#gotham war scorched earth

[shyjusticewarrior]

AU Where Damian Lives On Tim's Boat After Bruce Abandons Him In Gotham War

Inspired by DinoMightyMiranda on TikTok.

Tim: So Damian's gonna be staying on the Marina with me for a little while.

Damian: Despite the fact this place looks like a murder shack.

Bernard: *instantly emotionally adopts him*

Tim: It's hard being a single mom. Especially when you're a young adult man, he's actually your brother, and he keeps telling your boyfriend he can do better.

Damian: What do you see in Drake?

Bernard: *pulling up slideshow presentation* I'm glad you asked.

Damian: That was rhetorical-

Bernard: Too late! You're watching if you want me to keep making your favorite meals.

Damian: ... Proceed.

[blurrilines]

Bernard seeing his bf get pinned to the Bat Signal like a moth on the news from his apartment:

[evasive-anon]

Tim out here in his thigh-highs continuing to get work DONE. I love to see him thriving without it being about Bruce’s mental health.

[anna-no-emma]

Tim is, once again, severely overworked and viciously underpaid. He deserves such a nice little easy-peasy adventure with the Teen Titans after this. Or even a solo run again where he can be all cozy with his boyfriend.

[bitter-hibiscus]

Well... at least Jason didn't die?

[hood-ex]

Does this mean Dick is eventually going to have his Fiona Gallagher moment and yell at Bruce for abandoning the family and designating him as the parent 😌?

"This is about you. This is about what you didn’t do. It’s about what I did. And you know what? I did a fucking great job."

"They did it all, no thanks to you, because YOU! WEREN'T! HERE!"

[gffa]

I love it when comics let Tim be a unhinged Dick Grayson stan, let him have his unbreakable hero worship and think the sun rises and sets on that guy!!!!

[renta-bat]

Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War: Scorched Earth #1 (Gotham war 8/8)

Selina is so gentle with Jason I love them

Jason being benched when one of his siblings needs help??? bruh

[asofterredhood]

asoftersea [-04] —

[thepathofthesunflower]

Rose, baby girl, I love you

Batman as a character got so fucking confusing lately, and it’s not just because of the Zur plotline, the writers seem to have each a vastly different idea of where they want to take his story from now on

Also regarding Jason, I can’t fathom where his it’s going now, I would die for another red hood comic

[psychicbluebirdmiracle]

I'm gonna beat him so hard

[shyjusticewarrior]

Jason overpowering fear toxin

Jason overpowering cheer drops

Jason overpowering his fear failsafe

[koraesrambles]

Thoughts on the conclusion of Gotham War

Alright, so I've made it absolutely no secret that I've been enjoying the crap out of Gotham War. Is it structurally sound with good pacing and clear stakes? HELL no. It's not an air tight story, there are so many holes in all of the characters logic, but it is also an extremely good time.

I don't mind loose storylines in comics like this. Mostly because the premise "full grown man dresses up as a bat and cannot stop himself from mass adopting every orphan that looks like him" is already so ridiculous that anything they posit as a solution in their "war on crime" I think, "Yeah, I can see that." None of the rules of this world make sense.

But I don't really read most things for their air tight plot. Slight detour (There's a point, I swear!), but some perfect examples of this are Puss in Boots and the Last Wish and The Super Mario Bro movie. The last wish is PHENOMENAL. A literal work of art. I've seen it so many times and just basked in it's beauty. Love everything about it, absolutely stellar. But do you know what movie made me look up fan content, read fics, and forced me to buy the digital copy of the movie before the DVD came out? Yep. Mario Bros.

Why? Because I like stories about brothers who love each other and the mario movie gave me exactly that. It's not an air tight, phenomonal story with gorgeous real world applications, but it gave me a fun time where two characters worried about each other incessantly and honestly? that is what I'm here for.

So back to Gotham War. If I'm not actually looking for a ground breaking story (which honestly, I know those happen in these big super hero comic books but I feel like they're usually the *exception* rather than the rule) and just want good character interactions, then Gotham War delivered phenomenally. Especially since my favorite character was the one constantly being wrung through the wringer.

It was a great time. I enjoyed reading it, the art is better than anything I could ever produce even when the characters made weird faces. It was great. But did they stick the ending?

Eh, endings are hard. I would love to see more consequences for Bruce. Him just going off at the end and getting away with the horrible things he did to Jason is annoying. I almost wanted Jason to actually die at the end there, just so that Bruce would feel stupid and sad. If Bruce never acknowledges what he did to Jason (which . . . he probably won't, given the track record) then I'll be pretty disappointed. That's some juicy angst right there that should absolutely be addressed.

And I appreciated that literally every character that interacted with Bruce that knew about what he'd done yelled at him for it. Even Dick's seeming about-face at the end with "I'm sure you had your reasons" came after two weeks of getting used to the idea AND him trying to actually get Bruce to make good choices for once. I mean, Bruce doesn't, but A for effort, Dick. Thanks for punching him in the face last time, that was cathartic.

I surprisingly really like the fact that it wasn't Zur who did this to Jason. It was Bruce. Horrible, wacked-out, messed up Bruce Wayne who is so desperate to control everything around him and so terrified of losing the people he loves that he constantly overrides them like they're his freaking pets. Bruce is in a BAD place, and I sure hope that there will be tons of fics exploring that even if canon never acknowledges it.

