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Wanna Make Something Of It?: A Justice League International Retrospective: Justice League #1 Review

Keith Ian Giffen 1952-2023 "I"m sick of Darkseid, Darkseid has been passed around the DC Offices like a Bong"

Hello all you happy people and happy birthday to me. Each year either on or around my birthday, or in this case a month later because the end of 2023 was a cold and carpal tunnel hellscape and 2024 opened with bronchitis, I take a look at something special to me, something that means something: From the first apperance of the Legion of Substitute Heroes, to the first volume of Scott Pilgrim, to Scott Pilgrim Vs the World , to last years look at the uncanny x-men's rebirth with Giant Sized X-Men #1, i've always set aside my birthday to reflect on my past and celebrate it with something I truly love.

This year I decided on that.. for reasons that still break my heart. On October 9th at the ripe age of 70 Comics Legend and personal inspiration of mine Keith Giffen.. passed away. He had a long, good life and created countless amazing stories and characters.. but his loss will be a void that can never quite be filled.

For those who hadn't heard of him, Keith was a comic book writer who's best known for his work at DC, having helped redefine the Legion of Super Heroes and Darkseid with the legendary Great Darkness Saga alongside Paul Levitz, created the main man Lobo, the fourth wall breaking before it was cool Ambush bug, the incomprable Jamie Reyes whose first arc I covered this year, and of course, the one punch, the only, the bwahahah-ey Justice League international.

If your asking why it took this long to eulogize him if I respected him so much, the answer is simple: I didn't know. In an age where if someone dies it's usually blasted onto my news feed, even if I don't exactly google that person every day, I had NO idea Keith was dead till reading an amazon review.. which is the kind of sick irony he'd find hilarous, so I have that, but not exactly the way to find out one of your personal heroes died. So I scrapped my original birthday review plan (Letterkenny's Three Wise Men For the Curious) and decided to start a project i've been mulling over for a while now. So welcome folks to Wanna Make Something Of It: A Justice League International Retrospective, an ocasoinal look at this long run.

JLI has an intresting history to it so if you'll sit down i'll tell you

The Not Really Secret Origin of the Justice League International

It was the late 80's and DC Comics had just undergone a massive reboot with Crisis on Infinite Earths, the first true big event comic as we know them with tie ins and a massive reboot in the end as Editorial had felt the various alternate earths had made things too complicated. So a big blue murder man named the Anti Monitor tried to wipe out all of creation, leaving only five earths: Earth 1, where most of the action took place, Earth 2 where the heroes of the Golden Age, the Justice Society of america and their various successors lived, Earth 4, where the recently aquiried heroes of Charlton Comics like Blue Beetle, Peacemaker and Captain Atom resided, an earth not concidentally introduced for this crossover, Earth S, home of the Shazam/Captain Marvel Family, and Earth X, a world where the nazi's won WWII and only the freedom fighters stood in opposition. Basically any heroes DC felt like keeping and their shiny new toys.

The result was a new one world earth with a fresh coat of paint to let in new readers. It wasn't without issues: several corners of the DCU got torn up with my beloved Legion of Super Heroes getting some of the worst of it, with every resonable attempt to fix the retcons or bring characters back.. being shot down AFTER the story had already been started or happened, eventually leaving such a giant mess they rebooted in the 90's, while many a hero was left without an origin or clear history, Donna Troy having to have her origin redone again now her connection to wonder woman was gone, Hawkman became a hawk mess in part thanks to this very book, story for another time, and much more I don't have the time or patience to get into right now.

There was a lot of good in it though, as the reboot left room for new heroes like self promotional himbo with a heart of gold, Booster Gold, the now DC flavored Blue Beetle, and more, and for some the fresh start was badly needed, revitalizing Superman, and giving Wonder Woman and out and out reboot that, while taking her history away, exchanged it for one of the best runs on the character ever via George Perez. And eventually, after some growing pains, it gave us room for an all new flash after a lengthy murder storyline left Barry running out of steam. For all the damage it did i've learned over the years, the crisis still did a LOT of good and helped a lot of characters find their place in this brave new world.

One property vital to DC that needed this was the Justice League of America. A few years before the crisis, DC had noticed the sales of the League were down, and tried to revitalize it: the result was a book I hope to read and cover one day.. still called Justice League of America bu tknown to most as Justice League Detroit. The IDEA was good: feeling the league was a bit scattered after a martian invasion destroyed their iconic satalite headquarters, Aquaman called for them to disband and only those who could commit full time rejoin, leaving it with just him, Martain Manhunter, Zantanna and The Elongated Man. They soon added some fresh recurits in the cyborg steel, the horribly named in hindsight but loveable for her father daughter relationship with the Martain Manhunter, Gypsy and the sterotype tastic Vibe, who'd later be heavily reworked for the better by the flash tv series.

The idea was good but even from what defenders I could find after googling the team, the book had the good IDEA of making the team more of a surrogate family like the Titans or X-Men, but simply didn't seem to pull it off. It's part of why i'd love to look at it some day: the roster is good, with even the rookies being intresting Even Vibe at least had intresting power, a low income background not really see in the Justice League at that point, and cool shades.. even if him break dancing was very much

So I do really want to read this run and possibly cover it and if you'd like me to, let me know. It intrests me.

But while it intrests me now, no one at the time was really biting so DC decided to pull the plut. It really didn't help that , thanks to the crisis.. DC now had a wide buffet of characters they could suddenly ad to the league like Captain Marvel, the Charlton gang, and Dr. Fate.

So the team got the axe in the ties ins for Legends, DC's next big event that was also designed to bring the new team together. Legends has another really cool concept: Darkseid, god of evil and dc office bong , wanted to break earth's heroes for defying him so he could finally claim it and thus came up with Operation: Humilation. He sent his lackey Glorious Godfrey to earth , becoming tele-evanglist and far right loon G Gordon Godfrey, inspired by the times and sadly still relevant. Godfrey lit up an anti superhero fervor, causing Ronald Regan to ban superheroes while Godfrey spread the message of hate, helped by Godfrey setting up Captain Marvel to seemingly kill one of Darkseid's minons who was in fact a robot designed to die and scar a 12 year old for life.

The problem is the series is a bit too fast paced for it's own good, taking a message on how hate movements like this spread oh so easily with the power of tv, and speed running it so we go from Godfrey using real life hate tactics that are chillingly relevant, to the point we get scenes with a crowd nearly killing a 12 year old jason todd or a cop killing his partner after said partner lets Black Canary go then blaming her for making him do it, to ... him making people into murder dogs and storming the captial. In three issues. You have to nearly burn the country down to get people to do a insurrection everyone knows that.

On top of that like many an event after.. a lot of it's about setting up tie ins instead of it's core story so we get stuff like Jason being saved happening off panel or Darkseid deciding to take superman off the board.. and then doing it in a tie in.

That brings us to Justice League where one of the biggest fallouts of this event.. happens entirely in it's own book. I'm split on this as on the one hand, the end of the Justice League of America should happen in it's own book.. but on the other given they brought in another writer to end the book, I don't see why they didn't just cancel it early and say "To be continued in legends" and have Godfrey tied into the league's ultimate end instead of Amazo.

Alas instead Amazo and Despero clean house leaving the league battered, demoralized and in the cases of Vibe and Steel dead. Everyone whose left leaves.. .everyone except the person it means the most to, the person who almost never left and whose the heart and soul of the league for the Martain Manhunter vows it'll live on.

Cue the finale of Legends: With things escalating quickly, Dr. Fate, DC's Resident Mysterious Magic Man, gathers a bunch of heroes together to put an end to this: Batman, Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Black Canary, Green Lantern (Guy Gardner), The Flash (Wally West), Beast Boy (Going by Changeling back then), Mister Miracle (Scott Free), Superman and Captain Marvel (The future Shazam) to put an end to this, with Jonn clinching the heroes return to legality by coming in the save and Wonder Woman making her debut to the superhero community post-crisis by jumping in to help. The day is saved , and a new justice league is formed from the ashes of the old.

So you may be asking: Why this roster and why aren't Wonder Woman, Superman, the Flash and BB on the cover? Let's explore that under the cut as we delve into why this roster, the creative team for the actual book, and the first issue itself shall we?

Roll Call:

So you'd probably think given how team books work nowadays that future writers Keith Giffen and JM Demattis picked this team themselves, with maybe a member or two picked by dc editorial. It's what I assumed.. but nope, DC picked the team themselves, which .. does kinda bother me. A creator should really pick their own roster as chemistry is VERY important to a team book. It speaks to Giffen, DeMattis and Macguire's talents that, even dropping a few members in issue 7, the book comes off as natural as it does and said drops come off less as "this person we were saddled with isn't working" and more "they simply didn't fit into the group so we used the big rebrand to shuffle them out". DC may of picked the roster, but to their credit they choose well. As giffen himself put in the introduction of a collection of the first few issues back in 2008 "That call was DC's to make and as it turned out.. not too shabby"

So before we got into the actual book and who made it, I wanted to take a second to explore this roster as I wanted to show WHY DC might have choose them as I couldn't find any info on why this roster was picked, and simply have my edcuated guesses to go on

First who WASN'T added despite being front and center in legends: Each of the four members cut from the roster so to speak have good reasons for not being in the team. Beast Boy is the most obvious: he was never going to be in the League to begin with, they most likely wanted a titan to represent their flagship book for the crossover and choose one of the most popular.

For the Flash, Wally's a bit more of an actual misdirect as given he hadn't shown up since his decision not to take up the mantle, this was his big coming out party as the flash, with Wally deciding to embrace his mentors roll. It's also why he didn't take it up in story and likely out: he just put on the tights and didn't feel ready for the league just yet and the character would need some time in his own solo before it made since to plop him in a team book.

For Superman and Wondy it's also simple: Superman was being rebooted: He still had a LOT of his history, but major parts of it like his time in the Legion as Superboy or his cousin Kara were cut out, major villians were revamped, and his world was reshaped for the 80's while Diana was flat out rebooted by George Perez after sales had pretty much died pre-crisis, with said run now being one of my favorite comics and one I can't wait to complete some day and share with you all.

So that left the All New, All Diffrent Justice League with a roster consisting of Batman, The Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel (Now known as the Captain or Shazam), Dr. Fate, Black Canary, Mister Miracle and Green Lantern (Guy Gardner). So for those of you less familiar with some of these guys, let's get aquanited, as well as figure out why DC choose them.

Batman: Batman is here because he's batman.. I could end it there but that'd leave the question of why Bats was okay to go but SUperman and Wonder WOman weren't. The answer is simple: Batman.. didn't get rebooted by Crisis. Things were changed like Jason Todd's backstory, some villians erased, some bits of history tinkered with, but that was standard for most post crisis heroes. He'd have a new defentiive origin with Frank Miller's year one, but Denny O'Neil had already soft rebooted batman back in the 70's, so he wasn't in as big of a rut. Crisis took out weird shit from the silver age that I love but understand why maybe it's best reinstated as a drug hallucination, thank you Grant Morrison, and Earth 2 batman, but it really didn't change who Bruce was, his status quo etc. Batman was selling well, Dick Grayson was super popular over in New Teen Titans, it was something DC knew wisely not to fuck with. Granted I haven't gotten as hands on with just after the crisis batman as I have Superman or Wonder WOman, so I could be wrong, but most of the changes were to villian backstories, stuff that was necessary and handy, but not things that really shook up who Batman was or what stories were going on with him like Superman and Wonder Woman. And since Batman is a lisense to print money, for better or worse, they stuck him on this team.

