#first important DC character to come in is NOT a bat

[redflagshipwriter]

Reassembly 1

Masterpost

inspired by the iconic DC/marvel crossover Dark Matter that was actually the only reason I started reading DC (so if you like my DC stuff, Mystery Cyclone is who you have to thank)

The first thing that Peter registered was pain. His whole body felt like an electrical burn.

It was a relief to be in bone splitting pain, for about an instant. That was enough time for Peter to joyously process,  'I'm alive?' It came with a flood of endorphins. Holy cow, he was alive! How had Mr. Stark saved him? Did they win after all?

That next instant was when he fully processed the pain he was in. His whole body was burning cold. He opened his mouth to scream and he inhaled a viscous, sour liquid. He choked on it, hands flying to his throat. He opened his eyes and everything was filtered through a shadowy green. He couldn't see anything but green. He felt panic and it didn’t feel natural.

It didn't take Peter long to regret opening his eyes. It burnt. He gasped again despite knowing he wasn't going to get air. He closed them again but it didn’t help anything.

'I'm drowning! I'm drowning? Why am I drowning!?' 

When did he get in the water??? The last thing he remembered was being on Titan! Titan wasn't notably wet! 

It didn't matter, he could figure that out later. He swam. He only moved a little before he hit something. Peter flung his hands up flat against something hard, smooth, and cool. It felt like glass. He felt like a wild thing, feral and desperate. There was a light show behind his eyelids– or maybe an electric light was flickering madly a few moments before it died, casting him further into darkness.

'I'm going to make a mess.'

His hindbrain was running the show, so the guilty thought was just background noise as he made fists and banged on what he really hoped was glass. It broke.

He expected the glass to shatter or something and the water to all rush out in a dramatic wave. Instead, he felt it sort of collapse away from his hands and he distantly heard the glug of draining water filtered through the burning liquid all around him. 

It still hurt, everything hurt. He had to get out! He hit the glass again in desperation. This time it broke more dramatically. Water rushed out with enough force to dash Peter against the broken glass. 

It knocked the air out of his lungs- but he didn't have air. So instead he violently heaved that horrible green jelly out in a dramatic spray. He heard it hit what sounded like a hard surface.

And he heard screams. 

Peter's eyes flew open. He blinked rapidly and fought the urge to scrub at his face with his hands. The odds that he had small shards of glass on them was uncomfortably high. 

His spider sense switched on violently. His full body jerked. 

Holy shit. Leaving the tube had apparently been a very bad decision for his safety.

'What is this?'

He was in a dark room. The only light was coming in through the glass pane on the top half of a door. He stumbled towards it. His whole body was loosening with relief as the green slime sluiced off of him. 

The door was locked. Before he’d processed why it hadn’t opened Peter stupidly turned the handle a second time. Right. Of course. It was still locked. That was how locks worked.

It took a moment to think of what to do. 

He forced the door open. There was an ugly crack in the doorframe. He didn't look as he stumbled out into a hallway. It was white tiled, with off white walls and the long lines of fluorescent lights overhead. 

'I've been taken captive by someone who doesn't have an interior decorator.' 

It wasn't much, but it was a clue. Mr. Stark would be able to exclude a lot of villains with that information. Peter looked both ways, heart pounding. Where should he go? He had no idea where he was or what was going on. One end of the hallway was silent. The other had the sounds of a distant but desperate fight.

That was when he realized he was naked. Peter was standing in a hallway absolutely naked, and still wet with green goop soup. 

He turned away from the sounds of people. 

Instantly he felt guilty, but he was naked! Peter ran, wet feet slapping on the tile. It was absurd. It should have been funny. It wasn't. He felt frantic and halfway insane and he still hurt. 

'I hurt before, too,' he remembered. 'On Titan, everyone disappeared and then I hurt and I fell and Mr. Stark said-'

He shoved the thought deep, deep down before he became a gibbering wreck. Later. He'd think about it later. 

For now he threw open doors as he came across them. Most of them were locked. Peter threw open a door and then turned on the light.

It was a lab. There was a huge tube full of green liquid and a- 

"That's a body," Peter said, to himself. The words echoed. "That's a - that's a corpse." 

Horrible? Bad. Very bad. He flicked the light back off and kept running. He was suddenly very glad he had run away from the sounds of human voices. 

His brain tried to draw a mental connection between the green tube and where he woke up. He pushed that down and ran faster. His survival instincts were still in charge and they were screaming at him to leave. He was even more frantic now. He needed a door outside. He flung open a door, registered that it was full of clothes, and shut it. 

Then he remembered, 'Hey, I'm absolutely naked,' and opened it back up. 

It was full of clothes that were not suitable to wear in a lab. That made sense. Peter stared at a collection of jackets, skirts, and boxes of sandals. Right. People who worked here would have changed into long sleeves and full length pants when they got to work. 

'It must be hot outside now.'

It was not ideal. He grabbed a bright green zip-up jacket that smelt kinda dusty, a black pair of dress pants, and frantically shoved his feet into a few pairs of slip-on sandals until he found one that kinda fit. "Why don't women have bigger feet?" Peter wailed, heels hanging off the end. He pulled the jacket on as he ran and hopped his way into the pants. "Ned is going to give me so much shit," he panted. The thought made him feel better. The closest door led to a shitty changing room, with metal lockers. 

'Oh. Normal clothes that don't need to hang up would be in here.'

He froze, weighing how desperately he wanted to get out against how bad of a fit his current outfit was.

His Spidey sense didn't say the building was about to fall down this instant, so he decided to look for something better.

He started pulling on lockers frantically. Even if it wasn't immediate, he was in danger here. His spider sense was screaming it. That normally meant that he should run or duck or hide. Right now, he just knew it meant that he needed to get out of here and not get tracked back. That meant blending in. He needed to look normal, and a teenage boy in too-small sandals, dress pants, and a hi-vis jacket was not normal or inconspicuous.

He found one that hadn’t been properly locked and yanked it open. “Thank god,” Peter breathed, looking at men’s clothes. There was a slightly messy pile of T-shirts and rolled up socks at the bottom, a brown zip-up jacket, and two pairs of sweatpants. The holy grail was a pair of slightly worn white sneakers that looked his size. A quick check of the tag showed they were a half-size smaller than he’d buy. 

‘Thor is looking out for me,’ Peter decided. ‘This is actual godly intervention.’

He changed right there, sending up a silent apology to the mad scientist whose wardrobe he was raiding. White shoes, black sweatpants, brown zip-up hoodie (oh no, he was mixing warm and cool neutrals) and a plain white t-shirt looked a lot more natural on a teenager than what he’d grabbed at first. The outfit change took seconds. He stuffed the old outfit in the locker to hide it and impulsively decided that he might as well grab the bag that was hanging from the back. He was pretty sure the compound was being raided or something, so the guy was probably going to be too busy in jail to notice his missing stuff.

The next door led outside. He could smell fresh air. He nearly wept. 

First that was because freedom was close. When he shoved at the door, the temptation to cry was because it was a heavy metal door and didn't budge. 

Peter reeled back and looked around for a way to unlock it. The only thing he saw was a box with a card reader. You needed an ID badge to get in and out, then.

Or super strength. This wasn't going to be subtle. Peter busted the door down with only a smidge of regret and burst into what turned out to be cool night air. It smelled like the ocean and safety.

Alarms blared. 

"Okay," Peter said, "That sounds bad." 

He picked a random direction and bolted. He wasn't too far gone to notice the first street sign and numbered address on the building he passed. He'd need to know where he'd just escaped from later. Mr. Stark would know what to do about a creepy laboratory with bodies in tubes-

A body!  Not bodies, just one human corpse! He had been in a tube, yes, but. But.

Peter pushed down the impulse to scream. 

That was great, because it wasn't actually that late out. He passed a jogger with a reflective wristband and hi-vis jacket. She gave him a weird look in passing. 

'Because I look crazy sprinting by myself,' Peter processed. He needed to- did he need to put distance between him and the building or to blend in better? 

No one was actively following him. 

Peter swallowed hard. He forced himself to slow down to a brisk walk. He tried to look bored. He wished he had a phone to mess with. Oh. He unzipped the bag to check if there was one inside. There wasn’t, but there was a wallet.

He grimaced. Whoops. He’d look in that later. Maybe he could mail it back to the guy, if there was an ID in it. 

There wouldn't be like, cameras everywhere, right? If not, the most important thing was to not be memorable. He was pretty sure. That sounded like something the Black Widow would say. 

He ruffled his hair and realized it was drying in spikes. Peter grimaced at the feeling of whatever that stuff had been, drying. He wanted to shower immediately. 

He settled for not touching it. He walked and walked and realized that he didn't recognize anything. He wasn't in NYC. 

Well. Duh. He stared out at an unfamiliar city after sunset, dumbfounded. The last thing he remembered was being in outer space. He should just feel lucky to wake up on Earth at all. 

Okay. What was first? He sucked in deep breaths, struggling for calm. He needed to find out where he was. That was first, right? Then he needed to contact someone. Aunt May or Mr. Stark or- he had Happy's phone number memorized. Okay. Great. His heart rate started to slow a little. He knew lots of adults that could get him. 

It felt a little unreal to walk down the sidewalk past chattering civilians. Peter stared at people, not entirely sure why but feeling a little creeped out. 

'They're not scared or stressed. Everybody's acting like it's a normal day.'

It took a while for the realization to hit. 

'The invasion must be totally over.  Things have gone back to normal.' 

That should have been a relief. Instead, he felt a creeping tendril of fear. What had happened to him? How long had it been?

Okay. That question gave him a task. He needed to find the date. That was achievable. 

He started walking again with that mission in mind. Despite how bizarre his situation was, having a goal made him feel more stable. Sure, he didn’t know what had happened, but he knew how to gather information to make a plan. That plan was probably going to be ‘borrow a phone and call someone, or use a public computer to email someone.’ He just needed a little more information to make that happen. 

A thought occurred. Peter bit his lip and stole looks at the other people walking around. No, it couldn’t be. He hadn’t been asleep for a really long time, no way. People looked about the same. If anything, the fashion here was a little conservative and outdated. He eyed one young woman and was pretty sure Aunt May owned that exact top in another color.