But that's how I deal with comic universes like this. Everyone jokes that "Canon? what canon!" and we all laugh but honestly . . .yeah. Like, seriously. Canon is whatever works for the writer's plot in the moment. They make stuff up and contradict themselves all the time. They're constantly retconning stuff. It doesn't take away from any of the stories I like, I can still read them. And at this point, legitimately, I approach every single comic I come up on as though it's an AU. There is no canon timeline for me, because it's too messy. DC is literally just an AO3 platform that's allowed to make money.

Because the people who originally created these characters are long gone. These guys (gender neutral) writing and drawing the comics now are just fans like we all are. It's all fake. None of it is real. So let's all just have a good time.

I was talking to some friends about this and they pointed out, "It's difficult because people feel like when they're constantly screwing around with things like that why should they even care about the characters?" And they were absolutely right, that's extremely frustrating to deal with. I put a lot of emotional investment into characters, but every writer is going to approach the characters differently and with a universe like DC has, you just have to roll with it. There are no stakes. We all complain about it, but nothing is done to change it because we love these characters and we'll keep coming back for more, and so they keep having to make more content and that means messing with stuff they already have. It's a never ending cycle. These are living legends, mythology that's being written out in real time. Nothing about them are ever going to be cohesive.

Wow this is getting long, sorry about that. Things I loved about the Gotham War conclusion: Jason almost sacrificing himself and being a hero even though he was terrified. A+ content. Gorgeous, you go my boy! Tim telling everyone how to beat up all the rouges (Good job sweetheart, way to be a morally ambiguous little shit like you always are). Even if he claimed to be the second best robin at the end, those are fighting words my man. I also liked Jason's "Go 'save' another one of your sons." jab. That was great. I liked that everyone told Bruce he was wrong, even if it could have been stronger. The rest of the issue was plot stuff that I didn't really care too much about. I really like Bat/Cat, so I didn't mind those scenes too much even though Bruce is still the worst (affectionate AND derogatory).

I didn't really expect anything spectacular from the conclusion, and it really did end kind of like what I expected (nothing's changed except now Jason gets to deal with the Joker when he's sick with Super Anxiety -- which I actually am really excited for). But it wasn't as much fun as some of the previous issues.

That said, I would not mind owning an omnibus of all the gotham war issues, if just to re-read all of my favorite scenes. There were some truly unhinged crap in there, and that's just my cup of tea.

Story telling quality? eh, 6/10

enjoyment had? 9/10

[evasive-anon]

The fact they they un-ironically included the classic ‘dad leaving the family by driving away’ scene has mean rolling.

Completely fucks up Jason’s brain chemistry, traumatizes Tim and Damian, and then goes ‘guess my work here is done 🤷‍♂️’ followed by ‘they’re your problem now.’

Bruce be like all crime is bad then immediately commits child abandonment.

[anna-no-emma]

UH OH, they've got catwoman in two places at once. A writers mistake or something plotty? (Gotham War: Scorched Earth)

[dolldefaced]

read the recent stuff and i want to ramble about jason, bc really the rest of this plot was goofy. i appreciated the brief duke + tim stuff tho, cutee i missed u duke hiiii byeeee anyway

we start batman/catwoman: the gotham war the scorched earth #1 with bruce brushing off what he did to jason

at least it's getting better but like there's a fuckton of daily non vigilante activities that jump your adrenaline, you know, like running last issue?

GET HIS ASS JASON GET HIIIIIM!! NEVER LET HIM LIVE THIS DOWN!!!!!!

and HE STILL JUSTIFIES IT jesus

not jason but i think this exchange with zur is interesting because...bruce brushes him off. there is no indication zur is doing anything to him rn.

he's also not as freaked as he was in earlier issues. now these issues have the tone and pacing consistency of the weather in my hometown (none), but we will return to this

jason grabs the batplane and once again saves the fucking day even under the Fear tm. he blows up the meteor and does not die, despite the 5 second fakeout

jason babe literally you do not need to do this. jason's too good you should push him in at this point. comforting him after selina decided to have a 5 minute death....ilu :(

zur ofc could be lying his ass off (but also bruce made zur) and idk if that's the route they're gonna go later but.... honestly i don't think it's 100% zur. i dont think it was ever 100% zur. i think it's 50/50 at max, and maybe even way less in this moment.

also it's been two weeks and there's no indication he's apologized to jason or tried to fix what he did

also dick almost beat him the fuck up and now he's like 'im sure you had your reasons'

beat him again!!! don't say this shit!!! you were right the first time.

he still thinks what he did to jason was right imo!!! and i also read this like...he's saying he's not an example bc of how he is a vigilante...ignoring that the second time he met jason, jason was doing a vigilantism on the ma gunn gang without batman at all...girl it aint about you. the reason you suck is your control issues, not the helping people part, do more of the latter and way less of the former

also read that first bubble! he's justifying it! he's not apologizing!! also no they dont need you going off being fucking wild. dick LITERALLY just offered to help your ass. jesus.

unrelated to jason:

stop making the batfam nuclear. jesus. they dont need a mommy!!!!!!! they dont need 'parents'!!! SOME OF THEM EVEN STILL HAVE THEIR OWN GODDAMN PARENTS. fuck off!!!!!!!!

you can be a family without the nuclear core open your fucking eyes dc!!!!

ending thoughts:

idk i think if dc lets a writer actually go into the crux of bruce being the major problem rn i will enjoy it, because i like fucked up messy family dynamics, but i really don't want this brushed aside like the multitude of other fucked up things bruce has done. history, however, is not on my side. i suspect there will be something big at the end of all this, resulting in another big team up where we dont talk about shit :/ pretty please prove me wrong dc <3