#dick was violent as well when he wanted to kill zucco

[mikakuna]

so dick as robin can want to kill the man who murdered his parents and bruce thinks no less of him, but jason as robin can want to be violent with pimps, rapists, and drug dealers because of his experiences growing up and bruce thinks he's going to become the dirtiest, nastiest murderous criminal in the world?

[mysterycitrus]

i know you've been talking about jason lately so i'll ask about smth different... robin jason (sorry)

idk idk lately i've been wanting to take a peek at his robin comics for the sake of writing fic (ofc...) but i'd like to hear what u think before that, a summary of sorts if u may (i also wanna contrast what u say with what i get out of it so yeah)

i feel like his robin days are so muddled by his identity as red hood later on, and even before that it was his death. u had people constantly blaming jason for dying in text (or else they'd have to admit bruce can make mistakes and everyone in dc is allergic to doing that) and painting him like someone reckless and violent (classist editorial u need to DIE), and then people in fanon painting him like a sweet fella who would do nothing wrong and as well as being bruce's Only Actual Son etc etc for the sake of making the situation around him all the more sadder (yeah yeah pathetic meow meow we've all seen it)

and i'm just curious bc i rlly wonder what the actual comics say about him, most likely something in the middle of this? exams are killing me but my god i'll come back to life after im done just to read jason robin's days... have a good day !!!

the difficulty with reading about jason as robin is that there are three primary periods that all differ fairly dramatically from each other — pre-crisis jason todd is a strawberry blond acrobat who’s almost adopted by dick grayson before becoming robin; post-crisis jason todd is a kid from crime alley who steals the wheels off the batmobile before becoming robin; and post-crisis, post-utrh jason todd is a very angry, very violent kid who becomes a cautionary tale after he gets himself killed (something he is often blamed for).

we can walk the line here. pre-crisis jason isn’t particularly relevant because so much of robin!jason’s stories depend on his reinvention after the reboot. all the crucial factors leading up to death in the family — growing up in the alley, both his mothers, his relationship with the robin mantle, his developing relationship with dick grayson, his slow schism from bruce, his relative isolation from other superheroes — are all crucial to who he is, especially after his death.

fanon about jason is annoying because there are valid criticisms that can be made about how he’s written with regressive, classist stereotypes, but as always it pivots way too far in one direction. jason wasn’t the “happy” or “angry” robin in the same way that dick wasn’t the happy or angry robin — they’re both characters that possess more than a single emotion. it’s true that jason was later written to be more explicitly violent (to contrast him with dick) but also like… they’re both pretty similar characters that differ in interesting ways. dick created robin to be a symbol of hope and joy. jason carried that on when he took up the mantle. they can both be angry at stuff without the world falling apart. it’s not that serious.

the dialogue about dick being a child soldier but jason being the true son makes me want to tear my hair out. jason became robin because bruce missed dick and was afraid of being alone. they’re both his gd kids. acting as though bruce wayne doesn’t love dick grayson so much that extra-dimensional beings can clock it is so fucking stupid. it once again ties into fanon’s obsession with each character only getting to be “one” thing. tim is smart, which means he’s the smartest. jason said robin made him magic, which means he’s happy all the time. dick chased after zucco in a grief spiral, which means he’s the violently angry one, with no other character traits. dick can’t have been nice to jason because he’s nice to tim, etc. seems a little silly, no?

i think i’ve only read jason’s brief run as robin once, though ive gone through a death in the family + a lonely place of dying a bunch of times, so ig my advice for reading him is to keep in mind the context in which he was created. dc comics was reeling from losing dick grayson as robin, and were really throwing anything at the wall to get something to stick. many, many negative tropes are baked into his introduction, and thanks to writers like jeph loeb and scott lobdell they have compounded over time. jason’s updated backstory is, with actual critical intent by the writer, a really good examination of how poverty and class will affect how someone views the world. his death was not his fault — and removing sheila haywood from that warehouse purposely makes his story less tragic. he was a good kid! and he was angry for a good reason. if jason had lived, i believe he would’ve carried on the robin tradition and left bruce behind once their differences became insurmountable.

[lorbanery]

Do you think, if Dick had been the one to die and come back as a supervillain, Alfred would have lamented about what a bad seed Dick was as a kid?

And I mean that in any way you want to interpret it — would the writers have gone there to drive home the narrative? would Alfred, as a character, have looked back on Dick's history and hyperfocused on the bad things?

'Cause here's the thing, since at least the eighties, Dick has been written as having a temper that sometimes pushes into murderous territory.

In various versions of canon, Dick has at least attempted to act upon his murderous intent towards:

Tony Zucco

Slade Wilson

Blockbuster

The Joker

Two Face

And that's just the ones I personally know about, I'm sure it's an incomplete list.

You could argue that since Slade, Blockbuster, and Joker all happened when Dick was Nightwing, they couldn't be held against a Dick who died while he was still Robin. But the incident with Two Face I'm referencing happened in Robin: Year One. And Zucco? Well, I'm sure there's been multiple incidents where Dick had to be talked down from killing him, but that goes back to before Dick even was Robin. Almost all versions of Dick's backstory have him ending up apprenticing to Batman because he either expressed his intent to take revenge for his parents, or because he actively sought it out. Even in the versions where Zucco wasn't the one who killed the Graysons (in Batman Forever, Dick notably spends the entire movie talking about how he's going to kill Two Face, though while Bruce pushes back against that idea at every turn, he ends up killing Two Face himself? I love that movie, but that always seemed kind of odd to me. Anyway).

