#i know everyone hates the nightwing and batman hug panel going ‘i love you dad’ and i agree!

[goatsghost]

controversial idea, but with all the parental issues that the batfamily has, for some reason i genuinely think IF they were to, the only kid who’d call bruce “Dad” would be jason

[sohotthateveryonedied]

Feel free to ignore this if you're not feeling up to it or something, but I was wondering if you know any panels where the batkids are shown mourning each other's deaths? I feel like most of what I see is the effect it has on Bruce. Anyway thank you, and three cheers for the stuff you're doing. The nerd inside me loves a good comprehensive masterpost.

everyone knows the perfect way to kick off pride month is by compiling panels of the batkids mourning each other's deaths, of course

ALRIGHT SO HERE'S WHAT I'VE GOT:

(i'm doing this thing chronologically so i'm starting with jason's death, then steph's, then damian's, etc.)

Mourning Jason:

Believe it or not, Dick took Jason's death really hard once he found out. I know the DC writers want you to think that Dick and Jason hated each other when they met, but Dick truly cared about Jason and grieved his death just as much as Bruce did.

New Teen Titans #5

Jason and Barbara were each other's Robin and Batgirl, so Barbara took the news of his death pretty hard as well. She and her dad showed up at Jason's funeral and everything.

Gotham Knights #44

Mourning Stephanie:

We all know how Tim's mental health took a plunge after he lost Steph (and everyone else he cared about, whoops), so he grieved her pretty much every day until it was revealed that she was alive roughly a year later. Steph's death pushed Tim to become a darker version of himself, and he even devoted himself to finding a way to bring her back during the "Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul" storyline. Because self-care is resurrecting your dead loved ones while mid-breakdown <3

Robin #156

Nightwing (1996) #139

Steph was Cass' first friend, as well as the first person she lost who actually meant something to her. She spent a long period of time grieving Stephanie after War Games, so she and Tim leaned on each other while they were both operating in Bludhaven, since they were both going through the same pain.

Batgirl (2000) #58

Mourning Damian:

Damian is probably right up there with Jason in terms of being one of the most impactful Robin deaths. His loss touched pretty much everyone—especially Dick, up until Dick faked his death and everyone had yet another loss to mourn.

Batman Incorporated #9

Nightwing (2011) #18

Jason wasn't really shown mourning Damian's death himself, so much as he was there to support everyone else in their grief. He knew what kind of an impact losing a son would have on Bruce and the others, so Jason did what he could to be there for them and help them through it.

Justice League (2011) #19

For all that Tim and Damian claimed to hate each other, Tim did care a lot about Damian and took his death extremely hard to the point where he hallucinated Damian's ghost and gave us that well-known hug scene between the two.

Teen Titans (2011) #18

Mourning Dick:

There sadly aren't many examples of the batkids grieving Dick after his "death," mostly because the plan to have him fake his death and go undercover as a spy was a pretty late decision, and the writers for the other series didn't have time to change up the scripts and show the characters giving Dick's loss the attention it deserved at the time.

Barbara was shown missing Dick shortly after his death, even if the reference was a little small compared to how it should have been when you think about their history and the impact his death should have had on her.

Batgirl (2011) #30

What gets my blood boiling is that we were supposed to get the funeral Dick deserved in the originally planned 2011 Nightwing series finale. There were plans for a huge farewell comic in which all of Dick's loved ones attended his funeral, and then the end of the comic was going to reveal that Dick was actually alive and going off to play spy. Sadly, this comic was scrapped because DC hates us and doesn't want us to be happy.

The original Nightwing #30 comic was supposed to include stuff like Jason and Tim realizing that they are now the last of the Robins, Roy crying over Dick's (fake) dead body, Barbara and Tim holding hands as they grieve together, Jason actually loving and missing his brother, hugs all around, and a bunch more that ended up being replaced with a stupid comic of Bruce and Dick beating the shit out of each other. Sigh.

Nightwing (2011) #30 Original Artwork

Mourning Tim:

Tim was...sort of grieved properly? He got more than Dick did, at least. 

We saw everyone’s initial reactions when Tim got annihilated by the drones, so that was a nice sad moment.

Detective Comics #940

While Dick treated Tim like little more than a coworker after the reboot instead of the brother he used to love, he was shown at least respecting Tim and being moderately sad about his death.

Deathstroke (2016) #34

Jason didn’t attend Tim’s funeral, but it’s clear that he does genuinely miss him and feel guilty about not being there for him when it counted.

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016) #3

Miraculously, Damian is shown having more feelings about Tim’s death than most of the others in the Batfamily. Sure he’s a little snot about it, (taking over the Teen Titans and making them better than they were when Tim was leading them), but it was done with love, okay? It counts.

Teen Titans (2016) #1

Tim’s death had a huge impact on Steph (obviously; they were in love and all), and actually led to her getting a pretty interesting character arc so yay! Tim got fridged so Steph could get some awesome character development, I’m so proud of her <3

Detective Comics #943

Detective Comics #946

Aaaand that’s all I’ve got! Lots of drama, lots of angst, lots of grief. Hell yeah.