delicately, get one wing free and give it a little reassuring pat, and then the other; and after I'd told the bat where we stood now, I'd take little sections of my hair, hank by hank, and get the little vestigial legs untangled from it, one after the other. It would take time, and patience, but sooner or later the last strand would be pulled away from the last leg, and the bat would lie there on my head, still a little fluttery, naturally, and exhausted, but with full trust now. Then I'd tell it it was out of my hair and free to go. Well it wouldn't go immediately. It would lie there resting, probably reflecting that peoples' hair isn't so bad as bats have always been taught to believe. And then I'd feel it stir, and take off, and be gone.

I took a sip and a half of brandy and realized that no matter how elaborately you try substitutions you end up thinking about people. I couldn't even think about a bat without personifying it. So I tried again, at random, as I believed, and I was thinking this time about black widow spiders, which gran also tried to teach us to beware of as deadly. But they never have shown any interest in biting anyone or causing trouble. All on earth they want is to spin a good thick web in a woodpile or under a chair, get rid of their husbands and live in peace. People again. They set the standard every time, and all lines of thought, however devious or confused, lead back to them and force them on your consciousness. (pp. 69-70)

***

“Can't you ever be serious?” gran said, and if it had been a serious question I think I might have answered it, because all I want out of life is to find something worth being serious about. Ask me if I can ever be serious, and the only answer is that it's all I can be and all I ever am, have been, or will be. It's my whole trouble, but it's also my one certainty — to know how serious I can be about what I love. (p. 94)

***

He turned and looked at me, and then pulled me over beside him and I came in close like all the high school girls we used to turn our noses up at. We were wrong. It's the only way to sit in a car. It gives you some confidence. You can confide. (p. 146)

***

“Do you know why — why — ?”

Papa stopped there and I helped him. "Why Cassie did it, or tried to?" I said, and papa looked at me and said, "Was it because of you?"

I don't know why I always expect papa to be in some other age, unaware of present time, but I always do, and he mostly always is, so that when he says something that relates to living people doing the things they do it surprises me.

"My getting married, do you mean?" I said, and papa said yes, my going off to New York in the first place and now this.

I said I supposed that was the most natural thing to think of as the cause — not just that Cass and I had always been so close but that all of us had; as a family we'd been something of a closed corporation; nobody could buy in because we didn't need anybody. We would come home at night from a high school that never heard of Bartók and play the quartets on our own phonograph; when somebody wanted to run Cass for president of the girls' league, Jane read her Yeats's "Leaders of the Crowd" and she went back to school the next day and refused the nomination. Over and over it went that way — we had our own pinnacle to look down from. But when we went to college we couldn't quite keep it the way it was on the ranch. We tried, but it wasn't the same. We couldn't oppose the whole world, the way Cass thought we could and should, and finally I declared for getting out and into the stream, any stream would have done, but I knew music best and it seemed a good enough way of life until something came up I might like better.

I bumbled through it. I didn't know what to tell and what to leave out but papa was listening very thoughtfully, and not interrupting. There was more to say, the real thing was yet to say, and I wanted to stop, to go away now and see how it was going in the bedroom. I'd been away fifteen minutes, maybe more; and in that time Cass might have got her eyes open. But I stayed where I was and told papa why I thought she'd tried it — because she couldn't bring herself to try anything else. She couldn't believe she belonged anywhere but on a psychiatrist's couch, or with companions, call them that, girl-buddies, who were so inferior to her that they didn't count as human beings at all, just occupational therapy of no therapeutic value.

"She wastes herself, she drifts; all she wants to do with her life is lose it somewhere."

Granny's tea was ready, and I'd made a piece of unburned toast to go with it, but I didn't take the tray down to her yet. I sat down for a moment with papa and told him the saddest thing I know, because I had to say it. It had been heavy in my heart ever since we'd come back and found Cass and the empty pill bottle.

"There is only one thing that would help Cassie," I said, "really save her — and that would be for me to go to pieces in the same way she has."

Papa didn't say anything, and I wasn't sure he knew what I meant. But I did. If right now there were nothing for me but blankness and despair, meaningless loves, pleasureless drinking, no faith in anything except the decayed memory of us as a family, living in a fortress, being self-sufficient and superior — if it were that way for me, Cass would take over and get me out of it, bring me back, convince me, get me to the shore, turn me into a great musician, a whole-souled human being, a tee-total, anti-barbiturate, true believer. She would. She'd do it for me.

