#dc meta

[anakinskywalkerisfave]

#the way he cries normally and then after he's turned it looks like he's crying blood… THE CINEMAAA (tag via hood-ex)

Okay but the way in which Dick's biological family turned on him and used him and made him a monster and then he himself eventually turns around and betrays and kills his adopted family in a circle of treachery except for Damian who he refuses to kill is making me foam at the mouth. Just a little. There's hope? Maybe?

DC vs Vampires All Out War #3

[liedownquisition]

Every time someone writes anything re: the Arrows (esp Ollie) and treat it like they have these like Bat-level strict morals or just otherwise being really "strictly principled"???? it drives me crazy. Like I don't wanna be "you haven't read the comics" but... They haven't.

Ollie, very famously, killed not only Parallax (something which was very difficult for him bcs Hal was his friend, for all their fighting), but also the Electrocutioner (for killing Lian, maiming Roy, and destroying most of his city). There was that whole thing in Crossroads when he worked with Huntress, Catwoman, and Deathstroke, and was killing criminals with guns! Killed a man torturing Dinah! Hell, even further, at least once he helped someone who he considered to have been justified in killing someone escape the law!

I'm pretty sure literally all of his proteges have harder lines than he does (Jason criticizes Mia for limiting her angles to non-lethal in Seeing Red, Oliver being shown to use more brutal methods in a team up with Roy in comic I admittedly don't remember the exact name of & Connor disapproved of Ollie training with the guy who trained Deathstroke to learn the "killing arts" re: 1YL, tho idr if that was more of a killing disapproval or a "dad, really, this guy is awful tho???" kinda deal. Uhhh... Emiko might be an exception to this probably, at least inasmuch as you can consider those two his proteges given I don't think Ollie really trained them that much/they mostly came to him like that). Hell, when Mia killed someone he wasn't mad about her killing so much as that it was her (an innocent kid) that did it!

In the marriage comic, Dinah had apparently killed Ollie in self-defense! (Before concluding that it hadn't been him despite all evidence to the contrary, ect., ect., ect.)

Roy worked for the gov't and definitely killed for them when it was called for. Fell in love with an assassin and walked away instead of turning her in or killing her like he was probably supposed to do despite knowing she'd likely go on to keep killing more people (You could call this a statement on his love for her, which on some level, yeah, but on the other level shows that his lines aren't so well-defined.) The only reason he hadn't killed the Electrocutioner himself is bcs Ollie got there first. For all the complaints re: RHATO/RH&A they are still considered current canon (to an extent, I think some specific things around it might be retconned?) & he has killed in there too.

Emiko as a former assassin/being trained & raised to be a "perfect killer" by Shado I feel is rather self-explanatory.

There's probably more but I'm runnin' out of steam here. Anyways. My point is that while they're not exactly actively murderous vigilantes, they FAR from have some kind of no-kill rule. They'll typically try something else first, but when lines are crossed (like their family) or there doesn't appear to be a better solution that would actually work, they're plenty willing. They're not "Batfam 2.0 but lamer and not as powerful," which seems to be the predominant interpretation most of the time.

[galaxymagitech]

“Tim literally has beef with a 10-year-old. He’s ten, a teenager shouldn’t have beef with him.”

Have you met a ten-year-old? As someone who has three brothers who have all been ten-year-olds, it’s difficult not to have beef with your ten-year-old siblings. Even if you love them.

They look sweet, but they’re old enough to weaponize that. In truth, many ten-year-olds are demonic gremlins, assassin training or not. They have a concept of personal space…but they don’t care about yours. They thrive on attention, and often negative attention from siblings is entertaining to them. You try not to have beef against someone who knows you hate being touched, especially without warning, but will still sneak up on you and poke you in the back. Because you not feeling safe is funny.

Demonic. Gremlins.

(This is mostly a joke, but…yeah. Having beef with your ten-year-old gremlin of a brother is totally normal, even if he didn’t try to murder you. You can love a sibling and still have beef with them.)

[umbrellajam]

ok sorry I just have to yell about this real quick -

Nightwing (Vol. 2) #139 - The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, part 6 Dick: "I let you make the choice for yourself...because I knew you'd make the right one."

Dick didn't know shit, lmao!! "Because I knew you'd make the right one" my ass lol.