To be fair, he was from New York City. Fashion started there and spread elsewhere, right?

It was fine. Everything was fine! He walked a little faster and wished he'd ended up somewhere that he knew. It would have been easier to get his bearings. He saw the name “Metropolis” on enough signboards to figure out that was the name of the area. 

‘That is weird,’ he thought, anxiety prodding at his nerves. He fiddled with the zipper on his jacket to have something to do with his hands. ‘I’ve never heard that city name before. And this is definitely a city. People have American accents here. Shouldn’t I know this city?’

Well. Maybe it was a suburb or something. Like, a subname, like how the boroughs were all part of NYC. He could be in like, California, or something and just not know the area well enough to recognize it. 

Peter finally found an electronic billboard with the date on it. Oh, shit. He stood open-mouthed for a long moment, watching the pixels appear and disappear in a ripple in between ads for a divorce lawyer and a jeweler.

It hadn't been long. It had been the opposite of a long time since the fight with Thanos. Or something? 

Peter knew he was reeling. He shoved his hands in his pockets and started running on the sidewalk just so that there was a reason for his breathing to be so heavy. Shoot. Shoot. His shoes were starting to pinch and his whole body felt itchy with panic.

The flashing billboard had displayed the date in the bottom left corner. According to that, he was 5 years in the past.

'How and why?'

That complicated things. Peter tried to make a mental map of what things were like five years ago. 

He couldn't go home. Not yet. He could – oh. Oh, Uncle Ben hadn't been shot yet. He reeled. He could- and Mr. Stark, this was around the time that Mr. Stark was kidnapped, wasn't it? He didn't remember exactly but maybe he could help. 

It was too much for him to process right now. He wanted to go home and hide. 

'I can't go home.' 

The thought hit him hard. His heart started to race.

If he went home- they'd think he was a stranger! Would Aunt May and Uncle Ben even recognize him this much older? 

'I think they'd want to help me. But they can't afford to feed me. I can't put that on them.' 

Guilt crawled into his throat with claws. Peter felt his eyes watering. He was so selfish. He had a chance to help people and save lives and he was busy feeling sorry for himself because he couldn't go home? What kind of hero was he? 

"This is good," he choked out. He scrubbed at his face. "I- I can fix so many things." 

So why did it feel so terrible? 

It was a bad night. It really was. He should have- he was a literal superhero. He should have compartmentalized and strategized and been practical, like his inner Colonel Rhodes advised. 

Instead Peter wandered. He just walked the streets of this city as night fell and didn't even figure out where he was. The climate seemed like New York City, for what that was worth, so maybe he wasn't too far off from the home he could never go back to. 

It took a really long time for him to realize that he was hungry. Like, he was really hungry.

That stopped Peter in his tracks. Despair crawled up his throat and choked him with tears. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to solve these problems. Act like an adult, he guessed. Adults got jobs. He needed to get a job. 

'I want to go home.' 

Was that just childish? Maybe it was a good idea. If he was in New York City, at least he'd know his way around. That could only help. 

Well. All roads lead to Rome, don't they? Peter started looking for train tracks. If he found a subway entrance it would be clearly labeled, but he didn't have any money for tickets. So he needed the actual railroad, for moving stuff.

'It's not legal but it's not like, a real crime,' Peter told himself, and decided to go for it.

Peter sent up a silent apology to the transportation system and hopped on top of the next freight train that came by. It took him through this weird city and then out into the country for a short spurt before churning into a different city.

Not just any city. Peter stared at the night skyline. The bleariness from exhaustion was playing tricks on him, wasn't it? Because this looked like New York City. 

[allovesthings]

In my opinion, the butt jokes are incredibly incredibly tired.

So here are several fun facts about Dick that you can use for comedic effects/running jokes instead:

His hatred of Capes. Listen we are talking about Dick wore a yellow cape for 9 to 10 years in universe Grayson. The moment he changed his costume, he straight refused to ever wear a cape again, the only time he had to wear one, it was as Batman and it was very very frustrating for him.

You know that when he watched the Incredibles with Lian and Roy or Damian and Edna Mode came on screen with her hatred of capes, this was his reaction:

Someone else finally understand him. She instantly became his favorite character.

His tendency to put unknown substances/evidence in his mouth and being able to identify it by taste and his knowledge of what Heroin taste like (yep still not over it).

It's both impressive (the fact that he can actually identify something by taste alone is impressive) and gross and even his closest friends don't understand why he is the way that he is, Do we think it's the Bat training or do we think it's just Dick (tm)... I feel like it has to be just Dick, right ? considering everything in Gotham is a toxin of some kind ? How many heart attack do we think he gave both Bruce and the Titans with that ?

Dick Grayson namer of superhero things: Listen, I just learned that Dick named the Arrowcave and now I just kinda love the idea of a running joke that every time a classic superhero in contact with Robin has a goofy name for something superhero related, it probably comes from the 9 year old superhero who thought it sounded cool.

The Titans are never letting that go and Dick doesn't want to talk about it (but he secretly still really like the names, they were cool when he was 9 and pretty practical when you think about it, thank you very much).

Everyone has a crush on him (tm): Honestly it is pretty funny that everyone and theirs entire family have a crush on Nightwing (and also pretty consistent canon since Raven in ntt). The reaction of the batfam is annoyed because that's gross, it's Dick, theirs brother/son, and the Titans are amused (Donna, Vic, Garth and maybe Wally) or maybe sorta part of the people who have had a crush on him (Kory obviously , Roy, Raven).

You do need to be careful with that, but I think if you do the opposite of what DC is usually doing, you'll be fine.

Also you can also includes the disastrous first date with supergirl in that. She also had a crush on him and they date was so horrible that he considered changing superhero identity because it was so embarrassing (truly one of the greatest plot-point on Superman/batman world finest honestly and this series is genuinely my favorite modern/current series)..

His petty side when he doesn't like someone: Listen, Dick has a petty side, ask Helena circa Outsiders (2003), Talia (always), Jason circa the late 2000s (Morrison era) and Azrael (also always). When he doesn't like people but has to work with them, he is going to be a little shit because they have to know he doesn't like them. it's important. and the comedic potential of Nightwing, one of the most competent, known and admired hero of the community being so petty is excellent. 10 out of 10, I need him to work with someone he hates again just for the fun of it.

The last one is just an headcanon and do not have basis in canon as far as I know:

Sometimes, as an adult, Nightwing says Holy shit in front of a classic superhero and that superhero does a double take because they are so used to him saying Holy goly batman (and that include Batman).

[i-care-bout-things-too]

Batfam Ages:

Okay, there is no such thing as an exact science when determining the ages of the Batfam, but the easiest thing you can do is work of the concrete ages that you /do/ know, and make them fit with canon events to the best of your ability. Now, canon changes all the time—which definitely makes this a challenge, but I’m going to just explain my process for determining their ages and you can disagree if you’d like, or you can use this to write fic like I do where ages are semi important,

Let’s begin. I’m going to give you the arbitrary number of 15, this will be important later.

Dick Grayson:

Depending on the canon, Dick is 8, 10, 12, or 15 when his parents die. All of these numbers will have problems depending on which you pick, but I go for the safe bet of 10 years old. Why? Well, a little known fact is that Dick ends up in juvie after his parents die, and he’s not immediately taken in by Batman. Thus, it takes a little while longer for him to become Robin, which doesn’t immediately happen after he becomes Bruce’s ward anyway, because Batman doesn’t immediately go and spill the beans. Thus, Dick ends up in Bruce’s car at around ten or eleven, but doesn’t become Robin until he’s 12.

Now Dick is Robin up until he’s about 18, when Bruce takes Robin from Dick because it’s too dangerous and Dick refuses to quit. Dick joins up with the teen titans full time, and he’s still Robin for a little while longer until we get Nightwing, aka Discowing, for the very first time at age 19. Simultaneously, while this is happening, a little kid is stealing the Batmobile’s tires.

Jason Todd:

Our beloved street rat Robin, Jason Todd, swings a tire iron at Batman and then gets taken out for fast food. It’s great, it’s cute, it doesn’t immediately lead to his adoption though, either. No, instead Jason ends up in an orphanage that is trafficking children. Bruce shows up one day to check up on Jason, and is made aware of this by his soon to be first adopted son (yeah, you heard me, Dick isn’t adopted yet). They take down the trafficking ring, and Bruce adopts Jason. Jason then becomes Robin at age 13.

Unfortunately for our boy, he was widely disliked by comic fans across North America, DC did a little telephone poll, and by a few hundred votes, DC changed comic history forever by killing off a high profile character what seems like /permanently/ for the first time ever. No resurrections this time. (Hah, right!). Which is to say, Jason Todd has the second shortest run as Robin at just two years, dying at age 15.

Tim Drake:

So then we get Robin numero 3. Tim Drake sees Batman getting darker and more violent and goes y’know, someone should do something about that. He tries talking to Nightwing, but he’s in a bad place with Bruce after learning Jason died via a Newspaper (yeah, Bruce sucks for that one), and tells Tim he won’t be going back to Robin. Thus, lil Timmy Drake gets an idea in his head. He looks himself in the mirror and goes, I can fix him, and then, Tim Drake becomes Robin at age 12.

Tim Drake has one of the longest runs as Robin, with only a mild interruption from a lil blond Bat.

Stephanie Brown:

Stephanie Brown starts off as the vigilante Spoiler, whose whole purpose in life is to spoil the plans of her C-list villain dad, Cluemaster. She meets Robin (Tim), hits him in the face with a brick, and then ends up dating him. Unlike most characters who appear a few times and never come back, Stephanie manages to stick around. She gets pregnant at age 15 (it’s not Tim’s, and no she did not cheat, this happened priorly), she gives birth, the baby is put up for adoption, and she becomes Robin after Tim’s dad, Jack Drake, finds out Tim is Robin and bans him from it. Tim is forced to quit and Stephanie picks up the mantle. She’s clocks in the shortest run as Robin, working with Batman for about two months before Bruce forces her to stop. Tim picks up the mantle again, and Steph goes back to being Spoiler—only to get killed by Black Mask, making her the second “Robin” to die. DC does retcon her death, and we later learn she was only badly beaten and sent off to live in a foreign country before she makes her return.