But I didn't need it, and I couldn't quite decide whether to rejoice for my sake, or regret it for hers. All I knew was I didn't need saving. Not any longer. I belonged somewhere, and Cass didn't. And probably never would.

"Do you remember, Papa?" I said, "when you read to us out of The Anatomy of Melancholy — ‘Be not idle, be not solitary'?"

"It's the other way around, I believe," papa said. "‘Be not solitary, be not idle.' What about it?”

"Nothing, except I remembered it. It's why I left Berkeley and went to New York. I was stuck."

"I don't know why I should have chosen to read that to you," papa said, "I've always believed in solitude."

He looked down, saw his glass, recognized it, and took a drink.

"And in idleness too," he said. "I think the precept at the end of the book is more to the point. How does it go? Sperate Miseri, Cavete Felices. It's more for people like me.”

"What's it mean?"

"You should know," he said, "it couldn't be simpler, it means: Hope, ye unhappy ones, Ye happy ones, fear."

"Touchée," I said, but only to myself, and I didn't feel it as any blow to my faith, but only as a hope for Cass, whom I now wanted very much to see. (pp. 167-170)

[wineanddinosaur]

Tequila Can Be Made Sustainably, but That Doesn’t Mean It Necessarily Is

“Agave is not in danger,” says Antonio Rodriguez, director of production at Patrón. Despite the 2018 news reports that an agave shortage was threatening tequila and mezcal production, and Mexican ecosystems, Rodriguez believes the crop is not in crisis.

The abundant agave harvest did drive prices down, Rodriguez says, but “from now into the future, there’s enough agave for the forecast of production.” Still, many others believe these fluctuations demonstrate a larger problem: As agave prices oscillate, farmers may be forced to cut corners with less sustainable practices, such as using agrochemicals and harvesting agave plants years early. This may not affect our Margaritas in the short term, but could be detrimental for future generations of farmers, residents, distillers, and drinkers.

What tequila producers choose to do now, in other words, will determine the spirit’s future. And we, the tequila-purchasing public, have to take our role more seriously to ensure its survival.

“Tequila can be an extremely sustainable industry when distillers take the time and care needed to give back to the Earth,” Jose “Pepe” Hermosillo, founder of Casa Noble Tequila, tells VinePair.

At Patrón, a massive compost heap is converted into soil for the company garden.

Tequila exists in a delicate ecosystem of agave farmers, called jimadores, distillers, and consumers. Although agave shortages make headlines in the U.S., it’s hardly novel to the producers in Mexico who grow and purchase it. “Agave production is cyclical, which is why there tend to be rumors of an agave shortage every 10 to 15 years,” Hermosillo says.

It takes about seven years for agave to reach the age ideal for tequila production, and about 12 years to grow to full maturity, when the plant flowers and is pollinated by bats and other creatures of flight. But pressure to sell can lead jimadores to harvest their crops as young as three years.

The young plants are sold to “diffuser producers,” or industrial-scale operations that use the premature juice to make lower-quality, cheaper mixto tequila during booms.  A 2017 figure from the Tequila Interchange Project estimates 98 percent of Mexican agave growers have adopted these methods to stay afloat.

“This has devastating ecological consequences. Maturing agave is an essential segment of Mexico’s ecosystem,” David G. Suro, owner of Siembra Azul and Siembra Valles tequilas, and president and co-founder of the Tequila Interchange Project, tells VinePair. “The push for young agave has also led to more cloning and much less reproduction via pollinators, which is part of the ecological consequence.”

Suro believes the industry needs to create incentives to improve planting and harvesting practices.

Rodriguez agrees, and notes that Patrón, established in 1989, has operated a sustainable business “since day one.” Hacienda Patrón, the distillery’s estate, composts scrap agave and other organic matter, grows its own vegetables for the company cafeteria, and has a custom water treatment facility.

Waste management is important to Casa Noble as well. It grows 100 percent of its agave on site, “allowing any plant waste created during production to be used as compost to fertilize the fields and help more agave plants flourish,” Hermosillo says. Tequila is “made in small quantities, batch by batch. This means that our production is a bit slower, so we are able to manage and reuse any waste as we go.” It also has a custom water treatment facility on site.

