#i will mourn the potential of 13 and the fam for years to come

[icaninternetfangirl]

i’m going to preface this by saying that i like Yas Ryan and Graham. i think that there are interesting ideas that could be explored with the set up of these characters.

my problem is that very few of these ideas have been. we had a character, who had overcame cancer, struggling to connect with his (step)grandson who has a disability that is not widely known about. that very description gives way to some truly beautiful and tender moments and topics. Ryan’s dyspraxia could have been a message to the disabled community about how anyone could be a companion and travel and save galaxies, especially because it’s a rare disorder. But it rarely comes across, and even then, only when it doesn’t inconvenience the fam too much. ( if you’re dyspraxic/have dypraxia please comment on this, i’m interested in your opinion)

very little character development in these three characters was done over these two seasons. the reason why this bothers me even more is because the season they were introduced had an episodic style. In episodic shows we jump from adventure to adventure, story to story. In long format series like this, the characters become the heart of the show, making an episodic format perfect for the audience to become attached to these characters and their backstories (i.e Criminal Minds).

[ectonurites]

Idk, I think I might like the idea of Batman not having a permanent sidekick/the Batkids all having more autonomy? Like, I’ve always thought the “Batman needs a Robin” argument was kind of concerning, like him needing a kid to keep him on the side of the angels is kind of bad mental health wise, and puts the onus of Bruce’s mental and emotional health on a literal child, which is just sketchy. And while I do like to see them all work together and interact, I think given what they’ve been through in recent years, how Bruce has acted and treated them all, and pretty much everything, some time apart from him could potentially be really good for all of them, especially since while they’re keeping their distance from him, they’re not shutting each other out and actually all going off on their own, they’re still all interacting with each other, and I like that very much. Weird how Jason’s pretty much the one who seems to be interacting with Bruce the most rn, but I actually kind of like that too!

Yeah no honestly i’m down for it. Like, again it’s not like all the bats aren’t talking to each other (we have seen even just in Robin #1 how they’re all coordinating to search for Damian) but I think letting them have that level of independence to figure things out on their own especially since aside from Damian most of them are older teens/adults anyways, I think is good (in theory, we’ll have to wait and see how it is in terms of execution since again we’re so early in Infinite Frontier still)

The idea of ‘Batman needs a Robin!’ coming from an idealistic 13 year old Tim I think served the purpose it needed to, because in that instance specifically Bruce was mourning the loss of a child and not that Jason could just easily be replaced, but having another child full of determination step into his life to be a bit of light in the darkness he was going through like... it worked, it made sense for the story, but I think we’re just in a different kind of era now and I’d agree that trying to put that kind of weight inherently on the role of Robin itself is... a lot for a kid. The thing with Tim too is that’s what he wanted Robin to be, which is very different than like... forcing that same expectation onto Damian’s version of Robin when he’s a very different kid with different goals/methods/outlook/etc

Then I’ve said it on twitter before but I think canon batfamily interactions are far better in smaller groups as opposed to just having the entire fam together to quip at each other. You can get much better moments that have more meaning in the smaller interactions (like... Tim & Cass’s stuff back in the 2000′s, Tim & Dick’s relationship, Dick & Damian’s, etc) as opposed to just fitting as many characters on a page as you can where they each get a line or two of dialogue. Not that there isn’t a place for that stuff occasionally, and obviously for the Big Event Fights its gonna be like that, but I’d much prefer to see more focused stuff on the smaller interactions, and then just those hints of coordination between the group at large (and like, having Oracle back at the center of things being the person to connect these different spheres in the Batfam is good and i’m glad to see it, I just wish she was ya know fully Oracle again without the ableist bs but ya know) 

And I think the choice to have Jason working with Bruce for a story right now is a good one, because they have the relationship that I think needs the most healing. (aside from maybe Bruce and Damian but that’s obviously not gonna be reaching reconciliation for a while since Damian’s off doing his own thing, and even so Bruce is now at least putting in the effort to look for him so that’s planting the seeds for something there later) 

In general like, I’m feeling hopeful about the current direction of batbooks. It’s not gonna be perfect, like of course not, but I think it’s pretty clear the people writing the books right now are putting a big emphasis on the family and trying to deal with some of the problems that have been around within it for a while, and trying to restore some things that people missed from that 90′s/2000′s era (again, Tynion has talked about that with the choice to have Babs acting as Oracle again in a few interviews)