So you have this situation where Bruce takes in this hurt, lost young boy, and this hurt, lost young boy is like "I'm gonna kill that guy for murdering my parents." Eventually he's talked out of it (or Zucco at least seemingly dies, depending on the version of events). But then later on, Dick gets beaten almost to death by Two Face, gets fired for his own good, then runs away and joins ... the League of Shadows/Assassins. Or at least a junior recruitment division of. Like, he leaves Batman's tutelage and the first thing he does is join an assassin training camp. And he goes through the whole program right up to the final exam where he's presented with the task of killing a specific mark. He goes into it knowing he's going to try to find a way out of the actual killing ... until he realizes the mark is Two Face and suddenly he's conflicted 'cause actually? He kind of wants to kill Two Face for what he did to him, and he's only saved from having to actually make the decision and grappling with his own morality by Batman showing up and giving him a convenient out.

What I'm saying here is that even though Dick's the most vocal about killing and excessive violence being Wrong and Following Batman's Code? He has basically all of the same violent tendencies Jason did. He just is and was more invested in keeping Batman's good will and trust, and believes that Batman's moral compass is the most Right And Just, so he's able to keep a handle on his temper most of the time.

So ... if it had been Dick who was killed by the Joker and came back as Red Hood, would Alfred have still talked about how violent he was and what a bad seed he'd been since the beginning?

[redrobin-detective]

fight or flight

Bruce would not consider himself to be an impulsive man. Quite the opposite, he had singularly dedicated himself to his task of ridding Gotham of crime since he was child. He vetted all of his teachers thoroughly and only acted on evidence he could support. Bruce Wayne, the Batman, was not a man prone to fits of emotion. And yet he cannot explain why, when an obligatory appearance at the circus turned tragic, he took home an orphan boy.

“Dick, I’m coming in,” Bruce said, opening the door to the room the boy had been staying in. “Alfred wants to know if you’re coming to dinner.”

“I don’t want anything from you!” Dick screamed, lobbing a shoe at Bruce which he dodged. The room was still in a state of disarray; nightstand knocked over and covers pulled violently off the bed into a protective pile on the floor. The sight was achingly familiar. “You can’t keep me here! I want to go back to Pop Haly!”

“We’ve been over this,” Bruce said softly, opening the door a bit more. “The circus is European, only here on temporary visas. As they aren’t blood relatives, they cannot legally take you in.” Aside from the chaos of the room, a framed picture of Dick’s parents was placed on a place of honor at the windowsill. Bruce unfortunately had to nail the window shut after Dick made 3 very daring escape attempts. “Besides, you and I both know you’re not planning on going back to the circus, not yet.”

“You don’t know anything!” Dick hissed, barring his teeth. “Get out before I make you!”

“I understand, Dick, believe me I understand,” Bruce said heavily, some of the Batman’s gravelly tones leaching into his voice. Bruce had done a lot of thinking in the past week, wondering just what had compelled him to offer himself as a temporary foster parent. He thought maybe it was because he feared for the boy’s safety if Zucco decided to silence him. Perhaps he thought it too cruel to send an innocent child to a juvenile detention center for reasons beyond his control. But, when the hour was late and he’d returned from patrol and was stripped of Batman and Wayne and was just Bruce, he knew.

He knew by the look of devastation and roiling anger in the boy’s eyes that no one, not the police or social workers or circus family would be able to help with. Bruce wasn’t sure that Dick could be helped, he himself was living proof, but he had to try. Because if he didn’t, the last of the Graysons would die trying to complete his revenge.

“No you don’t!” Dick roared, pushing himself out of his self imposed little nest. He threw another shoe which Bruce side stepped. “Because if you did, you would let me go! That-that bastard is still out there after killing them, after making them fall!” He took in a deep breath as grief washed over him before the anger returned twice as strong. “I know how this works Mr. Money Bags. We’re carney trash, we’re nobody, no ones gonna go after the killer.”

“Dick, I’ve been involved with the investigation, the police are doing everything they can.” Bruce explained, daring to step closer. Admittedly, the police couldn’t do all that much. There wasn’t a lot tying Zucco to the scene and that’s not even getting into the complicated Falcone-Maroni family mess that Zucco was protected by. There was a chance Zucco would skate by, ordinarily but- “and if they can’t then Batman will bring him to justice.”

“Batman!” Dick laughed, loudly and harshly. “And you city folks call us the freaks, you got a freaking bat monster out there solving your crimes Well I don’t need him, I don’t need any of you! They were my parents, I need to make sure Tony Zucco knows what’s coming to him and why.”

“Is that really what you want?” Bruce couldn’t help but ask. “To kill? To possibly be killed yourself?”

“Yes,” Dick said his eyes angry but filled with tears. “I can’t live in a world where their killer is free. I’d rather die myself.” Bruce’s chest became painfully tight, uncertain and afraid of what to do. It was like walking on landmines, knowing one wrong step will end in catastrophe.

He wondered if this was how Alfred felt every day for the past 15 years, watching Bruce drown himself in grief and anger. He knows very well what Dick was feeling, that pain and single minded rage. He wished he’d been better at managing himself if only so he could know how to help this boy now.