Jason Todd, Again:

While all this is going on, stuff is happening behind the scenes. Namely, Jason coming back to life. A common misconception here however is how long Jason was actually dead. While I wouldn’t be able to find the panels to confirm it, the true number is a “short” 6 months. Yep, while years passed in the real world, possibly decades, actually, Jason was dead all of 6 months. According to the books, he undigs himself from his grave six feet under (because Superboy punched through the multiverse or something?) and ends up wondering around Gotham as a mindless little zombie. Conveniently, Talia al Ghul stumbles upon her beloved’s lost little bird, and she decides to take him home and train him. He’s with them for a bit, gets dunked into a Lazarus pit, comes back very very angry, is shipped off to the all caste for a bit, and upon his return to the al Ghuls, is informed he’s been replaced by little Timmy Drake.

Jason makes his whole plan, and decides to make a splash by returning to Gotham wearing an old moniker of the Joker’s and taking over Gotham’s underworld. He beheads a few criminals, tries to kill Tim, tries to get Bruce to kill the Joker, and doesn’t really have success in those latter two objectives. That puts Jason at age 19, roughly. We don’t really know how to count the months he was dead.

Damian Wayne:

Shortly after Jason’s unmasking as the Red Hood, Damian Wayne turns 10 years old and beats his mother, Talia al Ghul, in combat. His prize is to be taken to his father and given to him for training. We know definitively that Damian is 10 thanks to this we can measure out the age gaps between the others and get their ages at this point in time. Dick at age 19 became Nightwing, while Jason is made Robin at age 13, so they have a six year age gap. Jason dying 2 years later at age 15 leads to Tim becoming Robin at age 12, they have a 3 year age gap. Tim is Robin for 3 years before Jason comes back and Damian trails after him a few months behind, putting Tim at around 16/17 while Damian is 10. I tend towards 16 instead of 17 because DC stopped aging Tim for a while, so it just makes more sense to pick the lower number. Thus, when Damian is 10, Tim is 16 as is Steph, Jason is 19, and Dick is 25.

Thanks to Damian being quite young, DC has kept an active track of how and when they age him. We know Damian is only with Bruce a few short months before he disappears into the time stream and Dick makes him Robin, and we also know that Damian’s 11th birthday is celebrated after Bruce is reinstated to the proper time. However, DC follows this up by killing Damian and making him the third Robin to die, the second to do so in the suit itself, and he’s dead for a significant number of months. In this time, Dick also dies—as in his heart is stopped by Lex Luthor for a few seconds, and then restarted, after his identity is revealed on live TV. Bruce decides to let the world believe Nightwing died and stayed dead, and Dick is sent off to Spyral to do secret spy stuff for Bruce. There is an issue around here in the “Grayson” run that claims Dick is twenty-one years old, which is ENTIRELY incompatible with the time line I just painstakingly established, and I go ahead and outright dismiss it because it clearly doesn’t work with a majority of canon. While Dick is with Spyral, Damian is brought back to life, and he goes on a year of redemption (which doesn’t actually last a whole year, but I digress). He and Dick meet again, and we move into Rebirth somewhere around here with the conclusion of Spyral and Batman and Robin Eternal.

General Events:

Damian turns 12 presumably sometime during rebirth, although not specified, I do believe Truth and Justice issue #6 to be his 12th or 13th birthday, but I lean towards 12 because of the costumes everyone wears in the issue. Steph is spoiler, Cass is Orphan, Tim is Red Robin, Red Hood has yet to don his solo Outlaw uniform, and Barbara is Batgirl.

I can’t name a specific issue for Damian’s 13th birthday, but it’s canonical that Damian turned 14 in his solo Robin series, Robin (2021) while he was off finding himself before the Lazarus Tournament, and since then, there’s been the Shadow War, Batman Vs Robin, Dark Crisis event somewhere around there, the Lazarus Planet event, Gotham War, DC Knight Terrors, and Beast World event, which catches us up to the modern day world.

Since Damian hasn’t yet turned 15 despite ALL of that going on, and is still for now at least, 14, that means Tim and Steph are 20, Jason is 23, and Dick is 29.

I know I mentioned Cass and Babs, and I would love to give you a proper age for them but I don’t know where to place them in DC canon like I do the others, however people do commonly place Cass roughly around the same age as Jason making her 22 or 23, and Babs tends towards being 6-8 years older than Dick, although that is an age gap DC has been slowly bridging over the years. Still, I put her at 35 years old. I don’t have a reference for Duke Thomas either, but he’s commonly placed as being two years younger than Tim making him 18 currently.

Lastly, I bring back the arbitrary number of 15, given that that is the number of years that separate Dick and Damian, I also use that age gap between Dick and Bruce—meaning that Bruce took Dick in when he was 25, and placing Bruce at 44 years old in main continuity.

Overall Ages Currently:

Bruce Wayne: 44

Barbara Gordon: 35

Dick Grayson: 29

Jason Todd: 23

Cassandra Cain: 22

Tim Drake: 20

Stephanie Brown: 20

Duke Thomas: 18

Damian Wayne: 14

[zahri-melitor]

I hate to be that person however:

"Why are Dick and Babs together in comics? They're being forced together!"

Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon?

Yeah. A mystery.

But I guess, it might have a little something to do with the fact that back in 1995 both Dick and Barbara had returned to be firmly under control of the Bat office.

And in 1996 Chuck Dixon started writing them flirting with each other in Nightwing. And Devin Grayson wrote them having rooftop reminiscences on New Year's Eve where they told each other the same stories every year in DC Holiday Bash II. Which carried through to them flirting in Birds of Prey in 1999, and to having their first proper date on panel in Birds of Prey #8. And then shortly afterwards having them be very cosy in a dating way as Barbara patched Dick up in No Man's Land after he broke out of Blackgate.

And in 2000 we had the Hunt for Oracle crossover where Dick and Dinah had to work together to protect Barbara from Blockbuster's men coming to kill her.

And in 2001 Dick was sleeping over at Barbara's house and Barbara and Dinah had to rescue him when he was kidnapped by Shrike, and Babs was tucking little love notes in his gauntlet. And they had a favourite place to go for drives for a date and eat crab cakes in Joker: Last Laugh.

And in 2002 their contribution to Our Worlds at War involved Barbara and Dick travelling to another world and staking out a situation where they ended up making out by a fire. A lot.

And in 2003 we got Batgirl Year One which firmly retconned Dick and Babs into having dated in their teens.

And they KEPT dating until they officially paused their relationship in early 2004 while Dick's life was burning down around him, but they were STILL looking out for each other and when they officially bilaterally decided to break up with the other in Nightwing #100 and Birds of Prey #76 they left each other practically identical voicemails explaining how they loved the other one too much and their heads weren't in the right place and that it wasn't fair to be dating right now but they were still incredibly important to each other. As is obvious, in Birds of Prey #86 where Dick comes to Babs' house party in Metropolis and apologises and the two just hang out, sitting side by side.

And then in 2006 right as everyone expected Dick to be about to die in Infinite Crisis, Dick proposed to Babs and she accepted, because as I repeat this was written expecting Dick to DIE and even then the last thing they wanted to give him was to make sure that they were together.

And even when the engagement was broken off in 52 due to the rebellion saving Dick and Conner dying instead, Dick and Babs were still ready to drop anything for the other if one of them called, as seen by Dick coming at Babs' call when she faced off against Katrina Armstrong, or Dick taking Babs skydiving for her birthday in Origins and Omens in Nightwing #153. (I repeat, Origins and Omens, a series of shorts that were supposed to be Portending Doom moments or restating a character's background. Dick took Babs on a date)

And then during Reborn even while Dick and Babs were fighting with each other over the best direction for Gotham (and how hopeless the other's protege was) they still found time to get closer again, as seen in The Black Mirror and Birds of Prey #10.

And then it was the New 52 and while Barbara and Dick spent all 5 years of this Officially Not Dating, it was not because they didn't LOVE each other. Oh, no. In between having fond reminiscences of when they dated as teenagers while Robin and Batgirl, they were always checking in on each other, and the other's first phonecall. Babs bitterly mourned Dick's death and their lost future in Batgirl #30. Every time one of them gets out of a relationship they turn around and see the other, only to find THEM in a new relationship. But they're backing each other up and hanging out together and the UST just keeps building.

And then we get Convergence: Nightwing and Oracle in 2015 in a specific continuation of preboot, where Dick and Babs are together again (and basically getting to rerun No Man's Land) and in the face of alien nightmares and the end of the world, again, Dick proposes again and Barbara, after contemplation, accepts and they get married.

And then it's Rebirth and 2016 and Dick and Barbara are still circling around each other and turning up in the other's books for team ups and deep and meaningful conversations, and flashing back to their teens together (Batgirl #14-17 2016), and Dick has to talk seriously with Babs about What They Have Between Them before he has his relationship and pregnancy scare with Shawn Tsang and if either of them were simultaneously single it is obvious that it would very shortly be BACK ON.

(And then I am currently up to mid 2018 on my read and Dick is very shortly about to get head-injuried into being Ric for a while)

However I am aware that in Dark Nights: Death Metal Dick and Barbara get unofficially married again because it's the end of the world and they'd rather be married than not (are you sensing a theme here?).

And in Li'l Gotham, which is largely an adaption-continuation of preboot with some quirks of its own, Dick and Babs are very seriously dating and possibly may be married.

And in Juni Ba's The Boy Wonder Dick and Babs are so together they're discussing the shopping list while crime fighting.

Like, the answer to "why are Dick and Babs dating in Nightwing" is basically "have you read any of the last 28 years of Bat comics?" Because I dunno, but I have read almost every joint appearance of Dick and Babs between 1995 and 2018 so far and let me tell you they are either dating, lusting after each other with a lot of UST, or determinedly explaining to the other why they can't be together at this exact second because [obstacle].