Let's rewind two minutes shall we:

Dick: "Tim... Listen... There are no easy answers... But you have the right to make the choice for yourself." || Dick (internal narration): "No-win. If I stop him, I don't trust him. If he goes through with it, I shouldn't have trusted him. C'mon, Tim..."

He doesn't know what choice Tim is going to make, whether his grief will overcome him and he'll take the Lazarus water or not, and has in fact been physically fighting Tim this entire issue to stop him by force. But ultimately he knows it's Tim's right to choose for himself, and decides to hope, and have faith in his brother.

And he has that faith rewarded, and reaffirms it afterward, despite the fact that he wasn't sure.

And paralleling that moment of "yes of course I knew you had it":

Red Robin (2009) #12 Dick: "How'd you know? How did you know I'd be there to save you?" || Tim: "You're my brother, Dick. You'll always be there for me."

TIM DIDN'T KNOW SHIIIIIIIIT HGKLJDKFLSD

At least not consciously! Being caught by Dick is certainly not something he planned for, as he seems to be trying to imply.

Again, rewind:

Tim (internal narration): "I did it. I saved the people he loved. I saved everything he worked so hard to build. No compromises. He won't say anything, he never does. But I know. I know that Bruce will be proud of me. Not a bad day." || Tim: (in the midst of pASSING TF OUT) || Dick: (swoops in and catches him)

Tim may not have actually known that Dick would be there. But that catch... A falling Tim being caught by Dick is a motif that occurs over and over and over across the years of their relationship. Why do I feel like there's a part of Tim, faint as he faded out, and much stronger when he woke up, that went, "Oh, it's Dick - of course if it was anyone, I knew it would be Dick"?

After their conflicts and miscommunications in this arc, after Tim sweeping back into town and explaining not a single thing as he races to thwart Ra's, despite Dick's frustrated pleas, after cutting Dick off with a simple, "Batman...trust me," and Dick's responding, "Of course"....

Tim feeling like he knew, even if he didn't know, or plan, or expect. Because that's his brother. And choosing to express that trust, after Dick chose to trust him...

Just. Dick and Tim. Verbally reaffirming their faith in each other, even after in-the-moment doubts. BROTHERS. My emotions.

[disco-troy]

I don't feel like people have a nuanced enough view of Kory what she thinks about killing. She's not blindly wanting to murder criminals, nor is she delighted by the actions of murder. She sees murder as a necessity because of her upbringing in the middle of an existential war, and also as a way to regain autonomy on her life. Autonomy is a key theme in many of the people Kory chooses to kill.

The idea of autonomy over the body and her life is extremely important to Kory. This makes sense, Kory spends six years in slavery, her life not her own, and grew up knowing her planet could lose its own autonomy and freedom at any time.

When she was a slave, the few times that she was able to control her life in those times. Her first kill was her kill of what would become her last master, starting the chain of domino that would result in her freedom.

Note her words: "His very touch sickened me". It wasn't just about her imprisonment or her anger, but about her body, her autonomy. She couldn't handle being touched like that anymore, and killed knowing that it would solve nothing, knowing that it would lead to more punishment for her later down the line.

Her next kill allowed her to escape, securing her freedom and her own autonomy.

To escape she must pretend Kory has completely given in to her captors. That she is fine, even happy with the Gordonian touching her. But by doing this she is bringing him close, giving him the illusion of control over herself to secure her own freedom.

She is pretending to be a slave, while affirming to herself that she is still a soldier.

In this way we can see a dichotomy that has ruled Kory's life until now. On one side, you have succumbing to subjugation, which involved a loss of bodily autonomy. On the other side you had her claiming her freedom and her autonomy which comes with the need to kill or be destroyed.

In addition to this, you need to think of the context of Kory's upbringing. Of course Kory is used to killing her enemies. She grew up in a climate of fear in which there was a real possibility of total annihilation. Millions of her people died in the war that eventually lead her to being sold as a slave.

She grew up during a society that could have been destroyed in war, where everyday killing was not a questions but an existential threat. Killing and war was literally the only way for her people to conserve their autonomy.