Martain Manhunter: The Martain Manhunter is Jonn Jonzz, a cop from mars who got accidently kidnapped by an old man to earth and took up resdiense as a detective. Jonn would get a full mini establishing who he was post crisis I have not read by Giffen and Dematties but i'm now dying to now I know it exists. Jonn was a founding member of the justice league and a big hero during the silver age, and comes off as the JLA equilvent to the Avengers Wasp, not in terms of character, Janet and Jonn aren't like each other in the slightest but I do think they'd hang, but in being a hero who has a storied career almost entirely tied to one of their unvierses big super teams, but not much solo wise. The former has meant he's been bounced around a bit and even left out of the team in the new 52 for cyborg, but also means he's a treasured part of it, an elder statesman who gives the team a sense of a heart among a floating lineup. He also gives the team a power house, having most of superman's powers PLUS telepathy and shapeshifting. Jonn is one of my faviorite DC heroes owing to the justice league cartoon

Guy Gardner: Guy is an odd duck in that both John Stewart and Hal Jordan were wearing the ring, this being the first time all three earth lantern's wore it, so WHY Guy was chosen out of the three was a mystery given JOhn was, as far as I know, popular even then and Hal was the old reliable, back before everyone was sick of that and wanted them to remember they had 7 or so people more intresting. Guy was Hal's understudy. He literally didn't get the ring.. because Hal Jordan was closer, and thus was picked to become a space cop later. He was depicted intially as a school teacher before being resculpted into a jingoisitc asshole by Steve Engleheart, something that was cemented and fleshed out here. He also has a three stooges haircut, something I feel adds to his asshole charm and feel had to be brought up at some point.

Dr. Fate: Dr Fate is kent nelson, a vetran of the JLA's predecessor, the Justice Society of America. Originally the JSA was part of Earth 2, but was merged with Earth 1 so now they simply.. existed before our heroes, retired due to Mcarthyism, then came back into action when the new age of heroes launched, with deaging and such used to explain how their still around. Fate was chosen likely because he looks neat, they needed a magic guy, and they wanted a JSA rep on the team. He.. didn't really quite fit as it was clear DC didn't know quite what they were doing with him yet.

Blue Beetle: My boy ted, who I've already covered on this blog before, but this is his shining moment. For those less familiar or who missed the underated blue beetle film, Ted is an inventor who found out his uncle was planning to take over the world with an army of robots, and enlisted his close friend Dan Garret, who turned out to be the OG blue beetle and sacrificed his life to stop Ted's Uncle, passing on the mantle but not the magical alien beetle. Ted compensated by building a ton of gadgets, having plnety of quips and generally being plesant. Ted was part of Charlton Comics, a company DC had bought recently, and having his own series at the time, being fairly popular, and having an outfit created by Steve Ditko himself, he was a shoe in and a nice pick from the b-list. Grante di'm biased and this series is entirely WHY, but Ted's a fresh face in the dcu who comes in hot with plenty of experince and a cool ship for the group to fly around.

Black Canary: Dinah Lance was changed by the crisis, going from an immigrant from earth 2 to the daughter of the original. She was also made a founding member of the justice league to replace Wonder Woman because she as the only prominent dc heroine who who would've been active at the time. And yes she's wearing THIS for her time in the JLI

And honestly it's.. meh. I think they were trying to give her a less casual look, but the fishnets and black leather jacket just fit. Sometimes a superhero just needs something anyone could wear in the right order to have a super outfit. I'm not against civlian style costumes if it fits the hero and dinah's just.. fits. This one just dosen't suit her as it's a bit too bombastic.

Dinah's likely here both for her new jsa connection and new jla founder status. She's also here because the team needed a female member, alongside dr. light, who we'll get to later.

Captain Marvel: Billy is easy. While DC had aquiried their former rival Fawcett back in the 70's, and thus one of the best superman immitators there ever was and ever will be, Billy had been on earth S since they bought him, and like Dr. Fate is there to show off how the earths are all merged now. He's also another power house, and was someone dc was trying to push. DC.. never really knows HOW to push captain marvel and i'm hoping his current series by Mark Waid helps. If you haven't read it check it out, it's possibly the characters best that i've been able to have acess to (Since DC hasn't reprinted the golden age stuff quite yet). For those who haven't heard of him, Billy Batson is a ten year old who was chosen by a wizard to become his champion and thus can act out the movie big but with superman powers whenever he wants. I love him dearly and wish DC knew how to market him.

Mr. MIracle: Last but not least Mr Miracle is Scott Free. Scott is part of the new gods, Jack Kirby's big contribution to DC that also included bong of evil Darkseid. To keep the peace Darkseid and his counterpart Highfather did a son swap, HIghfather getting Darkseid's angsty son Orion and Darkseid getting Scott, who he gave to Granny Goodness, the God of Child Abuse, who gave him othe name to mock how he'd never be free. Naturally this strategy backfired as it only fired up young Scott to escape, becoming the escape artist, hero and wife guy mr miracle. The last part came courtsey of big barda, another one of Granny's charges who came to take Scott back, but was convinced that maybe hellpits weren't the best place to live, and married him in Kirby's last issue on the two. Scott is here to emphasis the new gods,s something DC was playing with more post crisis. His manager Oberon, a cheery fella with Dwarfism, is also here because Demattis and Giffen had a lot of material for the guy it turned out and Oberon is essentially the team's guy in the chair.

So with this motely crew assembled let's see what this dynamite creative team did with them as we begin the storied history of the justice league international... the international part comes later.

Starting with the cover. While usually i'll skip these in an analysis, it's both a habit I need to break and would be a criminal act here as the cover for Justice League #1 is my faviorite comic book cover of all time and my faviorite to see an homage of.

It's simple, but it's perfect. The group shot is well deisgned, showing everyone off, but in a way that's diffrent from the usual action poses we get. Their clearly ready to kick your ass then their gonna fuckin kick your ass, but it's in a way that's unique, shows the team's unity. It also is taken so seriously here.. that it makes it ripe for jokes later in the series. The wanna make something of it ffrom guy both echoes the tough image their going for.. but fits the goofy tone the series is really going to have as it settles in. This comic has been homaged to oblivion and rightly so. Even Keith's memorial image dc put out is this but with Keith and all his creations.

We open the issue proper with a declaration.

It's one of my faviorite opening pages in a comic: It's beautifully drawn by artist Kevin Maguire, sets up the setting well and sets up guy as having his head firmly up his own ass.. it's why he has the bowl cut you see, helps him get it up there nice and tight.

The issue smartly introduces the cast one or two at a time, letting each character get a proper introduction and seeing how they bounce off each other as they file in.

So first in is Black Canary, who marvels at their old headquarters recent reneovations. Our heroes start the run in the Secret Sanctuary, the Justice League's first headquarters built into a mountain in Happy Harbor Road Island. And if it seems familiar to some of you, it should as after the JLI were done with it the Doom Patrol moved in for a bit during Grant MOrrison's Run. Most famously and lastingly, Young Justice, another team I have to cover at some point, made this their main hq, the only team to really make it a home that wasn't a justice league. And to prove that point the JSA also stayed here briefly. It's this weird go to for teams who need a headquarters for five minutes.

Anyways Dinah remembers the good times and all the ghosts, guy's a dick about it humming the twilight zone theme, and assumes he and Dinah will have a sam and diane thing and not a "Stay 50 feet away at all times thing".

Next up is Mister MIracle, whose nervous about the gig, not sure if he belongs there. Out of the leaguers Scott tends to stick to the back, not shy or afraid to speak up when needed, but not as outspoken as his team mates. This nicely contrasts oberon whose all too happy for the box office as even if this lasts a cup of coffee. He's less happy when Guy makes a shot at his dwarfisim and Oberon's grumbling is hilarious.. as would've been him decking guy but we still got a few issues till someone finally does that.

Billy zooms in, shocked by all the press, showing his naivitie: even after all he just went through... Billy is still a bit shocked by just how profile this is and happy to be there. Enter the boys, Martain Mahunter and Blue Beetle, with Jonn not forgetting the whole LEgends fiasco so soon, and having a bit of a mope... though he soon makes a valid point to ted as he turns on the computer.. and shows the Detroit League. It's a nice reminder that even if the team wasn't like.. they were still close and still Jonn's proteges.. and most most of them are dead and those that arent quit due to the trauma. So doing this, while something he feels is necessary. Cue Guy banging a gavel and declaring the meeting started

We then cut to the offices of innovative concepts where we meet the heart and galbladder of this run, Maxwell Lord, a mysterious man in a suit whose watching a row of tv's. Max isn't evil like he'd later be retconned into being.. but he is VERY shady at this point, watching all the coverage on the league and in one of my faviorite subtle little things scratching the "of america' part out of the legue's name on a pad of paper.

I want to take a minute to point out macguire's facial work.. i'ts incredible, nicely detailed, realistic, but still cartoony enough to have tons of personality. Just looking at max you get his smugness, ego and sense of control all at once with him having barely said or done anything. There's been plenty of masterminds sitting behind a row of tv's, but you get Max's vibe immedietly while still wondering what his deal is and what he wants with the team, the latter being the main mystery of the books first year. Back at the Sanctuary, Dinah and Guy argue as SHOCKINGLY the experinced vetran with an eye for the teams legacy dosen't want sylvester calzone here running things. Oberon TRIES to intervene on Dinah's beahlf but get's literally brushed off and Jonn trying to be an adult in teh room.. gets Guy picking him up and making a green giant joke, both funny, both well done.. and enough to get even JONN pissed enough to enter a brawl.

Cue the goddamn batman.. and dr. fate whose here too. That's.. really fate's roll for their time on the team, their just.. here. While Giffen and Demattis did really try to work with most of the roster they were given, seeing who worked and who didn't, Dr. Fate just didn't fit this team. As you can see already.. a key part of this team is disfunction. Some become true companions eventually, but it's mostly a bunch of personalities that barely function together, fairly normal people who put on tights. It's the charm of the series: instead of just getting along or having the usual angst, these guys just make digs at each other and amble along, but DO get the job done and do deserve to be called the justice league. It's just a version of said league that dosen't take itself seriously and has fun with it, and that treats this group like people. Normally the Guy Gardner in the group would just be ingorned but because he actually DOES have the power to toss people around (and props to the creative ways he does), it leads to an actaul brawl.

Fate... doen't fit into this. Fate is an enigma, mysterious and distant. So they simply.. don't work well in a jokey sitcom. It's clear the duo LIKE the character, they'd reinvent him soon enough, but he just didn't fit what they were going for.

So that begs the question how BATMAN does.. and he answers it, cowing everyone else into stopping it and getting guy to sit down before dryly reading out the charter. Bats is the boss in this workplace sitcom, and he's a mean one, being an utter dick to dinah at one point.

This moment horks me off.. but it's also a perfect encapulation of batman's leading style: shut up do what I say. Even someone whose his EQUAL , and who founded the team before him and thus has senority, he just tells them to shut up when she's making a valid point: their fidgity because this meeting is nervous nad because they just went through some crap. What I like is that despite having BATMAN.. the dream team dosen't glorify him. He's still batman, he shuts down the room with a glare, is a tactical genius and thus great at leading in the battlefield.. but it's very clear even this early on he simply.. can't lead this team well. He has a barking "do what I tell you style" and expects them to be good soldiers, treating them like a group of sidekicks instead of experinced heroes.

It's not something the group pull out of thin air either: Batman used to have a team of his own, the Outsiders, formed after Batman walked out on the league for refusing to let him rescue Lucius Fox and turned in his badge when Clark wanted him to sit this one out as a league member. He found a bunch of other heroes along the way, and choose to make them into a team, but it was very clear that the outsiders were partners, and weren't treated as full equals, with the exception of Black Lightning who Bruce felt was on his level. He wasn't bad to the team, helping find the younger amnesaic Halo a home, setting them up with day jobs, but his style is very much "listen to me or there's the door. "

The problem is while the outsiders were mostly fresh faces to being heroes or out of practice like metamorpho or black lightning, Bruce can't let that guard down even whent he heroes have more than proven themselves. It popped up in a crossover with the New Teen Titans where he started ordering that team around, with Dick eventually having to tell him to shut the hell up and let Dick lead his own damn team.

So while it's midly grating here it fits: Batman is so determined to keep this league together he's treating them like his backup i nstead of experinced heroes, two of whom HE'S BEEN ON THE LEAGUE WITH BEFORE.