It's not exactly hard up for precedent, folks.

[the-batcomputer-project]

Batfamily (and other) Headcanons that will be canon in my DC timeline:

-Dick is Pansexual. Show me this man in romantic relationships with more than just woman. I also feel like he has potential to be a sex positive icon which I feel is important. Sex portrayed as something that can be fun and casual, not explicitly reserved for romantic partners and situations.

(edited to rephrase and remove offensive language towards the pan community)

-Jason is Asexual. Get some ace representation but also give him some healthy romantic relationships where sex is not the center or a necessity. (I’m partial to Jason/Roy but to each their own)

-Jon Kent is dyslexic. Insert Percy Jackson reference about his brain being wired for kryptonian, but no, the dyslexia comes from Lois.

-Jason was absolutely theater kid before his death who managed to get the lead role almost every time, and somehow maintained a healthy schedule of theater rehearsals, good grades, and patrols.

-building off of the last one, Jason is Bruce’s favorite allowing him to get away with pretty much anything, but no one notices this because Jason is convinced Bruce hates him, and everyone else (understandably) believes Cass is the favorite.

-Cass took up gardening after watching Alfred tend to the rose bushes out front, and is now responsible for the very impressive garden on the Wayne Estate. She loves being to create and nurture life instead of kill, like the was born and raised to. Jason also taught her the language of flowers and she has little flowerbeds for each member of the family. Only Jason knows what they mean (also Alfred but he knows everything)

-Tim isn’t a caffeine addict, but he does have severe insomnia and ADHD. Because of that, caffeine typically has the opposite effect on him, hence why he always seems to be drinking a cup. Either for the placebo effect to stay up and finish a case, or to make him tired enough to fall asleep.

-Damian struggles to connect with people and express gratitude, appreciation, and love. He asked Cass about her garden one day and very intently sat and listened while she taught him about the language of flowers. Each family member woke up the next morning to a drawing of a bouquet of flowers pinned to the door with a knife (Jason has his framed in a safehouse he is fairly sure none of his family knows about)

-The batcave has a secret vault of “bad ideas” which was started by Dick as a child with the original Robin suit Bruce designed (it had pants) along with videos of Dick wearing said costume and falling off of gymnastics bars. (Think of the video explaining why strippers don’t wear clothes with the person falling off the pole over and over)

-Bruce is autistic. He gives off tism vibes (you’re trying to tell me that a man who dresses up as a bat and fights crime as a trauma response to watching his parents be murdered in front of him is neurotypical?) and I also want to see more a positive autism representation in main characters in media.

-Dick’s use of made up words such as “aster” and “whelmed” come from the fact that he spoke very little English when he was first adopted by Bruce, and decided that using obviously made up words made his slip ups less noticeable, or people would assume he did it on purpose. Even after he mastered English, he continued using his made up words because they just made sense (the batcomputer and jl database have a hidden file called the “DICKtionary” unlinking all his words and their meanings)

-Jason can’t drive. He died when he was 15 (you have to be 16 in Jersey to get your permit), was revived in Nanda Parbat so there was no need to drive, and was too embarrassed to mention it by the time he returned to Gotham and the Batfamily. This is his deepest, darkest, secret.

-As a child, Dick was convinced Batman was a vampire (and still isn’t entirely convinced otherwise)

-Tim collects little trinkets. Dick noticed this early on, and made sure to get a little souvenir trinket for Tim every time he went on a trip. Bruce noticed and started doing the same thing, and so did his friends after a while. Tim proudly displays his collection, because to him, each trinket is a reminder that people are thinking about him and care about him. (Most of his possessions in Drake Manor were necessities like clothes, or things he had bought for himself. Barely anything was a gift)

-Jason has OCPD, and needs things to be an exact certain way, and struggles when they aren’t. It’s one of the biggest reasons why he is often so frustrated with Bruce, who tends to do things in a different, certain way.

-Cass is actually the most neurotypical in the family, though because she has learned how to be a person through observing, she has picked up on many neurodivergent traits, specifically stimming.

-Steph’s aesthetic is retro pastel pop, mixed with maximalism. She loves bright colors and loud designs (though purple is still her favorite by far)

-Alfred keeps guns stashed all over the house in case of emergencies. Bruce hates this and has tried to remove them, but has given up as he can never seem to find them all. Alfred also brought up the good point of “I am not a vigilante like you, Master Bruce, and I am not quite as young as I used to be. If there is ever an invasion of the manor, I would quite enjoy the security of being able to protect myself.��

-There is a list of who is banned from the kitchen. Bruce is at the top of the list, Tim isn’t allowed to make anything more complex than instant food, Cass and Damian aren’t very good, but at least make an effort to learn so are therefore allowed with supervision. Dick has a partial ban. He is an absolute disaster in the kitchen, except for soups, and sarma (his mother’s recipe was one of the few things he brought with him from the circus and was obsessed with perfecting it as a kid, leading it to be one of the only things he can actually make) Steph isn’t allowed to cook, but she is a proficient baker. Duke isn’t a horrible cook, but mainly avoids the kitchen, preferring to stay out of Alfred’s way. Jason is the only batfamily member who is not banned from the kitchen under any circumstances. He has a tendency to stress cook, and likes trying new fancy recipes, because on the streets he only ate what he could find. This gives him a sense of control.

-Superman wasn’t a great dad to Connor at first, opting to send him to the farm to stay with Ma and Pa, but after a stern talking to from Bruce, came around started making an effort. Connor is an excellent big brother to Jon.

[celaenaeiln]

is the dickbabs romantic relationship always as bad as in Tom Taylor’s run or is it actually enjoyable in other runs? i want to read more of dick’s og nightwing run but ik dickbabs is a recurring thing and i strongly dislike what i’ve seen of it in modern comics (absolutely no offense to anyone who ships it!!)

also sort of related, but have dick and babs really been BFFs since grade school or is that new canon? i remember the initial new 52 run referencing him and babs as on and off but nothing about being childhood besties.

finally- what would you consider to be key dick grayson runs?

Surprisingly Dickbabs is pretty nice to read in other runs. I know this sounds weird coming from someone who hates Dickbabs as a ship but really it's only bad like 85% of the time and the majority of that is because of the Batgirl comics. Batgirl comics treat Dick like shit and it's a losing tossup whether he's treated well in Oracle related comics.

But to get to your point, Dickbabs in Nightwing (1996) was originally pretty good. Tom Taylor's run of Nightwing is the weird one because in every other run you have Dick + relationships whereas in Taylor's you have relationships + Dick. That being said, I highly, highly recommend reading the og one. At one point it does get toxic but Barbara leaves almost immediately after that and aside from that the ship was pretty nice for the most part.

Dick and Barbara have NOT been BFFS since childhood or whatever and this gets on my nerves that Tom Taylor and Hope Larson did that. This is one of the problems I have with the Dickbabs ship. Writers who write them love changing the story to erase Dick's friendships with the Titans. They literally love to pretend Wally, Donna, Roy, and Garth don't exist. BARBARA IS NOT HIS CHILDHOOD BEST FRIEND!! They literally keep deaging her and for what?? First she was like two decades older than him, then she's five years older than him, and now she's the same age?? Just let her be older! Barbara being the same age as Dick makes no sense because it takes away her maturity to turn her into this childish, selfish character she has no business being. She's not even enjoyable when she's deaged this far. I'm still on the she's 5 to 6 years older than Dick canon timeline and there is no way she was childhood besties with him.

The way I picture Dick and Barbara's relationship is this:

DC should've just let it at this, this was peak Dick and Barbara relationship.

Very narrow starting out list but some must read Dick Grayson runs are:

Nightwing (1996) - If you don't feel like reading anything else just read this

Nightwing (2016) - Really good up until Tom Taylor's run

Batman: Gotham Knights - pretty good and lots of cute Tim and Dick!

Titans (1999) - This is a must read if you're not interested in the original Teen Titans comics

Outsiders (2003) - Love him so much in this

JLA/Titans - Important for understanding his relationships with Titans and Batman

Nightwing (2011)

Justice League (2011) Issue #25 and Forever Evil - Same arc

Batman: Prelude to the Wedding: Nightwing vs. Hush

Robin era

Batman - One Bad Day: Mr. Freeze - If you want to skip the medal ages but still want to know what Dick was like as Robin, this comic is all you need to understand his character and personality and beliefs.

Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet - Dick's gauntlet test!

Robin: Year One - For fun :)

Dick!Bats era

Batman: Battle for the Cowl - To get into Dick's batman

Batman (1940) Issues #682 to #713 - Batman Dick. Incredible. Dick was such a good batman and so fun to read.

Batman and Robin (2009) - Dick and Dami!

Batman: Streets of Gotham - Also Dick and Dami <3

Justice League of America (2006) Issues #41 to #60- Dick leading his own JLA team as Batman! SO FUN!!

Detective Comics (1937) Issue #864 to #881 - Honestly Batman Dick was so good I can't tell if I like Dick more as Nightwing or Batman. Obviously it's better for his mental health if he's nightwing but he just did such a great job as Batman.

Spy era

Grayson - YESSSS. Just everything about this.

Batman and Robin Eternal - It was really good up until near the end but then it got better again

Dark Crisis - Definitely, without a doubt, no question

Additional: The ones above are focused on him but if you finish reading this then Tim's Robin (1993) Comic is a fantastic one. He doesn't appear in every single issue but he appears a lot and it's a lot of Dick and Tim characterization. Also Teen Titans (2003) for more Dick and Titans relationships.