Tequila Cazadores, founded in 1973, “is zero waste and fully sustainable. The distillery is 100 percent biomass fueled from agave fibers … and carbon-neutral,” a spokesperson writes VinePair in an email. It uses “renewable fuel sources such as clean waste wood, biomass briquettes, sawdust, coconut shell, and tree cuttings.”

Rodriguez believes sustainability is “not only waste treatment, but what you do for the people.” Patrón is the town’s biggest employer, and staff benefits include food, transportation, and education opportunities to advance their careers. “One of our philosophies is always look for talent inside,” Rodriguez says. “There are a lot of stories here … [where] someone starts chopping agave [in the distillery], and now they are operating the pot stills.”

Patrón also offers part-time and flexible schedules to employees who are parents or finishing school, and staff members volunteer with community organizations, including orphanages, a retirement home, and a food bank.

A reverse osmosis water treatment system recovers up to 70 percent of usable water from Patrón’s stillage.

The best way to support the communities and ecosystems engaged in agave agriculture is to make informed purchasing decisions. Consumers can vote with their wallets by researching tequila companies whose practices align with their own beliefs. “If consumers protect themselves by demanding more information, we’ll all be better off,” Suro says.

“Go behind the bottle,” Rodriguez adds. “If you can’t find out what’s behind it, maybe it’s not the right choice.”

How to Choose Better Tequila

Here are some ways to make sure the tequila you buy is quality and sustainably produced.

It’s 100 percent agave. Tequila is produced in Jalisco, Mexico, with 100 percent Blue Weber agave plants. If this is not on the label, the liquor is a mixto, which uses fillers and less environmentally friendly ingredients.

It’s bat-friendly. The Tequila Interchange Project and Institute of Ecology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico created the Bat-Friendly Project to encourage producers to let a portion of plants flower. Bottles with a Bat-Friendly label signify 5 percent of agave is fully matured to encourage pollination. Bars and restaurants that have worked with the Bat Friendly Project include Clavel in Baltimore; Faith and Flower and The Ponte in Los Angeles; and Colonie and Gran Electrica in Brooklyn.

It’s tequila-nerd-approved. Beware of cheap tequila (any bottle below the mid-$20s), and be willing to pay for a better product. Along with the Bat Friendly program, resources like the Tequila Matchmaker, a website and app, can help you find brands that are responsibly produced.

The article Tequila Can Be Made Sustainably, but That Doesn’t Mean It Necessarily Is appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/is-tequila-sustainable/

[meara-eldestofthemall]

This is my late husband Mike's last gift to me. It arrived in the mail this afternoon. Well, I guess it's official. I am the oldest nerd in Ohio.

[meara-eldestofthemall]

Tumblr, and this Fandom in particular, is awesome.

I fell this weekend (tripped over the roots of two story tall artificial oak tree while at the playground with my two youngest granddaughters. Feel free to laugh). Within an hour my left knee was the size of a basketball and too painful to walk on. I feared that I'd managed to damage my artifical knee, so that meant a trip to er about 30 minutes away (I live a very small rural town). Happily I didn't damage my bionic knee but did damage the ligaments. The next few weeks will see me hobbling around with my cane. It could have been much worse since repairing an artificial knee is major surgery so I'm greatful.

The best part was that one of my nurses was wearing scrubs decorated with little Red Hoods ( the jelly bean helmet). When I complimented her on them she admitted to also having Nightwing scrubs and is hoping to get some Robin scrubs soon. She's also loves tumblr and all it's batfamily sites. When I pulled out my phone and showed her my site, she laughed and said "You're Bat-Gran?"

We spent the next few minutes discussing DC's past mistakes, why Tom King deserves eternal damnation whether or not Gotham War is a good storyline and which Robin is better. She's a big Damian fan, while I prefer Tim.

So don't let anyone tell you that nobody bothers with tumblr anymore. Fans are out and you'll run into them when you least expect it.

[meara-eldestofthemall]

I guess ideally and for the sake of it;

Despite his gothic, Brooding demeanor, cold blooded bloodedness in his his combat abilities, the fact the aesthetics he chose was specifically for instilling fear and even on his better days is filled to the brim with negative emotions towards the world around him and himself, is it safe to classify Batman as not an Anti Hero due to his deep down love for his students/adoptive children, his One Rule and even trying at some points helping the very city that wronged him?

Thanks for the excellent ask!