Anyways Bats does have ONE good point in his leadership so far: he wants the team to keep a low profile. While it's hard given the army of camera's outside, the team dosen't know each other, hasn't trained together yet, and needs time to be in full shape. After all they just barely got superheroes back in the popular opinon: while Godfrey DID juice up people's emotoins, it dosen't mean it won't swing back to negative easily if they fuck up.

Unfortuantely for them... someone else has other ideas.. and i'ts not fate because their in the room. At the UN Kimyo Hoshi is in the bathroom puzzled by receving a JL signal device from Max and not sure if she'll accept. Kimyo is the second Dr. Light, a hero unlike her predecessor and a scientest from Japan who got her powers during the crisis. She.. wont' be here long as while the issue plays her up as a member on the cover, she never fully joins the league. More on that in the future. For now she exits the bathroom.. to find herself a hostage. Terroists have taken the UN. THankfully she activates the device and while Batman's very confused dr. light has one, rallies the team to go anyway.

Naturally Brucey Boy is cautious, having most of the team get in the bug, while he sends Fate and Billy to scout ahead. Guy WANTS to but Batman's response to the idea of sending a human bulldozer who barely listens to him into a tense hostage situation?

The team enters and despite the disfunction so far... it goes easily: Guy seals the premiters and probably invents some new swears, beetle does his best as the guy in the chair in the bug

And Fate.. well fate left and told Billy batman would understand and left the ten year old to explain this.

The league clean house.. but Batman notices a problem: these guys are ameture, clumsy and their equipment is oudated. Something else is going on here.

Time for that is passed soon though as Guy dive sin and finishes the job quickly. It's a nice sequence overall that shows the team REALLY is this good: this is a setup sure, but they don't know that. The lead terroists plans to detonate himself and batman... tells them to clear the room and let him, knowing somethign we don't as the man prepares to fir eon him and after they exit we get a wrapup via news as Max once again watches

So yeah SOMETHING made the leader kill himself, and max is behind anything. not a MASSIVE twist as the batman conversation set it up, but still a neat one: Max has plans for the league. I also like the focus on optics here: it's something I don't THINK the league had done before, the idea of how the media views a superhero team. This verison of the league isn't bad.. but Batman's refusal to talk to the press allows them to paint the narrative they want instead of the league controlling it. It's what gives Max a leg up on slowly wrestling control of it and makes him a compelling character from the word jump: Unlike Batman, he clearly gets optics, having set this up to force the league into the spotlight bright and early and removing the of america part to give the team a bigger calling. His tactics for doing this are also brilliant but we'll get more on them as we go.

For now this issue.. is as good as ever. Amazingly drawn, sharply written and nicely snappy, setting up the team, the myth arc with max and the situation their in all in one issue while modernizing thigns a bit: instead of space monsters our heroes are now fighting terrorists. Not that I mind fighting a godo space monster, but I get trying to give the leauge something diffrent and more part of the world. And part of the world is a major part of this series: putting the League more into our world an dhaving to deal with things like the media, other nations, etc. It's a brilliant start

Next Time: The last heroes of a dead world try to save ours while a greedy bearded man wonders who he can exploit this and the team gets some gold.

[alpaca-clouds]

It is not "Superhero Fatigue"

Okay, let me quick rant about something that is bugging me a lot lately. There is a lot of talk about "Superhero Fatigue" going around for years now, but especially this year with both DCU movies not breaking 300k at the international box office and even with Marvel the only movie that actually did really well was Guardians of the Galaxy, aka the movie that is the least "superhero" out of all the Marvel movies.

Buuuuuut... Honestly I do not think it is Superhero Fatigue. I think it is "Franchise Fatigue".

Let me explain.

First of all let me say: I am not really a fan of the MCU. There are some movies in there near and dear to my heart (like the Guardians movies), but all in all I am too much of an anarchist to like those movies. Meanwhile DC has put out some of my favorite stuff of the last few years... But also those absolute duds like The Flash lol

But I do not think it is superheroes. Because... The Superhero movies were not the only ones that underperformed in the box office. The new Transformers movie underperformed, so did Indiana Jones and the new Mission Impossible.

In general studios have so often recently staggered to understand, why one certain movie did good and another did bad.

And I think part of it is just... Franchise fatigue. I think a lot of people are just not interested in the bajillionth sequel to some franchise. People are ready and willing to watch some new movies. I mean, while the Barbie movie was attached to an existing IP, it was not a franchise movie and it did phenomanally well.

See, the issue in recent times is, that the studios are a) all chasing the MCU, trying to make their own MCU, without understanding what made the MCU work (tbh, I doubt by now that even Marvel understands this), and b) think the only way to make money is existing IPs.

But here is the thing. A lot of those existing IPs started off as original movies. Not even ones based on something else. Star Wars, Indiana Jones or even the Fast & Furious movies were once original IPs, that someone took a shot with.

But as things are going right now, there is just not gonna be another Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Fast & Furious, because the studios do not want to invest into new ideas. They do not want to invest in something risky. Or rather into something that in their mind is risky.

So, instead they invest into those existing franchises, not even caring when those movies stop making back their money (at the box office, that is).

To me, there is a reason, why I am watching a lot of Indie movies lately. Because those movies might at times only have a budget of 30 million - but they do original shit. And god, I am here for it

[void-writing]

If you want to share, I'd love to hear more of your Rise TMNT and DCU crossover, please!

I am so so glad you asked : D

I've been trying so hard for so long to think of how the Rise boys misadventures would align with DCU, mostly because I was thinking about post-movie JL investigations into the Kraang Invasion. HOWEVER, I was rewatching the series with a friend semi-recently and we hit the "Battle Nexus: New York" episode and it abruptly hit me that Superman--who is in the state of New York (bc in my version of canon, Metropolis is in New York and Gotham's in New Jersey, as god intended)--would probably be high-key alarmed about the City That Never Sleeps going completely silent except for four teens and five adults, one of which being clearly the one behind it all (that one being Big Mama).

That line of thought honestly made me entertain the idea of Superman being like...the Turtles' weird uncle figure who checks in occasionally like "you good?" but I don't know all of where I'd want to take a story like that.

This honestly kind of spun around in my head for a while until I was hit with a lightning bolt of genius in the form of a very vivid daydream about Daily Planet Intern April O'Neil absolutely tearing into Lex Luthor because he had the sheer audacity to compare Superman to the Kraang in her presence, and a befuddled (and slightly flattered) Clark Kent holding her back from bodily attacking Lex like:

The fic that I'm writing is going to be a mega long one-shot of April being an absolute menace to the supervillain population of Metropolis. She's basically going to be a mini-Lois Lane but like five times more feral because this girl won't so much as flinch at the nonsense Supes deals with on the regular.

On the hero side, April kind of Tim Drakes her way into becoming Superman's unofficial-official sidekick on account of how she just forcibly inserts herself into dangerous situations and refuses to leave.

Hilariously, April doesn't put together that Clark is Superman for a while because her threshold for what constitutes as weird is so messed up that anything that Clark does that might flag as suspicious doesn't even ping for April. Lois and Jimmy have a bet in the background over how long it will take for April to figure out Clark is Superman.

Some other highlights knocking around in my head include:

April babysitting Jon for Clark and Lois so they can go on a date night. April cements herself as the coolest babysitter ever in helping Jon defend the Kent House from an incursion viscous tiny alien critters that Jon brought home from space on accident. Both are trying their hardest to not use powers in front of the other with mixed success.

On a similar note, April cultivating a big-sister relationship with Conner because you cannot tell me that he wouldn't fit right in with her collection of genetically engineered super-soldier brothers born from unethical experiments by a man convinced doing this will save his people, using DNA stolen from a powerful warrior he has homoerotic tension with (from a certain perspective regarding Lex and Clark, lol). Like seriously, Conner's backstory fits the Rise boys' so well. I can't not make April adopt him as little brother #5. Maybe for the hell of it I'll turn Conner into a turtle mutant and have him dick around with the Hamato boys, mostly in making Splinter question if he's been miscounting how many sons he has this entire time. Ah. Fic for another day.

The triumphant return of April's crane license (with bonus forklift certification)

Clark being a living jungle gym for this 4'10" menace to his confusion and everyone else's delight.

The Hamato boys making a surprise visit to the Daily Planet as April works with Lois on an article (because she missed their weekly call and the boys immediately assumed the worst) and April trying desperately to keep her dum-dum little brothers out of Lois's sight as they scamper around the office like it's a playground.

April unknowingly endearing herself to Wonder Woman when she stops by in civilian form to meet up with Clark for JL business.

April getting herself in way over her head trying to do a bit of investigative journalism alone and the Supers coming to bail her out (as a reminder to everyone--including myself--that April is not invincible).

And, of course, the reference to the Batman vs. TMNT movie that I mentioned in the last ask I did on this where the boys break into the Bat Cave and Donnie calls April to gloat that he was right about Batman's secret identity and meanwhile Clark gets a call from Bruce about the four teenage mutant menaces running around his lair and how they're connected to a specific Daily Planet intern Clark knows.

It's just really funny to me to imagine Rise!April being unleashed on Metropolis because Ninpo or no, I don't think anyone there would be prepared to handle the powerhouse that is April O'Neil. The villains of Metropolis quickly come to know and fear her because she will more often than not charge them with the nearest blunt object and somehow--despite not having a meta gene (they have checked)--she hits like a freight train and can keep up decently well with Supers (writing this out now makes me realize that it would be plausible that a conspiracy theory starts floating around Metropolis' criminal underground that April O'Neil is secretly Kryptonian in some capacity, only for it to be swiftly disproved when she grand-slams a chunk of Kryptonite into the Atlantic. Somehow this makes her more terrifying).

But yeah, April is just having the time of her life at this internship, blissfully unaware of how many minds she's breaking just being herself.

[ao3feed-jaydick]

Boys in Blue

read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/43551087 by 3Point14 Juggling Being Officer Grayson and Nightwing was already complicated enough, but when Red Hood decides to get involved with a case Dick is working on as both... Well, Dick's Stress just might get the better of him. Who the hell does Jason think he is telling Dick to keep out of his way? This isn't Gotham, this is Bludhaven. This is Dick's City, and whatever Jason is up to.... Dick is getting to the bottom of it. Words: 3133, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Grayson (Comics), DCU (Comics) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: M/M Characters: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Murder Mystery, Slash, Police Officer Dick Grayson, Undercover Missions, Red-headed Jason Todd, Cameos, Police Uniforms, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, generous swearing, Dick Grayson is So Done, Gun Violence, Cover Art, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Internalized Homophobia, Jason Todd Being a Little Shit, Nicknames, over-use of nicknames, Original Character(s), Blüdhaven Police Department, Author is bad at tags, Author is also bad at summaries read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/43551087

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

The Nightmare Before Christmas

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/g4iqxIo by CitizenErased27 With Bruce becoming increasingly embroiled in public philanthropy while Alfred is still healing from the Riddler's attack, he is begrudginly assigned a temporary security detail - one Officer Daniel Martinez, whose effortless optimism and friendliness rub off on him in unexpected ways. But with their growing relationship comes an internal, guilt-ridden war between the pursuit of normalcy and the need to continue his crusade. When Gotham is hit by a new maniac spreading fear and terror, Bruce is forced to confront himself, or risk everything crumbling down around him. Set in the months following The Batman (2022). Words: 2352, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: The Batman (Movie 2022), Batman - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Bruce Wayne, Officer Martinez (The Batman Movie 2022), Alfred Pennyworth, Jonathan Crane Relationships: Officer Martinez/Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Martinez has Golden Retriever Energy, Alfred Pennyworth is a Saint, Christmas, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU), no beta we die like bruce's parents, Identity Reveal read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/g4iqxIo

[keycomicbooks]

Justice League International #11 (1988) Kevin Maguire Cover & Keith Giffen Pencils, J.M. DeMatteis Story

#JusticeLeagueInternational #11 (1988) #KevinMaguire Cover & #KeithGiffen Pencils, #JMDeMatteis Story "Constructions!" #MaxLord calls Captain Atom and Martian Manhunter into his office to see if he can recruit the heroes they worked with during the recent invasion by the Manhunters. SAVE ON SHIPPING COST - NOW AVAILABLE FOR LOCAL PICK UP IN DELTONA, FLORIDA https://www.rarecomicbooks.fashionablewebs.com/Justice%20League%20International.html#11  #VertigoComics #Vertigo #KeyComicBooks #DCComics #DCU #DCUniverse #KeyIssue #NerdyGifts

[decaffeinatedfirelover]

The National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT)

The National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) is a state-of-the-art, multi-functional building specifically built to serve the needs of the Irish bioprocessing industry by providing a world-class platform for research and training. It is located at Belfield Innovation Park, in the University College Dublin (UCD) campus in Dublin, the capital city of Ireland. Trinity Health Deals

A groundbreaking ceremony to mark the commencement of construction of the purpose-built facility was performed in November 2009. The institute was officially inaugurated in June 2011 by Seán Sherlock, the Minister for Research & Innovation, Government of Ireland. It was built with an investment of €57m (approximately $73.24m).