“I don’t think that’s what your parents would want, they’d want you to live, Dick, and this isn’t living,” Bruce said and realized he’d stepped on one of those landmines. The anger in Dick’s eyes turned physical and soon there was a furious acrobat in his face.

“You don’t get to talk about them!” Dick screeched, clawing at Bruce’s arms with impressive strength. “You don’t get to talk for them! You didn’t know them and now they’re dead because of assholes like you!” Batman had 36 ways of disabling the child but significantly less in ways that wouldn’t harm Dick. small, powerful hands clawed at his arms. Well defined legs kicked at him and elbows jammed at him.

But Bruce was larger, older and significantly heavier than the boy. He would bleed, he would bruise but he would survive. Gotham gave him worse on his easier nights. And some part of him couldn’t help but hope that the physical release would help Dick. God knows Bruce had destroyed enough property when he’d been an angry, grieving child. He would endure a thousand cuts if it meant he could ease even a small part of his charge’s pain. It was never that easy but, as Alfred used to say, hope wasn’t a dirty word.

Eventually, Dick wore himself out and his attacks petered out and he ended up slumped against Bruce’s chest. He put one hand on Dick’s shoulder to steady him but was he supposed to hug? Would Dick want that? Could he even offer it? It was easier to focus on the physical pain and on Dick’s quiet, little sobs.

“I hate this, I miss them so much,” Dick cried. Not knowing what else to do, Bruce ran his fingers through the boys wild hair. “Mr. Wayne, please, just let me go. I don’t wanna be here and you don’t want me either. Just turn your back, say I snuck out and you couldn’t find me. You’re rich, you won’t get in any trouble, not over someone like me. Please.”

“I can’t do that, Dick,” Bruce sighed, he pulled Dick closer as the boy tried to wiggle away. “I know it’s hard but I’m doing this because I care about you and because I want to give you what I never got, closure and a chance to heal. Dick, look at me,” The boy refused and Bruce pinched his chin as gently as he could and made him look. “Richard Grayson I promise you on the graves of my murdered parents that Tony Zucco will not remain free for longer. I will make sure he pays for what he did to you. And once he is caught, it will be up to you to figure out what you want to do with your life, the last gift your parents gave you.”

Dick didn’t say anything, just pulled himself out of Bruce’s grasp and fled back to his nest. He buried himself under the blankets and was silent save for quiet sobs and hiccups.

“You don’t have to come down if you don’t want to but you do need to eat, I’ll put something in front of your door.” Bruce made his way towards the door. “If you don’t keep your strength up, you’ll be in no state to help catch Zucco.” Dick peeked his face out behind the blankets.

“I’ll see if I can contact Batman, ask about his progress on the case. Maybe see if there’s anything you can do to help, get you involved,” Bruce said even though internally he was screaming. He wanted more than anything to keep Dick safe, away from all this. But the Bat inside him knew that Dick would never settle, never allow himself to grow past this tragedy until he sunk his teeth into his parents’ murderer. Nothing else to say, Bruce closed the door.

“Is the young master coming- my word, Master Bruce!” Alfred exclaimed when he walked into the kitchen. He’d worn long sleeves but Dick had sharp nails and blood was seeping through the fabric, he’d even gotten a few swipes at his face. One scratch just below his lip to the neck stung in the cool air of the kitchen.

“No, he’s not coming. I said we’d set something outside his door,” Bruce said. He didn’t fight back when Alfred pushed him onto a chair and began examining the injuries. He’d been caring for Bruce his entire life, from his very worst up until now which arguably wasn’t much better. “I don’t know how to help him, Alfred. I know his pain, I feel it but I never figured out how to help myself much less others.”

“Oh my boy if there was a cure all fix for grief, I’d put it in a bottle and be my own billionaire,” Alfred sighed, dabbing at the cuts. “All you can do is be there for him, offer love, safety, understanding. I can see the Young Master Dick is a kind boy, that this anger isn’t in his nature. One day, with the proper support, he’ll be able to move past this tragedy.”

“And we’ll get him to a real home,” Bruce sighed. He went to pick at one of the scratches but Alfred’s lightly swatted him away.

“So you still intend to send him away once this Zucco business is settled?”

“He doesn’t want to be here, he’s made that clear,“ Bruce stated. “Besides, with my work... it’s not safe for either of us to have attachments. Once Zucco is brought to justice, he’ll be safe in a regular foster home. He can he be happy there.”

“Will he, Sir?” Alfred tutted. “Because in between the young master’s bouts of grief and violence, I have spoken with him at length. The lad wants nothing more than to fly again, like he did with his mother and father and extended family at the circus. And, forgive me for being bold but I doubt a traditional home will allow him that privilege.”

“What are you implying? That he should stay here?” Bruce scoffed

“I’m not telling you, either of you, what to do. But you brought Master Dick home because you sensed a kinship, forged a connection not of logic but heart. He is so much like you were back then, Master Bruce, maybe he needs your unorthodox methods to stop fighting and start flying again.”

“Well, first of all, Tony Zucco needs to be brought to justice,” He said, standing up suddenly and stalking towards the grandfather clock. “If you need me, I’ll be down in the Cave reviewing his safe houses. Please ensure the boy is fed and he doesn’t find any other windows to crawl out of. I might not make it in time the next time he tries to run.”