You're right. Batman is most definitely not an anti-hero. You can call him the Dark Brooding Hero, the Damaged Hero or even the Broken Hero but he's not an anti-hero.

One of the things I find most fascinating about comic books is that the long term characters at Marvel and DC are all archetypes. Think of them as the modern version of Perseus, Agamemnon or Odysseus. Their actions reinforce certain truths that our society holds as upright. They act as mirrors of the good, the bad and the changing ideals of society. Batman is definitely in the darker end of the hero spectrum, but he's not an anti-hero. He has a clear perspective of what's right and what's wrong. Batman acts is ways that are morally compatible with society at large. That's what a hero does.

He has one hard and unyielding truth. He does not kill (not directly anyway). Batman knows that the justice system is fallible, some might say it's broken in various ways. As a hero Batman feels that he does not have the right to act as judge, jury and executioner. This is what kept him at odds with Jason's more direct methods of seeing justice done. Even when Jason kills with "good" reason, there is a part of him that's upset by what he's done. This is why the Red Hood is an anti-hero. He acts in ways considered "bad" by society but for mostly "good" reasons.

Yes, Bruce Wayne is a man in desperate need of therapy. He can be an emotionally constipated jerk with paranoid tendencies even on his best days. That doesn't negate the fact that Batman knows exactly where the line he can never cross is. He has his own code, one that is in line with the Judeo/Christian ethics that this and most European countries laws were built on. That's why he's a hero and not an anti-hero.

At least in my opinion...

[meara-eldestofthemall]

there was a character from the Birds of Prey book who so far hasn’t made her Post-Flashpoint appearance but I personally feel like she should;

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe aka Misfit

Basically think of her as a Batgirl with Nightcrawler’s teleportation powers

Thoughts on her and should she make a comeback? If yes to the latter question, how would you do so?

Thanks for the ask!

Misfit got introduced far too late in DC's original continuity to make a lasting impact. I suspect she was going to be the Birds of Prey's version of Robin (she was an orphan with a tragic backstory after all). Misfit was meant to be the young teen hero who needed mentoring.

Stephanie was too experienced (and kicking butt as Batgirl) at that point for that particular role. The whole teleporting ability was a distinctive touch along with Charlotte's catch phrase, "Dark Vengeance."

It's hard to say if Misfit would've had lasting appeal. As for bringing her back, I'm not favor of it but not for the reason you'd think.

The Batfamily is already too crowded. For a vigilante who claims to work alone Bruce has gathered enough people around his banner for a football team.

Sweet mother - look at all of them. The Batfamily started out small in the 90s with Batman, Nightwing and Robin...

then it grew...

And grew some more...

And just kept growing.

There are too many good characters already being under-used. Trying squeeze in the reintroduction of Misfit would require putting yet another established character on the shelf. Who would be shoved aside this time to make enough room for Charlotte to have a meaningful story arc?

Bruce is about to die (again). That's something that will effect the whole family. Comics are a limited medium for that kind of emotional storytelling already. Until the Batfamily gets substantially smaller there just isn't room for a new character.

[meara-eldestofthemall]

Now that a certain film has been in theaters as of the past few weeks, the question now must be asked;

Which of the following films is considered the best from the least to greatest:

Batman 89, Mask of the Phantasm, Dark Knight 2008 and Batman 2022

(if you haven’t seen any of the more recent ones, you may eliminate them from consideration. I apologize in advance)

Thanks for the great ask!

This is a very easy one for me. "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" is the clear winner for me. It was a surprisingly complex story for an animated movie from the 90s. The cast was stellar (nothing will ever surpass Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker), the writing crisp and the animation excellent. It was a winner all around.

I haven't seen the new Robert Patterson Batman movie and, to be honest, I have no deep seated need to rush out and do it. "Emo-Batman" is not a look I like on the character. DC seems patently unable to learn from Marvel's MCU success. The MCU has plenty of dark moments but they make sure to balance the grittiness with a laugh to give the films more balance. Comic book movies, by their nature, aren't meant to be deep, moving stories that make you think. That's what books are for. Comic book movies meant to be good entertainment with the occasional life lesson snuck in.

The Batman live action movies all suffer greatly from either being too campy (pre 2000s) or too dark and angsty (2005 and onward) for my tastes. This is why I like the Batman: The Animated Series. Bruce can be dark, brooding and grim, but he also has balancing moments that humanize him. For some reason adapting this simple formula for live action has proven to be something DC can't do effectively.