[zeroducks-2]

Zero you mentioned hating on people who get prissy about people shipping characters they dont actively ship and it sparked a LONG burning question of mine concerning bias shipping culture in Batfam fandom. Fans who attack and complain and make a big show of hating on ‘batcest’ ships ARE SO DUCKING HYPOCRITICAL OH MY LORD. I don’t understand why it’s considered okay to ship Dick x Barbara or Barbara x Bruce, or Steph x Tim. But seen as a cardinal sin to ship Jason x Dick, or Jason x Tim or Bruce x Dick??? Especially when the only argument antishippers make is ‘that’s gross their brothers/father and son and that’s incest 😤’. I’m sorry? Did you not just post nsfw Dickbabs content? Did DC not make Steph and Tim romantic love interests? Is that not incest too? Considering the fandom classifies all of them as family, and in a lot of fan spaces and fanfics, are they not interacting and being written as a family unit? I see SO many people blog about Bruce seeing Babs as his first daughter, or being making weird headcanons on Bruce and Steph’s relationship and donning it ‘tired uncle!Bruce and weird niece!steph core’. Like you obviously see them connected to Bruce through familial ties, and yet you’re okay with them dating Dick and Tim who are legally adopted by Bruce and who are also known as his sons? The irony. The hypocrisy. The ducking mockery of it all. Personally, I don’t think the issue that antishipper have is the ‘incest’ part but rather the ‘gay’ part of it all. Game of Thrones taught me that the general public actually don’t care about fictional incest between characters as long as it’s not between two male characters. Because lord forbid the’s a couple of queers in media.

I have been talking about this many times and I have no qualms talking about it some more:

✨ IT'S NOT INCEST, YALL JUST HOMOPHOBIC ✨

The whole idea around "batcest" makes no sense. These are people who did not grow up together, aren't related and never even lived under the same roof. Incest is not a spectrum, incest means sexual intercourse with a relative within the prohibited degree of consanguinity, consanguinity means BLOOD RELATIONSHIP, and these people DO NOT HAVE IT.

But even then, they are a bunch of hypocrites because I have not ever seen anyone batting an eye over Dickbabs or Timsteph (or Jaybabs, or Timbabs - yeah depending on the time period or the media, poor Babs has been passed around a lot). Their relationship is the exact same as the boys' when it comes to shared experiences. Steph has even been a Robin. But nobody cares because 1, DC is not pushing the "family rhetoric" with the girls all that much since they treat them as lower importance characters (when they're there at all), and 2, it's not queer relationships.

And this is ultimately what makes me go insane about queer kids parroting anti bullshit. Censorship is the weapon used by bigots to criminalize, punish and ultimately erase queer people from existence, it takes to study queer history for five minutes to understand this. You can see it happening in every fandom space where every type of queer ship gets put through some sort of moral sieve, and they WILL find reasons why it's unethical to ship it. Did you know that now shipping Dick/Wally is problematic because "Wally has a wife" ? So basically they're turning the very reason why fandom was born (exploring something different from the standardized heteronormative/amatonormative way of doing everything when it comes to narrative) into something pRoBLeMaTiC.

And these little fucking idiots keep spouting queerphobic nonsense while feeling morally righteous, not understanding that they are playing the game of the same people who if they could would shoot them in the street for being anything but straight and cis. And I'm not even taking into consideration the amount of harassment that comes from antis who think bullying and suibaiting someone over the perceived honor of fictional characters is okay.

BTW it's working. Just to name one, tumblr is not even doing its little rainbow capitalism number this year, because it's not a good look to be queer friendly anymore. Antis are helping the people who want us dead get to a spot where being anything but "normal" is illegal. When it happens, and if we keep going the way that we are now it will happen, it's going to be their fault too.

[bestjeanistmonster]

hey I always wandered why do you chose certain characters in roles for your DC au like sonic as Harley Quinn or knuckles as bat man?

also I love your content btw!

usually i just choose what character roles i think would be interesting to explore for that character, or just what would be most fun

like when you think of Sonic in the dc universe you would instantly think ‘ok he would be the flash’, and its true that he would probably make a pretty good flash and a good story could come out of that, or maybe making Amy ‘harley quinn’ and again lots of character stuff you could do with that

But those options kinda just. write themselves tbh, its a bit too easy for me to just choose those options and call it a day cuz just looking at them you’d get their entire deal.

So when im choosing character roles im basically asking myself, not just ‘what sonic character would fit in this dc role the best’ but ‘what would this specific sonic character have to do/go through to become some version of this character’ or ‘what how would this dc role have to be moulded to fit this sonic character’

lets take Shadow for example!

he was the first person i made Shadow would obviously be batman, just looking at him and his backstory he would make an amazing batman, he fits that pretty well no question

but at the time i made Shadow poison ivy, i was reading the the comic series ‘Poison Ivy: The Virtuous Cycle’, it went into detail into Ivy’s hatred for humanity and how they’re destroying the planet, and how she plans to kill all of them off (including herself) in order to save it. It was so interesting to think about her hatred for humanity this way, so interesting that my brain was like ‘wow if when shadow woke up from his cryostasis and learnt all this he’d probably wanna kill humanity even more lol’

then i thought about it more, Poison Ivy cares deeply for the environment and basically wants to kill all humans cuz they’re destroying the planet and giving Shadow that role kinda adds another layer to that because human’s are destroying the world that Maria so desperately wanted to see and he can literally feel the planet dying cuz of that plant connection + the fact that he was created artificially in a lab by humans (plus alien deadbeat) away from the planet and having that intrinsic connection to that planet below the Ark his whole life, a direct connection to the planet that Maria loved so much, a connection that he would’ve never fully known the extent of if GUN hadn’t raided.

So what if wanting to destroy the planet, he wanted to save it and to save it he had eradicated a certain ‘infestation’, humanity.

that was super interesting to me to explore as a concept so Poison Ivy!Shadow, the first character in my dc au was born!!!

it’s important to me that though im making Shadow and Ivy have the same role im not just copypasting Ivy’s backstory onto Shadow, they’re different characters and those backstories aren’t necessarily interchangeable, different things happened to make them who they are and one might not work for the other.

And if i do make the backstory similar, i wanna make changes so i can justify why they made these choices, like with what i did Sonic

Sonic’s dc au backstory follows similar beats as Harley Quinn’s backstory, but i added some details make it more believable for me to understand how Sonic could ever became what Harleen Quinzel became. So i started him out Nicky from the sonic manga, an insecure, weak, nerdy kid that’s easy for people to beat up and pick on, so he’d be someone with vulnerabilities and insecurities. Then i had Tails and Amy be his number 1 protectors cuz he can’t protect himself, his insecurities deepening cuz of this (not only can he not protect himself, he doesn’t even have the strength to protect them), he lived in the worst place in gotham, etc. Basically a lot of stuff that Eggman could use to exploit and manipulate him.

this made it really interesting and fun for me to delve into his mindset and see how he would tick!

then from Sonic’s kidnapping came Tails and Amy’s motivations to become vigilantes, to save their friend, people like their friend and to stop people like the joker from hurting them

other times times i just make the choices based on vibes and what would fit the plot <3

this character exploration and thinking process is why i personally don’t allow ppl to make character suggestions for any of my aus, cuz its really a personal process of picking out roles and dissecting them in my brain

but yh that’s pretty much why i picked who i picked lol

ty for the question!

[goth-pod]

Goth-Pod Ep 10: Finale

Welcome to Goth-Pod's last episode of season one! Juda Boone is joined today by a very special guest! (ITS DICK GRAYSON-WAYNE. WE GOT DICK GRAYSON)

Thank you for joining us for our first season. Until next time, stay safe, Gotham.

[goth-pod is a fictional, in-universe podcast based on the DC comics universe. Juda Boone is an original fictional character, not based on any real person or known comic book character.]

Special thanks to my friend for voicing Dick! @anythingeverythingallofthetime

Transcript under the cut

Juda: Hello everyone and welcome back! This is Goth-Pod, your Gotham based podcast. I am your favorite host, Juda Boone. And I am not alone today! Care to say hi?

Dick: Hello listeners! 

Juda: Today’s episode is the last before our hiatus. So of course, we are doing what any competent media does when they want to be successful: Completely change up the formula at the very last minute. 

Dick: And that's where I come in!

Juda: Yes, you are our very special guest star / co-host / interviewee for our finale. 

Dick: And I am happy to be here. I totally binge-listened to all your episodes after you reached out to me. It was too good to pass up! I don’t think I’ve ever been on a podcast before? I like it, I get to wear big headphones and talk. 

Juda: Why don’t you start out by just introducing yourself, for our non-local listeners. 

Dick: Sure thing! I am Dick Grayson-Wayne, I am an Aries, I think. And I am single. If you happen to know someone. 

Juda: [laughing] Okay, very helpful. And since we are an audio-based medium, it is my duty as a host to explain that Mr. Grayson just gave me a very tasteful wink. 

Dick: We’re friends here, Juda. You can call me Dick.

Juda: With all the respect in the world I will not be calling you that.  Juda: Mr. Grayson, we actually have something of an important topic to discuss today. As you are now a Bludhaven resident, you have some insight on their vigilante, Nightwing. I was hoping you could tell the Gotham listeners a bit about the up-and-coming hero.

Dick: To be fair, I don’t know any more than the next guy. I’ve seen him around town, of course, especially on patrol. But I’ve never had the chance to actually talk to him. Guess that means I’m staying on the right side of trouble. 

Juda: From what you have seen, what are some differences between Gotham's Bat and Bludhaven’s Nightwing?

Dick: The fashion sense, for sure! Dick: He actually seems like a person rather than a- what was it you called Batman? In Episode 1, I thought it was great! Like a- an Earthbound spirit, right? And from what I hear the guy has a good sense of humor, unlike Batman. Probably a winning smile to go along with it. 

Juda: hah! Mr. Grayson, we are not a gossip podcast, but to me it almost sounds like you have a crush. 

Dick: woah, woah, hey now Juda, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I mean, give me a chance to get rescued by the guy. We’ll see if sparks fly then. 

Juda: And if that happens, will you be back on the show? 

Dick: You will be the first person I call, I can promise you that.  Dick: Juda if we are to be friends, I’m going to have to come clean on something.

Juda: Oh no. 

Dick: It’s nothing bad! I just may have started us off on a lie, and I apologize for that. 

Juda: I repeat: Oh no. 

Dick: I said that I only listened to Goth-Pod after you reached out to me. In truth, I heard every episode at their release. [whispering] I’m the one who showed Bruce your Bruce Wayne episode. 