This disconnect between Dick/Donna and Kory is not because Kory is an alien, but because the Titans are living in a world where they are superheroes and Kory is living in a world where she is a solider. Would a Kory that didn't kill even been able to come out alive from war? From her enslavement? To her its about her autonomy and her independence, she doesn't have the luxury of morals, of thought, of choice.

Later we see Kory not change, but shift. She realizes that killing will never be easier for her again.

This makes sense! her interpretation of killing has changed a lot because she's been exposed to a new environment. On earth she is not facing a literal war, she has real power, she has backup, she doesn't have to fight every second for her freedom and autonomy.

I think this is demonstrated in an incredibly narrative compelling way in Titans (1999) when Kory kills to give another character autonomy over her own body; Adaline Kane. Adaline is about to die, but her blood can still be harvested for Vandal Savage's experiments. She begs for death, instead of living that fate.

Kory gives it to her.

(much like Slade gave Joey in Titans Hunt but this post only has the space for one parallel right now)

When it comes to protecting the greater good, and especially when it comes to bodily autonomy Kory is not only willing to kill, but sees it as her duty.

She's never stopped being a soldier, she's never stopped being the Tamaranian who was forced to kill and see her people die to preserve her home, but more than that, she never stopped being the little girl for whom killing was her only way of reclaiming her autonomy.

[glitter-stained]

Not vague posting about anything i've seen recently but I do think like in general, our experience and analysis of comics could benefit from focusing on what character knows what. I know it's hard because the continuity is complicated, but sometimes it is doable and I think it's important, even/especially in stories and characters we don't like (there is a technique and subtlety to the art of hating)

Ie:

"Jason would hate Alfred, he talked shit about him while he was dead and was the one to put up the memorial case", Jason was dead when this happened

"That scene where Jason says "i've never seen you hit anybody this hard not even the joker" was stupid Bruce put the Joker in a full body cast after he killed Jason" Jason was dead when this happened

"Jason was cruelly and willfully trying to take away the one person that Mia felt safe with" Jason looked at two newspapers, saw similarities between Mia and him and projected so strongly onto her we're at the limits of astral projection. He didn't know shit about Mia's feelings for Ollie or that she hadn't been taken in to be Speedy, man didn't even known she had killed before."

"Bruce is so cruel for burying Sheila next to Jason" Bruce has canonically not a fucking clue why Jason went into the warehouse

"Jason should have hated Tim for all the victim-blaming and shit-talking" again, Jason was dead when this happened

"But doesn't Jason know his family grieved him??" ..........Jason was dead when this happened

Obviously this is centered around Jason because he's the one I'm trying to get a phd in but it works for all of them. Like don't get me wrong, all of these are interesting points that I understand wanting to see developed in the comics, but we can't blame stories for making characters act according to their knowledge. Jason being buried next to Sheila for example is really damn tragic because nobody knew what she did to him, just that he called her mom and gave his life trying to save her. Mostly the frustration about those topics means, imo, comics should have them have fucking conversations and find out about stuff that happened more often. Also it's good practice to train our theory of mind.

[geneticdriftwood]

roy’s whole pitch to dick at the start of outsiders is so fucking funny when you actually think about it. bc it’s like:

dick: I can’t be on a team again, I won’t lead friends and family into danger anymore!

roy: cool cool of course man, no problem! it’ll just be strangers and coworkers this time. no deep emotional bonds, I promise! ignore the fact that you’re one of the people I love most in the world and we’ve been family to each other for half our lives and I’m creating this team specifically to help and support you

dick: seems legit, I’m in

[theflashjaygarrick]

One thing that is important to me when discussing Cassandra Cain is the fact that she didn't develop her anti-killing moral position because of the bats. Neither does she have her moral code because she's Bruce's obedient golden child. Instead she decided at around age 8 that killing anyone (even some random criminal like in the 2000 batgirl series) was fundamentally wrong because it made them feel fear and pain. Finding out the bat-code had a similar perspective about killing was more validation than anything else. She would be saving everyone she could with or without batman.

She created her own moral framework against that her (in the 2000 series at least) white father. In spite of the fact the fact that her father literally objectified and dehumanised her, she fought to speak and be heard. She chose her own destiny, Babs and Bruce just helped her along the way.