There were some excellent performances in the live action movies (Heath Ledger's Joker was amazing) but the heavy emphasis on angst gets tiresome after a while. So I will always choose Batman: Mask of the Phantasm as the clear winner.

[meara-eldestofthemall]

😑. Just because you old don't mean I what point out you obviously image of what wrong with us and why your look down

.... What? I'm sorry gibberish isn't my first language so let me see if I can decipher what you're trying to say. Why yes, I am old. If that fact is meant to insult me then I'm sorry to tell you I've never been shy about my age. I'm happy to tell people that I'm in my mid 60s. It means I'm not dead yet. I count that as a win.

Secondly, you misunderstand me. I don't look down on you because I'm old, dear. I look down on you because you're an idiot. Interacting with you further after this would be highly unfair of me as you are obviously unarmed in any battle of wits we were to engage in.

Have a nice day.

[meara-eldestofthemall]

30 Years Ago This Month Tim Drake Made His First Appearance as Robin

In December of 1989 (Batman #442) Tim Drake made his first appearance as Robin in the final issue of the series “A Lonely Place of Dying.” It was one of the few times he’d been seen rocking the green scaly underoos and pixie boots made famous by Dick Grayson. 

Written by Marv Wolfman (with an assist from George Perez who did the issue’s cover) this was the finale in the storyline that introduced Tim Drake to the DC Universe. After the problematic outing of Jason Todd as Robin, DC was determined to do it right this time. They carefully constructed a character that the readers would not only approve of, but could relate to. 

Tim was shown to be reluctant to take up Robin but absolutely unwavering in his conviction that Batman needs a Robin.

Lacking formal training, Tim stumbles some in his first outing against the forces of evil, Two Face in this instance. Despite a brick to the face (the first of many as it would turn out), Tim preserves, driven by his dedication to symbolism of what Batman and Robin stand for. He was also feeling responsible for the situation, something Tim would end up doing a lot through the years.

Tim gets to show his grit and determination as he stands up to an angry Batman. Only when Tim drops the big bomb on Batman, that he knows who they are, does Bruce turn to really look at Tim for the first time. He also get to use the signature mantra that would come to be associated with Tim - Batman needs a  Robin

Even fully garbed as Batman, looming over tiny Tim and glaring at him from the shadows of the cowl, Bruce can't deny the hard truths being told to him. So much so, that Tim ends up going with the Batman and Nightwing because even untrained the kid is undeniably clever. That grabs Bruce’s attention more than anything else.

Once Nightwing takes down Two Face, Marv Wolfman cements Tim’s new place by having Batman acknowledge it.

The introduction of Tim Drake as Robin was the start of a second golden age for the Bat-family. He’d headline his own series, (Robin 1993) that ran for over 180 issues and appear in countless others. DC has not been kind to Tim in the past few years but they can’t change the fact that Tim changed the way the world views Robin the Boy Wonder and for the better. So happy 30th anniversary Tim Drake! You’ll always be my Robin.

[meara-eldestofthemall]

In March and April of 1996 DC ran a limited series called “Batman: Contagion.” For those of us who mourn the lack of solid story-telling skills currently at DC, this is a reminder of how they used be able to do it and do it well. “Contagion” crossed multiple series...

...within the Batman family of titles but managed to keep a clear vision of what the story was and where it was going within each issue. The writing was solid, well thought out and marvelously executed. Everyone had a chance to shine (not just the major leads of each title). You had a satisfying moments of character building that were right on target yet always moved the story forward.

Even though it was over 20 years ago, the story still resonates today. This is a part of what makes it so very good. You could easily see it happening in real time, especially with the side characters created just for this story. Some of them are loathsome but quite believable.

Still others you can sympathize with.

“Contagion” made sure to invest the readers in the crisis by having one of the heroes contract the disease (known as the clench). The writers used the shock value of Tim being infected the way shock value should be done...

It appropriately layered on a more bit of angst for the Bat family, made the search for the cure that much more personal and moved the plot forward.

It also gave us the best cliff-hanger of Batman and crew in the 90s:

DC used to know how to tell riveting, complex stories that had you desperate to read what happened next. “Contagion” is one of the best examples of how great stories are told within the this medium. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do so. If DC is listening, I highly recommend they do so. This is what great comic books look like!