In January 2012, the institute won ISPE Facility of the Year Award (FOYA) in “Special Recognition for Novel Collaboration” category. The NIBRT also won the Bioprocess International Award in “Manufacturing Collaboration of the Decade” category in October 2012.

Organisations associated with the Dublin-based NIBRT

The success of NIBRT is the result of a forward-looking collaboration between the four leading institutes for higher education in Ireland. These institutes include the University College Dublin, which is the country’s largest university, Trinity College Dublin, Institute of Technology, Sligo (ITS) and Dublin City University (DCU).

The majority of the project cost was financed by IDA Ireland, the government agency responsible for industrial development in Ireland.

Endress+Hauser, an industrial automation equipment supplier based in Switzerland, commissioned a custom-built training facility for biotechnology at NIBRT through a collaborative deed.

Details of NIBRT Dublin facility

“The success of NIBRT is the result of a forward-looking collaboration between the four leading institutes for higher education in Ireland. “

NIBRT is a two-floor greenfield facility designed as a medium-scale bioprocessing plant. The entire facility is built over an area of 6,500m2 (69,965ft2). It includes seven research laboratories, a bioprocessing pilot plant and training and office facilities.

The bioprocess-simulated GMP pilot plant, located on the upper level, is the main attraction of the facility. It is provided with a range of upstream, downstream, fill and finish and associated analytical facilities. Both the downstream and upstream pilot plants are operated under GMP conditions.

The downstream plant houses integrity testing stations and an instrumentation rig. This pilot plant is also provided with two UF/DF skids, two chromatography skids, a column packing skid and pH viral inactivation tubes.

The upstream pilot plant facility includes an inoculum preparation laboratory, shake flasks and two wave reactor trains, four bioreactors with support vessels, vessels for batch and fed-batch fermentations, utilities for single-use bioreactors up to 1,000l and microfiltration and centrifuge system for cell harvesting and culture clarification to remove cell residues.

The fill-finish suite is also located on the upper floor. It is equipped with a Watson-Marlow Flexicon pilot-scale filling machine with restricted-access barrier systems (RABS). On the same level there are two dedicated training rooms (one on the ground floor), with a combined seating capacity of up to 100 people. It is equipped with a data projector and drop-down screen. A power amplifier is made available for larger assemblages.

Ground floor facilities in the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training

The ground floor houses downstream processing labs, a molecular biology lab, utilities room, glycobiology research laboratory, training rooms, a cafe and a shared services area that is the heart of the ground floor. A space of 450m2 (4,843ft2) has been reserved for future labs, which can be developed and installed as per client requirements.

“NIBRT is a two-floor greenfield facility designed as a medium-scale bioprocessing plant. “

The downstream laboratory is built over an area of 170m2 (1,830ft2) and includes a 20m2 (215ft2) walk-in cold room, featuring double refrigeration units and alarms. The molecular biology laboratory is built over 165m2 (1,776ft2). It is divided into three rooms, where two rooms are fully equipped for cell culture operation and the third room is used as a general laboratory.

All the essential utilities such as the steam boiler, compressed air and bio-waste deactivation services are put up in the utilities plant room.

The atrium, which joins the administrative room / classroom with laboratory / process area, is furnished with polished natural concrete floor and covered with a glass roof.

[thelibraryofalexandriastillburns]

anyway, i read the best one i’ve seen so far recently so here’s my rec:

Chapters: 9/9

Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne

Characters: Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Stephanie Brown, Bernard Dowd, Cassandra Cain, Bruce Wayne

Additional Tags: Original Character(s), POV Outsider, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Jason Todd is Good With Kids, Child Protective Services, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, Purposeful Brother Acquisition, secret identity shenanigans, Batfamily Dynamics (DCU), Lawful Neutral Poison Ivy, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Background Bernard Dowd/Tim Drake

Series: Part 1 of Gotham CPS

Summary:

CPS Agent, pointing at Tim Drake: We need to take him with us

Red Hood: He's fine where he is

CPS: He's a minor

Hood: Timbo, you a minor?

Tim: Can't prove it

CPS: I mean, I can. There are records –

Tim, who has just finishing hacking CPS to remove his own file: Oh really, tell me more about these records

+++

A CPS agent gets sent to investigate a tip that Tim Drake has been abandoned by his parents and is living with the Red Hood. The CPS agent leaves with no Tim Drake, a date with Red Hood's lieutenant, and an intern who's promising to fix the IT systems at his office.

It's a weird day for Theo.

i may never forgive the specific writers of the DC comics for the bad relationships between Batman and the Robins (especially not Jason), but you know what i will do? read a crap ton of fix it fics where they are a PROPER FAMILY

[supersilversleuth]

I Am Hurting (When No One's Looking) by SuperSilverSpy

Fandoms: DCU, DCU (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)

Rating: General Audiences

Category: Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply, Dick Grayson & Amy Rohrbach, Dick Grayson, Amy Rohrbach, Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown, Tim Drake, Hurt Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Angst, Whumptober 2021, Dick Grayson-centric, ice chips, Hospitals, Dick Grayson Whump, flare ups, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, SuperSilverSpy, SilverGrayson, SilverWhump

“You need to go to the hospital,” she said, glaring at him, “this isn’t up for debate.”

“N—No,” he gritted out between clenched teeth, “my family will know...immediately, I can’t worry them for...something so...stupid...”

“You idiot,” Amy snarled at him, “they’ll feel even worse if you’re dead.”

“It’s fine,” Dick replied, sounding faint, “I’ve...dealt with worse...before...on my own.”

OR Dick gets shot, it leads to some revelations on the family's part.

No. 10 - OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN hospital | flare-up | ice chips

Series:

Part 10 of 2021 Most Whumperful Time of the Year - Dick Grayson-centric

Language: English Words: 1,208 Chapters: 1/1 Collections: 1

Dick sighed, rubbing absent-mindedly at his right shoulder. Sometimes it acted up for no reason. But it wasn’t that bad, he could deal with a little pain here and there.

He was busy with at least five cases as Nightwing, and three as officer Grayson. He told his brain not to do the math on how many that was and how much self-care he’d been doing lately in correlation to that number, but alas, no can do. It was times like these where he wished he wasn’t so good at math.

Nevertheless, he was alive and fit and functioning properly, so he counted that as a win. Those were all that was necessary to do his job—both of them—and since his professions were all about saving people and taking down bad guys, that’s what took precedence. Crime would continue, and there would always be innocents in danger.

Dick had learned long ago which parts of his life could be put on the back burner and for how long they could stay there.

He was a pro, he was the first, the one who inadvertently dragged all the others into this life. The least he could do was dedicate himself to saving others so that one day teenagers might not have to.

“We’re here,” said Amy from beside him.

Dick looked up, hand drifting away from his shoulder. “Wow, that was fast.”

“Not really,” she replied, frowning down at him, “you’ve been quieter than usual today, Rookie. Your old wound giving you trouble?”

For a moment, Dick thought back to the time when the Joker shot him in the right shoulder, the final straw that made Bruce order him to leave, that led to Dick deciding not to go back.

Of course, it hadn’t turned out that way, he had gone back.

But...that wasn’t what she was referring to.

“Nah, I’m fine. Ready to check out some suspicious warehouses!” he grinned at her.

She sighed, opening her door and stepping out.

—

Why did it always have to be the right shoulder? Dick groaned internally, At this point, there had to be hardly any flesh left in that part of his body, what with all the criminals that seemed determined not to let him keep any.

Each time he’d heal and build the muscle back up, and then boom! Gone, just like that.

The old wounds had been acting up lately too, Dick should’ve known something would happen. Rainy days, and criminals who aimed for the wrong side of his chest. Didn’t they know the heart was on the left side of his body?

Well, to be fair, Dick probably subconsciously tilted to protect his most important muscle, but still. Couldn’t his poor shoulder catch a brake? No rest for the unprotected, he supposed. In the end, he was just glad Amy hadn’t been hit in the crossfire.

She reached for her walkie talkie, probably to get someone to come pick up the unconscious thugs littered across the floor and call for an ambulance. Dick’s left hand caught her arm in a weak grip.

“No...don’t…” he murmured, “can’t go to...hospital. Just...just get me back to...my place…”

“You need to go to the hospital,” she said, glaring at him, “this isn’t up for debate.”

“N—No,” he gritted out between clenched teeth, “my family will know...immediately, I can’t worry them for...something so...stupid...”

“You idiot,” Amy snarled at him, “they’ll feel even worse if you’re dead.”

“It’s fine,” Dick replied, sounding faint, “I’ve...dealt with worse...before...on my own.”

“Sure,” she said, unconvinced. “But I’m not taking any chances. We wouldn’t want a repeat of last time, now would we?”

Dick sighed, hissing as she put more pressure on the wound with one hand, her other busy calling for an ambulance.

“Well, I lived that time, didn’t I?” he muttered.

If looks could kill, blood loss would be the least of his problems.

After a moment, she finished and hung up.

“They’ll be here in about ten minutes, can you make it that long?”

“Of course,” Dick’s voice slurred, vision going blurry.

“Hey! Grayson! Stay with me! That’s an order, dammit!”

—

Jason, Tim, and Steph arrived at the hospital, Steph had won the rock-paper-scissors contest, and so they drove the whole way there weaving in and out of traffic at top speed in Bruce’s fastest, most ridiculous looking car.

Or at least, it hadn’t used to look so ridiculous, until Steph had it repainted to be purple a few months ago and claimed it as hers.

Jason had to hand it to her, the expression on the old man’s face when he’d seen it had been priceless.

Now, Dick was in the hospital, and Jason shouldn’t be having such light hearted thoughts at a time like this. He just had a feeling that the guy was fine, that’s all. Goldie could handle himself, and plus, the doctor said it hadn’t been urgent, that Dickface was gonna be alright, and that’s all Jason really needed to hear.

It was only Blondie and Replacement who were the worried ones, really. That’s why Jason was here, he’d been bored today too, why not kill some time and check on a wounded brother all in one quick drive to a hospital miles away? Not that Jason cared, or anything.

The trio walked through the halls, white on either side, surrounded by that disturbing hospital air smell.

Just as they reached the door at the end of a long hallway, a voice filtered through.

“You really have to stop getting shot in the same place, Rookie, this is the second time!”

Jason exchanged glances with the other two.

It seemed neither of them had known about this either.

They pushed open the door, walking in to find a tired-looking Dick munching on ice chips and a frustrated Captain Amy Rhorbach, who got up and left soon after.

“...what was that about?” asked Tim, because he had no tact.

Dick shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

Steph was gaping, “Second time?”

“Well, this would be the second,” began the Replacement, “and right before you moved out of the manor, you were shot by the Joker, right?’

“Something like that,” Dick mumbled, putting an ice chip into his mouth.