As an Asian character it's important to me she wasn't 'taught' morals by white Americans, but rather she has a code that she developed herself. She doesn't listen to Bruce half the time, and she's more loyal to the concept of the bat symbol than anyone who wears it. She consistently disobeyed him in her original run. All these things aspects help her avoid being just a character with white saviour undertones, and allow her to instead be a heroic beacon of life and compassion in her own right.

[dceasesd]

why juni ba’s the boy wonder has my favorite jason characterization of any contemporary comic run: a needlessly in-depth analysis (pt.1)

oh boy oh boy am i excited for this one buckle up boys it’s gonna be a long one. analysis under the cut (WITH PICTURES!!)

i, like many others, have many thoughts and opinions about juni ba's the boy wonder that i'd like to express. i was having trouble formatting my rant, though, so i decided that it was easiest to just address some of the common complaints i've seen about the comic and jason's characterization and insert my ramblings throughout it. so far i've seen three main complaints:

the typical boiling down of jason's character to "the angry one"

his lack of strategy going into the fight with the demon is out-of-character

the neighbor's kid interaction

to start with the first one-- when introducing jason's character, in both the second and first issue, ba uses the descriptors "coarse", "bitter", "hardened", "brash" and, of course, "rageful".

so, yes-- i understand where people are having issues with this characterization. however, even if it's overplayed, it's still important to remember that jason is angry, and is driven, in part, by his anger at bruce and the joker. and, as ba highlights, he deserved to be! completely erasing jason's anger is just as bad as defining him with it.

i also don't think it's wholly accurate to say that ba is boiling jason down to just his anger. it might seem like that when only considering the dialogue and narration, but jason's behavior in the comic doesn't perfectly align with how the narrator describes him. while the narration describes him as "rageful" and could be an instance of generalization, jason's actions throughout the comic are more aligned with two other emotions/motivators: fear and despair. we never see jason get actually, properly angry; the closest we get is when he's seemingly annoyed by damian (which i believe could be performative) and when he becomes violent, accidentally hurting damian.

even in this instance, though, he is not driven to this violence by rage, but rather fear. so, while ba states in the narration that jason is driven by his anger, he contradicts himself by highlighting how jason's sadness and terror motivates his character. this could be interpreted as lousy writing on ba's part, but i'm not going to attribute the paradox to that inference. to me, it actually represents a critque of the "jason is the angry robin" generalization, because it calls to attention the discrepancies between how one is described versus reality, an issue that jason both faces in the comics (bruce using him as a cautionary tale when dying WASN'T HIS FAULT) and outside of the comics, as mentioned previously.

furthermore, this highlights the difference between what jason believes about bruce's perspective and bruce's actual perspective (according to damian). jason believes himself to be a "failure", but damian refutes this by describing his conversation with bruce concerning jason, a conversation that does not align with jason's belief. if you couldn't tell by now, perception versus reality is a BIG theme in this comic (and for jason's character in general!)

i was really fascinated by ba's take on jason, because it veered pretty far from a lot of contemporary comics, most of which do, unfortunately, play with the angry robin jason generalization. they've been doing a bit with his fear, too, which has either been pretty fun or the most awful thing ever (i'm looking at you zdarsky. gotham war was fucked up), but what makes ba's jason stand out to me is how he grapples with his grief.

this boy is so sad. ba's jason might actually be the saddest rendition of him i've seen in canon content. we've seen jason grapple a little bit with the despair rooted in his death and resurrection, mainly in lost days, where he cries 3 (?) times, fresh out of the pit and very traumatized.

even in this comic, though, he reacts to his grief with anger more prominently than sadness. that obviously doesn't mean the despair isn't there, though-- anger is just an easier outlet for it (which i could really get into the masculinity aspects of that, but then this would be wayyyyyy too long).

ba's jason, though? that motherfucker is so. sad.

christ he's depressing. AND THAT'S SUCH A FRESH PERSPECTIVE!!!!!!! THANK YOU JUNI BA!!!!!!

now i'm pretty sure some people would argue that this rendition in out of character because he's so sad. to me, though, he's still the same jason; he covers up his sadness with anger and pettiness, redirecting his own insecurities onto those around him to mask his true feelings.

ba quite literally illustrates this in the comic. whenever he is being his snide, normal self, he has his red hood mask on; but when he actually opens up to damian and expresses himself truthfully, the mask is off. ba is highlighting how the classic jason anger and bitterness is, in part, a performance and coping mechanism.

this post is already too long, so i'll go over the two other critques in a different post, which i will link below (eventually). if you guys have any thoughts you'd like to share or discuss, my dms and asks are completely open! if you made it this far, i hope you enjoyed my ranting. look out for another post soon! :))

part 2 / part 3

[zahri-melitor]

Thinking about Tim’s morality, what always gets to me is that Tim clearly developed it on his own, within his own rules of ethics, because we know how often Tim worked without Bruce or Dick from the very first stories.

