#like im usually joining the war on elseworld mischaracterizations on the side of elseworld mischaracterizations

[roseworth]

Thoughts on Robin Lives?

sorry it took me a few days to get to this but i just read the last issue and. hm.

it honestly had me right until the end. i was on board. everyone hated last month's issue but i didnt have a problem it, and i was literally reading this newest issue like "okay... i see why people dont like it but i dont agree! im having fun!! i like it!!!!" then the last two pages happened and. what the fuck

i am a strong defender of elseworld characterizations being different than what i want in main universe. i saw a lot of people mad that jason had an obsession with joker in this story and i dont agree with that at all tbh! i liked it!!! i dont like it when red hood jason is obsessed with joker, but this is robin jason who watched joker murder his mother then beat him nearly to death like. two weeks ago. he is fresh off the ditf trauma in this story so i LOVED that he was trying to hunt down and kill the joker, then froze at the last minute last issue. i dont like it when red hood stories do that but THIS was good

and honestly i saw the screenshots of the panels of jason becoming joker out of context and i was STILL willing to hear the story out. like sure maybe if we really lean into the fact that hes so fucked up by the trauma of ditf straight into everything that happened in this story, i could be on board with him becoming joker jr. again, if the story is good i will accept so many things happening in elseworlds

but what the fuck was that!!! i was SO into the story and i was completely into the universe. the first moment that snapped me out was when bruce and the therapist got married?? for some reason???? that felt like such a random choice to me (and its very much a "there is a female character in this story so she has to fall in love with someone" situation) and i thought that was super weird and out of nowhere. but its a minor thing so i was willing to ignore it if the rest of it was good. but then the joker thing happened

many people are going to disagree with this but i think i would've liked the story overall if jason had become joker jr immediately after killing the joker. imo with this story the writer could've chosen two different paths, one where everything gets better so you can look at it and be like "awww jason could've been happy if he lived :(" OR one where everything is monumentally worse, and i would've been fine with either because once again, its an elseworld story so who cares. but i didnt like the fake out of "you think its gonna be better but its actually secretly WORSE 😈" because it ended up just coming out of nowhere. like jason becomes the joker AFTER going through therapy and getting a degree and a job and a life?? why????? i would've been soooo much more interested if he was fresh off the trauma of killing joker right after everything that happened. like i said i knew that jason became joker bc i saw the panels, so when he ran away i thought he ran away to joker out, and i was kind of really into that idea. i thought it would've been a kind of cool elseworld story if jason becomes the joker right after everything that happened. but thats not how it worked out

it just. came from nowhere. there was no buildup. it was clear the writer wanted to like. make the reader think it would be happy, then pull the rug out at the last minute. and because of that it just became weird. like i wasnt upset as much as i was confused because like ?? why???? why did that happen how did that happen What happened. thats not a story or an ending. thats just a thing happening. again, if the story had just led down the path to jason becoming the joker i would've liked it sooo much more because at the very least there would've been a plot. but that was nothing!!!! i am a strong supporter of "bad" endings, but only when the story leads the way to the unhappy ending. that felt like angst just for the sake of angst. like what was the reason!

sorry i feel like im repeating myself a lot im just trying to wrap my head around this. basically to me the book's biggest crime wasnt the decision to make jason become joker, it was the fact that it didn't bother to create the path to jason becoming joker. i am willing to hear a story out but i cant forgive bad storytelling