“Hey, leave Goldie alone,” Jason intervened, “His secrets are none of our business.”

“But Rohrbach wouldn’t know about that,” blurted Steph.

Tim’s eyes widened. “You’ve been shot three times, in the same place, haven't you?”

Jason didn’t like where this was going.

Dick sighed, “Yes, and Amy was there when the second time happened.

“But that would mean…” Tim trailed off, looking lost, “I’ve never seen any record of a second shooting in the bat records.”

“That’s because Bruce doesn’t know,” Dick said, voice serious, “I went to a lot of trouble to hide all evidence of it. Bruce thought I was still with the Titans during that time, he didn’t know I was a police officer and I knew he wouldn’t approve.”

What other injuries have you hidden from us, Dick? Jason wondered, watching sadly as his brother waved away their concern.

“It’s all in the past,” he said, “the other two had already scarred over when I got this one.”

[huilian]

chapter one of my court of owls rewrite AU!

***

Dick stands near the podium, watching Bruce give his speech. He already knows that the speech is about looking forward to the future to create a better Gotham, instead of focusing on the city’s grim present and past. However, Dick finds himself thinking about the city as it was and still is, despite the point of Bruce’s entire speech is for people to not do so.

Dick can’t help it. Bruce starts the speech with stories of his connection to Gotham, and Dick finds himself remembering his own association with the city, and all that entails. 

He wishes he could say he hasn’t thought of the Court for years, but that would be a lie. 

Without Dick realizing it, Bruce has finished his speech. The socialites and elites of Gotham lap it up, of course. Dick knows that a lot of them don’t really believe in what Bruce is saying: invest in Gotham’s future and we can make Gotham a better place--and Dick has his suspicions about which of them actually wants to make a better Gotham, considering what he knows about them--, but they take it anyway. That’s Gotham’s elites for you. 

Dick waits until Bruce has done his cursory thank-yous before putting himself next to Bruce’s elbow. He knows how much these rich people hate it when he interrupts their conversations with their beloved Brucie, but that makes him do it more often. 

Spite. What a powerful motivator.

“Are you sure about this?” Dick starts signing, not really caring who sees. It’s not like any  of the people surrounding Bruce knows ASL anyway. They never care enough to learn. 

“Yes,” Bruce signs back. 

“Don’t you have enough to do with Batman Inc.?” Dick can’t say how much he loves that he can actually talk about Batman in public. He just has to slide everything under the blanket of Batman Inc.. After all, it’s public knowledge that Bruce Wayne is funding Batman Inc. No more searching for increasingly ridiculous excuses.

Plus, it is not like anyone around them knows what they’re saying. Like Dick said before, they don’t care enough to learn. But it’s always good to be safe.

“Actually, I’m thinking of spending more time in Gotham.” The people surrounding Bruce start to disperse, grumbling and whispering to themselves and each other, after it becomes clear that Bruce is not going to translate his conversation with Dick to the people surrounding him. Honestly, by now, they should know already. It’s not like this hasn’t occurred many, many times before. “I-”

Dick stops Bruce with a hand. With the crowd surrounding them, or more precisely, surrounding Bruce, clearing, Dick can see Commissioner Gordon, standing near a window as he talks to his phone. While the sight is not something out of the ordinary, especially in an event like this,the words that Dick can read from his lips, however, are unusual. 

… stab wounds… I’ll be there…

Well, maybe even that is not something new. It’s Gotham, after all. Despite Bruce’s, and lately Dick’s, efforts, victims of stabbings are still common. What’s extraordinary is the fact that the GCPD is calling the commissioner about a stabbing, when they know perfectly well he’s attending a function. 

Not a regular crime then. 

Bruce, noticing that Dick’s focus is now on the Commissioner, moves his attention to him. 

They both watched Jim Gordon for a while, and when the Commissioner hangs up, Bruce signs, “Are you going out?”

Dick nods. He’s already thinking of excuses, and whether or not he should take Damian. A stabbing doesn’t sound like a case Dick would keep away from him, but if they’re calling the Commissioner about it…

“Want me to come with?”

No, Dick’s not going to bring Damian. If they’re calling the Commissioner because of some mystery surrounding the stabbing, then he’ll involve Damian later. The kid needs more detectiving practice. But if it’s something else, something more horrible than just a mystery, then he’ll work the case alone. Damian doesn’t need more violence in his life. 

At least not more than what he usually sees on a daily basis. 

“No,” Dick signs. “I’ll go alone. It’s your party, you should be here. Keep an eye on Damian.” Dick watches as Bruce’s eyes go distant--the way they did when he doesn’t understand something--at the sign name Dick has given for Damian, index finger up, palm facing outwards, which is then continued by the palm turning, while touching the chest with the middle finger. The letter D, moving onto a modified sign for heart. Dick has been meaning to have that conversation with Bruce for a long time, now, about what Damian means to him and how they will navigate that now that Bruce is back, but they never seem to have the time. Maybe Bruce being in Gotham more will be good for them. For all of them “Make sure he’s not putting anything on fire,” Dick finishes, teasing a bit. 

Bruce eyes him warily. Dick knows he’s not sure whether Dick is joking about the fire bit or not Dick just smiles as he tries to figure it out. 

Maybe Damian will put something on fire. And with both Tim and Cass in attendance, chaos will still reign even if Damian doesn’t light anything up. Tim and Damian are bad enough, but Dick has learned recently that putting all three of them in close proximity to each other for a prolonged period of time will only result in chaos. 

It’ll be fun to watch Bruce handle that for a change.

Bruce sighs. “I’ll be on standby as back-up, then.”

“You just want to ditch the party.”

Bruce flicks Dick’s nose. For a moment, Dick is transported to years ago, having a conversation very similar to this one. Only this time, Dick is the one who’s going out and Bruce is the back-up. It startles him a bit, knowing how far he’s come since those unsure Robin days, shoulders heavy with the need to redeem his mother’s name for him, and always, always scared of the possibility of hitting too hard, of going too far. 

Him and Damian are so much more alike than the kid can possibly think. 

Dick’s shoulders are still heavy now, but it’s a different name he’s bearing, with a different parent behind it. 

No. The mission first. Dick can do his maudlin reflections later. He shakes his head a bit, just to clear it, then signs, “I’m going to call Tim or Cass if I need back-up. This is your party, and you’ll stay until the very end of this stupid thing.”

Bruce flicks his nose again. Or, well, he tries to. Dick ducks down, leaving Bruce’s fingers to flick air. 

“Brat,” Bruce says, huffing with exasperation. Then, his expression turns serious, and he signs, “Be careful.”

Dick smiles. “Always.”

***

The cape no longer drags him with its weight. It’s still heavy, it’s still weird and constricting, but it no longer pulls him down. Dick wonders what that says about him. 

Since he left Damian back at the party, with plenty of protests from the boy, Batman is flying solo tonight. Dick takes the opportunity to play around a bit, since no Robin means he doesn’t have to be a good example. 

It’s not strictly professional, but it keeps the mythos going. Besides, Bruce used to do it all the time. Still does. 

Dick lands at the crime scene silently, searching for the officer in charge to spook. 

The officer in question is Sergeant Harvey Bullock. Dick sighs internally. No chance of spooking, then. Bullock has been in the game for far too long to be startled by the Bat anymore, whether it is him or Bruce.

“Sergeant Bullock,” Batman says. Dick hates doing it, hates forcing the words out of his mouth, hates the memories that come with it, but unlike Nightwing, Batman cannot be mute. 

It’s bad enough that Commissioner Gordon and a lot of the Rogues know he’s not the original one. He doesn’t need to advertise it. 

“Batman.” Bullock nods at him. “Come on. Let’s go look at some art.”

Sergeant Bullock leads him inside, to where a man is pinned to the wall by knives. 

“The landlord found him on a routine rent run. He went by the name Sam Strigs…,” Bullock says as Dick listens with half an ear. There’s something familiar about the knives. 

Dick moves closer. 

An owl. On the handle of the knives. 

Dick’s breathing stops for a second. He can feel his hands curling around phantom knives, much like these ones. His neck tingles with the sense of being watched. 

No. Dick takes a breath. Bruce said the Court is gone. Bruce said he has run the Court to the ground and burned them himself. 

Dick glances at Bullock. He’s still talking, oblivious to the fact that Dick’s mind had gone somewhere else. Good. It won’t do to have people know that the Batman is scared of the Court. 

There will be riots. No one will take Batman seriously ever again. Dick can’t do that to Bruce.

But then… an owl. The Court is powerful. It’s possible that Bruce hasn’t burnt them all, that they have been hiding, biding their time, waiting for their chance to strike. But, that brings its own sets of questions. The most prevalent one is, why now?

“... has anything to do with the old wive’s tale-”

“I know what you mean,” Batman says. Dick knows. He knows all about the Court of Owls. There’s no need for Bullock to start saying their name out loud. Speak not a whispered word of them. Better not to tempt fate. 

He also says that because he can excuse that with Batman’s general sullenness and know-it-all behaviour. The Batman is not scared of the Court of Owls. He just can’t be bothered to listen to their name. 

Dick pulls his eyes away from the knives, surveying the rest of the room. The smell of paint thinner hits his nose, blocking even the stench of the body. 

Why is he smelling paint thinner?

Oh. Maybe. Dick pulls out a lighter from his belt, then starts walking around the room, trying to find where the smell is strongest. 

The smell is strongest on the wall right opposite of Sam Strig’s body. Dick observes the wall. He doesn’t see anything that will give him clues, but paint thinner does leave no trace on this kind of wall. Dick flicks the lighter on and approaches the wall. He hopes he’s not wrong, because if he is, then he’ll be burning the crime scene down.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Bullock shouts, but it’s too late. The fire has caught. 

It illuminates the room. Well, the good news is, Dick is not burning anything down. 

The bad news is, the fire writes, RICHARD GRAYSON WILL DIE TOMORROW.

Well. Dick has had his share of death threats over the years, but none so… dramatic as this. 

“Tomorrow?” Bullock says. “Our time of death is a week ago, so the ‘tomorrow’ Strigs thought of already came and went. This Grayson boy should be in the clear.”

“Unless he knew when he’d be found,” Batman says. 

Bullock narrows his eyes, then grimaces. “The landlord says he always comes on the second Friday of the month. Maybe our victim knows he’s going to die and be found today, and left a warning for this Grayson boy.” Bullock snorts. “Then good luck to that killer. Grayson’s Wayne’s adopted son, and Wayne’s security has security. I’m guessing you know the boy? What with Wayne being your-”

Batman grunts. Why would a dying man leave a warning message for his killer’s next victim? Unless…, unless the one writing the message is not Sam Strigs. 

If it’s a Talon writing that message, if it’s the Court who’s sending that message…

“I’ll be seeing you, Bullock,” and with that, Dick is gone before Bullock can answer. He has a murderer to catch. 

***

“Are you insane?” Bruce says. Other people will say that Bruce is completely unaffected. Dick knows better. He’s speaking to Dick. “The Court is back in Gotham, they’re threatening you, and you’re telling me to leave?”

Dick sighs. He would also like to be stressed about this, but when he comes back to the Bunker and tells Bruce about the situation, he sees that Bruce is actually panicking over this. He decides then that he’s going to be calm and collected. No sense in having two Batmans that are panicking, after all.

“We don’t know if it’s the Court or not. It could be a copycat.”

“I’m not leaving, Dick. You should have called me the moment you have any indication that it’s the Court instead of letting me play billionaire in a party all night.”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Even if this is the Court, Bruce has been protecting Dick against them for so long now. It’s Dick’s problem, and it’s past time he handled it. 

“I can handle it,” Dick signs, perfectly calm and collected. He’s not, not really, but Bruce wouldn’t even consider going if Dick isn’t the picture of serenity. 

He loves Bruce for that, but Bruce shouldn’t be worrying about Dick anymore. Not when he has so much more to worry about. 

Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m… I’m not saying you can’t handle it, Dick. I…”

Dick laughs a little bit. Even with the threat of the Court swirling at the back of his mind, it’s always fun to see Bruce getting flustered with emotions, instead of locking them down and playing the unfeeling Batman. 

Dick taps Bruce’s fingers, forcing the man to pay attention to him, then signs, “You can’t say it, can you? I’m worried.”

“Dick,” Bruce says. “It’s the Court.” 

Dick changes his demeanour instantly. “I know,” he signs. “It’s time I faced them.”

A look passes between them. A thousand unsaid things and a thousand unspoken emotions. 

There’s no evidence it’s the Court, Dick’s look says.

They’re smart enough to conceal it, Bruce counters.

Even if it is, I can handle it.

It’s my job to protect you, the set of Bruce’s mouth says.

I can protect myself just fine.

Bruce takes a breath. Then, in the rise of his eyebrows, he asks, Are you sure about this?

And Dick, answering in kind, raises his own eyebrows. Yes, I’m sure.

“Alright,” Bruce breathes out, “but call for back-up the moment you need it, Dick. I’m serious.”

“And by back-up you mean you, right?” because Bruce is nothing if not paranoid and controlling. He won’t even be in Gotham by early tomorrow morning. The Batman of Tokyo needs his help, and so Bruce is flying out first thing tomorrow. He can’t seriously think that he is going to be Dick’s first point of contact. 

Nowadays, Gotham is not lacking in protectors, and so Dick is not lacking in back-ups. Babs is here, Stephanie is here, Tim is here. Cass is back, and even Jason can be persuaded to give them back-ups once in a blue moon. Dick is not lacking in back-ups.

“None of them have faced the Court before.”

“I have.”

“Dick,” Bruce growls.

Dick sighs. “I promise to call for back-up, but I’m not promising to call you. Tokyo needs you much more than we do. We can handle this.”

Another thousand unsaid things. Another thousand unspoken emotions. 

“Fine,” Bruce sighs.. 

Dick smiles at him. He turns to go to the lockers to change out of his suit, but before he steps out of the room, Bruce adds, “You know that the mission is not more important than you, right?”

He is gone before Dick can answer.

***

“How much longer do I have to endure this, Grayson?”

“You love it,” Dick teases. 

Damian scoffs. “I repeat, how much longer do I have to endure this, Grayson?”

Dick laughs. Damian glares at him, but he doesn’t stop stirring the sauce, despite all his complaints in the last twenty three minutes. Dick tries to stop laughing, but one look at Damian’s glare gets him starting again. 

It warms Dick’s heart, to see his little brother stirring the sauce next to him. The Damian from months ago would have stabbed him with a kitchen knife before deigning to accompany Dick in cooking. The sight even manages to push the threat on his life to the very back of his mind. 

Dick takes a few deep breaths to calm himself. Damian won’t appreciate it if he keeps laughing at him. Then, Dick walks over and ruffles Damian’s hair before taking over the spatula. Only Damian can make stirring pasta sauce sounds like torture. 

“Give me the tomatoes,” Dick signs. 

“Yes, I know, Grayson,” Damian grumbles, handing Dick a plate of chopped tomatoes. “And stop signing while you’re stirring. We don’t want a repeat of last Thursday.”

Dick stops stirring, then gives Damian his best conspiring look. “Nothing happened last Thursday.”

Damian snorts. “Keep telling yourself that. I will break the moment Pennyworth asks me about it. I do not wish to incur his wrath. Again.”

“The mighty Damian falls under Alfred’s wrath, huh?”

“It would be prudent to do so,” Damian says. “And stop signing.”

Dick laughs again. It’s fun, actually, being in the Penthouse’s kitchen, cooking dinner with his little brother, despite the complaints from Damian. It also serves to give Alfred a break every once in a while. God knows the man needs it. 

The sunlight glints on the countertop, unhindered by anything. It’s almost sunset already. Dick knows that the Court can strike just as well, if not better, at night, but the sight of the sun setting calms Dick’s beating heart somewhat. At night they are Batman and Robin, not Dick and Damian. At night Dick can protect his brother more. 

It’s ironic, that Dick likes Damian to be on the streets better than at home, but on the streets, he can lead any attempts on Dick’s life away from Damian. He can’t do that here. 

Dick is perfectly fine with the Court threatening him, but he cannot bear it if his family is in danger. Never mind that all of their lives are at risk every time they put on a mask. 

But they can handle those dangers. They have for years now. The Court though. The Court is something else. The Court is Dick’s problem. 

A shadow appears over the countertop. And from its angle, whatever it is is perching on the windows. Too big to be a bird, and anything else won’t perch on the window. 

No. No. Not now, not when he’s so close to getting through the day unscathed. 

Not when Damian is so close to getting through the day unharmed. 

Down, Dick signs with the field signals, ones that only his family and his Titans know. Ones that Damian is trained to recognize and obey instantly.

He does, thank god. Damian puts down the basil he’s been chopping and takes cover behind the kitchen counter.

Not a moment too late, because once Damian’s head went out of sight, the window breaks. The windows at Wayne Tower are supposed to be unbreakable, but…

It’s a Talon. It’s a Talon standing inside Dick’s kitchen, in very close proximity to Damian. 

So it is the Court. 

And they have sent a Talon for Dick’s head. 

Dick moves into his stance. From the uniform, Dick knows that the Talon in front of him is his great-grandfather, William Cobb. That’s both good news and bad news, because Dick knows how Cobb fights, but Cobb also knows how Dick fights. After all, he’s the one who trained Dick all those years ago. 

He’s also a damn good fighter.

But Dick has spent the years since their last encounter training with other people and he’s guessing that Cobb hasn’t. He throws the pan filled with hot pasta towards Cobb, trying to buy some time. 

As Dick had expected, the pasta didn't hurt Cobb,but it did give him time to take a knife from the knife block on the counter. Distantly, Dick remembers Damian holding a knife before he took cover, and wonders where that knife is, but Dick pushes that thought out for later. 

Dick has batarangs on his person, as always, but he’s not sure whether the Court already knows that tidbit of information, so he doesn’t dare pull them out. 

Cobb throws his own knife. Dick ducks and rolls towards Cobb. Another knife, this one aimed downwards. Dick leaps up. 

Cobb may be good, but Dick is right. Cobb’s skills, although impressive, hasn’t improved in the years since their last meeting. 

Dick’s has increased exponentially. 

But he’s in civvies, with only the one knife as a weapon. Cobb is in his full Talon regalia, with dozens of knives, two swords, throwing darts, and possibly several grenades. He also has regenerative abilities. Dick does not. 

Dick aims a kick towards Cobb’s eyes. Cobb evades it, but that’s okay. It is supposed to be a feint anyway. Dick knows what move Cobb will use to evade the kick and he makes use of that by slashing at Cobb’s back. 

It hits, but Dick knows the cut will heal soon enough. Dick has to be fast. He trips Cobb’s legs and strikes at his neck. 

Dick used enough force to shatter a normal person’s trachea, but Cobb is a Talon, and so even that is not hard enough. Cobb takes the hit, but still manages to land one of his knives into Dick’s arm. 

Dick does not have regenerative abilities. 

Dick rolls away, protecting his injured arm. Cobb does not have the same qualms. He starts to say, “Richard Grayson. The Court of Owls has-”

His words are cut off by a knife to the spine. Damian. What is he doing, staying here? He’s supposed to be out and safe. 

The knife did give Dick the opportunity to kick Cobb out of the window. He doesn’t even twitch, because Damian apparently had lodged his knife deep into Cobb’s spine. Not even a Talon can heal with a knife still embedded there. 

That done, Dick turns towards Damian, hands already moving. 

Damian doesn’t even blink. He just says, “You’re hurt,” like that’s all there is to be said. 

Dick begs to differ. “What are you doing? You could’ve gotten hurt!”

“So you would have me leave you?” 

“Yes!”Dick signs that with more force than the sign actually needs. “When I tell you to leave, you leave.”

“You didn’t tell me to leave,” Damian protests. “You told me to go down. And I did.”

Dick starts to sign again, before he looks at Damian. The kid meant well, and Dick can see that Damian is shaken up by the attack. He’s just trying to help. And Dick can’t really fault that logic. But still…

“You know what I meant. Don’t do that again.”

“Tt,” Damian clicks his tongue. He stops for a moment, and Dick lets him. Sometimes Damian needed more time to gather his thoughts, and Dick is more than happy to oblige him. “Are you not going to reprimand me about the knife?”

Oh. Damian didn’t know. 

“You didn’t know about the healing abilities?”

“No. I suspected, based on the way he paid no mind on your attack on his trachea. Anyways, it wouldn’t have killed even a normal human being. It would only paralyze them.”

Dick sighs. He really shouldn’t encourage the violence, but the kid did save him. And Dick owes him an explanation. 

“Don’t do that to a normal human being. Otherwise, good job.” Dick ruffles Damian’s hair again, with his uninjured arm. Then, he sobers up, and signs, “That’s a Talon.” Dick doesn’t elaborate. The kid knows about the Court already. 

Damian’s face turned dangerous. Dick will have to watch out for that. Damian opens his mouth.

“No,” Dick signs, stopping Damian before he even starts. “We’re not going to go after them now. Go get Alfred, then get packing.”

“Packing?” Damian asks, perplexed.

“This place is compromised already. We’re moving to the Manor.”

***

[ao3feed-jaytim]

Effortless Smile

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/39eP8Yn

by Moxibustion (RyuuzaKochou)

Despite everything he might have tried to avoid it, Jason had to grudgingly admit that after a) utterly failing to kill any of his family and b) getting to the stage of actively helping them not die, he was actually back in the family for the long haul. Damn it. Somehow this turned into Jason taking a job in the family business, which would be well within his comfort zone if they were a mafia syndicate, instead of the proprietors of a business that generated a significant fraction of America's GDP.

Jason has reservations about this.

There is one consolation in this hellscape of paperwork, meetings, snotty IT workers and being co-workers with his idiot brothers. He meets an intern named Tim, who never fails to make him smile.

Words: 2537, Chapters: 1/10, Language: English

Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne

Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd

Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Romance, JayTim Week 2020, Day 5 - Office Romance, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Civilian Tim Drake, Jason Todd Has Issues, Tim Drake Has Secrets, shhhhh, Hurt Tim Drake, Disfigurement, Bruce Wayne/His Infinite Well Of Guilt, Jason Todd.... BUSINESSMAN?!, Let's Talk About Getting A Day Job Jason, love at almost first sight, First Love, Talking About FEEEEELINGS, Tim Drake Birthday Hunt, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Sweet, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Batbrothers (DCU) Bonding

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/39eP8Yn

[ayonde]

My journey beyond MBA into Canada (Blog#10)

After graduation we went to Orlando to see Disney/Universal. That trip burned a hole in my pocket. Washington DC was the last leg and luckily the museums in DC are free to public unlike New York. We survived on McDonald's for couple of days as I simply ran out of money.

Signing bonus was a new concept. I had assumed that I would get that money the moment I accept the offer letter. Only to realize that I would actually get it 45 days after joining. I was running dangerously low on cash so I requested Cartesian to give me 50% of my signing bonus upfront which they trustingly did.

Location: Cartesian also gave me options for my location. Boston was too far up north and cold. Philadelphia was tough. New York was costly. Washington DC has nice summer and I was familiar with Northern Virginia due to its proximity to Williamsburg. So I selected DC.

My friend Vipul helped me get a lease at his apartment complex in Herndon, VA. My wife joined me in US to join me while rest of my family left for India. Doing grocery was a problem. Walking to the store and carrying big bags was too laborious. Ever since I drove Chris’s car I wanted to buy a Subaru Forester but as I had no credit history and my income hasn’t come yet no one was ready to give me auto loan. I approached Bank of America but they declined – even though I showed my offer letter with salary information they wouldn’t lend me a single cent unless I agree for 20% APR.