Tim saw a problem with Bruce and sought out Dick to help.

Tim’s next story with Dick involves Tim showing up on Dick’s doorstep and claiming Bruce told him to learn how to be a Robin from Dick (which seems…dubious, given the rockiness of Dick and Bruce’s relationship at that stage).

After Tim received his costume and before his proper ‘first patrol’, Tim was on his own in Paris, having to make decisions on who to trust and listen to between Lynx, Clyde Rawlins, Lady Shiva, Edmund Dorrance and Henri Ducard.

Tim went out to track down Joker because he’d broken out and Bruce wasn’t available because he was overseas at the time. Against the advice of Alfred. While being a tiny Robin.

Tim chose to work with Helena and Steph and Lonnie and JPV and Selina, even when Bruce told him not to, even when he was hiding working with them from Bruce. And when they worked with him, Tim was very clear on what his ethical framework looked like and most of the time those he was working with compromised to follow Tim’s views on killing. But also - Tim was the one choosing to work with them, showing flexibility in comparison to how Bruce would have preferred him to act.

Tim was set by Bruce to teach Jean-Paul Valley how to be a vigilante in Gotham, when he was 14 years old and had only been a vigilante for a couple of months in universe. He didn’t have Bruce backing him up (because Bruce was firstly busy and then recovering overseas from serious injury). He didn’t really have Alfred (who was focused on Bruce). He didn’t have Dick (because Dick’s life was similarly in the end stages of falling apart in New York). He had himself and his wits and what assistance Harold could give him, trying to show JPV how they worked and then later trying to rein in JPV after being punched in the face and Azbats going off the rails.

His ethics can’t be following someone else’s cues (the ‘list on the fridge from Bruce’ joke) because Tim had to work it all out for himself with Bruce barely around and often not focused on him. He didn’t have a Batfam around him when he was starting out until he built one.

His ethics can’t be ‘two seconds from killing’ because if Tim needed to be restrained from killing, that would have become noticeable back when he was working with Lady Shiva and Henri Ducard. Before he even really was Robin.

If Tim was dogmatic and unable to compromise and hung up on the rules being the rules, he would never have teamed up with Steph and Shiva and Helena and Selina, all people he got into trouble for working with.

It’s just such a misreading of Tim’s fundamental character and how he built his own moral code and decided what was important to him largely independently of anyone else. Tim doesn’t kill, and one of the fundamental reasons he doesn’t is because he chose not to and he sees it as a line too far.

He worked that out on his own.

[oraclenthusiast]

rarely see good comic takes on tiktok but i just saw a video on why it's important to consider meta while discussing characters because comics are, at their core, a capitalist venture and like. the world would be a better place if more people understood that.

"why won't the batman kill joker" the joker is a very recognizable and popular character.

"why would batman train child soldiers" so his comics are marketable to children.

"arkham is pointless the characters keep breaking out" THEY NEED TO REUSE THE CHARACTERS TO MAKE THE COMICS MORE LIKELY TO SELL

and there are also in-canon explanations for all of these!! but comic book characters cannot be held to the standards you want them to be held to and still be profitable characters!!! let's think here!!!!

[spocks-husband]

There's something so so special to me about Bruce and Zatanna being childhood best friends. I genuinely just love their friendship so much-- like they probably could have romantic chemistry if you want but honestly I think that their platonic bond is so unbelievably strong and I definitely prefer it that way.

She's the only Justice Leaguer who knew him before his parents died-- hell, she's one of the only people on the face of the planet who knew him before his parents died. There's a piece of Bruce's soul that she knows in a way that honestly I think probably only Alfred does.

He's a logical man; he's suspicious of magic even when he knows it's factually real. He wants so badly to be in control of everything around him, and he just can't be, and that terrifies him.