Juda: Mr. Grayson, you didn’t. 

Dick: AND your Bruceman Episode. 

Juda: Dick.

Dick: [laughing] Hey, that's my name!

Juda: To save myself from the mortification of that reality, I’m going to say that this is all the time we have today. Thank you so much for joining us, everyone. This time and everytime. A special thank you to my co-host, Dick Grayson-Wayne. I am Juda, this is Goth-Pod. Anything you’d like to say, Mr. Grayson?

Dick: Uuhh. Be gay, don’t do crime. And Stay Safe, Gotham!

[northoftheroad]

I know I just gave you an ask and you must be super busy, but what do you think abt Dickory vs Dickbabs?? Personally, I think Dickory is way better but in Tom Taylor’s run and the current runs, Dickbabs is the main ship. Anyways, I just wanted your opinion on it :D

Also thoughts on Tom Taylor’s run? I thought about it and I kinda have mixed feelings. On one hand, it’s great for fanservice and has some super cute and funny moments. On the other hand, the characters and their relationships are kinda one dimensional. Thoughts?? Take your time and thanks if you answer! <3

Hi, As I've said before (and I'm going to quote myself from older posts here quite a lot, if you happen to come across them 😉 ), I'm fine with both pairings as long as it's well written. I guess a lot of fans lean towards preferring what they grew up with and such like. I'm old enough to have started reading Batman when the idea of another Robin than Dick Grayson was ludicrous, and read the NTT in my slightly older teens. So I definitely have a nostalgic feeling for Dick/Kory.

I think they worked well because they were so different; they each learned from the other and grew as people. Being with Kory helped Dick become more emotionally open after some ten years of growing up with Bruce and Alfred. In NTT # 26, he talks about how he is too introspective and that Batman taught him to be guided by his head, not his heart. And in turn, I'd say Kory learned not always to be ruled by her emotions, and Dick helped to ground her on Earth. They had their fair share of problems, one obstacle was their different approach to relationships and sex. While Starfire is fine with being married to another guy, for reasons of state, but live with Dick, it takes Dick quite some time to come to terms with that he loves Kory enough to get over that. Dick and Kory were one of the most stable and loving couples in DC for over ten years. Now, in superhero comics, writers and/or editoral make the rules. There were plans to let them get married, but as far as I remember a change of editorial led to that being scrapped. We got Dick being raped by Mirage instead, and eventually, the couple split up. Disregarding that, I think you could very well see them growing apart. They were young when they started dating. I guess they were a couple for two-three years? At that age, it's not unreasonable to think they developed in ways that made them decide to go their separate ways.

If Dick and Kory were good because they were poles apart, I'd say Dick and Barbara are more alike. They have both worked with Batman; they are originally street-level detectives and athletes; they are used to work in similar ways. I could see them as a slightly more mature couple than Dick and Kory, being more in sync and relaxed with each other because they have similar backgrounds and shared experiences. (Which, of course, could make them a more boring couple in fiction…) I'm not a fan of the retcon that they've been friends since school, but they did work occasionally together as youngsters, so it can still make sense to write them as really good friends, imo. I honestly think Dick and Kory have been written as a good couple more than Dick and Barbara. Maybe things had been different if Devin Grayson had got the chance to tie up her long arc with Dick in Nightwing vol 2. Not that I think her run was without its problems, but it would presumably have been better if she had got the opportunity to finish what she started. The ending (or rather the absence of a decent ending) of her run, and the fact that the first Nightwing stories after Infinite Crisis were downright cringeworthy, has soured my impression of her writing of Dick/Babs. So I guess editorial decisions have ruined both Dick's most important relationships…?

I don't know if you're new to the debate about Dick/Kory vs. Dick/Barbara? Because it's sometimes a heated discussion, with people claiming he doesn't deserve either of them, he mistreated one or the other etc.

(Here's what Barbara herself had to say about Dick, by the way. In Birds of Prey # 71. By Gail Simone, art Ron Adrian and Rob Lea.)

I can definitely work myself up too much about fictional characters myself, but there are a few things I try to keep in mind… Fictional characters have no agency. Creators and editoral use them to tell stories (and sell stuff…). Don't get angry at fictional characters or, even worse, real people who love them. Also, reading comics is a lot about filling in the blanks between panels, and different readers can put a book down with very different pictures of what has happened. You can absolutely find examples where Dick has been written as behaving badly against both of them. Sometimes, it's a reasonable part of the writer's long game, sometimes it actually is bad and out-of-character writing. (And if you look, you can find examples where the women have been written as behaving badly against Dick too.)

Honestly, the most important thing for me when it comes to Dick and relationships is that he takes them very seriously indeed. Dick has not had a lot of one-night stands and is on record as saying he's not comfortable with casual sex. When he had one with Helena/Huntress, he wanted to talk about starting a relationship just because of that. When he (fake) married a girl to try to expose her as a murderer, he still avoided to sleep with her, and then he offered to stay with her when the case was closed, because he felt bad for deceiving her. Outside the blasted annual, I don't know of any time he was written as (knowingly) having sex with someone while he's in a relationship with another. Girls tend to break up with him, not the other way around. I'm sure other people have different ideas, and it can vary between writers and eras, but I think you can read Dick as someone who likes to be in a relationship, to be intimate with someone – but who's not into casual sex.

When it comes to Tom Taylor's run, I pretty much agree with you. I don't hate it, as some people seem to do, but I think the art has been the best part. It's mostly been pretty meh, TT has at several times spoken about how Nightwing is an A-lister among DC superheroes, but I don't think he shows it. And here and there he produces some really nice panels/pages (sometimes it's up to debate whether the characters are out of character or not). We're heading towards the end of his and Bruno Redondon's run and they've hinted he's going to stop being Nightwing. As if we need a third period of Dick not being Nightwing in ten years… 🙄 The best writer of Nightwing vol 4 was Sam Humphries, in my opinion. Unfortunately, it was very short.

Ok, this post has definitely gone on long enough... but if you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole, here are some earlier posts.

[meara-eldestofthemall]

Hello again bat-gran 👋

I appreciated your answer on the Robins situation, it intrigued me.

How would you have written Damian/where would you like his writing to go?

Poor Damian is simultaneously the Batfamily character with the most potential and the worst possible character development. If you go all the way back to his introduction it was fairly clear that readers were supposed to loathe him. He was an arrogant and rude little princeling with a chip on his shoulder the size of Cleveland.

Damian was such a brat that he even managed to exhaust Alfred's patience, which is a real feat considering the man raised Bruce.

Everyone knows that in his later interaction with Tim in this issue (Batman #657) Damian proves what a superior person he is by killing the first criminal he came across. He then tossed the decapitated head, (with a grenade in it's mouth) at Tim to make a point.

The most important thing to take away from this is that Damian has been raised in a cult that operates on the same upward mobility scheme as the Klingon Empire. In order to get ahead, you kill the person in your way. That' s exactly what Damian tried to do.

Damian was originally conceived as an anti-hero at least and a full blown villain at worst. He was supposed to be a great source of angst for Batman to darkly brood over for years. The only problem was that about half of the fandom loved hyper-violent, rude and nasty Damian. DC now had to figure out how to redeem him enough to work with Batman.

They actually did come up with a method that worked. During Battle For The Cowl Damian saved Tim's life in a very Damian way.

This was the moment that could have changed everything. This is where I would have had Damian reluctantly (very reluctantly) allow the idea that maybe his father's way of doing things had a tiny bit of merit after all. To be honest, I wouldn't have changed much of the Dick Grayson Batman and Damian Wayne Robin arc. You had a much sunnier Batman with Robin as the grim dark little gremlin a lot of people loved. Damian actually showed some positive character development without losing the edge that made him popular.

What would I have changed? This...

All the progress Damian made was unceremoniously tossed onto the garbage heap. The moment the kid got angry with Tim he went right into assassin mode and tried to kill him - again. Worst of all, there were no real consequences for his actions. Instead we're supposed to sympathize with the fact that Damian's feelings were hurt.

The impression left with the reader is that Damian maybe got a stern to talking to from Dick but that was about it. It does not help the conversation above seems to lay the blame on Tim for not having a stronger password.

This is the crux of the problem that followed Damian for years. DC seemed to actively undo any positive character development to keep him static. Damian was not allowed to be anything other than rude, arrogant and hyper-violent. He worked abysmally with Bruce's Batman, so much so that it set in stone the idea that Bruce was incapable of being a good Dad to Damian. Damian's character waffled between hero, anti-hero and kind-of-sort-of villain repeatedly. Not too long ago they were setting him up to be a bad guy yet again. Remember when Damian had his own private prison and then resigned from being Robin?

Why would DC continually do that to a character with so much potential?

What I would do with Damian is what we're now seeing. He went off and had his obligatory Robin-right-of-passage adventure on a mysterious island. Damian came back a better character. His relationship with Tim is improved enough that they still bicker dreadfully but are actually more like brothers.

I really like what I'm seeing in Batman and Robin. This is how Damian should be written. He's still got his edge and doesn't suffer fools well but he's working towards a positive future.

So, if you'll forgive this pedantic old Bat-Gran, my point is that what I want to see, what I as a writer would do, is keep him more on the path of the current Batman and Robin series and less of what we see in the current Batman series.

Most of all I would write Damian consistently, not vary the basics of his personality from book to book. That is the cardinal flaw that has always plagued DC.

Who I want Damian to be is a young man who is just beginning to discover that he can choose his own future. My version of Damian can honor his heritage but still move forward into the best version of himself. He can be someone who, perhaps like many teens, has no idea what he'll be in ten years but does know that it's a path he chooses for himself, not one forced on him by either the Waynes or the Al Ghuls.

I just hope I live long enough to see that. I'm already 67 so I hope DC stops messing around gets to it, please.

So, are you sorry you asked?

[godesssiri]

Do you know what I would love to see DC do? A new Young Justice team lead by Damian Wayne. Can you imagine? There’s a number of reasons I’d love to see this:

Remember how hilarious it was when Tim was the most frequent keeper of the One (1) brain-cell shared by those dumb kids as they went on kooky adventures and got into shenanigans? Now imagine Damian in that position. Imagine his disdain, imagine his chagrin when someone else has the brain-cell and he proves just as dumb as the rest of them.