“Of course, Sir, happy hunting.”

[carf-writes]

So I have this AU concept where I sort of convert the DC canon from a superhero story into a pulpy Dan Brown-esque novel, idk why but i do.

So here is my take on Batman

All the Wayne family are on a gradient toward being a vigilante:

Alfred- He is ex-military but generally he is a normal man who believes that normal people should kind of mind their own business. He also comes from a long line of butlers and has a bit of a Remains of the Day complex about having his own thoughts and feelings

Bruce- He is Brucie Wayne. He is an adamant fighter to end poverty and various other injustices. His money basically funds Gotham and keeps it running. He often runs into issues because he doesn’t capitulate and genuinely wants to run an ethical company and change the world for the better- it is not set dressing

Dick- After his parents’ death, Dick was an angry kid and acting out. He saw the world as a dark and scary place and didn’t understand Bruce’s belief in humanity. Bruce came up with the crazy idea that they should hunt down his parent’s killer together (Bruce’s childhood fantasy that Alfred put the kabosh on) They do so and it does not go well for them but they get Zucco apprehended anyway. Dick learns that there can be justice in the world. When he grows up he joins the police but is quickly drummed out for calling out corruption. Now he works as a private eye. He catches kidnappers and beats them up and has a crusade against corruption usually looping in Federal authority to get guys to actually go to jail

Jason- Believing that he’d done a great job with Dick, Bruce adopts Jason when he finds him trying to steal his hubcaps. Jason actually adjusts surprisingly well but after a few years is abducted by the Joker as part of one of his evil schemes. He extorts Bruce who pays up immediately but the Joker doesn’t care and kills Jason anyway. Jason is taken in by Ra’s Al Ghul who is horrified that Bruce’s tactics might actually be working. He resurrects Jason in the pit and raises him to be an assassin, eventually sending him back to bring about the destruction of Gotham

Tim- Tim is a genius and athlete who has the idealistic belief that if someone talented enough could swoop out of the shadows and stop violent crime before it happens- like Zorro or the Shadow or something- that would actually be a good thing. Instead he’s stuck doing a Wayne Enterprises internship, when he realizes that a wealthy man named Ra’s Al Ghul is building a weapon that could kill millions. He teams up with Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon and foils the plot, surprisingly bringing Jason Todd home. Bruce takes him on as his ward after his parents enter witness protection

Cassandra- After Bruce’s kids foil Ra’s’ ecoterrorist plot to destroy Gotham, he has David Cain send his daughter to assassinate Bruce. Already traumatized by her first murder and now understanding what death actually is, Cass sneaks into Wayne manor and realizes that Bruce is a good dad. She decides that she is not going to kill him and also never leave. Bruce takes this in stride.

Damian- Talia Al Ghul thinks this is all very funny because Bruce is not even very smart but he just keeps adopting kids who would kill to protect him and he is even reforming villains by just being nice to them and it is driving her dad insane. She doesn’t know what Bruce has but she wants “it”. She seduces him and tricks him into having a child with her. She then raises Damian to be a murder machine but he just… keeps adopting animals and stuff. So she gives him as a gift to Bruce. Damian comes up with the idea of being Batman.

[strangenessbooks]

The Bat-Man Recap #12

Robin is here. His name is taken from Robin hood (which is funny considering what the most famous Batman rip off took its inspiration from). I am dyslexic, ao the intro text sadly looks more like "anally", than what it actually says which is "an ally".

Another interesting note is that the location is a nameless town near a nameless city. As all origins of all comic book heroes do, this story involves death, so spoilers for an 80-year-old story. I do recommend reading this issue.

I do think it's funny that the Graysons are named before Martha Wayne was. Their names are literally Mary and John which is what everyone was called in the Westen world during this time.

The Bat Car is red again, though maybe this is just Bruce's car as he wasn't planning on Batmaning at the circus. I do think it's hilarious that Bruce is defined by that damn pipe.

I always want to defend Batman but this series of events is not the best way Robin has been introduced. This is a 12-page story so there's no room for nuance. Bruce hiding Dick from a mobster makes sense, but Bruce also tells him, he has devoted his life to "exterminate" criminals and then has Dick make an oath.

Due to the accusations that will be thrown against Batman in the coming years, I hesitate to use this word but we're all Batman fans here, so I will. Batman grooms Dick into becoming a killer. We don't see Robin's lust for revenge, he witnesses the death of his parents and then he's kidnapped by a man dressed like a bat. But also this is the 1940s and they don't want to actually deal with trauma. They want to make weird shit up instead e.g. "comics making people violent and gay."

As I have said in other recaps, morals have changed and what we expected of heroes has changed. The idea doing anything for revenge is common. Making an oath to get revenge against those who killed your loved ones, is still a common trope in adventure stories. Except the ending has changed. Our heroes learn the errors of their ways and that revenge doesn't bring satisfaction. Those stories did exist before and during this time, but the whole killing of someone can still be a just action. The disconnect is still odd to read from a modern perspective.

Reading these Batman comics actually makes me want to read old Pulp novels and other comics. This is turning into special interesting territory.

Back to this issue, where Bruce is making Dick get a job as a News Boy.