[meara-eldestofthemall]

There Are Some Lines That Should Not Be Crossed - an open letter to DC Comics

Dear DC Comics,

Do you have any idea of what you’ve done? You just crossed a line in Batman #71 that can never be taken back. The picture above can be described in two words - child abuse. Tim Drake is 16 years old. He’s also around 140 pounds soaking wet. Bruce hits him with such force that he’s lifted off of his feet. 

A blow like that would most likely render Tim unconscious. A blow like that can cripple. A blow like that can kill.

For some bizarre reason DC Comics as always allowed Batman to “fight” with his older sons before now... 

That was wrong then, the betrayal of a father who is supposed to guide his children not beat them into submission. The main difference in egregiousness between that and Batman #71 is that both Dick and Jason at least are grown men capable of fighting back.

Tim Drake is a child. A capable and brilliant child but at the age of 16 is still a child nevertheless. He’s slender young man who Bruce out-weighs by at least 70 pounds!

His father (or guardian or whatever Tim’s continuity is this week) hits him out of anger with enough force to fracture Tim’s skull. 

Have you thought about what kind of message this sends? If Tim forgives Bruce (if any of them, including Alfred, forgives Bruce), he’s sending the message that it’s okay to let a parent hit you. Tim’s original cannon had him being emotionally neglected by his parents and DC is okay with him being physically abused by his foster father as well?

In a recent interview (https://www.cbr.com/tom-king-teases-batman-change/) Tom King said, "What we're going to do for the last 15 issues is something no one's ever seen for the character. It's something that's going to change the character for a generation, or maybe more. Maybe forever."

You wanted to change Batman, Mr. King? Well congratulations you just did. Batman is now a monster.

Child abuse is not a plot device to be used for shock value. It’s a crime and your readers are rightly appalled by it. This was an error in judgement so staggeringly heinous that it must have consequences. That’s why I am calling for the resignation of Tom King as writer and the firing of those in the editorial staff who approved this storyline.

Your competitors over at Marvel like to say “With great power comes great responsibility.” So DC Comics, are you willing to be responsible for what you’ve done or, mirroring what real life abuse victims endure, are you just going to look the other way?

[meara-eldestofthemall]

Tim almost looks like Damian here. DC kept trying to make Tim edgier and darker after Jack Drake was murdered (then killing off Conner, Bart and finally Bruce). Why is it that DC keeps taking good, popular characters and changing them so radically that the fanbase is turned off? Whether it’s making Tim Drake into an arrogant techo-nerd genius who was never Robin in New-52, turning Wally West into a killer, the current woobifying Damian or blowing away the part of Dick Grayson’s brain that held his core personality, the writers at DC keeping making some truly awful character decisions. 

They don’t seem to understand that shock value does nothing to build long term readership. If I had my way I’d make them all sit down and read through some of the amazing Fanfiction by people like Wintersnight, Chibinightowl, Audreycritter, Mish-Berry, Maychorian, incogneat_oh, and Calamityjim. 

It’s little storytelling device called character development and it’s a concept these folks do on a level that is head and shoulders above what the so-called “professionals” at DC actually get paid to do. 

Admit it, who wouldn’t pay good money to be able to see “Fractured” or “Foreign Object” as a graphic novel? Who wouldn’t snap up each monthly issue of “The Adventures of Sir Timothy Drake,””Blood in the Water,” or “Liminal Space” as an Elseworld’s series? There’s gold in them ‘thar fanfics!

Are you listening DC Comics? 

[meara-eldestofthemall]

Dick Grayson and Tim Drake were the best brothers act in the DC universe. They came to have a sweet and emotionally realistic relationship based on love and respect that DC spent decades building. So can someone please tell me how that relationship went from this...

To this....

“Tim was a good kid. Smart. Efficient...reliable...” Really, this is highest praise Dick has for Tim in the Rebirth universe? It makes him sound like he’s describing his accountant instead of his little brother, which annoys me to no end. 

Hey DC, I think that Dick is capable of filial love for more than one person at time.  It’s also throws over 20 years of character development out the window to make Damian the center of Dick Grayson’s family at the expense of everyone else (you know, Cassandra, Jason, Duke, Alfred and to some extent, even Bruce). Things like this are why your readers get angry at you. We’d like to see DC stand for “Discernable Continuity” instead of “Disappoints Constantly.”