Damian deserves his own team of ride or die chaotic dumbasses who think he’s a scary Bat at first but come to love him anyway and realize he’s just a kid like them.

It would be a great excuse for team-ups and cameos of original Young Justice characters. The original Young Justice member would really be able to see how far they've come.

The biggest and most important reason I want to see this is because it could be the thing that makes Tim and Damian truly brothers. Tim didn’t get to pass on the mantle of Robin, he wasn’t ready to let it go, the two of them weren’t at a point where he would want to give it to Damian, Dick took the decision out of his hands, DC wanted conflict and pathos. Don’t get me wrong I love the pathos, but I also want healing. Just imagine how cathartic it would be if Tim was the one who suggested the name Young Justice for the baby team Damian is considering forming. He never got to pass on the mantle of Robin but he could pass on the mantle of leader of Young Justice, freely and with his full blessing. He could mentor Damian in being the leader of a team of young teen chaotic dumbasses. He could commiserate and be the brother that Damian goes to when his friends are being stupid or their adventures are OTT ridiculous.

Damian stomps up to Tim -

D: We saved a planet the stupidest way possible. You’ll never believe this.

T: Was it a baseball game?

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

Mechanical Bats

by Reality666Rift999 A new bar has appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. It was... strange. Bruce wanted to investigate it, wanted to learn what exactly was going on behind the scenes because he was certain that there was something happening. From what he could learn of the band, the ones that owned the place, there was something off about them, and they were up to something... Luckily for him, Tim was dragging everyone to see one of their shows at the new bar. Words: 3157, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Series: Part 20 of Void's Mechtober 2024 attempt, Part 1 of DC x Mechs au Fandoms: The Mechanisms (Band), Batman - All Media Types, DC Extended Universe Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen Characters: Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Tim Drake (DCU), Jason Todd, Ashes O'Reilly, Jonny d'Ville, Gunpowder Tim (The Mechanisms), Marius von Raum, The Mechanisms Ensemble, The Toy Soldier (The Mechanisms) Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Bruce Wayne, Marius von Raum & Gunpowder Tim, The Mechanisms Ensemble & The Mechanisms Ensemble Additional Tags: Crossover, Autistic Cassandra Cain, it doesnt come up much but she is. to me, Stephanie Brown Has ADHD, again. it doesnt come up but its important to me, Timeline What Timeline, Concerts, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent, Song Lyrics, i think??? that's everything???, my first dc fic dont come for me i tried my best, Tim Drake is a Mechanisms Fan, for plot reasons, Mechtober 2024 (The Mechanisms), It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, is that applicable? who knows lol via https://ift.tt/Oibg73U

[lazaruspiss]

So, I'm writing a long fanfic based around the characterizations of the various Bats in the 80s-00s time frame, and Nightwing is gonna be important but I don't have a good grasp of his personality yet. I'm currently reading through The Resurrection of Ras Al Ghul, but that and a few of the 2016 issues are all I've got to go off of right now.

Do you have any comics you'd recommend for getting a good grasp of his personality and general vibes?

I'd also be happy to read any kind of ramble about his personality/appeal you feel like writing. Having read your fanfiction I feel like (sincere compliment:) you are the exact kind of unhinged I want to get character opinions from.

(Also you mentioned Dick being in the mob which sounds Very Fun and I wanna know what titles so I can read that)

-redhoodinternaldialectical on anon cause sideblog

ok first of all. im flattered. i feel so powerful rn.

and second of all... my 'to read' list is embarrassingly long, and dick's been around and in a lot of comics so i have a lot of trouble keeping up ;-; but i will try my best!!

The New Teen Titans gets recommended a lot as a starting point for Dick as Nightwing, and while i havent read much of it, the stuff i have read has been pretty solid and i get why its so popular.

Nightwing 1996 is my personal go to comic for Dick, mainly bc it was his first real solo run. (it's often listed as "volume 2" of nightwing, but volume 1 aka Nightwing 1995 was really more of a test drive just to see if they should make a Nightwing solo series) It's also where Dick joins the mob! although that came off the tail end of a lot of different plot points.

(This is a bit unrelated, but in general I think knowing a bit of irl context to certain comic events is important. Like, at one point Bludhaven is nuked off the map. It doesn't make sense, and it was most likely due to some higher up DC nonsense. And Nightwing 1996's second annual is written by a man. etc etc.)

... I actually have a guide I've been working on, main reasons being quick reference for what happens where, and that writing these things down helps me remember them better

as you can probably tell, I still have a ways to go. looking at this now i'm starting to realize that i am really down bad for him lol

Mobbed Up (where Dick gets adopted by a random mob boss who took one look at his depressed mug as he was getting fired from the police force and said "new son?") is issues #107-111

I feel like I should get back to character thoughts.

Dick on his own is deeply serious, he has a job to do and it's incredibly important that he does it right. In the beginning this serves as an invaluable asset, but as he loses more people it starts to turn into more destructive. A trait that is morphed by his traumas into obsessiveness.

Dick when Tim comes to visit (or just when he's around people he cares about) is a bit softer, it's subtle, but it shows that he's aware of/cares for the people around him.

Dick with Bruce around seems to worry so much about proving himself, about being seen as a respectable peer, that it backfires into making him come off more insecure and as a bit of a "rebellious teen". (which is exactly what he's trying to avoid when he strikes out on his own) I've read various arcs and issues but I haven't actually read any focused on Dick and Bruce aside from the ones towards the beginning, so I'm sure their relationship must change, but this is how they were when Dick had first moved to Blud.

I feel like Bludhaven is also important to talk about. It's very much meant to be "Gotham, but worse". It's a place that even Batman wouldn't bother with, a place beyond saving. I'm... kind of breaking my own heart, thinking about how much Dick put into this city, only to. To fail? In a sense? A hero's home city isn't usually obliterated like that. The only other example that comes to mind is Hal Jordan's, and Hal literally went insane and became a space terrorist to bring it back. Dick is just... forced to move on.

And Dick goes back to NYC. Nightwing patrolling Gotham with any regularity feels very modern. He shows up when there's a major event and DC wants to capitalize on having a bunch of names in the same series, and he shows up when something drastic changes (like a new robin, or a death). Dick has however spent a lot of time in NYC, either because of the Titans or because. yknow. home go boom.

Anyways. Arc recs. Unironically I need you to read Brothers in Blood. Get past the initial gross out factor of Tentatodd and it's a great look at Jason and Dick's relationship. This is #118-122 and right after Bludhaven gets nuked. Dick has just experienced the lowest lows that one could low. Jason seems to know all about it, and tries to help in the worst way possible. Jason is right and blunt and convoluted and so so insecure about where he stands with Dick. Dick doesn't know where he stands with Jason either, on account of all the murder, and his tactless approach to trying to confront Dick on the copious amounts of trauma that Dick is dealing with. BiB is my Jaydick bible.

I'd also say to just give the first few arcs a shot. Beginnings are meant for introductions! It gives a good sense of who Dick is, why he's here, and what his goals are. Exposition baby! And I'm once again thinking about how ultimately Dick kind of fails said goals. I love him but he makes me so emo. Blockbuster has also been his main villain since the beginning, up until. Yknow. He became deader than his namesake. There's also a few fear toxin based issues that are good for. well. understanding what his fears are. There's also a fear toxin scene in Batman: Orphans, but i'll just reblog the post i made of it so u don't have to read that one. The art is fun, the story is weird and just kinda. meh.

#60 is when Dick joins the force. The beginning of the end, so to speak, but we don't meet Catalina until #71.

#93 is That Issue. The infamous rape scene. The thing about his time with Catalina is that it was almost definitely meant to be explored for what it was- an abusive relationship. But DC wanted Nightwing in an event. It doesn't have any satisfactory end, Bruce (DC) calls Dick to fight in Gotham. He does. His story falls to the wayside for the bigger title. The worst thing that can happen to a DC character IMO is getting a Batman crossover. There was supposed to be an entire arc dedicated to what would happen to Dick in this abusive relationship. But we got 2 issues. And War Games. It pisses me off to absolutely no end. DC needed more mouths to kiss the ground that Batman walks on. They don't give a damn about the stories that exist outside their cash cow.

After all that, eventually Dick is back to his utterly depressing life. He joins the mob, finds a family, bad things happen to said family. (Mobbed Up, #107-111) He wants to protect the daughter, Sophia Tevis, and then Slade holds Sophia hostage to get Dick to teach his daughter Rose how to fight. He does, but he also teaches Rose how to question authority (aka her dad). Slade is not happy about that, and nukes Bludhaven. (Renegade, #112-117) See my earlier note about IRL reasons for dumbass plot points.

Nightwing 1996 has 2 annual issues (despite running for much longer than 2 years). The first annual is a fun murder mystery and i think a good look into how Dick handles relationships. He also reads as very aromantic/demiromantic who doesn't know it yet, but maybe that's just me, lol. the second annual is dog shit. Mark Andreyko can get bent, it sucked total ass and isn't worth reading.

[rezonan]

Red Hood, other Anti-Heroes/Villians and the issue with killing in comics.

First here's the thing before you read this, I just wanna say this isn't a post complaining about if killing is good or not, far from it so don't worry.

I also wanna say really like Jason Todd. One of my favorite Robins though I like him more as Red Hood. My only issue with him is that DC is stuck with his direction as a character(Not as much as Tim at least). For a lot of reasons

One of those things is that anti-Heroes don't work in main superhero universes at least in DC, in Marvel killing isn't looked down on much unless you do it like the Punisher(Consistently, no exceptions and extreme)

When I'm talking about Anti-Heroes I mean who don't hesitate to kill, because the definition of Anti-Heroes even include guys like Batman, Spider-Man, Iron man and Daredevil (Classical Anti-Heroes,Disney Anti Hero,) talking about the types like Huntress and Red Hood(Unscrupulous Hero) and Punisher (Nominal Hero).