Christian Bale should have been Robin (Newies jokes are likely to be recurring). This has some detective work, though all it's done by Robin. Who knows what Bruce is doing while Robin sells Newspapers and gets bullied.

This Zucco who runs this "Arising Town" who ordered the hit on Dick's parents. Batman decides to do a bunch of fuckery to mess with this guy. Also, stop his protection racket and illegal casino.

This issue has especially inspired me to list all of Batman's crimes besides the whole being a vigilante thing (I'm not checking to see whether these were crimes in the 1940s, they are all morally wrong anyway).

Kidnapping

Tapering with a crime case.

Vandalism

Assault

Animal Cruelty.

Child Endangerment (though never told exactly how old Dick is).

Murder (multiple second and first degree).

Batman is all for torturing bats to prove a point. I guess at least it's not a Robin in there with him.

I haven't talked about how ridiculous the Robin costume is. Probably because it's not really fair to. Like being called Dick, the costume hasn't aged well. It was designed and coloured for 1940s comics. They were print limitations and it was done for cheap. I am reading from archived which has been remastered clearly (I couldn't find any inside pictures of this original comic). You wanted your characters to stand out and be seeable even when the detail is not there. Honestly, there are worse costume designs from comics at the time.

Robin immediately gets a kill count. He kills a whole two people in his first appearance and another definitely has brain damage. He also doesn't wait for Batman and goes straight for the attack so maybe he does have a blood lust, but this is months after "training".

Robin immediately gets his revenge having killed the man who killed his parents and framed someone else for the murder. He decided he likes being Robin so he's here for keeps.

There are a lot of great panels in this comic. I saved like 30th of them. This is a good comic to read if you just want a taste of the Golden Age. It doesn't have any gadgets but it has the usual mayhem. It is an important comic as is the first Robin appearance as well as this marking the first full year of Batman.

This is when Batman gets a whole comic book to himself. Detective Comics was made up of different stories, I'm not sure how I'll handle Batman #1.

[just-an-aussie-fandom-hermit]

( 2/2 ) i mean if i recall correctly didn't bruce take them in to provide homes for them after they lost their parents & often tried to talk them out of crime fighting even though a lot of them would go off & fight crime on their own accord ( whether he allowed it or not) ?

Anon you’re absolutely right!

(This is a long one so be warned).

He didn’t adopt/mentor the kids with the sole purpose of turning them into child soldiers or abusing them at all. His abusive and neglectful behaviour stands in stark contrast to his personality and moral code; most of these kids came from horrific backgrounds, so he would make himself as welcoming as possible to allow these kids to be kids, like they deserve to be. Vigilantism is their way of taking their life into their own hands and making change. His behaviour is nothing short of contradictory and I despise the various writers who made him that way.

I don’t have any sources/comic panels prepared but I want to answer this anyway:

Dick Grayson had just seen his parents die, and was filled with vengeance — he would have gone after Tony Zucco anyway, better to do it on Bruce’s terms. Also, he had spent several nights in a juvenile centre after his parents died (that’s where he ended up) and was beaten up brutally on basically his first night there. Bruce knew he wouldn’t survive, let alone thrive in the system, so he took him in. Robin was initially meant to be a temporary thing, to take down Zucco as well as his coworkers/superiors in the mob. After an encounter with the Joker in which Dick is bedridden, Bruce fires Dick from being Robin for his own safety. He later becomes Nightwing after going through a personality crisis and wondering who he was without Robin.

Barbara Gordon? She was going to be a crime fighter anyway — like Stephanie (we’ll get back to her) she made her own suit and went out on her own accord. Her dad is the police comissioner, but she recognised that the system wasn’t working — because of the mob, political corruption, police inadequacy and criminal conduct (which was/is the norm anyway), all that wonderful stuff — and felt that she had to do something. Bruce is vehemently against this but after a while he realises “oh god, she’s not going to stop,” and decides that, like Dick, it’s better for Babs to do the vigilante thing on his terms, because he’d spent years training for this, and Barbara was a child/teen.

Jason Todd lived on the streets after he stopped living with his abusive father (Willis) and his deceased, drug addicted mother (Catherine). He just saw a kid who had it extremely rough (homeless, formerly abused), and thought “I already have one child under my care, I can care for another, that’s reasonable.” Making him Robin was not only a constructive outlet for his anger, but also not Bruce’s intention at all. He may have met Jason as Batman, but he did not force the mantle of Robin onto him.

Tim Drake had already been BatWatch for years and had figured out who the Bats actually were. After Jason died, Tim saw how broken, angry and violent Bruce had become and he knew it was only a matter of time before something gave. He literally blackmailed his way into becoming Robin (via Dick, now Nightwing) because “Batman needs a Robin,” and he decided “I might as well be that Robin.” Bruce was incredibly resistant, because his son had just been murdered, and he doesn’t want that to happen to any other child — and he brushes Tim off for a while. When he does become Robin, it’s reluctant. He takes him in not just to him Robin but also because his parents are horribly neglectful (hence why he had so much free time as a child to be BatWatch and such) and only ever showed serious interest in his life while they were grooming him to be CEO of their company or when they felt Bruce was a threat to their parental authority (rightfully so.)