Once again, Vipul introduced me to Digital Federal Credit Union (DCU). DCU gave me the full $20,000 at competitive 2.29% APR. I searched online to shortlist few cars. Hilariously changed 3 buses and a Metro with my wife and traveled to Manassas, VA to buy my Forester. Now I could reach places within minutes – such a big relief!

2015: Luckily my first project was with Time Warner Cable and their office was a mile away from my apartment. I would come back home to have lunch or walk to office. 

Life was good. 

It became better as I got news from Larry that USCIS cleared my RFE and my H1-B was approved. Huge sigh of relief! The H1-B came into effect in October. I noticed that my take home pay decreased as now I had to pay into Social Security and Medicare.

I felt that this system was unfair. As foreign national working in US I was a non-resident alien but for tax purposes I was a resident alien. I could not benefit from SSN or Medicare but I had to contribute into those programs. Additionally, every time I exit US, I had to get my passport stamped and answer lot of questions at port of entry. Cartesian also had to file paperwork to USCIS whenever I changed apartments as my address of residence was listed in my petition.

2016: Having money felt great but my wife couldn’t work in US. We thought of starting a family but I wanted her to earn and be financially independent. I thought “If I can come to US and get work after US education, my wife and sister can do that as well”. We put our family plans on hold. Raising kids would mean a gap of 5+ years for my wife which could prove insurmountable in rejoining workforce.

She liked William & Mary’s Masters of Accounting. She enrolled in Northern Virginia Community College to get prerequisite credits. My wife and sister took the GMAT/TOEFL and applied to schools.

My wife got admits from George Mason, American University and W&M. My sister got admits from CUNY Baruch, Fordham, Johns Hopkins, American and Bentley for Masters in Marketing Analytics. Even though CUNY was 1/3rd the cost of Fordham and Johns Hopkins is a huge brand name, I advised my sister to enroll in Fordham as it is STEM certified. STEM allows international students to be eligible for 2 years of extended OPT in addition to the initial 1. This provides 3 years to find an employer who would file for H-1B.

For obvious reasons, my wife selected W&M. Since I could work from home, I decided to move back to Williamsburg to lower our living cost and be together. I did not have sufficient money for my wife’s education. Luckily I learned about Mpower Finance. They provided $25,000 without collateral at 11.99% APR both to my wife and my sister. This was a game changer. I took a personal loan from DCU for the remainder amount. I paid my sister’s monthly rent in NYC. By fall both enrolled in their respective schools. I asked Cartesian to apply for my Green Card (GC) but they asked to revisit in 2017

2017: I visited India in Oct and that’s when my mother fell and broke her shoulder. It became clear to me that I need to live together with my parents. I asked Cartesian again for GC but they refused to apply. To be fair I still had another year on my H-1B and could renew it for 3 more years. Usually companies exhaust 6 years of H-1B before sponsoring for GC. The problem is that USCIS puts a cap on number of GC applications per country. Which means that India with a population of 1.3 Billion gets the same number of GC slots as Lithuania – a country of 3 million. This cap puts a wait time of 10 to 15 years for Indians and Chinese to get GC in best case estimate. Worst case puts the waiting period at 45 years!

Even if I received GC, I still couldn’t stay with my parents. I started exploring other options and learned about Canadian Permanent Residency. My wife and I applied to Canada’s point based PR. During application I got to know another Indian applicant. He was 38 years old, had two kids. Worked in US on H-1B for 7 years. (2 renewals + 1 extended year) His company exploited him and gave him $138,000 while his American coworkers made $200,000+ He couldn’t leave his job as his company was filing for his GC, because of his age he scored less points in the Canadian PR process. He was in a pickle.

I decided I didn’t want to be in his shoes after 5 years. By mid-2017, my wife faced rejections at interviews due to companies unwilling to sponsor H-1B. Luckily she contacted Tim who owns La Tienda at Toano, VA and is a W&M Alumni. They hired her for a yearlong internship during the course of her OPT. My sister also found a job at NYC but the hours were killing her. Rampant racism existed in her company. English Hons fresh out of school American citizens are fast tracked into Managers while  Indian employees who had considerable experience in SPSS, SAS etc. and had a MS in Marketing / Analytics were made to work at grassroots. I decided to leave US when my wife’s internship and her OPT would conclude in July 2018. By December we had received our Canadian PR.

I owed my parents $80,000 for my MBA. I had little money saved. So I decided to buy a property in India. I would pay the mortgage on it and my parents would rent it out. The rent would provide them additional income to support cost of living.

2018: I was bleeding money from all ends – rent, auto loan, mortgage, education loan and taxes. Additionally, I couldn’t plan for retirement or invest in a property while in US.

Since both of us were earning and our cost of living was low. I decided to use snowball effect. First, paid off my wife’s education loan by making lump sum payments every month. That freed up the money going towards that loan. We used that additional money and attacked the next – auto loan was now repaid. Only mortgage remained as we moved to Canada in July 2018.

In September my H-1B expired. I resigned from Cartesian as a full-time employee and rejoined as independent contractor. This worked in my favour as I was able to get a 20% hike. I was promoted to Manager. I did not miss forgoing benefits like medical etc. as those are provided in Canada under universal healthcare.

We setup base in Toronto and my wife landed a job soon. We used the snowball effect once more to pay off my mortgage in India. After 4 years or so I recouped my Return on Investment on my MBA.

2019/2020: I was debt free and started saving money. Paying rent in the Greater Toronto Area was expensive and paying the same amount in mortgage made more sense. We bought a house and started a family. My sister also applied for her PR and joined us. I applied for my parent’s Super Visa – which allowed them to stay up to 2 years in Canada at each entry. After 6 long years we all were together again.

In conclusion, I feel lucky that I was able to successfully use my MBA to transition into consulting, change geography and attain higher purchasing power.

[tessatechaitea]

Superman: Year One: Book Three

Here's the back cover instead because I misread it as "We serve one purpose: Jesus," and I was ready to accept that.

Due to the amount of lava and debris, I would have gone with "sharts."

Superman saves Lois Lane from dying under the ocean which probably means she's going to reward him with her big city sexual prowess. But before Superman can accept his reward for being a nice guy, he has to defeat a troop of Navy SEALS who have come to capture him. So everybody's looking for Superman now because he showed off a few too many times while training in the Navy and his commanding officer became jealous that the mermaids let Clark fuck them. So Superman's big enemies are the god Poseidon and the American military, both because Lori Lemaris chose to fuck Superman instead of them. You might think I'm concentrating too much on Superman fucking the women he saved, and people being upset that they didn't get to fuck those women. If you are thinking that, it's probably because you haven't actually read Frank Miller's Superman: Year One. You'd totally understand that it's not me who is obsessed with Superman getting laid for fighting for truth, justice, and the American Way (honorably discharged version). It's apparently the entire theme of Frank Miller's Superman story. I just realized that I was going to make a Batman sucking Superman dick's joke based on the cover but then I didn't scan the cover. Oh well! Lesson learned! Any time somebody says, "Lesson learned," you should immediately ask them, "Oh? What was that then?" I bet most of the time, they won't be able to explain how they learned anything. The good thing about the cover of Book Three is that it was drawn by Frank Miller. And no matter what you think of Frank Miller's art, you have to agree (or at least better agree or we're going to have a problem) that it's better than John Romita Jr's art and better than Frank Miller's writing. After beating up the Navy SEALS and rescuing Lois Lane, Clark Kent winds up graduating from college and interning at the Daily Planet. Don't ask me what happened to Lori Lemaris and Atlantis! I guess it was such a terrible break-up that even Frank Miller doesn't want to write about it.

You can tell how dumb a person is by how much they defend Trump and blame the mainstream media. The fucking mainstream media bends over backwards not to point out just how fucking ignorant Trump is about everything!

Stepping away from the comic itself for a moment, here's what John Romita Jr had to say about this comic book after it was announced amidst a lot of "eye-rolls and groans" at San Diego Comic-Con. "The cynics that don't like my artwork or Frank's work were everywhere on the social media. Now we'll see what they have to say, because this is damn fresh, and I'm really proud of it." Well, I didn't have anything to say about it before reading it. I even bought it mostly knowing that I wasn't going to enjoy it even though I always hope that I enjoy everything I purchase as entertainment! Why else would I bother if not to hopefully be surprised and elated? Well, let me tell you, I was not surprised nor elated. Superman in the Navy might be fresh but it's also pretty fucking stupid. The whole idea was that Superman would join the Navy so he could see the world? But then he spends his entire time training in California where he learns he doesn't want to kill people after battling pirates in the Pacific waters off of the coast of California? Also he fucks mermaids during that time because why the fuck not? Now imagine reading all of that while looking at John Romita Jr's terrible facial expressions. The announcement of this comic book with this creative team should have garnered a lot more than groans and eye-rolls. There should have been jerking off motions as well. Working at the Daily Planet with Lois Lane (who, if you remember from the part where I said she wants to fuck him, wants to fuck him), Clark Kent realizes he needs a disguise. So Frank Miller makes sure to explain how the hat and glasses work as a disguise. The hat "changes his silhouette" and the glasses are just "the geek factor" he needs. The whole "dress to unimpress" angle is the disguise. Fucking bullshit. We all know that the glasses and the outfit are the least part of the disguise. He needs to discuss how he changes his posture, how he acts clumsy, how he puts on the air of naive farm boy, how he's terrible at pleasing a woman in bed. These are all aspects that work to make it unbelievable that he could be Superman. Christopher Reeves in Superman nails all of these aspects and I wish writers would be more upfront about how Clark Kent's disguise is less about the accouterments and more about the act Clark puts on. Superman begins deciding how to fight crime now that he's come to Metropolis. And his logic goes like this: "What do criminals want? Money! Where is the money? Banks!" And just like that, he becomes the protector of corporate America! He even thinks, "Never mind the third rate muggers and street swindlers." No wonder Batman doesn't respect this asshole! A third rate mugger killed Batman's parents and Superman is all, "Bah, they're harmless! Better get the guys going after the money that's insured!" Fuck this Superman! Next Superman goes after street level drug makers. That's better, I guess, but couldn't he go after the pharmaceutical industry itself?

What the fuck is "factory brand duct tape"? Having managed a warehouse on the Netscape campus back in the 90s, I'd say they should be wrapped in shrink wrap.

This morning, I discovered Carrot Cake flavored Oreos. It was nice living without diabetes but I must say goodbye to those years now. Later, Superman stops a man from abusing his wife and kids. I don't find out if she thanks him with her sex. But from what the previous chapters of this story have taught me, she did. After that, Superman frees some hostages from a hostage situation that was set-up by Lex Luthor so he could meet Superman. Lex manipulates Superman into working for him to stop Batman. Why does Lex care about Gotham and Batman? I don't know! I don't even really know how Lex manipulates Superman! And I don't think it's because I'm too stupid to follow the story. I'm pretty sure I'm smart enough to understand a comic book! But this comic book feels like a bunch of pages are missing. Hell, Superman's first words to Lex Luthor upon meeting him for the first time are "You're a damned liar!" What did he lie about? When did he ever say anything to Superman? What the fuck is going on?! Over in Gotham, Batman uses a gun. Okay. Whatever. Let's wrap this shit up.

Here's a terrible picture of Superman since I can't write about a story I can't follow.

The gist of the rest of the story is that Lex Luthor is tired of Batman and Superman foiling his crimes. So he decides to convince Superman that Batman is a jerk. After they get done killing each other, Lex Luthor will profit. Not that he isn't profiting already. But he'll profit more, I guess? Superman lands in Gotham to speak with Batman and Batman instantly tries to kill him. Oh yeah, Frank Miller totally understands these characters. Batman wants justice but is willing to kill Superman because Superman wants to talk to him. And Superman goes around doing good while constantly thinking, "I'll show them!" and "I could kill these guys!" and "Which other woman should I save so I can fuck her?" Batman tries all kinds of violence on Superman while telling Superman smarts are what counts. If only he'd use some and realize he can't hurt this guy. This might be the dumbest version of Batman I've ever seen. Eventually Wonder Woman arrives to point out to these two blockheads that maybe they should stop fighting and work together to make the world a better place. Batman is all, "Well, I can't hurt him anyway so I guess I'll work with him." And Superman is all, "How is she stronger than me? She doesn't need rescuing from anybody. Has she ever gotten laid?!" The issue basically ends with Wonder Woman telling Superman that she's ready to fuck him after he goes into space to learn to fuck (by fighting Brainiac?) and Batman telling Luthor he hopes he gets raped in prison. So exactly the way I'd expect a Frank Miller Superman comic book to end.