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/AntiHero if you wanna know what I'm talking about.

An issue they have is that they kill criminals consistently, and those criminals include supervillains but in comic books, villians in comics are kinda a commodity. Villians are what makes the heroes. So DC obviously will never let Jason kill the Joker or Riddler or Poison Ivy or Bane, or let Frank Castle kill Green Goblin or Kingpin. That's getting rid of a commodity that writers need for stories.

It's why I laugh when people say why doesn't Batman kill the Joker or something, they won't let him guys. Joker is too popular to kill same with the rest of his rouges, the writers need the villians to continue writing more stories and if time has taught us anything is that new villians don't even catch on most of the time to replenish the old popular ones.

So Frank and Jason and left to keep offing mooks, looking stupid and incompetent for not taking out the actual threats or just offing D-listers, it then brings up the question of why doesn't JASON kill the Joker since he's always talking about how willing to kill he is. yeah sure they'll write Batman like the biggest dick to fight him not too but there has been times when nothing has been stopping Jason to do it, see what I mean?

There's also another thing that DC and Marvel just won't let chracters less popular than the big no kill rule big heroes be more effective (and this is coming from a guy whofor the most part is anti killing). You really think Marvel is gonna let Red Hood have the moral high ground with Batman or Punisher with Spider-Man or Captain America?

But yeah I don't wanna get into the whole 'should heroes kill debate' here just making a point.

This is why they honestly work in outside comic universes like the games or movies. See the 'Superhero Movie Villains Die' trope

Basically they just don't mesh well with the status quo nature of comics.

So now we have heroes/villians(yes I consider frank a borderline villian) who are known for killing but can't kill anyone significant for multiple reasons, like how Red Hood by the New 52 had like 83 kills but no one in there was anyone actually important.

This is why Punishers best run was in an entire different universe where heroes didn't exist so he could kill Kingpin without issues. With Punisher they can always stick with that or just do what they usually do and make him take out mooks and barely developed rouges. They recently made him the head of the hand and gave him superpowers, it's actually interesting in my opinion.

With Jason it's more complicated. There's two sides, he drops guns and killing and joins up with the bat family as a kind of character development or he unrepentantly leaves the bat family behind and starts killing people and using guns then runs into all the issues I mentioned above. The latter side believes that hum dropping killing and guns removes everything that makes him interesting while the former believes it's good character progression for him to drop it. I think both have good points.

Personally I think they should lean into the supernatural side of him, like go all in and make him the dude in the Batfamily that handles supernatural threats, his the only one in the family that has straight up superpowers (Edit: forgot Duke, forgive me but he got them before him so point stands I guess) with his All blades so take those and have him to team up with Zatanna or Constantine, fighting vampires and zombies. (Happy to see they are doing this with Cass kinda I haven't read Spirit World)

Or they lean into the Task Force Z/Outlaws/DCeased aspect of him leading other Mistfits, Anti-Heroes and Villians into becoming better people like with the thunderbolts from Marvel. Maybe hook him up with some kinda of government connection so people he kills aren't illegal during this redemption quests or something.

Well I've got nothing else to ramble about.

[littlemisssquiggles]

So...about JL X RWBY: Superheroes and Huntmen Part One...

Last night, I sat down to check out the film (shoutout to @autistic-swanprincess who shared the link over on Discord). Here are my first impressions:

In general, I thought the film was alright. I mean it's not anything particularly groundbreaking but as RWBY's first ever movie, I think it succeeded in getting me at least invested in what’s to come next. One concern I had going in was that this was going to turn out to be more of a DC film with the RWBY characters taking a back seat in their own first film. Technically, in some way, we kind of got one or two scenes where that happened---like Superman overstepping Ruby's leadership in some of the action moments. But putting that aside, I thought the film was fine.

I appreciate the fact that there was a nice unexpected twist to the story. Here I pegged the main setting of the story to be back at Beacon but nope! Ultimately it was basically RWBY and JNR trapped in some of kind of simulation and the big cliffhanger teaser for Part Two is that whoever trapped JNR_RWBY in the virtual realm is someone from their world.

So on that front, like I said, the film did good on getting me interested in the story. Part One was just the appetizer so I’m hoping that Part Two will bring the main course.

Specific Things I wanted to discuss about the film:

I don't know how the DC fangirl in me was supposed to feel about the whole arc with Batman considering to stay in Remnant because in Remnant, he is made into a bat Faunus with electromagnetic abilities. While I can’t speak for other audience members, for me, the whole angle about Batman considering to stay in Remnant so that he can feel more useful as a Faunus as opposed to a regular human without any special abilities like his comrades felt really off-putting to me.

Batman being the brains of the league despite not having any special abilities is kind of the POINT of what made his character so great in the first place. The whole discussion of Bruce being less of a warrior due to his lack of powers was never really a problem. Perhaps I missed a couple of DC films or comic material where this was an important cause of conflict but from the Batman content I've indulged in over the years, this was never a thing.

What the Bat lacked in superpowers, he more than made up for it with his sheer intelligence and proper utilization of his wealth to create resources that helped benefit his team.

As a matter fact, wasn't there not an entire DC animated film where Batman had logs on the key weaknesses of each of the founding members of the Justice League and came up with specific ways to kill each of them as a failsafe?

Like I remember Superman's being a kryptonite bullet to the heart or something while Flash's was attaching a bomb to him that would instantly blow him to smithereens should he stop running so he basically had to keep running forever and I think Wonder Woman's was injecting her with a powerful hallucinogen that made her see multiple clones of archnemesis Cheetah that she would fight and keep fighting till she died?

I can't quite remember the name of the movie but I remember that was part of the story. Batman, being the "smart guy" that was that he literally hatched the downfall of his super-powered allies as a backup plan. Somehow the enemy got a hold of said plan from the Bat and used it against them.

Again, I'm just going off of vague memory here but my point is that forgive me if the whole concept of Batman wanting powers/abilities to feel more useful to the League sounds ludicrous to my ears since, canonically in the DC material, that's never been Batman's key weakness.

At least NOT from the content I've watched. If there is a Batman story that touched on this subject then please let me know cause outside of that, I felt Batman's arc in the film was weird.

I did enjoy his dynamic with Weiss though. I thought Batman/Bruce and Weiss worked really well together. They were one of the two DC x RWBY dynamics that I actually liked. 

Jaune and the Green Lantern girl (can’t remember her name at the moment) were my second favourite team up. Although I thought the scene leading up to them being tricked by the fake Pyrhha was kind of dumb given the setup. But outside of that, I really liked how compassionate and understanding Jaune was with Green Lantern girl. He was like a big brother to her which is fitting since Jaune’s patience came from a place of him legit being a big brother with younger sisters.

Renora and Cyborg, on the other hand, were...ridiculous! The awkward love triangle with Cyborg kind of low-key flirting with Nora while Ren reacted jealously was quite cringey to me.

Thanks CRWBY, I hate it! ESPECIALLY knowing how Renora's relationship ends after V8, this was like twisting the knife for the shippers.

Who thought this was cute or even funny?

I dunno what was worse---jealous Ren or abrasive Nora? BOTH personalities felt so out of character for both of em. Then again; I guess it was more in line with how stupid they were written to behave between V7-V8. Still doesn't make it better.

Last but not least. There’s Bumblebee working with Wonder Woman. Not much to say, they worked ok...when they didn't include any out of place moments like Yang kind of thirsting after Wonder Woman.

Like the scene where WW lifted Oscar to interrogate him and Yang made a comment about her being a "strong woman" which Blake reacted to, kind of jealous like? I don't understand why that scene needed to be there. I guess this was the writers way to injecting some awkward humour into the scene?

But I dunno, it came off more clunky than humorous; at least to me.

Speaking of Oscar Pine---it is time to address one of the elephants in the room for this squiggly Pineheard is SALTY!

When Aaron Dismuke announced on Twitter that the BOI was gonna be in this film, needless to say, I was more than ecstatic at that news.

Then when I saw the first teaser image and trailer for the film and saw the RWBY girls in their Beacon outfits, I became confused as to how exactly Oscar was going to fit into the movie since Oscar didn't roll up until V4.

Then I saw the film---at least the first part and I gotta say: what was even the point of having Oscar in this movie?

RT must've paid Aaron in gum because Oscar barely spoke in this movie. He had one line that was barely audible since his character was immediately replaced with an overlay of Ozpin the only scene he appeared. Seriously, what was the point of him even being there if that’s all we got of him?

My only hope is that Oscar---ACTUAL Oscar and not a hologram will have a bigger part in Part Two because if it wasn't for the fact that this film has two parts then I would've been livid as to how they treated my boi in his first RWBY movie.

Sure us Pineheads got to see his smiling face---adorable and freckly as always for like 3 minutes but c'mon! After being starved of his presence for RWBY V9 except for that ONE certain scene, would it have killed them to give us ONE scene with Oscar where he actually spoke?

Frigging Glynda Goodwitch who hasn't been seen since V3 got a scene. SHIT! PYHRRA who is DEAD got a speaking scene over Oscar. Seriously, at this point, why did the CRWBY even bother killing off Pyrhha? They keep finding new ways to insert her into the current storyline when she's been gone for 6 seasons now.

And as much as I like Pyrhha, when she---a character who was killed off seasons ago---is given more preference for precious screentime over characters who are alive in the current story, it starts to get a lil bothersome after some time.

That being said, since it was revealed at the end of the movie that JNR_RWBY are actually in Atlas in their V7 outfits then this is a sign that we could see more of Oscar in the next part of the movie. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

Overall, that's all I have to say about the movie. I don't know who wrote the story and script for the film but if I had to give the first part of this film a score, I'd give it a 6/10.

While it was cool seeing the JL team in RWBY style, from a story perspective, it wasn't the best writing I've seen from the franchise (and that's saying something).

It wasn't bad. Just lacking in some areas but I guess that's probably due to it being split into 2 parts. Perhaps things will be better in Part 2 whenever it comes out.

In conclusion, that's it for my first impressions of JL X RWBY: Superheroes and Huntmen Part One. See ya’ll in Part 2.

~LMS (2023)