Stephanie Brown’s dad is Cluemaster, a minor villain who thought himself the nemesis of the Riddler (Nigma paid this guy no mind,) and left clues at his crime scenes in a similar manner to Riddler. As such her home life was tumultuous if not outright abusive and neglectful. Her mother (Crystal) is a drug user so she doesn’t spend a lot of time in the house. She created her own identity (Spoiler) to “spoil” her father’s plans and clues so Batman could take him and his buddies down. She comes into contact with Tim (ie. throws a brick at him) and works with the Bats so she wouldn’t get herself killed doing it alone.

Cassandra Cain is the daughter of two of the greatest assassins in the world (David Cain and Lady Shiva) and was never taught any form of spoken or written language. Instead, she learned to read body language and micro-expressions, all so she could become the best possible bodyguard for Ra’s al Ghul (head of the League of Shadows) and an excellent assassin. This backfired, and she ran away after witnessing/committing her first assassination and saw the pain and terror in her target — she spent several years on the run before Bruce found her and took her in. Fighting was all she knew, and she wanted to do the “good” fighting (vigilantism/working with the Justice League) instead of being an assassin. It was a way to reclaim her childhood and to help her create an identity of her own, separate from the League of Shadows.

Duke Thomas? He joined and later lead the We Are Robin movement to defend Gotham in Bruce’s abscence (‘Batman: Endgame’ I think is the storyline). I’m not as familiar with his story but he creates his own vigilante identity, The Signal, after his parents went insane (thanks Joker). He went into foster care while police search for his parents, and did generally did not have a Good Time. At this time, Bruce’s memory of being Batman had been erased, and it was Duke’s sense of justice and need to help others that set him on the course to become Batman again. He was never a Robin, and he works mostly in the daytimes, but Duke Thomas became a Bat of his own accord. Bruce simply brought The Signal under the cape and gave him a support network just as he had done for Babs and Steph (the other self-made vigelantes).

Damian Wayne. Biological son of Bruce and Talia al Ghul. In the current continuity he’s the product of a sexual assault, but either way, his purpose is to become the heir to the League of Assassins and their international criminal empire and shadow governments — he’s a manufactured soldier (hence why you might come across a lot of “test-tube baby” jokes, because he was grown mostly in an artificial womb.) Talia drops him off in Gotham in order to help Damian escape from Ra’s, and Bruce makes him Robin to give him an outlet for his anger and violence — in a non-homicidal fashion. Like Cass, all he knew was fighting and violence, but becoming Robin was a way for him to not only reclaim his lost childhood but also create an identity other than the killing machine he was intended to be.

Harper Row is another child from an abusive household — emancipating herself and her brother Colin from their father, Harper’s skill with engineering gives her the means to become a vigilante (Taser Girl?? I believe). Bluebird is her vigilante alias under Batman (her hair is a magnificent shade of blue) but is currently inactive, focusing on her career and education. Again i’m not super familiar with her character, but that’s the gist.

The important take-away is that these kids chose to become who they are — Bruce didn’t just pick them off the street like “you’re a Robin now have fun sweetie :)”, making them a Bat/Robin was simply a means to help these kids.

[jcmorgenstern]

@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)

okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.

so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.

to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.

I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.

and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)

not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?

moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).

overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.

this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences,  then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).

anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).

Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.

on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.

anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!

tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions

[cespool]

Titans Ep 6

- If Dick was 8/9 when the Graysons died in 2002 and assuming Titans is set in 2018, my babys only 24/25?????

- Baby Dick is just so precious jrjeveiehe

- Until now i still cant get behind Dick just believing it was an accident until they told him otherwise because well he knew that his parents were very meticulous about their equipment and shit and just my baby took it into his own hands to avenge his parents because he knew that this was no accident and I really liked that about him and they changed that here and just :(

- Jason you are so precious please dont end up dying

- Shit this is so awkward

- JASON I LOVE YOU PLEASE DONT END UP DYING PLEASE

- Also baby you dont say that to the og man thats not nice

- oH FUCK Bruce that is not cool

- hdidisvdijdbd Bruce you really fucking suck rn Like first putting a tracker on Dick without HIS CONSENT and then you remove his access in all your shit and just rjdhusdushsidh

- jdgsudvdudv OH BABY NO! THOSE ARE THE FLYING GRAYSON COLORS AND ROBIN IS DICKS NICKNAME FROM HIS MOM FJDHHEJSBDJDJDJ

- OH WOW SOMEONE KILLED EVERYONES

- Glad jason still hates cops AND is still independent

- My goodness Mom!Kory and Dad! Dick are just rjfieheud

- I do adore DickKory's banter

- Glad the show's characterization of Jason pre Red Hood is pretty accurate so far

- DICKYYYYYY

- OH SHIT IS THAT A DATE DRUG (it wasnt thank god)

- DAMN IT JASON THERE GOES YOUR VIOLENT TENDENCIES

- OH SHIT THE CARS A DISTRACTION ISNT IT

- FUCK IS THAT TONY ZUCCO JUNIOR?

- That awkward moment where you announce how you want to lock up this one guy until he dies and his son hears it

- BABY YOU FUCKING REVEALED YOUR IDENTITY TO CRIME BOSS YOU DUMB SHIT

- Okay okay I DO NOT LIKE HOW THIS WENT

- FIRST OF ALL WHAT THE FUCK????