I wish I were right popular in high school.

Superman: Year One: Book Three Rating: What I learned from this comic book is that every woman in the DCU wants to fuck Superman and every man in the DCU is jealous of all the women Superman gets to fuck. What I also learned is that I should have read this series before purchasing Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child. I'd still like to know what happened between Clark and Lori. I guess he just left her the same way he left Lana and the same way he left Wonder Woman (who he fell in love with immediately, I guess?).

[wiqi4love]

DCU Doctor of Education (EdD) Scholarship in Ireland, 2018

DCU Doctor of Education (EdD) Scholarship in Ireland, 2018

The DCU Institute of Education in association with the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) is offering Scholarships for Digital Learning Area of Professional Focus for students wishing to commence on the Doctor of Education (EdD) programme in August 2018.

Specifically the programme aims to Educate to the highest international standards an existing and emerging educational leadership by…

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

The Nightmare Before Christmas

by CitizenErased27 With Bruce becoming increasingly embroiled in public philanthropy while Alfred is still healing from the Riddler's attack, he is begrudginly assigned a temporary security detail - one Officer Daniel Martinez, whose effortless optimism and friendliness rub off on him in unexpected ways. But with their growing relationship comes an internal, guilt-ridden war between the pursuit of normalcy and the need to continue his crusade. When Gotham is hit by a new maniac spreading fear and terror, Bruce is forced to confront himself, or risk everything crumbling down around him. Set in the months following The Batman (2022). Words: 2352, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: The Batman (Movie 2022), Batman - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Bruce Wayne, Officer Martinez (The Batman Movie 2022), Alfred Pennyworth, Jonathan Crane Relationships: Officer Martinez/Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Martinez has Golden Retriever Energy, Alfred Pennyworth is a Saint, Christmas, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU), no beta we die like bruce's parents, Identity Reveal via https://ift.tt/g4iqxIo

[fandumb-thoughts]

I’m actually working on trying to finish chapters on things, look at me. (Now I just need to actually write follow up chapters…drat.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Martha Kent had created quite a name for herself in the vigilante community. Not really the ones that were around in the present. She and her husband liked their little farm and sleepy town just fine without superheroes crashing in every few days or so–not including, of course, their son, their grandchildren, and their occasional guests. No, Martha Kent’s real name came from the time travellers. It became a mantra of sorts. “If you get sent anywhere in time, seek out Smallville. If it isn’t there yet, go to 38.19 N 100.13 W. You’ll know what you’re looking for when you see it.” Vigilantes murmured it to one another when it seemed magic could be involved, and yelled the coordinates across battlefields as sci-fi lasers began to fly, and mentioned it to every newbie that made an appearance. No one but those who actually needed them actually sought out the location for themselves, not after it had been vetted by some of the oldest and most experienced heroes. No one who needed them spoke of what they had seen there, because there was very little reason to other than to repeat the information everyone had heard a hundred times before. “38.19 N 100.13 W.” ~~~~~ When Martha and Jonathan Kent began to look into buying an old farmhouse and maybe a couple fields if they could afford it in the tail end of the seventies, they weren’t expecting to settle where they did. For one, the house was not nearly as derelict as Martha had expected it to be, nor were the chicken coop and garden shed. For another, there was a fully functional barn that only needed a few new boards and a fresh coat of paint before a couple of cows could be moved in. And the fields that it came with! Not that she didn’t want a large farm, but the three fields, the pasture, and the half-acre of yard space around the house seemed a bit much for their budget. “What’s the catch?” Jonathan had joked with the land owner, who had inherited it after his father passed. “I haven’t the faintest,” admitted the man. “My father had a might bit of trouble renting this place out after he bought it on auction back in ‘38. Lots of loonies come through here, and Dad was never quite able to find a buyer, and could only keep renters for a few years on average, if that.” Jonathan sent an appraising eye over the full view of the property. “Well, we might be just the people to get it off your hands. What’a’ya think, Martha?” “Hm,” she hummed, non committedly. The property was strange, and the last thing they needed after the debacle in Los Angeles was strange. One demon-infested apartment building was all the excitement she needed in the next few decades, if she had anything to say about it. Of course her husband, having only been her fiance at the time and living with a couple roommates a few blocks over, was none-the-wiser of the situation. She had thought it would have startled him too much, or that he wouldn’t have fully believed her. “Well, feel free to stop by the property a few more times this weekend to get a feel for the land. The house and barn will be locked up, of course, but you two are welcome everywhere else for the time being,” offered the owner. “That’s a great idea. What do you think of a walk and a picnic by that creek tomorrow, Martha?” “That sounds great,” she said, only partially lying. A nice day out in the countryside would be nice, after staying in Jonathan’s busted-up old junker’s backseat in search of properties for sale, or camping in the middle of nowhere in a ramshackle tent. Ever since the highs of her youth had passed, camping under the stars down an unfamiliar high road or sleeping in the car had really lost their appeal. “I’ll be in my office on Monday morning,” said the man. “Give me a call about how you’re feeling then.” ~~~~~ Saturday morning started alright enough. It had been a beautiful night, which meant a sky full of stars and no cramped backseat as rain forced them in, and they were both well rested. Jonathan had found a proper deli and made sandwiches, while Martha scrounged the corner store for some fresh-made donuts. The fields were a bit overgrown but promising. In their walk they saw a fawn nestled in a small grove of trees, and while darling, they quickly moved on as not to distress the mother who undoubtedly was nearby. There were wildflowers, and fresh air, and a nice breeze. The day was warm enough for the creek to be refreshing when they decided to go wading. And then the future-man appeared. Well, future-boy would be more accurate. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen. He came from the direction of the farmhouse, with an insane outfit that consisted of a red body-suit; black boots and gloves; a heavy-duty yellow belt and detailing at the front; a black domino-mask with white lenses over the eyes, like a horror-movie version of a masquerade costume; a black cape with a yellow underbelly; and, most bizarrely, what looked like black briefs over the pants. “Who are you,” Martha demanded. Despite being knee-deep in a creek and at a decline compared to the boy, she held herself confidently. The small handgun she always had tucked in her waistband finding its way to her hands certainly helped with that. Jonathan fell with a squawk into the water as he saw a) her gun and b) the boy she was aiming at. “I’m Robin,” the boy answered, hands held up in surrender. “I’m here for what’s under the shed.” Martha’s eyes narrowed. “And what on Earth would that be?” “Uh-fuck, am I really the first one to catch them unaware?” he muttered. “Stop with that mumbling, boy, and tell me what you’re here for.” The boy seemed to be having an internal struggle before he sighed. “Fuck it.” She shifted the gun to indicate her impatience. “I’m from the future. This farm has been an exit point back to the future for as long as we have documented history of it. Course, all these records only exist in my time, everything aside from a few weird things have been erased from the here-and-past. For as long as I’ve been in the hero-ing business this is the place the heroes have been told to go if they’re ever lost in time. It’s not the only way to get back, but it’s the easiest.” Jonathan, drenched and now standing slightly behind Martha, scoffed. “Likely story, kid. Look, take off the mask and we’ll drive you into town to sober up a-” “Prove it,” Martha said. Jonathan gaped. “Martha!” The boy–”Robin”–grinned. “Of course.” Jonathan fretted the entire way to the house, but Martha and Robin ignored him. She was intently listen to him ramble on, gun held much more loosely and with the safety on in her hand. “It’s always been here, and I once got sent back to 1843 and managed to get back, so it’s not like I really need your help with any of this. I just heard voices from down by the creek and thought I’d check in with you so I wouldn’t have to break and enter. I like you, well, future-you, so I didn’t mean no disrespect and I honestly expected you to have already known about this so it’s not fully my fault for being a bit messed up and letting the time-traveler business slip…” “How old are you?” Martha suddenly interrupted, midst a scattered recollection of the “alien robots” he had encountered that got him sent from the future. “Oh-I’m…probably not supposed to say. My…mentor will probably be upset…” “Just answer the question, kiddo.” “Fourteen.” “There’s a lot of kid’s fighting from when you’re from?” “Kind of? Look, usually us younger heroes are in teams, under the supervision of a couple of adults or with our own mentors, it’s not like-” “You say getting sent back isn’t all too uncommon?” Robin hesitated. “Well…no, not really.” Martha nodded, making up her mind just as they arrived back at the house, with the shed pushed far back at the edge of the yard. The shed was nondescript, hardly big enough for a wheelbarrow and a lawnmower to fit inside comfortably. The padlock on the door was attached to rotting wood, so it wasn’t hard in the slightest to pull it away. Jonathan held back while Martha followed Robin in. Nothing seemed wrong inside, per say, but the temperature was slightly too cool and the dirt floor was disturbed at the back. “How does this work?” she asked. “Here-” Robin knelt down without fear of the gun she still held at his back, brushing aside dirt to reveal an old blanket. He pulled it aside dislodging a solid layer of dirt. A metal sheet was lifted at it’s hinge, revealing something that was definitely from the future with the amount of blinking lights, lack of actual buttons, and glowy-ness. “I just gotta press a hand there-” he indicated a smooth glow-y bit, “and it’ll read my molecules and alert the people who can pull me back to when I belong, to tell them I’m in a position for an extraction.” “Go ahead, then.” ~~~~~ “Gone? Just like that?” Jonathan demanded. Martha shrugged. “Just like he said. However that machine in their works I don’t know, but it did whatever he expected him to and he vanished right before my eyes.” “How are you so calm!?” His voice rose shrilly at the end. Martha sighed. “Calm down, John. This is…actually, no, sorry, I was going to say this isn’t the weirdest thing I’ve seen but it definitly is.” He opened his mouth, undoubtedly to argue, but she put up her hand to cut him off. “But not by much. Remember that vampire in Oregon?” “I-he-he wasn’t a real vampire,” Jonathan insisted. Martha had to disagree. Supernatural things seemed to be drawn to her. Jonathan and her had been married for going on two years now, and dating for three before that, but he hadn’t seen nearly as much as she had. Things that couldn’t be anything but vampires, and werewolves, and ghosts, and demons. She wasn’t lying when she said that time travelling boys weren’t that far of a stretch. “We can’t buy this property.” “I thought you liked it?” Martha asked innocently, acting baffled by his declaration. “Martha,” he admonished. “Jonathan,” she challenged. He (slightly hysterically) attempted to stare her down. Attempted is the key word, as he had never managed to win a staring contest even when retaining all his sense. With an agitated exhale he threw up his hands, turning to pace a few feet. “Martha,” he pleaded. “It comes with three fields, a pasture, a barn–and it’s surrounded by a state-protected forest on three sides, with the closest neighbors owning so much property across the way that their buildings are all more than a mile away. It’s exactly the type of place we’ve been looking for. For really, really cheap.” “We weren’t looking for-for-for time travelers!” Martha gave him a look that never failed to convince men to give into her. It worked on her brother, her father, professors, cops, boyfriends and anyone in-between. “But-but-” “Jonathan, I’ll handle it if it ever does come up again. Trust me.” He struggled to protest, though he had seemingly suddenly lost his tongue. After a few minutes of floundering he buried his face in his hands and mumbled, “You’re crazy.” “I know, dear,” Martha positively beamed. She hoped that the distance from other people would at least allow her the leeway she needed if any sort of occult thing showed up. It wasn’t so bad that the list of occult things just had “time travelers” added to it.