[meara-eldestofthemall]

                            Too Many Tims :

   A plea for DC to fix Tim Drake’s continuity

It’s so nice to see Tim Drake as Robin again in the new Young Justice series. For the first time since the end of the Red Robin series in 2011, Tim is being written correctly. 

He’s a nice kid, a slightly shy and awkward 16-year-old. Despite the fact that he has the skills to kick major bad-guy butt, Tim has the common touch that makes him eminently relatable. He says “ouch” when he falls and worries about passing his up-coming chemistry test. Best of all, the person in charge of the new Young Justice series, Brian Bendis, has made absolutely clear that Tim Drake being Robin once again is in continuity/cannon with the rest of the current DC universe.

Since DC has an ever-shifting idea of what the word means I have to wonder what cannon would that be, exactly?

DC torpedoed its original continuity back in 2011. The Powers-That-Be deciding that there was simply too much back story to make sense of after over 70 years. They introduced the New-52 in an attempt at a clean slate of sorts. It was so awful that they scrapped the New-52 within 5 years and did a do-over with the Re-Birth universe in 2016. That left DC with some choices as to what continuity they would use for their characters. For Tim Drake they could:

     A - Use the original cannon dating back to Tim’s introduction in 1989.      B - Use the New-52 cannon.      C - Give Tim yet another new back story and cannon.      D - None of the above

DC, helpful as always, chose “D - None of the above.”

Tim was now Red Robin who was, then wasn’t previously Robin. He was 17. Then he was 16. He had no idea who Conner Kent was…

… until suddenly Kon is Superboy again in the DC universe. 

For a very long time Dick behaved as if he and Tim barely knew each other, then train-surfing and all that implied was cannon again.

Just when you think that they’re going back to Tim’s original back-story they casually drop a New-52 reference:

The constant changes on Tim’s back story so chaotic that it gives me a migraine trying to follow it all. The above panel makes me wonder, did he go through all of the Robin suit changes?

The traditional-Robin-in-the-pixie boots Robin:

The classic Tim-was-the-first-Robin-to-wear-tights Robin:

The pre-Red Robin super-duper-really-red Robin:

The Alex-Ross-suit-with-the-cowl Red Robin:

The New-52-vegas-showgirl Red Robin:

The ReBirth oh-look-it’s-Tim’s-original-suit Red Robin:

Let me try and make sense of what DC is, as of today, saying is cannon. Tim is now 16 and Damian is now 13. Is it still cannon that Damian became Robin about 3 years ago? If so, then that means that Tim was 13 when Dick replaced him with Damian because that storyline is apparently cannon again in the Re-Birth continuity:

DC really expects us to think that Richard Grayson, big-brother extraordinaire, would have decided that stripping 13-year-old Tim Drake of Robin in order to give it to Damian was a good idea? They want us to believe that Dick was okay with letting a 13-year-old Tim travel the world looking for clues that Bruce wasn’t dead? If that was cannon again then logic dictates that Red Robin took down both the Council of Spiders and the League of Assassins while he was in middle school. Geez, no wonder Ra’s al Ghul is so hot to have Tim Drake become his heir.

Wow! Think what the kid will be able to do once he reaches an age when he has to start shaving regularly!

There are so many questions that need answers. What happened to Tim’s parents? Was Janet killed by (and this name makes me cringe) the Obeah Man? Was Jack murdered by Captain Boomerang? Did he still turn into a little ball of angst as everyone died around him? Is the New-52 still in effect where Tim’s folks are living under an assumed name somewhere in Ohio?

My hope is that what DC is doing in the “Doomsday Clock” series will help to straighten this mess out. They made a really big deal out of Tim figuring out that something was not kosher about how everyone was remembering the past. When last we saw him in Detective Comic, he was off to investigate the timelines. Tim does show up as Red Robin in the next issue when Doctor Manhattan seems to do a Thanos and turns everyone to dust:

You know what? If this would stop DC from changing what they consider cannon on a monthly basis, then starting over from scratch just might be a blessing. The bottom line is that DC needs to stop constantly retconning Tim Drake. Tim was immensely popular with readers when he was the Robin in the 90’s Young Justice series. Happily, Brian Bendis sees that. I just hope the editorial board at DC will too.

[meara-eldestofthemall]

Today is my birthday and look what my grandkids made for me. I am the luckiest Bat-Gran in the world!