- Is this why Dick gets fired here because I'm kinda on Bruce's side if thats the case

- I DO NOT LIKE HOW THIS WENT

- THIS ISNT DICK GRAYSON WTF

- WHEN HE KILLED THE JOKER THE MOTHER FUCKING JOKER HE WAS IMMEDIATELY FILLED WITH GUILT THAT WASNT GRAYSON WTF

- MY BABY IS ALLOWED TO BE ANGRY AND VIOLENT BUT THAT ISNT HIM

- Bruce took him in specifically so that he wouldnt end up like this, so he wouldnt end up filled with anger and revenge and so that he could channel his grief in more productive ways and just this kinda just shat all over that and Im not happy

- There goes Jason with his anger issues and emotional baggage

- At least theyre pretty accurate with Jason ig

- Oh my god Clay connect the dots!

- Dr. Adamson continues to be a creep

[aspiecrow]

Earth-46: The Batfamily

In Earth-46, the Batfam is as follows (arranged by age, below the cut):

Alfred Pennyworth: Alfred has been the faithful servant of the Wayne Family for decades. However, ever since the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne, Alfred has become much more, stepping into the role of a surrogate father for Bruce. As such, he has been supporting Bruce’s mission as Batman from the very beginning. Alfred is the only member of the Batfamily that Bruce is comfortable with using firearms, and is most definitely the “grandfather” of the group.

Leslie Thompkins: Leslie was a friend of Thomas Wayne’s, and helped raise Bruce with Alfred after Thomas and Martha were murdered. As a pacifist, Leslie isn’t too keen on Bruce’s activities as Batman, but nonetheless helps out wherever she can, especially with her free clinic on Park Row.

Batman (Bruce Wayne): Bruce was eight years old when his parents were shot to death in a random mugging on their way out of a screening of The Mark of Zorro. Since then, Bruce has dedicated his life to fighting crime in an effort to do everything he could to make sure that no child would have to go through what he went through. Over the course of the last seventeen years, Bruce has operated as the vigilante Batman and has come a long way from his beginnings as an antisocial loner, having built up a large support network of fellow heroes, both within the city of Gotham in the form of the group jokingly referred to as the Batfamily, as well as the hero community at large. He has recently returned to Gotham after spending the better part of last year on a trek around the world with his sons Dick and Damian and daughter Cassandra, and has begun proceedings to adopt his fifth child, a young girl rescued from the government project known as Cadmus.

Batwoman (Kate Kane): Kate Kane was traumatized after being caught up in a terrorist attack in which she, her mother and her twin sister were kidnapped. Only Kate survived, and she spent the next few years in something of a daze, before enlisting in the Marines at age nineteen in an attempt to please her father. However, her time with the Marines only lasted three of her contracted five years, as she was dishonourably discharged under the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy when her commander caught wind that Kate and fellow Marine Sophie Moore were in a relationship. Bruce’s maternal cousin, he and Kate have a close relationship (helped by the fact that Kate doing her best to comfort Bruce at Thomas and Martha’s funeral is canon in Earth-46). She’s only recently become Batwoman, but she and Bruce know each other’s identities.

Catwoman (Selina Kyle): A cat burglar who stole from the corrupt wealth of Gotham City, Selina is also a “reverse-archaeologist” (credit to @unpretty), stealing artefacts from museums and private collections and returning them to where they belong (she considers the massive heist she spearheaded to steal the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum to be her crowning achievement). Over the years, she has moved away from stealing (for pure profit, anyway; she still plots out heists to return stolen relics) and has begun to focus more on protecting the East End of Gotham. Along with Robin and Spoiler, Catwoman protected Gotham during Batman’s year-long absence. She has also begun a relationship with the Caped Crusader, and has taken in a young girl named Holly Robinson.

Oracle (Barbara Gordon): Barbara lost her parents in a car accident when she was thirteen and was taken in and adopted by her uncle, James Gordon. Becoming the first Batgirl, Barbara spent almost five years as a vigilante, before retiring to focus on college. When she was 20, Barbara was permanently paralyzed after her cousin and adopted brother, James Gordon Jr, shot her (credit for this change goes to @littlemissonewhoisall). Rather than let it defeat her, though, Barbara was able to finish college with honors and has since re-established herself within the hero community under the name “Oracle”, established a massive world-wide communications and espionage network, as well as forming the superhero team The Birds of Prey. Recently, she and Dick Grayson have gotten engaged.

Nightwing (Dick Grayson): Dick grew up a circus kid, part of the Haly’s Circus family act “The Flying Graysons”. However, on June 27, 2002, crime boss Tony Zucco had Dick’s parents killed. Dick was taken in as a foster child by Bruce Wayne and, after discovering that Bruce was the crimefighter Batman, became the first person to wear the mantle of Robin. Since then, Dick has grown into his own hero, taking the name Nightwing, moving to the city of Blüdhaven and forming the superhero team The Teen Titans (now known as The Titans), and has also become the second person, after Superman, that the entire superhero community trusts. He was also more recently officially adopted by Bruce (as Bruce felt for a long time that it would be disrespectful to Dick’s parents). He has a child with fellow Titan Starfire, conceived before their relationship dissolved, and is now engaged to Barbara Gordon. Recently, Dick has returned to Blüdhaven, having joined Bruce on his year-long journey.