Zatanna on the other hand is naturally relaxed, free flowing. She sees the universe as something to be in, not take control of. There's so much that their strengths and weaknesses can teach each other. I'm obsessed with them.

Additionally I also think we should throw her into the Batfam more often. Just for fun. She's their cool magical aunt.

Oh I'm totally gonna put her in my fic now

[bitterrobin]

look man, I like the interpretations of "eldest sibling Dick Grayson taking care of his younger brothers" and I like the theme of "eldest sibling forced to parent his youngest sibling in the absence of their actual parent" when applied to the 2009 era in some places/circumstances. BUT here's the thing. DICK WAS NOT PARENTING DAMIAN.

Dick didn't even see Damian as his brother for a good stretch of their early interactions. To me that was highlighted perfectly well in Resurrection of Ras al Ghul - Tim is Dick's brother and he believes in him, Damian is not Dick's brother and he's simply a kid who happens to be related to Bruce. And characterization aside, if I'm to believe Tim stans and the comics I've read then yeah, Tim was Dick's little brother that he cared for above a lot of things. They did brotherly things unprompted, they hung out together, Dick offered advice and defended Tim from threats and in arguments.

To that end, when Damian was introduced and made a part of the expanding Batman canon, he was not considered a brother. He was a son, in name only, to Bruce. He cared for the boy, enough to fight Ras, but not nearly enough to take him from the League or just...talk to him? About their roles, about Talia. He just left Damian behind with Talia, assuming that they both knew and understood his intentions to leave them independent. And then once he died, Damian’s fate is left up in the air. We have no idea what he and Talia were doing in the stretch of time between Resurrection and Damian showing up randomly in Battle for the Cowl. Once Damian appeared, it wasn’t a “okay Dick time to parent this child because he’s your sibling” it was “ok Dick time to watch over this crazy kid who you have no connection to besides Bruce because you’re the only adult who can control him/communicate w him.” Dick treated him like an obligation because he’s a kid, but didn’t feel the need to “parent” him because they weren’t family. Damian wasn’t family to any of the people present in the early 2009 era, they didn’t care for him because they liked him or wanted to do right by Bruce (when even Bruce didn’t feel the need to parent him) they watched over him because he was a factor of chaos and displacement. Dick made Damian Robin to have a method of control over him that eventually morphed into a method of mutual trust. Their relationship did grow closer, but as mentor/mentee. Dick held responsibility over Damian as Batman to Robin. Outside of that structure, we aren’t shown Dick taking Damian anywhere just to hang out, giving him advice as a normal person, defending him from villains and fearing for his life. I think Dick’s expressed more concern for the villains Damian fought than Damian himself.

Dick didn’t see him as a brother for most of their Batman and Robin run. His fatherly aspects weren’t even mentioned, until they were retroactively implied in Nightwing 2011 and onward. So, he wasn’t parenting Damian. He wasn’t a teenager being saddled with the responsibility. He was 25-30 year old man looking after a volatile 10 year old kid because no one else wanted to do it. And then once Bruce reappeared, then Damian got a much more explicit father-son relationship and Dick was made into a more brotherly figure. I’m not saying they didn’t eventually get close, but fandom overstates just how much Dick did to care for him, and cut straight to Dick as Damian’s family when their relationship was never that close until the 2011 reboot.

[galaxymagitech]

Everyone’s like, “Dick’s traumatized from his heart stopping in Forever Evil, he deserves to have his family validate that and say it still counts as dying!”

But…I feel like Dick wouldn’t want to hear it, wouldn’t want to believe it counts. Not just because he’s insistent that he’s fine, but…

Years ago, he beat the Joker until his heart stopped, but Bruce revived the Joker so it “didn’t count.” Dick has been clinging to that “didn’t count.” He needs to have not broken the no-kill rule.

So if his family tells him that his own heart stopping counts as dying, what he’s going to hear is that he killed the Joker all those years ago. And I mean, that’s really difficult for him to accept.

[umbrellajam]

Saw a post where someone wasn't sure if Tim being good at computers was a fanon thing or not and friend I am happy to inform you that he's been a computer/tech guy from some of his earliest appearances in the comics.

Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #620 (Rite of Passage part 4) - immersed in the ~web~

Robin II: The Joker's Wild #3 - tabletop roleplaying games and spending hours in the basement on the computer - not beating the geek allegations on these fronts, Timmy

Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #676 - Dick was more into traditional detective work and tended to outsource the computer stuff in these days

Batman (Vol. 1) #514 (Prodigal part 10) - hackin' through all the garbage and garble

Robin (1993) #33 - Robin sneaking in and connecting Oracle with the baddies' mainframe so she can do her thing and steal all their data >:)

Nightwing (1996) #6 - "no you're really talented and well suited to be Robin." "no, you." "no, YOU!"

Tim is definitely not as good as Babs/Oracle, but he's certainly her back-up for computer work in the 90's batfam. They're tech buddies and Robin!Tim is her little assistant sometimes, it's super cute:

Birds of Prey (1999) #19 - happy to play with big sister's fancy high-powered toys

Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) #125 - real cute kid

And Dick will hand off computer jobs to his little brother when he doesn't want to bother Babs 😂 (that outsourcing I mentioned):

Nightwing (1996) #68 - examine them pixel by pixel, eh? welp, sounds like a job only you can do, Timbo, you got this buddy, byyyyeeeee

And then when he'd grown up and been doing this for years, he leveled up accordingly, and did stuff like use his access to the League of Assassins computers to overload the generators in every base he could find, etc. etc.

Red Robin (2009) #8 - yeah that was pretty dumb of you Ra's :)

So yeah, it was a bit of a specialty of Tim's, in large part because he was introduced just at the turn into the 90's, when personal computers were really starting to take off and become widespread. (Robins gotta be cutting edge and all)

Of course, by no means does it follow that the other Bats suck at computers (there is no 'smart one' they are all incredibly smart and capable). This is especially true as reboots and the sliding timescale of comics have moved the DC characters into modern times, where computers run the world and everyone grows up with one in their pocket. The baseline familiarity and expertise that everyone can be expected to have is just much, much higher these days.

It gets exaggerated in fanon as all character traits do, but computer guy Tim is definitely not something just made up out of whole cloth :)b

[disco-troy]

Today on the “dc accidentally parallels Bruce’s relationship with his kids with Actual Supervillains” we have Bruce and Joker with Jason.

Jason calmly looking into the eyes of the men who just rewired his brain to fit their ideals asking “why?”

Jason panel 1: ..Batman? You did something to me… what did you do?

Jason panel 2 (to the joker): what did you do to me? Joker: I gave you the tiniest tiny est dose of joker toxin. So small. Just enough to bring back that psychotic alter ego of yours in your head.

It’s the last thing he can do after all the self determination was taken for him. The closest he can get to a rebellion after rendered powerless by his own brain. It’s asking why and never getting a response. Once from his father and once from his murderer. But the result is still the same.

Joker goes even farther with this metaphor, likening himself to Jason’s mother.

Joker: doesn’t mommy gets a say?

This has the idea of further drawing a parellel between what Joker and Bruce are to Jason in this arc. They are forces that shape him and make him what they want. It doesn’t matter what Jason wants or even needs, because “parents know best”. The truth is, for both of Jason’s “parents” Jason’s well-being is just an excuse for them to change him for their own benefit. Bruce wants Jason to stop fighting crime in Gotham like “a bull in a china shop” and wants to assuage his guilt about what Jason has gone through. Joker wants to fuck with Batman. In this way Jason just becomes a causality in his own life.

What makes the comparison between Bruce and Joker even more tragic is that it’s because of Bruce’s machinations that Jason was vulnerable enough to be taken by the joker in the first place…

Still skittish I see, my poor little vigilante. What did he do to you? Jason: please just let me go Joker: I can’t stand to see you like this. Mean old Batman mucked around in your little head and made you so scared of everything. But don’t worry. I came to text out my new project and fix you at the same time.

Something which the Joker explicitly acknowledges!

And the way that Jason was left alone and vulnerable after Jason literally saved Gotham by driving a plane into a fucking meteor AND immediately went to comfort Bruce?! Like this implies AFTER Jason acted as an emotional crutch, Bruce didn’t even go let’s put you in contact with Babs so you are not running around with fear in your veins and no one to support you?

To reiterate: dc why are you having Batman do the same things to his kids that supervillains do