Red Hood (Jason Todd): The second Robin, having taken over the role when Dick Grayson became Nightwing. His time in the role was very short, however, as just over a year after becoming Robin, Jason was killed by The Joker while on a search for Jason’s biological mother. Talia al Ghūl resurrected Jason on October 31 the next year, the boy coming back with his anger even stronger than it had been before he was killed. Jason left the League of Assassins and spent the next three-and-a-half years moving from place to place before finally confronting Bruce as the Red Hood, furious that not only had he remained unavenged, but that he had also been replaced. Jason currently remains estranged from the Batfamily, and has taken on an equally damaged protégée in the young girl Sasha Volkova, who goes by the vigilante name “Scarlet”.

Batgirl (Cassandra Cain-Wayne): Cassandra is a very unique young woman. Having been raised by her father, David Cain, with violence as her only language, Cassandra developed the ability to innately understand a person purely from body language. This was done in an effort to create the perfect assassin, but backfired as, when Cassandra first killed someone, she understood exactly what death was like, her ability showing her exactly how the man felt as he died. Cassandra escaped, living homeless for years until arriving in Gotham. There, she was taken in by both Barbara Gordon and Bruce Wayne, and became the second Batgirl, before being adopted by Bruce. Recently, Cassandra has returned to Gotham, having travelled with Bruce on his year-long journey.

Robin (Tim Drake): A young boy who managed to deduce the identities of Batman and Nightwing. After the death of Jason Todd, Tim saw that Batman was becoming more and more violent and so the boy approached Dick Grayson to ask him to become Robin again so as to help Bruce. While Dick did not, Tim became the third Robin and was the first person to wear the mantle who fully established that the title was not just “Batman’s sidekick”, but a hero in their own right. He helped to form the team Young Justice, and more recently, spent the better part of a year helping to protect Gotham City in Batman’s stead while the Caped Crusader was on his world trek.

Spoiler (Stephanie Brown): The daughter of Arthur Brown, the former criminal known as Cluemaster. When Arthur was released from Arkham cured of his obsession with leaving clues but still engaging in criminal activity, Stephanie became Spoiler to counteract this, leaving clues at his crimes in order to help stop him. This turned into her becoming a fully-fledged vigilante, one who was initially discouraged from vigilantism due to her inexperience, but after facing a threat that an incapacitated Batgirl could not, Stephanie gained the respect of the Batfamily and was welcomed into the fold with open arms, where she has become best friends with Batgirl and has started a romantic relationship with Robin. Recently, she helped Robin and Catwoman protect Gotham in Batman’s stead during the Dark Knight’s year-long journey. She has also recently discovered that her father seems to genuinely want to reform, and is unsure how to react to it, having elected to avoid him until she can figure it out.

Flamebird (Bette Kane): Bette is Kate Kane’s other cousin, who has only recently found out about Kate’s activities as Batwoman. Bette has joined the ranks of Gotham’s vigilantes as Flamebird, and is eager to help out in any way she can.

Holly Robinson: A young girl that Selina has taken in, Holly has lived on the streets for three years, having run away from her abusive family at age ten. She is the leader of a group of street kids known as the Alleytown Gang.

Ace (Alycia Wayne): Ace was born in the small Ohio town of Stones Throw. After the girl’s raw psychic power was unleashed, the town turned violent, massacring everyone apart from the child. The government project known as Cadmus took the girl and raised her in one of their facilities, hoping to harness her abilities for government use. Out of the numerous metahumans that Cadmus had captive, the girl (known to them as Patient A-011) was the strongest. However, last year, the supervillain known only as The Joker broke into the facility holding her and a handful of others, taking the girl and four other patients and using them in his latest scheme. Now under the name “Ace” and part of the “Royal Flush Gang”, the girl was manipulated by The Joker into a plot to broadcast and use her abilities to drive anyone watching the coverage of his plot insane. Batman was able to stop this, though Ace was taken back to Cadmus, in spite of the Dark Knight’s protests. Two months later, the Caped Crusader led a mission where he, along with a small group of heroes, broke into the Cadmus facility holding Ace and rescued her. Since then, Bruce has begun adoption proceedings in order to protect Ace (now legally named Alycia Wayne) from Cadmus.

Robin (Damian Wayne): The biological child of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghūl. Raised within the League of Assassins, Damian was left in the care of his father on the boy’s ninth birthday when his mother realized that she would be unable to protect him from Rā's al Ghūl’s plans for him. Initially taking the name “Redbird”, Damian slowly undid the brainwashing he had been subjected to his whole life and, after a year and a half (as well as a close call with Rā's trying to use Damian to restore his ability to use the Lazarus Pits), was able to completely break free of the hold that the League of Assassins had on him. After this, he took up the “Robin” moniker, which he now shares with Tim Drake (not that he’s particularly pleased about that; some things never change). He has become good friends with Dick Grayson’s daughter, Mar’i, and recently, Damian has returned to Gotham, having joined Bruce on his year-long journey.

Nightstar (Mar’i Grayson): The daughter of Dick Grayson and Princess Koriand’r. Though her parents are not together, they remain very good friends and are both 100% committed to raising their daughter together, even if they aren’t a couple. Mar’i is very good friends with all of the other children in the hero community, and has taken it upon herself to show Damian Wayne and most recently, Alycia Wayne what it’s like to be a kid.